Introduction

The theme of BigHook2011 is Consequences. Unintended or intended. Unanticipated or expected. Unknowable or entirely explored. Truth or . . .

The Internet grew from a laboratory experiment to a necessity of daily life in a few short years. Along the way, travel agents, "bricks and mortar" bookstores and retail stock brokers were all but wiped out. Newspapers, movie houses and department stores are struggling. Restaurants and doctors offices are confronting change. Financial institutions are staggering under the Internet's changes even as they exploit them so agressively their customers stagger. The missions, as well as the daily practices, of education, government, military institutions and religious establishments are deeply affected. Democracy itself is threatened by surveillance and control even as it gains new strength from Internet-borne citizen interaction and lowered barriers to participation. Every institution feels the Internet.

We're techno-optimistic, so it's hard to get our minds around the downsides. We see instant communications and unbounded collaboration, unlimited information and flattened heierarchies. Yesterday's walls are suddenly scalable, transparent or crumbling. Costs for information and communications are plunging so fast that deflation isn't even relevant; yesterday's kilobyte is today's terabyte, and yesterday's long distance call is . . . wait a big fat purple minute . . . what's a long distance call? We dream that the Internet will pave the road to peace and plenty, to freedom and creativity, to a world where borders are irrelevant and people from China or Ghana are no more foreign than people from Oklahoma.

When the automobile burst upon the world, it was seen as a boon. It was faster than a horse, it required no grooming or sleep, and it didn't leave its waste in the middle of the road. We invented the assembly line and produced affordable automobiles. We built highways and superhighways, garages and gas stations and parking strutures. Before we knew it, the automobile had replaced our vital cities with sprawl and mall and antisocial suburb with acres of grass demanding petroleum fertilizer. Oil for autos twisted U.S. foreign policy beyond recognition. Emissions from autos fouled the planet's atmosphere. Who foresaw these consequences at the dawn of the auto age?

What will the Internet do to our world as it grows up?

The Wikipedia article on Unintended Consequences says there are three kinds:

• A positive unexpected benefit,
• A negative unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect, and
• A perverse effect contrary to what was originally intended.

The article goes on to say:

"The law of unintended consequences is commonly used as a wry or humorous warning against the hubristic belief that humans can fully control the world around them."

The theme Consequences is a way for us to talk about the so-called externalities of the Internet, the side effects, the spin-off benefits and harms, the echos, the nth order effects. Will we discover ways to amplify the Internet's benefits and damp or minimize its harms? Will we discover plausible new benefits and harms? It will be a good disussion.

Agenda

Wednesday, August 31

Noon to 1:30 PM: Check in, lunch, swimming, meet fellow participants
1:30 to 3:30 PM: Session 1a: Introductions
3:30 to 4:00 PM: break
4:00 to 5:30 PM, Session 1b: Intros, cont'd, Intro to "Consequences"
5:30 to 8:00 PM: Dinner, fishing
8:00 to 9:00 PM, Session 2: TBD
9:00 to whenever -- Five-minute talks on whatever people want to talk about . . .

Thursday, September 1

7:00 to 8:30 AM: Breakfast, fishing
8:30 to 10:00 AM, Session 3a:
10:00 to 10:30: break
10:30 AM to Noon, Session 3b:
Noon to 2:00 PM: Lunch, swimming
2:00 to 3:30 PM, Session 4a:
3:30 to 4:00 PM: break
4:00 to 5:30, Session 4b:
5:30 to 8:00 PM: Dinner, fishing
8:00 to 9:30 PM, Session 5: Spectacular Musical Event
9:30PM to whenever: BOF Sessions

Friday, September 2

7:00 to 8:30 AM: Breakfast, fishing
8:30 to 10:00 AM, Session 6a:
10:00 to 10:30 AM: break
10:30 AM to Noon, Session 6b:
Noon to 2:00 PM: Lunch, swimming
2:00 PM: Adjourn