I have the feeling that we can all agree that we're moving towards a new model of the state and society. But, we're absolutely clueless as to what this is or what it should be. It seems like we need to have a conversation about democracy
Občutek imam, da se lahko vsi strinjamo, da se pomikamo proti novemu državnemu in družbenemu modelu. Ampak nikakor nimamo pojma, kaj to je, ali kaj bi moralo biti. Izgleda, da se moramo pogovoriti o demokraciji našega časa.
in our day and age. Let's think about it this way: We are 21st-century citizens, doing our very, very best to interact with 19th century-designed institutions that are based on an information technology of the 15th century. Let's have a look at some of the characteristics of this system. First of all, it's designed for an information technology that's over 500 years old. And the best possible system that could be designed for it is one where the few make daily decisions in the name of the many. And the many get to vote once every couple of years. In the second place, the costs of participating in this system are incredibly high. You either have to have a fair bit of money and influence, or you have to devote your entire life to politics. You have to become a party member and slowly start working up the ranks until maybe, one day, you'll get to sit at a table where a decision is being made. And last but not least, the language of the system — it's incredibly cryptic. It's done for lawyers, by lawyers,
Razmišljajmo tako: smo državljani 21. stoletja, ki si zelo prizadevamo delovati z institucijami iz 19. stoletja, ki so osnovane na tehnologiji iz 15. stoletja. Poglejmo si nekaj lastnosti tega sistema. Prvič, osnovan je na informacijski tehnologiji, ki je stara čez 500 let. Najboljši možni sistem, ki ga lahko osnujemo, je tisti, kjer peščica odloča vsak dan v imenu ljudstva. In kjer ljudstvo gre na volitve enkrat na nekaj let. Drugič, stroški udeležbe v tem sistemu so neverjetno visoki. Posameznik mora biti bodisi zelo bogat in vpliven, bodisi posvetiti celo življenje politiki. Moraš se vključiti v politično stranko in se počasi vzpenjati po lestvici, dokler morda nekoč, lahko sediš za mizo, kjer se odloča. In nenazadnje, jezik trenutnega sistema je zelo nejasen. Ustvarjajo ga odvetniki in namenjen je odvetnikom in nihče drug tega jezika ne razume.
and no one else can understand. So, it's a system where we can choose our authorities, but we are completely left out on how those authorities reach their decisions. So, in a day where a new information technology allows us to participate globally in any conversation, our barriers of information are completely lowered and we can, more than ever before, express our desires and our concerns. Our political system remains the same for the past 200 years and expects us to be contented with being simply passive recipients
Torej, gre se za sistem, kjer izbiramo svojo oblast, ko pa se gre za sprejemanje odločitev, pa smo popolnoma izločeni. V času novih informacijskih tehnologij, ki nam omogočajo, da se spletno udeležujemo pogovorov na globalni ravni, se naše komunikacijske ovire popolnoma spustijo in lahko, bolj kot kadarkoli prej, izrazimo naše želje in skrbi. Toda politični sistem ostaja isti že 200 let in pričakuje se, da se zadovoljimo z vlogo pasivnih prejemnikov monologa.
of a monologue. So, it's really not surprising that this kind of system is only able to produce two kinds of results: silence or noise. Silence, in terms of citizens not engaging, simply not wanting to participate. There's this commonplace [idea] that I truly, truly dislike, and it's this idea that we citizens are naturally apathetic. That we shun commitment. But, can you really blame us for not jumping at the opportunity of going to the middle of the city in the middle of a working day to attend, physically, a public hearing that has no impact whatsoever? Conflict is bound to happen between a system that no longer represents, nor has any dialogue capacity, and citizens that are increasingly used to representing themselves. And, then we find noise: Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico Italy, France, Spain, the United States, they're all democracies. Their citizens have access to the ballot boxes. But they still feel the need,
Tako v resnici niti ni presenetljivo, da je tak sistem zmožen ustvariti dva scenarija: tišino ali hrup. Tišino, kar pomeni, da se državljani ne vključujejo, saj se enostavno nočejo udeleževati. Obstaja običajna miselnost, ki je res, res ne maram. Gre se za miselnost, da smo mi, državljani, naravno apatični. Da se izogibamo zavezanosti. Ampak nas res lahko krivite, da ne zagrabimo priložnosti in odidemo v središče mesta sredi delovnega dne, da smo fizično prisotni na javnem zaslišanju, ki sploh nima nobenega vpliva? Tako jasno pride do konflikta med sistemom, ki nikogar ne predstavlja, niti ni zmožen dialoga, ter med državljani, ki se jih vse bolj uporablja, da predstavljajo svoje interese. In potem je tu hrup: Čile, Argentina, Brazilija, Mehika, Italija, Francija, Španija, ZDA so vse demokratične države. Njihovi državljani lahko dostopajo do volišč. Ampak vseeno čutijo potrebo,
they need to take to the streets in order to be heard. To me, it seems like the 18th-century slogan that was the basis for the formation of our modern democracies, "No taxation without representation," can now be updated to "No representation without a conversation." We want our seat at the table.
