Internet ethics in english (click here)

Alquimia

A alquimia é das ciências ocultas que, actualmente, mais interesse tem despertado não só pelos inúmeros livros que ao longo dos tempos foram escritos sobre a Arte Hermética, mas também, pela curiosidade de saber algo sobre a veracidade da misteriosa Pedra Filosofal, também conhecida por Medicina Universal.

Tem-se escrito muito sobre o simbolismo alquímico encontrado nas catedrais, palácios e até casas senhoriais. É, deveras um trabalho fascinante procurar desvendar o segredo contido nessas figuras esculpidas na pedra pelos artistas nossos antepassados como testemunho do seu envolvimento na ciência de Hermes.

No simbolismo alquímico, tanto quanto sabemos, não existiam nem existem regras fixas. Tudo era, e ainda é, deixado à imaginação dos seus autores e à sua criatividade. Por isso, como é óbvio, isto dá azo a especulações ditas "filosóficas" que, muitas vezes nada têm a ver com a realidade alquímica.

Durante muito tempo a alquimia foi sinónimo de charlatanismo ou de ignara credibilidade. Muito do descrédito da alquimia era devido à falta de publicações sérias, pois muitas delas são imitações grosseiras, feitas por sopradores (falsos alquimistas) dos verdadeiros e antigos textos, nas quais se une o absurdo com a ignorância. Actualmente, devido ao grande número de traduções das obras clássicas mais importantes dos grandes Mestres, a opinião de muitas pessoas mudou completamente.

A alquimia é a arte de trabalhar e aperfeiçoar os corpos com a ajuda da natureza. No sentido restrito do termo, a alquimia sendo uma técnica é, por isso, uma arte prática. Como tal, ela assenta sobre um conjunto de teorias relativas à constituição da matéria, à formação de substâncias inanimadas e vivas, etc.

A alquimia operativa, aplicação directa da alquimia teórica, é a procura da pedra filosofal. Ela reveste-se de dois aspectos principais: a medicina universal e a transmutação dos metais, sendo uma, a prova real da outra.

Eles não procuram o impossível, como vulgarmente se diz, mas sim a confirmação do que está descrito nos antigos tratados, que os Mestres nos legaram com vista à obtenção da medicina universal ou pedra filosofal.

O alquimista não é um fazedor de ouro como muita gente pensa. A transmutação só terá lugar, como já dissemos, como prova provada da veracidade da medicina universal ou pedra filosofal.

Hoje a alquimia coabita pacificamente com a ciência e não é raro ver indivíduos com formação superior nos ramos da ciência, da medicina e das letras, praticarem a Arte Real. Http://hipnose.no.sapo.pt

Contents

 

• Introduction
• What Is The Internet?
• Is There A Place For Ethics?
• The Yahoo! Case Study
• Conclusions
• Further Reading

INTRODUCTION

This paper examines three related issues:

• What is the Internet and how does its past development and current operations relate to questions of ethics?

   

• Is there a place for ethics on the Internet and, if so, how would this manifest itself?

   

• What does the LICRA vs Yahoo! legal case tell us that is relevant to the debate about Internet ethics?

WHAT IS THE INTERNET?

[For a much more detailed history of the Internet, see the Hobbes Internet Timeline

What are the implications of this evolution for the ethics debate?

1. The distributed nature of the Internet – based on packet switching and the routing and rerouting of packets along multitudinous networks and nodes – makes any central control of the medium impossible, even if it was thought desirable.

    

2. The Internet was developed originally for military and then academic purposes. As originally conceived and used, it was a closed network with specific uses and functions and therefore, initially at least, never provoked a debate about ethical issues in the way that cinema or radio or television – all immediately available to those who could afford it - immediately did.

    

3. The Internet was originally designed for, and used by, the few and the intellectual. This gave it a particular set of values – such as tolerance of dissent and antipathy to control – that still pervades much of the debate about Internet content and regulation.

    

4. The Internet was originally used exclusively by Americans and even today around two-fifths of all users reside in the U.S.A. This means that the debate around the Internet has been influenced massively by American culture and values, notably the First Amendment of the US Constitution (which guarantees freedom of expression) and more generally an hostility towards Government intervention or control.

    

5. The growth of the Internet has been exponential: more and more people are using it for longer and longer to do more things. This has at least three consequences:

1. The Internet is no longer the preserve of the few and the intellectual. In many industrialised societies, a majority of citizens have access – whether at home or at work – and the user profile is increasingly approximating that of the citizenry as a whole.

    

2. The Internet has ceased to be an American phenomenon. There are now almost as many users in Europe as there are in the USA and therefore much of the ethics debate now is a clash between American and European culture and values.

