Governing an information society - 3/4

Violence of action requires the protection and violence of action in return.
Violence of belief requires the freedom to believe differently.
It definitely should not require violence or protection of _action_ in return.

Having dispensed with the role of traditional government in the area of
social development and civil law :-} what remains is the need for a police
force to tackle murders. 

If I'm murdered (or raped or have my arm minced or whatever), it is physically
damaging. I suppose I'd say the same of my house being bombed. I need 
protection from such things, and the sort of socially accepted protection that
won't lead to riots or the law of the jungle. Barricading myself, carrying
a Kalashnikov and learning aikido is not enough, not for a civilized society.
So I concede the existence of the police. (There is another reason - it is
usually practical for the police to trace murderers or arsonists).

In cyberspace, there is a 'social upliftment' role. Though initially paid for
by various governments, there are a number of organizations that manage to
distribute costs efficiently and provide huge service and infrastructure for
low rates.

There may also be 'civil' suits in cyberspace. Due to digitally signed, 
undeniable contracts, these should be reduced to only those that involve a
breach of contract, rather than a suspicion of invalidity. 'Civil' cases 
can be sorted out by a cyberjudiciary, and punishment efficiently enforced
by a society without any central control. While there have probably been
no civil cases on the Net in the traditional sense, there have been situations
where the power of distributed control was apparent. For instance, when
Richard Depew's ARMM went out and cancelled anon posts on USENET, there was
universal outrage. His punishment required no central 'law enforcer' - it was
just the threat of posts from his site being cancelled that did it. And this
would not have been possible without general, widespread agreement with the
'verdict' - as anyone not enforcing it would risk similar punishment from
the large majority.

Continued...

Rishab



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Rishab Aiyer Ghosh             "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind!
rishab@dxm.ernet.in                   take stone from stone and wash them..."
Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410  
Voicemail +91 11 3760335                 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

> There may also be 'civil' suits in cyberspace. Due to digitally signed, 
> undeniable contracts, these should be reduced to only those that involve a
> breach of contract, rather than a suspicion of invalidity.

I think that even this will be mitigated dramatically. In an information
economy there are relatively low bariers to obtaining cost information. I
would therefore expect cyberspatial contracts to ALWAYS have a breach clause 
built in. It is always possible that something isn't going to go right and
a breach will occur. With the superior cost information available in
cyberspace, it should make sense to include detailed information on the
costs of a breach to the various parties. This reduces the cost of
adjudication and enables both parties to more precisely hedge the risks
they take as they enter into the agreement.

JWS