Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Group on documenting "harms"

[Antony Van Couvering <avc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is no evidence that mankind ever lived in trees.

On Jul 28, 2010, at 8:03 AM, Volker Greimann wrote:

> 
> Hi all
>> In one sense you are right.  No one ever knows what the future holds. So 
>> maybe we should just quit where we are ahead and say, gee no idea.
> With that kind of reasoning, mankind would never have left the trees. There 
> is always "unknown unkowns", but with proper planning, foresight and 
> appropriate analysis, it is usually possible to contain the unknown dangers 
> of living on the ground/outside caves/in a world with VI and CO.
> 
>> But in another sense this is a normal risk analysis process in the face of 
>> unknowns.
> +1
>> And indeed what we are talking about in terms of harms is risk analysis.  
>> And no analysis of the future of a system I know of, avoids risk analysis 
>> because there are unknowns.
> Exactly. Lets put the harms on the table, discuss them, look at them and try 
> to build general principles from them that will be able to deal with those 
> harms specifically, but unknown harms as well. Civilization was built with 
> the idea that there can be rules regulating human behaviour and discouraging 
> abusive behavior.
> 
> Let us try to bring the rule of law to the world of new gTLDs instead of 
> fearing the dragons that lurk near the edge of the world.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Volker