Will the IPI make everybody happy?
Analysis/Commentary
Esther Dyson recently launched the Internet Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, packed with techno-heavies like Bob Herbold of Microsoft and Vinton G. Cerf and Robert E. Kahn. Cerf and Kahn created the TCP/IP protocol during their years with the ARPANET. (The ARPANET was the prototype for today's Internet, minus the hypertext layer invented by Tim Berners-Lee.)
The IPI styles itself as the first independent, nonprofit research and educational
institute focusing on social and policy issues arising from the global development and
use of the Internet. Dyson and company have assembled an impressive though motley crew
of polished brass: business, scientific, and academic cogs. Here's the
chief operations officer of Microsoft, bedded down with former rivals Jim
Barksdale and Roberta Katz of Netscape, and over there are representatives of
AOL and Network Solutions. Among its polished resumes is Adam
Clayton Powell III's, who like his famous namesake, will probably make a run for glory.
But does the Web need mentors, objective voices, and balanced voices, rigorous
and studious voices? It seems so vain.
Speaking of voices, notice who also sits on the board of directors of the IPI? Newt Gingrich. Not to be outvoiced by Ging, the board also enthrones Ira Magaziner, President Clinton's former technocracy advisor. How on earth will the IPI preserve itself from degenerating into the Hatfields and McCoys?
The think tank may also be doing something creatively underhanded.
This is just a guess, but the IPI may be looking to penetrate the gamut of
interlocked, gridlocked government and technology policy forums.
Dyson et al. speak of "communities" and "democratic constituencies" as
if they were still in the wonderland of mid-century America, but maybe
they understand that the human factor must be addressed. After all, economics
is a social science. They also propose to educate government. (Has this ever been
tried?)
At worst, the IPI may put out to pasture misguided early plannifiers of the Web
and prod into graceful retirement the self-important consortia of engineers and university bureaucrats that float like wreckage about the Web. At best, the IPI may bring unity to the dreams of leading industrialists and entrepreneurs.
"We don't need opinions, we need high-quality research," exhorts Dyson.
Well, maybe. And maybe just maybe, the cultural elite needs fresh air and fresh blood, and
a few more women, and a few heated debates. And maybe a spark of novelty.
December 29, 1999
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