    

3. As Internet growth continues and especially as we see more users in Asia and South America, the ethics debate will not simply be an American vs European one. Increasingly we have to accommodate a wide diversity of cultures and value systems.

So much for the history of the Internet. What about the nature of the Internet? What range of services does it provide?

The main forms of content are:

• E-mail which enables one to communicate almost instantly and at negligible cost with any of the other 400 million Internet users world-wide

   

• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) which enables people to converse either in groups or one on one in chat rooms – some 40,000 world-wide – focused on different subjects or different groups

   

• Usenet newsgroups – of which there are about 40,000 – which enable people to file articles or comments or pictures about a whole host of different subjects, ranging from the very technical to the sexually bizarre

   

• The World Wide Web which now consists of over one billion sites ranging from the ultra sophisticated like Amazon.com to the typical home page such as my own.

The types of activities which are taking place on the Net can be analysed as follows:

• Communications, previously through e-mail, but increasingly through telephony using the Internet Protocol (IP) networks

   

• The provision of information whether through data bases to which access is normally limited or through Web sites which are open to all Internet users with a suitable browser

   

• E-commerce whether it is business to customer (B2C) or – currently four times the size – business to business (B2B)

   

• E-Government whereby Government departments interact with citizens, from the simple provision of information to the completion of forms, through to various transactions.

What are the implications of this range of services for the ethics debate?

1. The Internet is not one network but many – indeed it is a network of networks. It does not provide one type of service offering but many – and this range will increase. These services have many different characteristics and the ethics debate has to take account of this – how we approach chat rooms many not be how we approach newsgroups, especially where children are concerned.

    

2. The Internet has many actors with different interests. Infrastructure companies like Cisco or Oracle may have little or no involvement in content. Microsoft may start by ‘simply’ providing a browser (Explorer) and then go into the portal business (MSN). Not all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide access to all newsgroups and most chat rooms are not hosted by ISPs. If one is attempting to bring a sense of ethics to the Internet in any particular instance, it is essential to know who has the control and the responsibility.

    

3. There is still a poor sense of understanding of the issues. On the one hand, those who campaign for more ‘control’ of the Internet often have little understanding of the technological complexities. Typically they do not know how newsgroups and chat rooms are hosted and many politicians do not know the difference between a newsgroup and a Web site. On the other hand, many providers of Internet infrastructure and services have little understanding of, let alone sympathy for, the concerns of users. Frequently complaints about material or requests for meetings are dealt with in a cavalier fashion or even ignored.

    

4. Increasingly the debate about the content of the Internet is not national but global, not by specialists but by the general populace. There is a real need for this debate to be stimulated and structured and for it to lead to ‘solutions’ which are focussed, practical and urgent.

IS THERE A PLACE FOR ETHICS?

• Modernisation of laws

  Governments need to consider whether pre-Internet laws need up-dating to take account of new crimes such as cyber stalking or grooming in chat rooms.

   

• More high tech crime fighters

  Law enforcement agencies need more people with greater technical training and resource to tackle increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals such as paedophile rings. One example is the recent creation of the National High Tech Crime Unit in the UK .

   

• ‘Note and take down’ mechanisms

  We need organisations to which Internet users can report allegedly criminal content in the confident knowledge that this hotline is equipped to judge the legality and identify the hosting of material so that, if it is illegal and if it is in their jurisdictional area, they can issue a notice to the relevant ISP to remove it. A good example of such an operation is the Internet Watch Foundation in the UK .

   

• Labelling and filtering

  We can best empower end users by greater labelling or rating of Internet content and greater use of more sophisticated filtering software. The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) has made considerable progress in developing and promoting a genuinely global, culturally independent labelling system. A wide range of companies provide filtering software which operates on different principles. In this way, households can make their own decisions based on their own cultural or ethical values. [For a fuller discussion of rating and filtering.

   

• Walled gardens

  For young children or as a transitional stage to full Internet access, one could use a ‘walled garden’ which restricts access to those sites pre-selected by a particular provider, typically with a child-friendly brand.

   

• Better supervision of children

  All those with responsibility for children – especially parents, guardians, teachers and carers– need to become better aware of some of the problems of Internet use by children and the range of solutions which are available. They cannot rely, though, on technical solutions – regular conversation with, and observation of, the child is essential.

So, how will all this come about?

• We need to give Internet users more relevant information. This should start at the point at which one purchases a PC or other Internet-enabled device. There should then be further information in both appropriate physical places – like school rooms – and relevant cyberspaces – like child-focussed chat rooms.

