[p2p-research] thinking about leapfrogging

[M. Fioretti]

Those which follow are just a few absolutely random, semi-instinctive
reactions at one partial, quick read of the kk.org article. I'm
throwing them out partly to have a clearer idea of what Michel is
asking for, partly as comments to help others to put together a real
answer, see the questions at the bottom. Don't bet the farm on
anything I write below, I wouldn't. Its only value may very well be
just "OK, this doesn't make sense, let's look in some other direction"

I find that kk article a mix of banal and interesting things.  Part of
it simply compares apple to oranges, or rediscovers the obvious. For
example:

> While cell phones in China are increasing exponentially, China’s use
> of cement, steam boilers, steel, and all the other ingredients of
> the industrial age are likewise increasing.

Leapfrogging from smoke signals to cell phones doesn't free you from
needing food, cookware to cook that food, heat to put under that
cookware and so on. It just gives you another channel from which
consumism can get you or a way to order by phone. It's obvious, isn't
it? Maybe the general conclusion/question is that leapfrogging can
only happen within one field (telecom in this case).

> I believe you can not have a rise in new infrastructure technology
> without having a rise in old infrastructure

see above. If the basic infrastructure in some field doesn't exist,
telecom leapfrogging (giving a cell phone to every farmer) isn't going
to create new technologies in other fields or to substitute by itself
the money and education those farmers would need to develop and deploy
them.

Another hint/food for thought: cell phone networks leapfrogged exactly
(only?)  because they intrinsically need/are much less physical matter
than other infrastructure or widespread technology change. Getting a
cell phone in the jungle can make you discover, now that you can phone
to your relatives in New York, that there are people who cook by
microwave or solar ovens. But going from wood cooking to microwave or
solar ovens require much more skills, raw materials and tools than it
takes to dial a number and talk.

Last but not least (I've got to leave now and then finish an article
when I get back, so I'll try to not read email for 24 hours, sorry),
this:

> The demassification of high technology is at times an illusion. It
> is not that information technology has no mass, that it lives in an
> abstract virtual world. Rather, high technology is the embedment of
> information into materials

is the same thing I said recently in (1), isn't it:

> With respect to "the cost of software being zero"... Linux, mass
> access to the Internet and all the empowerment this implies, digital
> creative works and P2P networks were and remain cheap to produce,
> use, distribute and co-develop in innovative ways just because they
> rely on (should we say "live completely inside"?) a huge quantity of
> physical objects (computers and networks) which are affordable only
> because of mass, centralized production.

"you can leapfrog information, but you can't leapfrog materials? At
least when they're complex and interconnected?"

Also, reading this:

"If we were civilizing Mars, a bulldozer would be as valuable as a
radio"

brought to my mind (don't ask me why, or maybe it's because both a
bulldozer and a radio are both sophisticated objects) this other part
of (1):

> technologically sophisticated activities imply specialization, which
> sooner or later brings the need for coordination and some form of
> centralization

coordination and centralization are a synomimous for "getting where
you couldn't get by your forces alone, but (quite) slowly". So,
looking at the kk.org article and to that paragraph together makes me
ask "can you leapfrog only when (or in areas where) you don't need
coordination and centralization?"

Again, I haven't even't read the fine article from top to bottom, nor
I stopped to think or proofread what I just wrote, but the thing was
too good to ignore it, even if I really have to leave now. I may very
well come back to this message saturday and figure out I just
embarassed myself. Take all this just as a stimulus to continue, even
if it were crap.

Marco

(1) http://p2pfoundation.net/Thoughts_on_P2P_production_and_deployment_of_physical_objects

-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84