[At-Large] ICANN Board Nomination
Karl Auerbach
karl at cavebear.com
Fri Aug 27 23:33:44 UTC 2010
On 08/27/2010 03:57 PM, Franck Martin wrote:
> Unless there is a system like Jury Duty, you will only have at the
> ICANN board, people who are interested by ICANN matters (the ICANN
> sphere).
The key word is "interested".
For the most part in the word of ICANN "interested" means financially
interested - which ICANN covers with the smoke and mirrors phrase
"stakeholder".
Those of us who are interested in the idea that natural people are the
atomic unit of governance from which all authority flows find ourselves
"interested" in a non-financial way.
I see from this list and also my my other contacts that those of us with
that kind of interest are many and are found in all nations. I would
assert that our numbers are greater than those who have a mere financial
interest in internet governance.
I see ICANN as a model, for good or ill, of future institutions of
authority. (I don't care whether the word is "governance" or
"government" - to my mind the differences are irrelevant to these
questions.)
And as a model I fear greatly the fact that these models encourage and
empower those with financial "interest" and hinder those with other
kinds of "interest".
I view ICANN as a cauldron in which competing "interests" are at
near-war with one another. I don't accept the "nice guy" theory of
internet governance.
In that cauldron I want the public board members to be smooth warriors
in which skill with the political iron hammer is as important as silent
skill with the diplomatic silken cord.
I want our Othello to have a touch of Iago.
My concern about the ALAC system's dominant role in the seating of the
one public director is that I perceive the proposed mechanism as being
one that will seat people whose skills are more balanced toward nice
agreement than bloody battle.
One way to redress my concern is to alleviate, even if only a small
part, the financial stress that will be felt by those who are not driven
to ICANN by a financially "interest".
--karl--
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