potrebo, da gredo na ulice, da se jih sliši. Meni se to zdi kot slogan 18. stoletja, ki je bil osnova za oblikovanje moderne demokracije: "Nobenega obdavčenja brez zastopstva!" Dandanes lahko ta slogan posodobimo v: "Nobenega zastopstva brez dialoga!" Želimo svoj sedež za mizo, kar je tudi prav.
And rightly so. But in order to be part of this conversation, we need to know what we want to do next, because political action is being able to move from agitation to construction. My generation has been incredibly good at using new networks and technologies to organize protests, protests that were able to successfully impose agendas, roll back extremely pernicious legislation, and even overthrow authoritarian governments. And we should be immensely proud of this. But, we also must admit that we haven't been good at using those same networks and technologies to successfully articulate an alternative to what we're seeing and find the consensus and build the alliances that are needed
Ampak, da smo lahko del tega dialoga, moramo vedeti, kaj želimo narediti po tem, saj lahko politična moč premika želje od besed k dejanjem. Moja generacija je izredno dobra v uporabi novih omrežij in tehnologij za organizacijo protestov, ki so že uspešno vsilili nove dnevne rede, zaustavili zelo slabo in pogubno zakonodajo in tudi strmoglavili avtoritarne vlade. Na to bi morali biti izjemno ponosni. Ampak priznati pa moramo, da nismo bili uspešni pri uporabi teh istih omrežij in tehnologij, da bi uspešno artikulirali alternativo sistemu, ki ga imamo, in prišli do konsenza in razvili potrebna zavezništva,
to make it happen. And so the risk that we face is that we can create these huge power vacuums that will very quickly get filled up by de facto powers, like the military or highly motivated and already organized groups
da se želene spremembe tudi uresničijo. Tako se soočamo s tveganjem, da lahko ustvarimo ogromne vakume moči, ki jih bodo lahko hitro zapolnile de facto skupine, kot je vojska, ali zelo motivirane in že organizirane skupine,
that generally lie on the extremes. But our democracy is neither just a matter of voting once every couple of years. But it's not either the ability to bring millions onto the streets. So the question I'd like to raise here, and I do believe it's the most important question we need to answer, is this one: If Internet is the new printing press, then what is democracy for the Internet era? What institutions do we want to build
ki so ponavadi skrajne. Toda naša demokracija ni niti zgolj predmet volitev enkrat na nekaj let. Ampak tudi ni le možnost, da milijoni gredo na ulice. Torej, vprašanje, ki bi ga želela zastaviti tukaj, in verjamem, da je to najpomembnejše vprašanje, ki potrebuje odgovor, je: Če je internet nova oblika tiska, kaj je potem demokracija za dobo interneta? Kakšne institucije si želimo zgraditi za družbo 21. stoletja?
for the 21st-century society? I don't have the answer, just in case. I don't think anyone does. But I truly believe we can't afford to ignore this question anymore. So, I'd like to share our experience and what we've learned so far and hopefully contribute two cents
Mimogrede, odgovora ne poznam. Menim, da ga nihče ne pozna. Ampak verjamem, da ne moremo več ignorirati tega vprašanja. Želela bi z vami deliti našo izkušnjo in kaj smo se iz nje naučili in prispevati svoj majhen delež tej debati.
