Dyson Fears

Readers here may recall I had a colloquy last week with Esther Dyson (right) over the AOL-Goodmail deal. She pointed me to a statement from the CEO of Goodmail, and defended the company's actions so-far.

Frankly, I take her words seriously. I am an Esther Dyson fan.

Esther is the daughter of the physicist Freeman Dyson, the sister of the scientific historian George Dyson and the granddaughter of the famed English musician, also named George Dyson.  I could find no relationship between her and James Dyson, the vacuum cleaner inventor.

When I saw my first ad for that vacuum cleaner, in fact, I was certain that James Dyson said it was the first vacuum cleaner that "doesn't use suction." In fact, he said that the Dyson vacuum doesn't lose suction.

Misunderstandings are easy.

Esther feels Goodmail has been misunderstood. As she later wrote:

Goodmail has its own long-term success to consider.  It's not resting its business case on technicalities, but rather on satisfied customers long-term.  You many not believe that, and indeed, they do have to prove it over time.

For my part, I do believe it, and I certainly follow the principle of  innocent until/unless proven guilty. (Emphasis mine.)

Dyson's role as founding chair of ICANN illustrates this point well, and identifies what I consider a common character flaw among liberals. She never saw the possibility of evil in the domain name game until it was, frankly, too late. She did not see Stratton Sclavos, for instance, as evil until he had completely outmanuevered her and rendered ICANN useless. And even afterwards she refused to give these machinations the kind of condemnation they deserved, at a time when such condemnation might have been helpful.

I think Esther found her role at ICANN as a judicial one, not a political one, certainly not a moralistic one. She would recoil from words like  evil, calling them imprecise, absolute, and judgmental.

In politics, at times like these, the word for this is naivete.

In the battle between a political thesis and its antithesis, corruption is the whole point of excess. What happens is that the original thesis -- say Reaganism -- is used as a cudgel, to selfish ends, by people who care only for power, and for the wielding of power. Power corrupts naturally.

This is what makes democracy, rigorously applied, so powerful and important. Having two different responsible groups to whom power can be entrusted means that the halls of power are flushed regularly. This is what makes creative destruction so powerful, what makes social mobility so necessary. Think of it as evolution in action.

But no one, especially when they are in a seat of power and see the coming threat, goes willingly. No matter that their rhetoric is all about freedom and democracy, they will act politically. They will disguise their motives. They will be ruthless. And it is this ruthlessness that proves, more than anything, what they are, and why they must be tossed.

Given this natural progression, it is absolutely incumbent on those who wield power with clean hands to always be on their guard.  Guilty until proven innocent, and even then suspect.  In the case of ICANN, Dyson was not. In the case of Goodmail, she may not be. Innocent until proven guilty is not the right standard when guilt means so much. We must all be more suspicious than that. Or we're lambs led to slaughter.