Re: ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF CYBERSPACE

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Subject: Re: ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF CYBERSPACE
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 10:49:38 PDT
From: David Ronfeldt <David_Ronfeldt () rand org>




I like that.  Actually, Chip Morningstar and Randall Farmer wrote about
the colonization metaphor a couple years ahead of Farber and Shefski.
What follows is my description (as published in my Cyberocracy Is Coming
piece in Bob Anderson's journal**) of an article they wrote and a talk they
gave using the metaphor.
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** The Information Society, a journal.
---------


.......EXTRACT from Cyberocracy Is Coming


While most discussions view cyberspace as something that does not exist and
hence must be constructed--the case with the preceding analogies--still
another analogy views it as a frontier that virtually exists and beckons
for exploration, colonization, and development.


"The colonization and settlement of North America by Europeans provides a
useful model for thinking about the growth of cyberspace.  Like sixteenth
century Europeans, we too have found a New World (new to us, anyway).  As
cyberspace develops, we believe that the notions of colonization and
settlement will prove more useful in describing and analyzing what is
happening than the notions of design and creation."[1]


In this view, different "cyberspace colonies" will be (indeed, they already
are being) carved out by many different kinds of actors, many of them
initially misfits and adventurers from ordinary society.  As the colonies
grow, they may be expected to develop different forms of government,
citizenship, and property rights.  They may also be expected to improve
their (electronic) resource bases and transportation systems, to compete
for immigrants and settlers, and to expand their boundaries toward each
other.  As this occurs, the colonies will increasingly enter into trade
relations and diplomatic negotiations with each other.  Conflict and crime
may increase as the colonies face issues of whether to oppose each other or
to interconnect.  In the end, if all goes well according to the originators
of this analogy, traditional American principles of decentralization,
pluralism, and tolerance may provide the bases for the integration of a
national and perhaps global cyberspace.[2]


[1] Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer, "Cyberspace Colonies," The
Second International Conference on Cyberspace:  Collected Abstracts, Group
for the Study of Virtual Systems, Center for Cultural Studies, University
of California, Santa Cruz, April 19-20, 1991, pp. 110-111.


[2] From my notes on the talk by Morningstar and Farmer, "Cyberspace
Colonies," Second International Conference on Cyberspace, University of
California, Santa Cruz, April 20, 1991.  While I think that the metaphor is
illuminating, some listeners were disturbed that it might imply the
exploitation and subjugation of minorities.