Rhizome

["Stephen Cole" <sjcole@iinet.net.au>]

Jim Dixon wrote:
>
>We were talking about point 2: whether CORE should be able to transfer
>the com/net/org registry to Geneva.
>
>The world doesn't need to replace NSI's monopoly with a cartel in Geneva.
>
>Several COREs run along different models and located in different parts
>of the world would be a good replacement for CORE.  Even a duopoly, with
>NSI retaining com/net/org and CORE running the rest of the gTLDs, would
>be superior to CORE all by itself.
>


And, from Bob Allisat:

>A decentralized DNR system
in which thousands of Domain Names
are served all over the world under
broadly acceptable technical standards
is the only way out of continued
bureaucratic Domain name nightmares.
Tasmania or Madagascar or Iceland for
that matter should each have three or
four registries. And Australasia or
South West Africa several hundred
registries and so-on around the world.
A very reasonable alternative to continued
and continuously unfair concentration
of regulatory or administrative control
on the Internet. After all putting
power into the hands of everyone if
>what the net is all about isn't it?

Yes, it certainly was. There's a marvellous book by Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari called "A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia", which
discusses the metaphor of the rhizome.
.
See: http://www.rhizome.com/ri/info.htm#what
.
A rhizome is a horizontal, root-like stem that extends underground and sends
out shoots to the surface. Rhizomes connect plants in a living network.
Potatoes have a rhizomic underground structure.
.
"A rhizome as subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and
radicles. Bulbs and tubers are rhizomes. Plants with roots or radicles may
be rhizomorphic in other respects altogether: the question is whether plant
life in its specificity is not entirely rhizomatic. Even some animals are,
in their pack form. Rats are rhizomes... The rhizome itself assumes very
diverse forms, from ramified surface extension in all directions to
concretion into bulbs and tubers... " [p. 7]
.
"...finite networks ... in which communication runs from any neighbour to
another, the stems or channels do not pre-exist, and all individuals are
interchangeable, defined only by their state at a given moment--such that
the local operations are co-ordinated and the final, global result
synchronised without a central agency." -[p. 17]
.
"In contrast to centred (even polycentric) systems with hierarchical modes
of communication and pre-established  paths, the rhizome is an acentered,
non-hierarchical, non-signifying  system with a General and without an
organising memory or central automation, defined solely by a circulation of
states." -[p. 21]
.
The rhizome, being without a centre, lacking a unifying, hierarchical,
tree-like structure, is an alternative and very powerful model for growth.
It represents the way the Internet was first envisaged, its unique grace
being that it lacked a centre.
.
But I suppose there always was a centre in the Naming Authority. Even a
rambling root system has the ground as a common medium through which it
extends itself, and a common DNA command line that very much determines how
it proceeds.
 .
I like Bob's vision very much, of the thousands of inter-connected
subsystems. But such "anarchy" must be worrying to some. When faced with a
largely uncontrolled organism, it's natural to want to get a grip on it, to
contain it within manageable parameters. And that need has worked well, in
some senses, throughout our history. If I am not the master myself, it is
nevertheless comforting to know that someone has mastery over this thing.
But it is often the case that such comfort comes at the cost of
stultification and decay.
.
Has anyone put forward a compelling counter-argument in favour of a single,
orderly, centralised naming body? Perhaps there are serious practical
arguments against the rhizome. The wonders of rhizomic (dis)organisation are
just silly in some cases; the armed forces and the operating theatre come to
mind.

Stephen Cole
BIBLIOS PTY LTD
Western Australia
Ph +61 08 9386 5441
Fx +61 08 9386 6894
sjcole@iinet.net.au