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From: nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Who Controls the Network?
Message-ID: <2082@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 6 Dec 88 13:05:12 GMT
Reply-To: nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick Taylor)
Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 36

In article <2367@ficc.uu.net>, jeffd@ficc.uu.net (Jeff Daiell) writes :

> In article <2062@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>, nick@cs.hw.ac.uk (Nick Taylor) once
> again drags out the tired old canard that our only choices (in this case,
> on computer network provision), are Big Brother and Big Business.
>
> I submit that the needs of computerdom would better be served by
> small firms, competing and/or cooperating as dictated by their interests.

I submit that small businesses are just as likely (if not moreso) to see it
as in their best interests to accept megabucks from Big Brother as Big
Business is. I would further submit that Big Business might well see it as
in their best interests to take over these small businesses. Who, if anyone,
will be able to stop them? Oh no, we're back with Big Brother again!

Jeff seems to regard it as axiomatic that the government of the USA equals
Big Brother. Why? Is it perhaps to do with Watergate, Irangate, etc? Do not
permit the open manner in which these scandals were investigated to blind
you to the fact that the business community is composed of the same type of
people only they are much more loath to do their dirty washing in public!
How many small businesses were involved in the Irangate affair?

I understood the SUPREME in Supreme Court to imply that it was the highest
court in the land. It would appear, from the Missouri case, that it is more
akin to the SUPREME in Chicken Supreme! Why has this been allowed to occur?
All of the examples put forward by Jeff seem to add up to an indictment of
democracy in the USA. Is this really what he feels? How many others feel this
way? 
      Now the really awkward question : What are you doing about it?

Nick Taylor                                 
Department of Computer Science                JANET : NICK@UK.AC.HW.CS
Heriot-Watt University                      ARPANET : NICK@CS.HW.AC.UK
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