to this conversation. Two years ago, with a group of friends from Argentina, we started thinking, "how can we get our representatives, our elected representatives, to represent us?" Marshall McLuhan once said that politics is solving today's problems with yesterday's tools. So the question that motivated us was, can we try and solve some of today's problems with the tools that we use every single day of our lives? Our first approach was to design and develop a piece of software called DemocracyOS. DemocracyOS is an open-source web application that is designed to become a bridge between citizens and their elected representatives
Pred dvema letoma, skupaj s skupino prijateljev z Argentine, smo razmišljali: "Kako lahko ustvarimo, da naši politični predstavniki, ki so bili izvoljeni, nas dejansko zastopajo?" Marshall McLuhan je nekoč dejal, da je politika reševanje današnjih problemov z včerajšnjimi orodji. Torej, vprašanje, ki nas je motiviralo je bilo, ali lahko poskusimo rešiti nekatere od dandanašnjih težav s sredstvi, ki jih uporabljamo vsak dan? Najprej smo ustvarili in razvili program po imenu DemocracyOS. DemocracyOS je odprtokodna spletna aplikacija, ki je namenjena temu, da postane most med državljani in izvoljenimi političnimi predstavniki.
to make it easier for us to participate from our everyday lives. So first of all, you can get informed so every new project that gets introduced in Congress gets immediately translated and explained in plain language on this platform. But we all know that social change is not going to come from just knowing more information, but from doing something with it. So better access to information should lead to a conversation about what we're going to do next, and DemocracyOS allows for that. Because we believe that democracy is not just a matter of stacking up preferences, one on top of each other, but that our healthy and robust public debate
Da nam vsem olajša udeležbo kljub vsakodnevnim obvezam. Torej, naprej si lahko obveščen, tako da je vsak nov projekt, ki se ga predstavi v kongresu, takoj preveden in pojasnjen na tej platformi v običajnem jeziku. Toda vemo, da družbene spremembe ne bodo prišle zgolj od poznavanja več informacij, ampak od tega, da se te informacije uporabi za dejanja. Se pravi, da bi boljši dostop do podatkov moral voditi do dialoga o naslednjih korakih, kar DemocracyOS omogoča. Ker verjamemo, da demokracija ni zgolj nalaganje naših želja na kup, ampak, da bi zdrava in trdna javna razprava morala spet biti ena od glavnih vrednot.
should be, once again, one of its fundamental values. So DemocracyOS is about persuading and being persuaded. It's about reaching a consensus as much as finding a proper way of channeling our disagreement. And finally, you can vote how you would like your elected representative to vote. And if you do not feel comfortable voting on a certain issue, you can always delegate your vote to someone else, allowing
DemocracyOS je orodje za prepričevanje in da nas prepriča. Gre se za dosego konsenza in da najdemo pravo pot, kjer lahko izrazimo nestrinjanje. Končno, lahko glasujete, kako bi želeli, da bi vaši predstavniki glasovali. In če se ne čutite udobno pri glasovanju o neki specifični zadevi, lahko posredujete vaš glas nekomu drugemu in dovolite družbeno vodenje, ki je v nastajanju in dinamično.
for a dynamic and emerging social leadership. It suddenly became very easy for us to simply compare these results with how our representatives were voting in Congress. But, it also became very evident that technology was not going to do the trick. What we needed to do to was to find actors that were able to grab this distributed knowledge in society and use it to make better and more fair decisions. So we reached out to traditional political parties and we offered them DemocracyOS. We said, "Look, here you have a platform that you can use to build a two-way conversation with your constituencies." And yes, we failed. We failed big time. We were sent to play outside like little kids. Amongst other things, we were called naive. And I must be honest: I think, in hindsight, we were. Because the challenges that we face, they're not technological, they're cultural. Political parties were never willing to change the way they make their decisions. So it suddenly became a bit obvious that if we wanted to move forward with this idea,
Postalo nam je preprosto enostavno primerjati naše dosežke s tem, kako so naši predstavniki volili v kongresu. Postalo je tudi zelo jasno, da tehnologija ne bo pomagala. Potrebno je bilo najti posameznike, ki so lahko to pridobljeno družbeno znanje uporabili, da so lahko dosegli boljše in bolj poštene odločitve. Tako smo kontaktirali ustaljene politične stranke in jim ponudili DemocracyOS. Rekli smo jim: "Poglejte, tukaj je platforma, ki jo lahko uporabite za vzajemno debato z vašimi volilnimi enotami." Seveda smo pogoreli. Zelo smo pogoreli. Poslali so nas, da se igramo kot mali otroci. Med drugim so nas označili za naivne in če sem čisto iskrena: mislim, da smo res bili naivni. Ker izzivi, s katerimi se soočamo, niso tehnološki, ampak kulturni. Politične stranke niso bile nikoli pripravljene spremeniti svojega načina, po katerem se odločajo. Nenadoma je postalo kar očitno, da če želimo iti naprej z našo idejo,
