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Hello.
Hi.
How are you?
Hot?
A bit.
Everybody hot?
Yeah, OK.
Right, we'll try not to put any hot air in here.
First of all, it might be just worth, you're both working on
an interesting project together, aren't you?
Perhaps you could tell us what it is.
Do you want to start, Francesca?
OK, yeah.
So the introduction, thank you for the introduction
[INAUDIBLE].
I'm at Imperial.
I'm based there as a researcher.
But I'm also advising the European Commission on
Information Policy and Network Policy since a few years.
And me and Smari are just a part of a big consortium
throughout Europe with lots of interesting people.
Like for instance, the founder of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee.
And different social groups and communities that are
developing technology for social good.
So developing platforms for social movement or citizens
themselves to organise and take decisions online.
So a kind of direct democracy platform throughout Europe.
And then linking decision making structures and decision
making on the internet with new economic empowerment tools
like digital coins such as bitcoin or version of bitcoin
for communities to share resources, access resources in
a democratic way.
So combining the decision making aspects of what
technology can enable on a mass scale.
So involving lots of citizens and grassroot groups.
And then combining that with economic empowerment.
So it's very ambitious.
But we're just starting.
So we're taking actually lots of open source software that's
out there, especially focusing on
decentralised social networks.
Because we think that's one big issue there is that
they're creating this walled garden with our data, our
social and personal data.
And I think one of the disruptive innovation in the
internet is certainly going to be how to break
that monopoly out.
And how people can use privacy enhancing technology and
control their own data.
To actually be in control also of their activities and what
they do with technology and with their data.
So that's something that, for instance, Tim Berners-Lee is
really pushing for.
It's always good having Tim Berners-Lee on
your team, isn't it?
It's sort of shortens a lot of conversations, I'd imagine.
It makes a lot of things a lot easier, yes.
Yeah, especially on the social standards side.
Because at some point technology needs some
standards so that everybody can use in an
interoperable way.
And in the way that the web was a standardised way of
accessing the internet.
Are you now trying to create almost similar like a web, a
standardised way of accessing the Democratic processes?
Is that part of the motivation?
Or is that a gross oversimplification?
No.
Well if we think about what formalised decision making
systems there exist in society, there's really only
two major ones.
There's money, which we use to express individual intent.
I intend this for me.
And then we have votes, which we use to imply social intent.
I intend this for society.
And if we look at both of these systems, they're
currently very centrally controlled, have very nasty
features like characteristics that don't really help a lot
of us in a lot of what we're trying to do.
So if we can try to apply more decentralisation to these,
push the governance models of these further out into the
general public, then maybe we can start to get some more
favourable characteristics toward social change and
social benefit.
I understand this project that you're working on is
funded by the EU.
Yeah.
So is that a bit like Dracula funding, a blood bank?
Is there a huge internal tension here where you're
being asked to break down the system by the system?
So there's two ways of understanding this.
On one hand, there's nothing wrong with taking Darth
Vader's money as long as you're using
it to fund the rebellion.
On the other hand--
You can always tell who's a real geek [INAUDIBLE]
seven minutes in, we've got our first Star Wars reference.
But on the other hand, there's the fact that everybody who is
halfway realistic about the state of society sees that a
lot of the institutions that have been underlying our
society, and maintaining our infrastructure, and
facilitating decision making throughout the society, these
institutions are breaking down really, really fast.
And partially it's just because of their own
institution inertia coming to an impasse where they can't
really do anything anymore.
Partially it's because time and time again they violate
people's trust and break the social contract in ways that
make people very antagonistic towards them.
And all of this is basically running people towards a place
where we need something different.
And nobody's come up with a good plan yet.
Yeah, totally.
I think one of the reasons why actually the commission is
probably funding a project like that is that they totally
realise that there is a massive breakdown of trust.
And they see that you have the young generation, especially
digital natives, that are very much into the kind of ideas
that the internet promote.
Radical decentralisation, networks, transparencies,
civic rights, and all these things.
Which are out in the square and they're saying, these
institutions are broken.
We need something else.
And they don't know how to speak with these people.
So there is a massive depolitisation going on.
That of course is not something--
they realise that actually if they don't embrace these new
models, they're going to die.
So I think one of the reasons--
and for us, of course looking at these kind of things like
democracy, citizenship, trust, authority, identity, it's very
connected with information policy.
So for me, the internet is actually at the centre of this
project for real democracy.
Because actually, you cannot disentangle anymore the
technological infrastructure and enabling collective
intelligence from issues of bigger policy.
But I think somehow, today it's clear
that we face a dilemma.
And then we have to choose.
And this has to be a public debate.
So it actually has to happen in the public.
Do we want the internet that enable centralised system for
mass surveillance?
As after the NSA revelation, it's clear that the
concentration of knowledge and power can lead to that kind of
pervasive surveillance.
Or do we want to use the internet to enable new forms
of democracy, decision making, new forms of collaborative
economies, distribution of wealth, and so on.
