ITU supremo offers top tips on thwarting next Arab Spring

I sort-of like the ITU, reading this.

I can see why, if this is the case, the ITU isn't too keen on gaining the keys to the internet. They're good at letting governments sort things out between themselves for telecomms, where message and carrier are clearly separated. The internet already has its own technical crew, and the ITU doesn't have much to add. On the other hand, the message/carrier separation isn't as clear-cut for the internet, and plenty of countries will want to influence the message hosted in other countries. It'd mean endless squabbles.

And that doesn't even begin to mention what the internet will do if some boring old government tries to bend it to its will. It'll bring its considerable technical prowess to bear to route around it out of mere principle. It's built itself up around cooperation, meaning you have to make deals about what each of you will do rather than what you insist others may not do. For that reason it would be better to make "the internet" govern itself as a virtual country, with its own (even if quite limited in power) governing council or something, possibly with a seat in the UN. For then, what little it can do, it actually may do, instead of actively seek to undermine whatever you try to force it to do.

On another note, taxing out of some sort of reflex, out of greed, is doing the citizens a disservice. Would be nice if governments would concentrate on serving their people at a competetive cost. Various examples have shown that you can make do with amazingly low taxes if you organize well. Unfortunately there's not enough incentive to do so. If anything we need more, even freeer movement of people, adopting new nationalities, and so on, and so forth. Or some other way of providing governments with feedback on how well they're doing. Time to do away with acceptance of inefficient, or even outright criminal, governments. Now for good ways how.