Routing Around Damage and Centralization

My views on rules for blogs have changed to, essentially, “I no longer care really”, except that I do still like them to be stated. But in reality, my views have not changed, because my views, such as they are, are a superset of ideas, various different and contradictory actions, only a few of which will be my position based on a particular context, based on whats going on at the time. The views some on this site remember me for were based on the Peer to Peer Phenomenon of Amazingness Roll through Politics like a Tornado leaving the blogosphere. It’s like a tornado from the twighlight zone, instead of turning trailer parks and suburbs into wreckage and waste it took the wreckage and waste of politics and turns it into trailer parks and suburbs.

Depending on the situation at hand I think different things should be done. When the peer to peer phenomenon hit political debate and became netroots and the blogosphere, I was happy to see the spontaneous emergence of a remarkably broad coalition. That was something I had seen has to happen for quite some time prior, based on my experiences and observations.

We hear about the big tent, but I had never seen so many leftists in a big tent as I saw then!  I had already seen the peer to peer phenomenon role through many areas and you can always expect a big cool surprise when it hits, along with chaos, an energy storm generating FAQs, histories, and relationships, relationship networks, all fraught with deception, trolling and flame wars from day one… wait no, day three.

Some commenters called my peer to peer idealism peer to peer idealism! I’ll teach you to call something what it is. Ah but here is the thing my friends, it’s working. There is BILLIONS of dollars worth of software developed in this distributed model. In the culture that says “information wants to be free” and which understands how wikipedia can bubble up from the “noise”.

Yes, look in the free software development model and find the hidden centralization… but it is not really centralization. It’s part and parcel of subculture of information distribution, advocates for the spirit of networking. I can write about the aparent “centralization” and why it is not really centralized thanks to the affect of free software licenses.

But right now I still want to talk about peer networks… and how this works in my view, as peer to peer moves from new subject to new subject.

There is always a people power thing. Everything feels very egalitarian, and it’s clear that what is going on is The Many Minds Are Better Than One theory. Whoever facilitates the site is well loved but not the shining light really, usually more of a worker bee with an interest in a subject which all his users highly respect for it is generally what will have brought them there.

In this situation, information flows freely. People are more likely to post something in public, rather than in private via email, everyone is talking to everyone.

Then reputation sets in, not just how people think, but also… having one at all. There start to be rings of people around the admin, he/she becomes more important, because as the identity you imprint on the group is diluted by the influx of new people, some who are charming young naife’s unmolested so to speak, so far, and suddenly that administrator is the link to old life in what starts to become a village or city. The reason that is so is of course, the administrator, or site owner, or network owner, continues to be known by all the new users, and so their reputation has a constant growing source of energy.

What began as a peer to peer network begins to look more and more like a centralized network, because this admin will often adopt a hierarchical model, which mean they maintain centralization, and assign lesser powered leutenants. We don’t have to debate if there is possibly in the universe any other way at all to arrange power structures, perhaps it’s the best way, but it is in fact a common way, and it is classic centralization.

What always happens at that point then is information flow slows. It’s amazing because volume continues to rise at this point, and often, depending on the profit grounding and if someone has started successful businesses within the system. But there is a filtering that beings. The peer to peer chatter (aka “SYFPH, you noise”) is filtered into something more predictable.

Well, welcome to the new world because this does not worry us. Oh, we may lament and fight the centralization, work to make it last as long as possible this iteration. It’s ours to fight every time, again and again, in every venue, from the grammar boards to the Pave The Earth Society, “the noise is the signal”.

But we don’t worry about it when we lose I mean… we’re used to that, but we’re making the point better and better. Luckilly we don’t have to worry because the internet protocol was designed to route around damage. Censorship is treated as damage, certainly, but so is a bottleneck where information backs up, so it a filtered pipe where information is altered rather than correctly classified.

We don’t worry because we know that as privately owned peer to peer networks adopt hierarchies and become centralized networks, as they anger us by blocking the blessed flow of information, or filtering it according to the magnified innards of an individual operator, which also blocketh the flow, to that degree they force flow around them. It sort of takes care of itself.

Now in political blogging, well, it’s not bad. I think the real peer to peer wave has moved on but of course a lot of structure is left in the wake, many people have paying businesses, many more have affordable publications they enjoy running, many of those make notable contributions to public discourse. This will continue to be about peer to peer connections, but the centralization allows the press to follow the classical model of going to the “leaders” and asking them what their “people” think.

It is installed as one of the modes input into the public debate, and there will be more innovation bring politics beyond blogging.