So this is what we're faced with.
And historically--
to break it out into a more historical context-- because a
lot of people just talk about internet as if it's just this
new thing and completely disconnected from everything
else that's ever happened.
But in reality, it does fit into the social political
history of the last several hundred years.
And that before the Industrial Revolution, the big dichotomy
of political discourse was the extent of monarchic rule.
Then that got dealt with in most places but not everywhere
completely.
But then the Industrial Revolution came along with its
question of do we want to empower individuals or
collectives?
Do we want individualism or socialism?
And so on.
And that's been moving forward.
And since the 1940s, people have mostly stabilised around
the idea of what we're now seeing breaking down as the
welfare state.
But now with the internet and communication technology,
people are saying well, you know, do we really want this
to be centralised the way it has been?
Or do we want to decentralise it?
And it looks like for the next 200 years or so, that question
of centralisation versus decentralisation is going to
be the core political dichotomy.
So now we've started to see some experiments at creating
the decentralised political models.
Pirate parties have been popping up here and there.
And people have been experimenting
with things like bitcoin.
And all these things are kind of pushing in the
decentralisation direction.
But nobody knows exactly what we're going to stabilise at.
So you're seeing this actually as sort of a natural
progression of history.
An increasing decentralisation from monarchic rule to
[INAUDIBLE] representative government.
And now the next stage.
But we don't know what it is, but we can at
least tinker around.
So I'm going to ask you both a question now, which is, what
is one of the big questions that you're asking yourselves
individually?
What's the one that's really vexing you and making you
think, I've got the right question but I still don't
know how to find the answer.
What's the thing that's really doing your head in?
Certainly, one question, which we touched upon a little bit,
is I think what we're seeing is a lot of refusal of the
current institution, and the current organisational forms,
and decision making structures, and the structure
of our society.
And this is very clear also in the talk before, but
throughout this conference.
You show, for instance, global movements that say no to
dictatorship like the Arab Spring.
Or even in Europe, a big wave of movements reclaiming public
spaces, reclaiming access to politics.
Like the Indignados in Spain or the wave of
mobilisation in Brazil.
So it's very much people that are reappropriating the
political space.
But also, it's a big no to what we have now.
And to use a frame that I really like from [INAUDIBLE]
and [INAUDIBLE], they call this a distituent power.
Basically you say no to the current institution.
So what I think it's really interesting is how that turns
into a constituent power.
So what actually I'm interested in is not the
[? informal ?] constitution of the future as a formalised
constitution.
But a constituent process from below.
So almost a kind of social constitutionalism.
So how do we enable collective actors to actually gain power?
And what would be that [? forum ?]?
So basically, how we create institutions for the future
and through what process?
So this turns me to point that was raised a bit earlier this
afternoon that if you protest, you're being defined by the
system you're protesting against.
So are you saying that there is a need clearly for a more
collective governance?
I don't agree with that.
I think actually that it's not just that.
I think that already if we look at the way that, for
example, grassroot groups organise themselves, the
information movement being one of those.
If we look at wiki leaks, or Anonymous, of the Pirate
Party, but also these kind of [? level ?] movements, you
really see the germs of some experiments, which are
experiments of radical democracy, I would say.
But their temporary.
So something that comes up and then go away.
And so it's like how to empower those
forums to become something.
So it's a bit like Alexander Flemings mould.
How do you cultivate that into a penicillin rather than just
being an accidental mould on the gel kind of thing.
I always find it slightly ironic to talk about
constitutionalism in the UK.
But here we are and doing that.
And I think that the best way to do that, given
constitutional history and then the history of the
internet is to not talk about it as a legal framework, But
rather as a protocol framework.
That is to say, on the internet we have
communications protocols.
We have ways in which we talk to each other to facilitate
the types of interactions and transactions that we want.
So Marx talked about the proletariat while we now
should be talking about the protocoletariat.
The general public who everyday throughout every
action they're taking, they're interacting with
telecommunications networks using a
whole host of protocols.
And for the most part, they have no control over them.
If we take the means of protocolised production and
put it into the hands of the general public, then a lot of
the decision making processes come out of that in a fairly
natural and organic way.
The tricky bit it is that while some people have been
doing revolutions in this country that country, and
doing all sorts of experiments with political parties, and
decentralised alternative currencies and that kind of
thing, the other 98% of humanity is sitting at home
seeing a steady stream of news on the tele saying that the US
government's been spying on everybody.
And they're doing it, if you do the maths, it comes out to
about $0.13 per person per day that it costs to do all of
that surveillance.
And they're doing this so extensively.
And there's not really a lot that the general public feels
that they can do.
So we're in a state of absolute disempowerment.
And most people just change the channel, because it's a
lot more comfortable to watch something half brainless than
to have to deal with the reality of living in a world
where you have no actual ability to
do anything of meaning.
I actually have a better thing for the
constitution in the UK.
Which is thinking about the Magna Carta, which
is the Bill of Rights.
