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--