Laptop Oracles: Trust

Civilization was God’s idea, His command through Noah.
The fundamental question which civilization seeks to answer is how people can live in close proximity with minimal friction. A higher density of humanity provides a great many benefits, but at a distinct cost. Each must sacrifice some advantages which accrue to those who live in relative isolation. The higher density offers economic and survival benefits. The essence of human nature requires a modicum of interaction between fellow humans to maximize the potential for this plane of existence.
Naturally, the Networked Civilization is quite different from any previous civilization in approaching this issue. The value of shared information is presumed; that’s the whole point of networking. However, networking is a civilization of devices, not precisely people. It requires people act through their devices. The protocols of this civilization are mostly a matter of technology and a host of interactions most of us never see, nor need we really consider them much. Our rising civilization is not the underlying protocols, but it does presume them.
As Doc Searles and David Weinberger explained so very long ago in their World of Ends, there has never been a more egalitarian approach in human history. Because we encounter each other via machines, we must of necessity make it all utterly flat, because the machines just don’t care, can’t be made to care. Instead, we have to reshape our caring to match what is possible. It’s not that we lose all the beauty and ugliness we had before, but there is another layer between us which offers it’s own set of beauty and ugliness. If we refuse to understand how it actually works, we make ourselves slaves and prey to others who do understand.
Fundamental to its nature is something all Western Civilization hates: No one can own it. You can own the underlying physical infrastructure, but exercising ownership in the virtual space in any way destroys the Network. It’s existence arises from the full gestalt of hardware, something which is ever changing, and existing on a scale we can scarcely imagine. It is as close to a fully global civilization as is possible at this time in human history. It is not precisely a network of humans, but of mere machines serving humans. It stands on its own.
There are quite a few gurus and experts, hackers and crackers, and all sorts of human talent behind it and involved in it daily, but it remains by nature a collection of machines. We can’t even call it any kind of intelligence, but simply a collect means to process intelligence so it can be shared among humans. It’s all about the machines, and we have to understand the way the experts and gurus together have decided how the machines will cooperate. There is a vast lore of voluntary directives (RFCs) based on human intelligence about how best to make things work. Humans own the machines and each gets to say exactly how it will cooperate within the agreed framework. There is room for variation, but vary too much and you’ll find your machine disconnected by the refusal of others to provide the essential assistance in passing traffic. Human expertise is limited by the necessity of shared protocols, without which there would be no network at all.
In the end, it’s all about trust. People trust others within safe limits all have agreed upon, and construct machines with programming to execute on the protocols. Within that framework, everyone is someone, and anyone can use or add something. Anyone can suggest improvements, and use the system however it allows by its design. It’s the great leveler of humanity. There is a minimum level of trust, a sort of tension between protecting one’s property while connecting that property to something far, far bigger. Each user gets to decide their machine’s level of participation for their own purposes within the system.
Only in a virtual sense are we crowded together in a small space, with only the faintest reference to actual geographical location. Your identity is split between your physical person and soul, and your machine’s identity on the Network. Personhood is inferred, and trust arises from this virtual relationship. It’s just one big on-going agreement. It’s the most civilizing thing so far when everyone has to learn how to get along to get anything at done. It’s not at all a harsh conformity by command, but entirely of the nature of the thing itself. You can’t be Net neighbors without being neighborly.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking God is not interested and not watching. He has promoted the Internet from the start. God is pleased with this neighborly aspect of the Networking Civilization.