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
Imam osećaj da se svi slažemo oko toga da se krećemo ka novom modelu države i društva. Ali apsolutno pojma nemamo koji je to model ili koji bi trebalo da bude. Čini se da bi trebalo da razgovaramo o demokratiji
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,
naše današnjice i našeg doba. Razmišljajmo o tome ovako: mi smo građani 21. veka, koji se trude najbolje što mogu, da sarađuju s institucijama osmišljenim u 19. veku, koje se baziraju na informacionim tehnologijama iz 15. veka. Pogledajmo neke osobine ovog sistema. Pre svega, prilagođen je informacionoj tehnologiji koja je stara preko 500 godina. A najbolji mogući sistem koji bi joj odgovarao je onaj gde nekolicina, na dnevnoj bazi odlučuje u ime većine. A većina dobije pravo glasa jednom na svakih nekoliko godina. Pod dva, cena za učestvovanje u ovom sistemu je neverovatno visoka. Ili morate da imate popriličnu sumu novca i uticaj, ili morate da posvetite ceo svoj život politici. Morate da postanete član partije i da polako napredujete na lestvici, sve dok, možda, jednoga dana ne sednete za sto gde se donose odluke. I poslednje, ali ne i manje važno, jezik sistema - je neverovatno enigmatičan. Napravili su ga advokati, za advokate
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
i niko drugi ne može da ga razume. Dakle, to je sistem u kome možemo da biramo naše organe vlasti, ali mi uopšte ne znamo kako ovi organi vlasti donose odluke. U vremenu u kojem nam nova informaciona tehnologija omogućuje da učestvujemo u bilo kom razgovoru na globalnom nivou, informacione barijere su skroz spuštene i možemo, kao nikad pre, da izražavamo svoje želje i brige. Naš politički sistem je ostao isti u poslednjih 200 godina i očekuje da budemo zadovoljni time što smo puki pasivni slušaoci
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,
monologa. Zato ne čudi što je ovakav sistem jedino u stanju da proizvede dva moguća rezultata: tišinu ili buku. Tišinu, u smislu građanske neangažovanosti, građani prosto neće da učestvuju. Postoji opšte mesto koje uistinu, uistinu ne volim, a to je ideja da smo mi građani po prirodi apatični. Da bežimo od obaveza. Ali možete li da nas krivite što ne pohitamo čim nam se ukaže prilika i pođemo u centar grada, u sred radnog vremena kako bismo prisustvovali, fizički, javnom saslušanju koje nema nikakav značaj, ali baš nikakav? Sukob je neizbežan između sistema koji više nije reprezentativan, niti je sposoban za dijalog, i građana koji se sve više navikavaju na to da predstavljaju sami sebe. A potom stižemo do buke: Čile, Argentina, Brazil, Meksiko, Italija, Francuska, Španija, SAD, sve su ovo demokratije. Njihovi građani imaju pristup glasačkim kutijama, ali i dalje osećaju potrebu,
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.
potrebu da izađu na ulice, kako bi ih čuli. Meni to liči na slogan iz 18. veka koji je bio osnov za izgradnju naše savremene demokratije: "Nema oporezivanja bez predstavnika", danas bi mogao da glasi: "Nema predstavljanja bez dogovaranja." Želimo naše mesto za stolom.
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
Imamo pravo na to. Ali, kako bismo bili deo dogovaranja, moramo da znamo šta želimo dalje da uradimo jer političko delanje mora biti u stanju da se pomeri od nezadovoljstva do konstruktivnog delanja. Moja generacija je bila izuzetno dobra u korišćenju novih mreža i tehnologije pri organizovanju protesta, protesta pomoću kojih su uspešno nametnute tačke dnevnog reda, koji su poništili opake zakone, pa čak i svrgnuli autoritarne vlade. I trebalo bi da smo beskrajno ponosni na to. Ali takođe moramo da priznamo da nismo bili dobri u korišćenju tih istih mreža i tehnologija da uspešno artikulišemo alternativu onome što vidimo i da nađemo konsenzus i izgradimo saveze koji su neophodni
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 bi se to ostvarilo. Zato je rizik s kojim smo suočeni u tome da možemo da stvorimo ogromne vakuume moći koje veoma brzo mogu de facto ispuniti snage, poput vojne ili krajnje motivisane i već organizovane grupe
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
koje uglavnom počivaju na ekstremima. Ali naša demokratija se ne svodi na glasanje jednom na svakih nekoliko godina. No ne svodi se ni na mogućnost da se milioni okupe na ulicama. Zato bih volela da ovde postavim pitanje, i verujem da je na to pitanje najvažnije da odgovorimo, a ono glasi: ako je internet nova štamparska presa, onda šta je demokratija u internet eri? Kakve institucije želimo da izgradimo
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
za društvo u 21. veku? Ja nemam odgovor, čisto da se zna. Mislim da niko nema. Ali iskreno verujem da ne možemo više da ignorišemo ovo pitanje. Zato ću sa vama da podelim naše iskustvo i ono što smo zasad naučili i nadam se da ćemo iole doprineti
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
