Guatemala

We are researching rural Guatemala, looking for ways to combine indigenous skills with the capabilities Server Sky can provide.

While politics are important, our skills are technological, and we hope to directly empower individuals and provide them with interaction tools, locally and globally. If those individuals choose to use their power for national politics, economic global integration or independence, or merely to improve their local neighborhood, that is their choice to make. At best, we can help them develop tools that will help them make those choices wisely.

Here is some of what Keith is reading.

Empires and Autonomy

2007 essay collection

I did not read much of this book - the chapter about Guatemala is focused on similarities to Vietnam, and the US military/political interventions in both countries. That might be useful for assigning blame, or maintaining certain ideologies, but tells me very little about what individual Guatemalan lives are like, or what capabilities they might want.

Chapter 8, "Freedom of the Ether or the Electromagnetic Commons? Globality, the Public Interest, and the Multilateral Radio Negotiations of the 1920s" by Danial Gorman, is helpful. Similar considerations will apply to Server Sky. Every country had its own agenda, and there were conflicts over the uses of limited frequency bands. The main difference was whether bands were assigned functions at the national or international level, and the result was international assignments for international problems (ocean and air traffic, navigation, emergency servces) while local content followed national rules. In the 1930s (pg 153) European powers routinely jammed each other's broadcasts, punitively, even though this was forbidden by International Radiotelegraph Conference rules they had agreed to. After World War II, nations eventually abided by their agreements. The last two pages briefly concern the internet, and ICANN, the American non-profit company that regulates the global internet address space. The author does not mention non-profits like the IEEE, IETF, ANSI, and countless other non-profits that set standards for rapidly changing industries. Organizations like the International Telecommunications Union (the successor to the IRC) play a critical role, arbitrating global rules in light of competing international interests, whereas the task of ICANN is mechanically allocating numbers and names within the rules set by the IETF and the the technological constraints set by the two specific technologies (IPv4 and IPv6) that they address. Server-sky may fit into IPv6, but will probably operate in a different namespace, focused on the geometry of orbital internet provision, rather than switch-to-switch routing.

Chase this quote, from page 155:

A more radical interpretation, known as the "Bogsch Theory" after its proponent Arpad Bogsch, the former head of the World Intellectual Property Organization, stesses the autonomoy of both satellite broadcaster and receptor and holds that the legislation of all receptor countries should be applice to satellite broadcasting cumulatively, citing:

Dillenz, Walter: "Broadcasting and Copyright." Paper presented at the Regional Forum on the Impact of Emerging Technologies on the Law of International Property for Asia and the Pacific," Seoul, Korea, 30 August-1 September 1989. WIPO Publication 681 (E), 1990, WIPO Archives, Geneva, E2319F630 WIPO.R.

I can't find that paper, but there are lots of webhits for Bogsch Theory, which seems to be keeping the lawyers busy.

God And Production in a Guatemalan Town

Sheldon Annis, 1987

Guatemala has been through a few more bloodbaths since this was written. The book focuses on a microcosm, the town of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, a few kilometers southwest of Antigua. It dives down into the economic details of survival in these areas. Catholics struggle to produce an economic surplus with milpa (multicropped cornfields) that is spent on cofradias, small fraternal organizations that sponsor saint days and the festivals (and drinking) that goes on at them. Protestants are more atomized, avoiding drink and consumption, saving their money to start businesses. Newly converted Protestants are often among the poorest, but by living meager lives and saving, some become prosperous in time. These small Protestant groups are often supported by missionaries and churches from the United States.

Catholic production for basic nutrition generates less cash sales, but is more reliable in troubled times. Protestant production of market crops generates more cash, but is risky and could lead to starvation in troubled times - unless there is a trustworthy US church to bail people out.

All that said, I am more interested in the depictions of farming and weaving for external production. Can these skills be transferred through the internet? Can computation develop better crops, perhaps highly varied cultivars that produce basic nutrition with less land and water, but without pest-vulnerable monocropping? The depiction of weaving is more interesting - "using your fingers to make flat patterns in front of you" is what I am doing with a computer right now, using a brain and eyes little different from the women weaving beautiful huipil (wee-pill) clothing. They get paid pennies per day, I can get paid thousand of dollars a day for my patterns. So what if their grid-and-fiber based thinking could be transformed by software "compilers" into lucrative computational objects? The weavers do their jobs with more meticulousness and care than most programmers do. How can they produce more and get paid more for their rigorous attention?

Culture and Customs of Guatemala

Maureen E. Shea 2001

It is probably impossible to write a book about Guatemala without writing about massacre and poverty. A lot of that in this book too. Useful factoids:

• 55 to 60% Maya, the only country in Central America that is still largely Indian, second only to Bolivia
• the most populated country in central America

This book focuses on "categories", not much on individuals. Lots of information on religion, myths, literature, music, culture. It might be worth revisiting to develop cultural exports.

Crisis of Governance in Maya Guatemala

John P. Hawkins, James H. McDonald, Walter Randolph Adams, editors, 2013

|| cuerda(2) = 25x25 vara = 0.0439 hectare || cuerda(2) = 4700 sq ft = 0.0437 hectare ||