hi Lawrence hi what an amazing place to
be and I just think I have to take one
breath to realize that we’re here on
stage in the Berlin Philharmonic swear I
am usually somewhere upper ranks I’d
like to start asking you a question
which connects to your talk which you
gave here in this very building actually
but in this more like I’m a music style
last year and you we’re starting saying
that you your whole life you’ve been an
apologist and enthusiast for the
Internet and a critical of government
institutions governance institutions and
in this talk you would switch roles you
would actually talk about the negative
consequences of the internet for
democracy and what you mentioned was
that there was a fragmentation of the
public sphere which we were witnessing
and a polarization of politics and I
mean I think if we have one word of this
TEDx so far it’s polarization I think
every single speaker has mentioned it so
far so let’s start our discussion with
this diagnostic what went wrong well I
think that’s um we should start one step
back all of us are members of political
communities we call ourselves in America
the people we the people maybe that’s a
phrase that resonates everywhere but
what we need to recognize is just how
embarrassing we the people have become I
don’t mean just Americans though we are
particularly embarrassing but I think we
need to recognize the way in which
political communities generally
across the world when we think about the
people have become embarrassing in the
sense that we recognize the loss of a
capacity in the people to understand
and solve political problems now one way
to think about that is just to say like
my grandparents might say we’ve all
become stupid or that’s just the
degeneration of humanity um but what I
like to recognize and this connects
directly to what Juan was talking about
at the beginning of this section is the
connection between this phenomenon and
emerging technologies of communication
and in a really unintended certainly
never imagined way indeed the founders
of this technology thought exactly the
opposite would happen but in a way that
nobody really was focused on when we
meant went from what we could call
broadcast democracy where you know in
America 90% of Americans were getting
their news from three news sources a
television news channels – this
fragmented non broadcast post broadcast
democracy where everybody has hundreds
of cable channels and infinite number of
Internet sources for news what that is
done is transform us from a culture that
at least for some issues had a common
basis of fact to make political
judgments upon to us culture that shares
none of this common understanding and
and what we have to ask is can
democracies survive in a world where we
don’t have a common understanding of the
basic issues that we as a democracy have
to resolve I’d like to come back to this
question of politics and what we can do
in politics later on but first I would
like to dive a bit deeper into where do
you see it technological solutions for
this because what I observe in my life
here in Germany is that I go to
conferences and it used to always be
especially when you go to tech
conferences it used to be a lot about
technology and in a
and everybody was really excited about
this lately especially since brexit and
the Trump phenomenon people I feel in
the technologically leaders real
soul-searching and that people are
saying I just last week
attended a conference run by Deutsche
Telekom 24 hours and I was really
surprised by the rhetoric of the
participants which said we as
technologists we have just surfed
technology down people’s throats and we
were never thought about the
consequences so we really have to take
responsibility would you say that this
is a promising is there some shift which
you see in the tech avant-garde in the
tech elite where we can hope for new
defaults where there will be rethinking
of business models because obviously the
ad model is driving all this times on
screen and the polarization do you think
that technological solutions will be
part of the answer to smart thing up the
people no I mean it’s a great thing that
technologists and again I want to take
responsibility because I was such a
cheerleader for this development it’s a
great thing that they recognized the way
this infrastructure of communication has
basically broken really important
dynamics of democracy it’s great they
see that what concerns me as so many of
them look at that and say effectively so
let’s just give up on democracy you know
why do we need democracy anymore let’s
you know have technocracy or some elites
technical elite or economic elite just
openly governing as opposed to the
system we have right now where
surreptitiously they govern you know so
they recognize what’s happened but I
don’t think anybody can expect that
we’re gonna go backwards in this
fragmentation to a world of unfragmented
communication around democracy and I’m
not even sure it’s a good thing to
imagine that happening I mean the
reality is when you look at the culture
channel and see the consequence of this
credible fragmentation it’s wonderful
there is so much more accessible today
to my children from culture around the
world and music that never would have
been created before in film that is you
know television now is ten thousand
times better than film in America and
it’s all because of this technology so
on that that channel things are
wonderful it’s just on the democracy
channel where if you need to run a
democracy where you expect we the people
are gonna understand what the issues are
were hopeless in the cut with a
consequence of this fragmentation so
that would mean your answer would be
more to search for new political models
well I think the critical thing we have
to understand is you know we take it for
granted that by We the People what we
mean is all of us at this time what do
we all think at this time about a
particular issue so you know in 2003 we
asked the American people should we
invade Iraq seventy-three percent said
yes we should invade Iraq and that was
taken as the will of the American people
even though those people knew squat
little about all sorts of issues related
to the facts that you know got us into
that terrible terrible war now that what
that suggests to me is that rather than
thinking about the people as being all
of us as we happen to be at any
particular time we ought to start
thinking about how do we create
representation or representatives of the
people who actually could know something
and to liberate about something and make
a judgement about something that can
stand for us right I mean if you think
about the Republican tradition smaller
Republican like classical Republican
tradition thought of citizens as a
public office and the president is a
public office and the chancellors of
public office and a member of the
Bundestag as a public off is part of a
public office all of those public
offices except the people
make determinations of public policy
after having a chance to learn a chance
to deliberate a chance to bounce their
ideas off their colleagues and with
staff that helps them figure those
issues out only we only this public
office is expected to know everything
and answer the question whenever
somebody during dinner calls and asks
should we invade Iraq we are set up to
appear embarrassing and stupid because
we have none of the conditions that all
those other officials get to make
judgments but we could build it
differently I mean there are an