we needed to do it ourselves. And so we took quite a leap of faith, and in August last year, we founded our own political party, El Partido de la Red, or the Net Party, in the city of Buenos Aires. And taking an even bigger leap of faith, we ran for elections in October last year with this idea: if we want a seat in Congress, our candidate, our representatives were always going to vote according to what citizens decided on DemocracyOS. Every single project that got introduced in Congress, we were going vote according to what citizens decided on an online platform. It was our way of hacking the political system. We understood that if we wanted to become part of the conversation, to have a seat at the table, we needed to become valid stakeholders,
moramo to narediti sami, brez pomoči. In tako smo se podali v neznano in lanskega avgusta smo ustanovili lastno politično stranko, El Partido de la Red, oziroma Spletno stranko, kot ji pravijo v Buenos Airesu. In ko smo se tvegali še bolj, smo kandidirali na volitvah oktobra lani z našo idejo: če hočemo sedež v kongresu, mora naš kandidat, naši predstavniki, vedno glasovati tako, kot odločajo državljani preko DemocracyOS. Za vsak projekt, ki je bil predstavljen v kongresu, bi glasovali tako, kot bi želeli državljani preko spletne platforme. Bil je naš način, s katerim smo vdrli v politični sistem. Razumeli smo, da če smo hoteli postati del dialoga, imeti sedež za mizo, smo morali postati polnovredni pogajalci.
and the only way of doing it is to play by the system rules. But we were hacking it in the sense that we were radically changing the way a political party makes its decisions. For the first time, we were making our decisions together with those who we were
To smo lahko postali zgolj, če smo se držali pravil sistema. V sistem pa smo vdirali v smislu, da smo radikalno spreminjali način, po katerem stranka odloča. Prvič do sedaj smo sprejemali odločitve skupaj s tistimi, ki so jih te odločitve najbolj zadevale.
affecting directly by those decisions. It was a very, very bold move for a two-month-old party in the city of Buenos Aires. But it got attention. We got 22,000 votes, that's 1.2 percent of the votes, and we came in second for the local options. So, even if that wasn't enough to win a seat in Congress, it was enough for us to become part of the conversation, to the extent that next month, Congress, as an institution, is launching for the first time in Argentina's history, a DemocracyOS to discuss, with the citizens, three pieces of legislation: two on urban transportation and
Bil je zelo pogumen korak za zgolj dva meseca staro stranko iz Buenos Airesa. Je pa vzbudilo pozornost. Dobili smo 22.000 glasov, kar je 1,2 % vseh glasov, in bili smo drugi na lokalnih volitvah. Čeprav to ni bilo dovolj za sedež v kongresu, je bilo dovolj, da smo postali del debate v takšni meri, da bo kongres naslednji mesec uporabil, prvič v zgodovini Argentine, aplikacijo DemocracyOS za razpravo z državljani o treh zakonih: dva o mestnih prevozih in enega o uporabi javnega prostora.
one on the use of public space. Of course, our elected representatives are not saying, "Yes, we're going to vote according to what citizens decide," but they're willing to try. They're willing to open up a new space for citizen engagement and hopefully
Seveda, naši predstavniki ne bodo kar dejali: "Da, glasovali bomo tako, kot državljani hočejo." Ampak, so pa pripravljeni poskusiti. Pripravljeni so odpreti nov prostor za udeležbo državljanov in upam,
they'll be willing to listen as well. Our political system can be transformed, and not by subverting it, by destroying it, but by rewiring it with the tools that
da bodo tudi pripravljeni prisluhniti. Naš politični sistem lahko spremenimo, ne da ga pretvorimo tako, da ga uničimo, ampak da ga pretvorimo z orodji, ki jih internet ponuja.
Internet affords us now. But a real challenge is to find, to design to create, to empower those connectors that are able to innovate, to transform noise and silence into signal and finally bring our democracies
Ampak pravi izziv je najti, ustvariti, iznajti in ojačati te povezave, ki so zmožne preoblikovati hrup in tišino v signal in končno ponesti naše demokracije v 21. stoletje.
to the 21st century. I'm not saying it's easy. But in our experience, we actually stand a chance of making it work. And in my heart, it's most definitely worth trying. Thank you. (Applause)
Ne pravim, da je lahko. Ampak po naših izkušnjah, imamo dejansko možnost, da jih usposobimo. In to, srčno čutim, je vsekakor vredno poizkusiti. Hvala. (Aplavz)