ovoj diskusiji. Pre dve godine, sa grupom prijatelja iz Argentine, počeli smo da razmišljamo: "Kako da navedemo naše predstavnike, naše izabrane predstavnike, da predstavljaju nas?" Maršal Mekluan je jednom rekao da je politika rešavanje današnjih problema jučerašnjim oruđem. Pitanje koje nas je motivisalo bilo je da li možemo da rešimo neke od današnjih problema uz pomoć oruđa koje koristimo svakodnevno? Naš prvi pristup je bio osmišljavanje i razvoj softvera, koji smo nazvali DemocracyOS. DemocracyOS je aplikacija dostupna za javnost, koja je osmišljena kako bi bila most između građana i njihovih izabranih predstavnika,
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
kako bi nam omogućila lakše učešće iz ugla svakodnevice. Pre svega, možete biti obavešteni svaki put kada se novi projekat predstavi u kongresu, on se odmah prevodi, uz pojašnjenja prostim jezikom na ovoj platformi. Ali svi znamo da do društvenih promena neće doći prosto znanjem više informacija, već njihovim raspolaganjem. Zato bi bolji pristup informacijama trebalo da dovede do razgovora o tome šta želimo sledeće da uradimo, a DemocracyOS nam to omogućava. Jer mi verujemo da demokratija nije prosto gomilanje prioriteta, jednog na drugi, već da bi zdrava i snažna javna rasprava
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
trebalo, ponovo, da bude jedna od njenih osnovnih vrednosti. DemocracyOS se bavi ubeđivanjem i kako biti ubeđen. Radi se o postizanju dogovora, kao i o pronalaženju pravog načina da kanališemo naše neslaganje. I konačno, možete da glasate o tome na koji način želite da vaši predstavnici glasaju. A ako vam nije prijatno da glasate o određenim pitanjima, uvek možete da poverite svoj glas nekome drugom,
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,
obezbeđujući tako dinamično i prepoznatljivo društveno rukovodstvo. Odjednom je postalo lako da prosto uporedimo ove rezultate s tim kako su naši predstavnici glasali u parlamentu. Ali je takođe postalo očigledno da tehnologija ne može da izvede željeni trik. Bilo je potrebno da nađemo aktere koji bi mogli da prikupe ovo raspršeno znanje u društvu i da ga koriste kako bi donosili bolje i poštenije odluke. Zato smo se okrenuli tradicionalnim političkim strankama i ponudili smo im DemocracyOS. Rekli smo: "Vidite, ovde imate platformu uz čiju pomoć možete da izgradite dvosmernu konverzaciju s vašim glasačkim telom." I da, nije nam prošlo. Debelo smo omanuli. Izbacili su nas napolje da se igramo, kao malu decu. Između ostalog, rekli su nam da smo naivni. I moram da budem iskrena: sada kad se osvrnem, mislim da smo i bili. Jer izazovi s kojima se suočavamo, nisu tehnološki, već kulturološki. Političke stranke nikada nisu bile spremne da promene način na koji donose odluke. Zato je iznenada postalo očito da, ako želimo da razvijemo ovu ideju,
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,
prepušteni smo sami sebi. I tako smo skočili u nepoznato i u avgustu prošle godine smo osnovali sopstvenu političku stranku. El partido de la red, iliti Mreža partija, u Buenos Ajresu. I skačući u još veću nepoznanicu, kandidovali smo se na izborima u oktobru prošle godine sa sledećom zamisli: ako želimo mesto u parlamentu, naš kandidat, naši predstavnici će uvek da glasaju u skladu sa tim šta su građani odlučili na DemocracyOS-u. Za svaki projekat koji bude predstavljen u parlamentu, mi ćemo da glasamo u skladu sa time kako su naši građani odlučili na internet platformi. Tako smo hakovali politički sistem. Shvatili smo da, ako želimo da postanemo deo razgovora, da imamo mesto za stolom, moramo da postanemo važeći akteri,
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
a jedini način da to ostvarimo bio je da igramo po pravilima sistema. Ali smo ga i hakovali, u smislu da smo radikalno menjali način na koji političke stranke donose odluke. Novina je da smo donosili odluke zajedno sa onima kojih se te odluke direktno tiču.
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
Bio je to veoma, veoma hrabar potez za stranku staru dva meseca u Buenos Ajresu. Ali privukli smo pažnju. Dobili smo 22.000 glasova, to je 1.2 procenta ukupnih glasova, i bili smo drugi na lokalnim izborima. Pa, iako to nije bilo dovoljno da nam obezbedi mesto u kongresu, bilo je dovoljno da postanemo učesnici u razgovoru, do te mere da kongres, kao institucija, narednog meseca pokreće, prvi put u istoriji Argentine, DemocracyOS kako bi raspravljali s građanima tri legislativne tačke: dve o gradskom saobraćaju i jednu o korišćenju javnog 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
Naravno da naši izabrani predstavnici ne govore: "Da, glasaćemo onako kako građani odluče", ali su spremni da se potrude. Spremni su da obezbede novi prostor za građanski angažman i nadamo se
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 će biti spremni i da slušaju. Naš politički sistem može da se izmeni, i to ne njegovim rušenjem, uništavanjem, već njegovim ponovnim povezivajem s oruđima
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
koje nam internet danas nudi. Ali istinski izazov je pronaći, osmisliti, stvoriti, osnažiti one veze koje su u mogućnosti da uvedu novine, da transformišu buku i tišinu u signal i da konačno uvedemo našu demokratiju
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)
u 21. vek. Ne kažem da je lako. Ali iz našeg iskustva, zapravo imamo šansu da u tome uspemo. Ja duboko osećam, da je definitivno vredno truda. Hvala vam. (Aplauz)