[ppml] Soviet central planning - not!

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

I have noticed a disturbing undercurrent in many recent
PPML postings. People are making proposals that are
a long way out of ARIN's scope and would only be appropriate
in a world where ARIN is like a Soviet central planning organization.

A Soviet central planner can mandate what ISPs do with 
address allocations in the routing system. They can decide
when there are enough new ISPs. They can set rules for
the ISP's fee structure. And many other things. They can 
also make very big mistakes that are not discovered
until it is much too late.

ARIN, on the other hand, can't do any of these things.
We have a very limited scope and our actions, in general,
do not control or limit what ISPs can do. We can also make 
mistakes, but because of our limited scope, they can never
be big ones. Any of our decisions are subject to constant
review by ISPs, end users, ARIN members, other RIRs
and so on. As a result, we do not need to make our policies
perfect in every way. We are allowed to make experiments
and muddle our way towards a good policy.

In any situation where we find it difficult to move towards
consensus, we are probably trying to come up with a 
big Soviet central planning style solution. This does not
work. Such problems need to be broken down into elements
which we can move ahead with separately. We need to test
ideas in the real world and not get carried away with theoretical
implications 20 years from now.

We need to make some mistakes. And then correct them.

--Michael Dillon