   

• We need a more informed debate through education and awareness campaigns. We cannot leave the terrain to civil libertarian ‘purists’, who too often see the Internet as a value-free or (as they would put it) censorship-free zone, or to the scare merchants who would have us believe that the Internet has more filth than facts.

   

• Ideally, there should be some sort of organisational focus for this debate and the promotion of advice, education and awareness. In the UK, the Home Office has recently established a Task Force chaired by Lord Bassam ; there is the Internet Crime Forum which brings together law enforcement, children’s organisations and others ; and there is the Internet Watch foundation which started as a hotline to combat criminal content but is now developing a wide-ranging education and awareness programme .

   

• In a sense, the passage of time and greater familiarity with the new Internet medium may – almost of itself – ease some of the difficulties. In some respects, we are experiencing the kind of reactions seen in the early days of the telegraph or television and we will learn to adjust to the new challenges and opportunities.

THE YAHOO! CASE STUDY

An excellent case study on Internet ethics – and one being developed by INSEAD in Fontainebleau – is the French legal case against the American company Yahoo!.

What are the basic facts of the case?

• The legal action was brought in April 2000 by the French organisations the International League against Racism and Anti-semitism (ILCRA) and the French Jewish students organisation (UEJF).

   

• The case was brought against Yahoo! Inc as well as Yahoo! in France and charged that the American company was in breach of French law for allowing French users to access the company’s American site where Nazi memorabilia was being auctioned, since the sale of such items in France is illegal.

   

• The case was heard in May 2000 in a Paris court by Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez.

   

• The judge convened a three-member technical panel to examine whether it was possible to block French users from accessing parts of an American site.

   

• The judge found – in an order talking of “an ethical and moral imperative – that the company was guilty, ordered it to block access by French users to the relevant part of the American site, and threatened fines for non-compliance of 100,000 francs ($13,300) a day.

   

• In January 2001, Yahoo! Inc announced that it would no longer permit the sale of Nazi memorabilia on its American site, thereby removing access not just to French Internet users but all users.

   

• Yahoo! is now appealing in an American court against the right of a non-American court to impose penalties on an American company.

What issues are raised by the Yahoo! case?

1. Should the Internet raise issues of ethics and morality? Should a company like Yahoo! have any interest in, or concern about, what one of its users sells to another of its users?

    

2. Is there a fundamental clash between American and European values as applied to Internet content? If there is, how should a conflict be reconciled or accommodated?

    

3. Should the Internet be borderless or should there be geolocation checkpoints? If there are to be such checkpoints, how would they work?

    

4. Can the courts of one country apply penalties to a company based in another country? If so, how will Internet e-commerce cope with multiple jurisdictions?

At this stage, I prefer simply to pose these questions rather than attempt to answer them. However, I would offer some personal views on some of the lessons that could be drawn from the Yahoo! case.

1. Countries have very different cultures.

   The French understandably are acutely sensitive to issues concerning the Holocaust – it happened on European soil and was visited upon Europeans by Europeans – whereas, not withstanding the strong Jewish lobby in the United States, Americans appear less offended by the sale of Nazi memorabilia. Another cultural difference involves the trial itself: whereas it was comprehensively reported in the French media, the British and America media appeared to view it as a strangely Gallic affair that merited less attention.

    

2. Courts are blunt instruments for Internet regulation.

   Obviously, courts are legalistic, but they are also confrontational and costly. We need cheaper, faster, more flexible means of resolving Internet problems. Yahoo! would have saved itself a lot of trouble and opprobrium if it has engaged in a meaningful dialogue with LICRA and LICRA should have given the company more time to develop such a dialogue.

    

3. Public opinion can exert considerable influence.

   Yahoo! opposed a demand by the court that it block access by French users to parts of its action site and yet, only months later, voluntarily decided that no-one in the world should have access because the offending items are no longer for sale. Undoubtedly, it was the views of Yahoo! users around the globe that persuaded the company to make such a policy reversal or volte face.

    

4. There are often different technical or commercial opinions.

   Yahoo! told the French court that it was technically impossible to block French users from parts of its American site, but a technical panel appointed by the court argued that such geolocation blocking was possible. Yahoo! was originally ‘happy’ to see anyone auction anything on its site free of charge, but now it has a much more restrictive policy and a pricing requirement.

    

5. Where there is a will, there is usually a way.

   Commercial companies – especially new companies operating in very fast-changing and competitive environments – do not like people to query their methods of operation and are often very resistant to proposals that, at least at first sight, would appear to complicate further their already complicated lives. But the Yahoo! case has shown that, when companies engage with a problem, they can find a solution.

CONCLUSIONS