Because I think that what we're advocating here is a
kind of Magna Carta contract for the digital age.
So it's a kind of Zeitgeist of the digital age, which I think
it's missing.
Because when the social contract breaks down and you
have nothing to replace with, you also feel powerless.
And you have no ability to actually act.
So you're basically trying to turn the Rebel Alliance from a
bunch of people sitting in front of the TV into Jedis,
essentially.
I would not use that comparison.
I really didn't like those movies that much.
But really it's the fact that a lot of people really want to
do something, really feel
passionate about doing something.
But unless there happen to be 10,000 people on the street
outside, they generally feel very disempowered.
So how do we increase the empowerment.
This is quite depressing then, isn't it really?
It's very depressing.
I mean, you have also stories.
Like for instance, I'm Italian.
I come from Rome.
And actually in southern Europe, the situation looks
really tricky.
Like if you look at Greece, people are actually stop
paying taxes.
And then there is a rise of extremism, like right wing
political parties and nationalism.
All kind of values and forums that are totally the opposite
of what the internet generation and what we're
advocating here.
So I think there is that breakdown.
And I think you have to actually come up with a plan
if you want to avoid to going in that direction.
Very often the price of criticism is an alternative.
But even if you don't have an alternative, going out onto
the street and doing something is often better than just
sitting at home.
Now the question is, how do we create the tools that allow
people who are currently sitting at home to feel better
about their options for what to do?
And your Magna Carta for the internet
might be a good start.
But we also need to build the protocols, build the
institutional frameworks that'll allow people to
actually directly influence what's happening.
And that comes down to two things.
First off, people need to know what's
actually going on in society.
If we don't know what's going on, we can't actually
criticise it.
Secondly, you need to give people a say.
So it's information and participation capacity.
If we don't have either one of those, it's all
going to break down.
Especially if you have the information but don't have the
participation capacity, everybody's going
to get a bit depressed.
And if you give people the participation capacity and not
the information, then they're going to make even worse
decisions than the people in parliament.
And we know all what that's going to look like.
So we've just got two minutes before we end this session.
And indeed this pretty Future Fest.
So one of the things [INAUDIBLE]
we can't make a better future until we can
imagine it, of course.
It's very hard.
So I'd like to give you a minute each just to imagine
what you think would be a great solution to the problems
that you're dealing with.
I actually don't like this thing that you ask the expert
to come up with the solutions because it would be always
almost wrong.
So I think actually what we're advocating is to
open up this debate.
Is almost like when you want to open up actually something
like law making or policy making, they used to be very,
very close what happens.
So this is the type of experiments we
want to engage with.
So there's a lot going on I think in this field.
If we take the Icelandic Constitution of Process,
[INAUDIBLE]
was involved.
People actually giving feedback and participating
online in rewriting a constitution.
This is a great example.
There are lots of examples of crowd sourcing law making,
where citizens can collaboratively through a wiki
write laws.
And then you get 50,000 signatures, and that gets
discussed in the parliament.
Then you have citizen led referendum that are actually
through the internet gaining much more friction now.
You have something like [INAUDIBLE]
of the internet, which is the most advanced piece of
legislation we have.
A kind of internet constitution in Brazil.
So I think we're getting to a point where we have a lot of
different type of experiments.
I advocate almost a scaling up and a federation of these
experiments.
So to bring them to a different level.
And I'm thinking Europe for this point, but it should be
globally, global process.
The other thing, if we look at the long term vision,
currently we have a very centralised society where
relatively few people have the decision making potential.
You have a fixed number of people in parliament no matter
where you are in the world.
In [INAUDIBLE]
it's 60, Iceland it's 63, here it's 500, 573 in the US.
Why do we have to have these fixed numbers?
There's a historical reason, which is, there were only a
certain number of people had the economic and logistic
capacity to actually attend these big forums.
But if we look at today, everybody has this amazing
communication device in their pocket that allows them to
instantaneously engage with most of the world.
Why don't we try to build scale-free alternatives to the
current representative democracy model that allows
anybody to participate who wants to.
But still take into account the fact that we need to not
punish people for non participation.
And so that's kind of, I'd like to go there.
Brilliant.
Well, we're running out of time.
So I just want to thank you very much.
But one thing I will ask you both to say is, all the people
in this room here who you are now sat in front of as you try
to hack our democracy to make it more useful, what one thing
would you ask them that they might want to take away or do
when they leave Future Fest?
Don't ask us.
Look, this doesn't work unless all of us work together.
Just do what you feel, actually.
Don't change the channel.
Keep working, fix things.
Be empowered.
So this goes back to the whole [INAUDIBLE] theme, which is
actually we are all citizen--
Get more empowered.
I think that's the message.
Certainly in our future, something like the NSA, it
would not exist.
First of all, we should stop these kind
of things from happening.
OK.
We're going to have to leave it there.
Because people are very hot.
But can you give a round of applause for
Francesca and Smari?