Worldly Thoughts

Fri May 10 03:54:38 UTC 1996

Allan laments, summarizes and asks, perhaps rhetorically:

{ a good summary condensed }

>   So, comes my curiosity, and my puzzling thoughts about the current
>   state of the net.  Why is it not in my best interest to talk to
>   NSPX at a meet point?  Why, when it is in MY customer's best
>   interest to talk to EVERYONE, would I not converse, and share
>   knowledge and invitations about my customer base?
> 

{ more good thoughts condensed }

Many can answer better than I, and please do not let my world-view
restrain other good responses to this interesting human question.....

Here is my 'weak attempt' at the human and social side of the issue:

If we examine the Kleinrock model for 'large Internets', most conclude
that hierarchical routing, broadly defined, is the 'mathematically correct',
large internet, paradigm to emulate or to 'grow towards'.
Hierarchical routing, unfortunately, translates (in business) to 'big fish
at the top' of the hierarchy and 'little fish' at the bottom in 
'Global Routing Darwinism' as the net evolves.

How does a flat model where 'everybody is free to peer with everyone' move
to a ordered, structured 'hierarchy'?  My guess ... by attempting to
set up NAPS with 'rules that tend to create a routing hierarchy'.
These 'rules', written or unwritten, exist; and those in the provider
business, by the nature of business, struggle to 'survive' in the
'routing hierarchy'; many wish to 'move up', others struggle to exist,
some are 'displaced lower' in the hierarchy by those 'moving up'.

Quintessential to the dynamics of business and business relationships
is (1) money and (2) power.  Seductive and self destructive, yes;
but realistically, name a 'technology for the masses' that has 
changed the dynamics of human behavior for 'the better'.

Nuclear power?  Broadcast television?  Radio?  The Press? ..... ?!

The Internet?

Yes, we communicate faster and faster, but do we communicate better?
Does this 'new form of communication' better the economic conditions
of the poor or the social condition of the oppressed?

I share in the posters lamentation that the 'Commercialization of
the Internet' is 'not pretty nor poetic and esoteric'.  It has
become, obviously, "Commercial" and "Worldly".  To end, please
allow me to quote from Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose",

" It is only petty men who seem normal."  - Eco

My apologies to the erudite for the pedantic, non-technical lament.

The technical answer is hidden in the allocortex and other lower
brain functions below the neo-cortex in all humans.  Greed, desire,
fear, self-preservation and superstition to name a few 'core
engines' of the lower brain.

All the 'mathematics and code-cutting in the human reticulum' are
mastered by the persuasion and influence of these little organs
just above the reticular formation in the upper brain stem.

Life in the NAPS is certainly no exception :-)

Best Regards to All,

Tim

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tim Bass                           |                                     |
| Network Systems Engineer           | "Never underestimate the bandwidth  |
| The Silk Road Group, Ltd.          |  of an in-line skater with tapes    |
|                                    |  hurtling down your favorite trail."|
| http://www.silkroad.com/           |               -Tanenbaum & Bass     |
|                                    | 	                                   |
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