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ISPM attempts to solve the "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes series of tubes]" problem. Technologists and scientists are woefully under-represented in many legislatures, and the pace of change in technology and on the Internet is very fast. Legislators are usually in favour of the benefits the Internet brings but, given the wide variety of subjects about which they are expected to know, often have only limited understanding of the technology, and of how legislative proposals may affect those benefits. Additionally, the Internet is also often a threat to the business models of established companies in the offline world, who may be influential in the political process. This combination leads to a particularly high risk that poor legislation, written and voted for by people who do not fully understand what makes the Internet what it is today (or occasionally, those with a vision of an Internet at odds with Mozilla's goals), will have detrimental effects on it, and stifle future innovation. | ISPM attempts to solve the "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes series of tubes]" problem. Technologists and scientists are woefully under-represented in many legislatures, and the pace of change in technology and on the Internet is very fast. Legislators are usually in favour of the benefits the Internet brings but, given the wide variety of subjects about which they are expected to know, often have only limited understanding of the technology, and of how legislative proposals may affect those benefits. Additionally, the Internet is also often a threat to the business models of established companies in the offline world, who may be influential in the political process. This combination leads to a particularly high risk that poor legislation, written and voted for by people who do not fully understand what makes the Internet what it is today (or occasionally, those with a vision of an Internet at odds with Mozilla's goals), will have detrimental effects on it, and stifle future innovation. | ||
The Mozilla-like | By contrast, appropriate and well-crafted legislation could remove barriers to innovation and new business models, promote choice and increase the capabilities of Internet citizens. There is a great potential upside to having well-informed policymakers, who use their technical and social understanding of the Internet to know when and what legislation is (and, perhaps more importantly, is not) required. | ||
The Mozilla-like way to make an impact on this is to enable a grass roots, distributed educational effort whereby individual people and groups help to inform their policymakers, one person at a time. These educators need support. They need a resource which gives them the best available explanations, metaphors, similes and other educational tools to help policymakers understand the Internet worldview. ISPM is that resource. | |||
===Structure=== | ===Structure=== | ||