The marrow from my speech at FutureEverything 2012 - a big thank you to Jodi Rose for making this beautiful PreziTation for me to use as a frame for the keynote.
Democracy:Upgrade on Prezi
Democracy: upgrade = (re)Public –
(r)evolution - (h)activist - H(e)art-h
What is democracy?
Who is the system to serve?
What is a parliamentary representative?
What is a parliamentary representative?
Who does he pledge alliance to?
Who writes our laws?
What are the cornerstones of Democracy?
What is the purpose of a constitution?
I want you to think about these
questions and find out what their content means to you.
I am an activist in parliament. The
longer I serve, the more I think about the meaning of the questions I
have just posed. The more I understand how the system works, the more
obvious it is to me that there is a serious system error. The system
is like the hard drive on computers you would have to defrag in order
for them to work, the bigger the files the less efficient the
computer would work. The problem with our systems is that they are
too big, too alienated from the people they
are supposed to serve. It is too difficult for the public to be able
to influence and have impact on the (re) in the rePublic. Sometimes
when the computer is too fragmented the best solution is to zero it
in order for it to work, sometimes a complete system upgrade is the
only way out. We have reached the point in our democracies that we
need to zero the system and install a new system. We need to move
away from the big complex to the small fast system, where each and
every person has to understand that we are the stuff that makes the
system. We are the system. We are the government. We are society. We
are the power. We are the law. It is not beyond us, unreachable nor
undesirable to be it, the system is a reflection of who we are.
In order to empower people to act on
this awareness and to start to apply changes through our only means:
through action, we need to have direct democracy with the liquid
add-on. We need to craft our constitution
for and by the people. (Constitution is the agreement of a nation on
what sort of society they choose to be). Law is currently crafted by
and for the 1% - we need to simplify our laws and make sure we agree
on the spirit of the law, rather then adding on their complexity with
endless patchwork.
The cornerstones of society are freedom
of information, expression and speech. The Internet is the last free
world, that has enabled us to connect, share, be informed, act and
resample our creativity. The internet is now under serious attack, as
the corporations and governments are trying to place their reins of
power on it, in order to industrialize it
and to have absolute control over how we connect, share, be informed,
act and resample our creativity.
I am a hacker in parliament, I went
into the system in order to understand how it works and my conclusion
is clear: Install new system with a new form of democracy of the
future, where we move away from democratic dictatorship with many
representative heads to a direct
responsibility of direct liquid democracy. Are you ready to be the
co-creator of your society? Do you understand the importance of your
participation? We are running out of planet, so for the future of
everything it is time to wake up and start co-creating.
11 comments:
Cool
Direct democracy is fine if everyone is kind and fair. But many people are not. I know many Americans would vote against minority rights if given the chance. What if they turned out to be in the majority? You might be surprised at the kind of society direct democracy would create - careful what you wish for.
I'm in love!
If the governmental systems now in place can no longer follow the will of their constituents then indeed they need to be replaced. And I agree with Birgitta, we are well overdue for a clean, fresh, upgraded install. My hope is that we can continue to do this peacefully and respectfully, each thinking of the other's needs as well as those of ourselves. Watching the OWS movement and the work of transparency groups like Wikileaks I'm greatly encouraged.
It won't be easy. We are on one hand a world of many different cultures with widely varying views. Yet on the other, we are all humans with many needs and desires in common. I hope, as many of history's great ones have taught us, that the virtues of love, peace, and patience can guide us towards solutions that we can all be happy with.
It is now an increasingly evident truth that the current system of global corporates having so much control has fatal flaws. The mechanisms of trans national ownership mean that corporations seem to be accountable to nobody anymore, that is unless the ordinary people simply say 'enough'. Brigitta you may be interested in the message that Anonymous is trying to get through to our government here in the UK - http://anonflag.com/cameronmessage.html - the response? Silence!
The important thing is to take a step. Then another. Nobody can tell us what direct democracy is because we have never practiced it. The idea of being a hacker in parliament, rather than a member of the club, is fundamental to any healthy system. Without white corpuscular 'hackers' in our body we would have been extinct long ago..
"Beta Democracy" is a political phase where the South Pacific island nation- Fiji is currently in.
Fiji is formulating a new Constitution and your ideas, hopefully will bring some new dimensions to the table.
I totally understand where you're coming from Birgitta and where you're going is inevitable.
Thanks for this Birgitta. I describe a (r)evolutionary Rights (re)Public which is divested of all economic and cultural entanglements here:
https://sites.google.com/site/threefoldnow/the-rights-sector
he has a pen and a phone and he is so cool...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM_XQcKZdbQ
Post a Comment