incredible number of experiments driven
by this insight trying to create models
where representative randomly selected
groups of people you know imagine last
year and I just described going to
Mongolia and watching 700 Mongolia’s who
had been randomly selected from Mongolia
perfectly representative of Mongolians
you know Mongolia is a country the size
of Western Europe with a hot weather
about 3 million people so half of these
people had travelled for two nights in a
bus to get to Ambattur to sit down and
deliberate about constitutional change
because the law in Mongolia says before
you can propose an amendment to the
Constitution you have to run it through
this thing called a deliberative poll
they had studied the issues they were
normal literally representative group of
people I you know as a kind of a leaf
harvard law professors about they’re not
going to understand anything here but as
my translator translated those
conversations I was astonished at the
depth of understanding and sensitivity
as they went through those issues they
spent the weekend discussing those
issues and at the end they gave a
picture of what the Mongolian this group
of Mongolian people think about that
issue and when you get this glimpse of
We the People not embarrassing you begin
to think well how do we build that
everywhere how do we begin to create a
picture of in
of the people that is edifying and
inspiring as opposed to the vision we
have when they see you know the product
of an election like the 2016 election in
the United States and and that’s not a
technical challenge it’s really a
political child it’s a cultural
challenge it’s in a it’s the need for us
to recognize how we have to rethink who
we are in an age where there is no
common conversation again wands can’t
wands intervention at the beginning is
perfect here right his whole point was
how does the technology force us to
rethink fundamental questions of ethics
my question is how does the technology
force us to rethink fundamental
questions about democracy and if we
don’t do that the anti Democrats are
going to win very soon okay thank you
very much I know you wanted to end this
TED talk on time for the first time so
thank you very much I think we all can
understand this that we want to
deliberate more that we want to be part
of this and there are so many
interesting experiments right now going
on in Europe in the United States
everywhere and where people are coming
together in the way you describe and I
think it needs much much more public
focus and a much more broader discussion
of how we the people really want to
execute all right thank you very much [Applause]
be and I just think I have to take one
breath to realize that we’re here on
stage in the Berlin Philharmonic swear I
am usually somewhere upper ranks I’d
like to start asking you a question
which connects to your talk which you
gave here in this very building actually
but in this more like I’m a music style
last year and you we’re starting saying
that you your whole life you’ve been an
apologist and enthusiast for the
Internet and a critical of government
institutions governance institutions and
in this talk you would switch roles you
would actually talk about the negative
consequences of the internet for
democracy and what you mentioned was
that there was a fragmentation of the
public sphere which we were witnessing
and a polarization of politics and I
mean I think if we have one word of this
TEDx so far it’s polarization I think
every single speaker has mentioned it so
far so let’s start our discussion with
this diagnostic what went wrong well I
think that’s um we should start one step
back all of us are members of political
communities we call ourselves in America
the people we the people maybe that’s a
phrase that resonates everywhere but
what we need to recognize is just how
embarrassing we the people have become I
don’t mean just Americans though we are
particularly embarrassing but I think we
need to recognize the way in which
political communities generally
across the world when we think about the
people have become embarrassing in the
sense that we recognize the loss of a
capacity in the people to understand
and solve political problems now one way
to think about that is just to say like
my grandparents might say we’ve all
become stupid or that’s just the
degeneration of humanity um but what I
like to recognize and this connects
directly to what Juan was talking about
at the beginning of this section is the
connection between this phenomenon and
emerging technologies of communication
and in a really unintended certainly
never imagined way indeed the founders
of this technology thought exactly the
opposite would happen but in a way that
nobody really was focused on when we
meant went from what we could call
broadcast democracy where you know in
America 90% of Americans were getting
their news from three news sources a
television news channels – this
fragmented non broadcast post broadcast
democracy where everybody has hundreds
of cable channels and infinite number of
Internet sources for news what that is
done is transform us from a culture that
at least for some issues had a common
basis of fact to make political
judgments upon to us culture that shares
none of this common understanding and
and what we have to ask is can
democracies survive in a world where we
don’t have a common understanding of the
basic issues that we as a democracy have
to resolve I’d like to come back to this
question of politics and what we can do
in politics later on but first I would
like to dive a bit deeper into where do
you see it technological solutions for
this because what I observe in my life
here in Germany is that I go to
conferences and it used to always be
especially when you go to tech
conferences it used to be a lot about
technology and in a
and everybody was really excited about
this lately especially since brexit and
the Trump phenomenon people I feel in
the technologically leaders real
soul-searching and that people are
saying I just last week
attended a conference run by Deutsche
Telekom 24 hours and I was really
surprised by the rhetoric of the
participants which said we as
technologists we have just surfed
technology down people’s throats and we
were never thought about the
consequences so we really have to take
responsibility would you say that this
is a promising is there some shift which
you see in the tech avant-garde in the
tech elite where we can hope for new
defaults where there will be rethinking
of business models because obviously the
ad model is driving all this times on
screen and the polarization do you think
that technological solutions will be
part of the answer to smart thing up the
people no I mean it’s a great thing that
technologists and again I want to take
responsibility because I was such a
cheerleader for this development it’s a
great thing that they recognized the way
this infrastructure of communication has
basically broken really important
dynamics of democracy it’s great they
see that what concerns me as so many of
them look at that and say effectively so
let’s just give up on democracy you know
why do we need democracy anymore let’s
you know have technocracy or some elites
technical elite or economic elite just
openly governing as opposed to the
system we have right now where
surreptitiously they govern you know so
they recognize what’s happened but I
don’t think anybody can expect that
we’re gonna go backwards in this
fragmentation to a world of unfragmented
communication around democracy and I’m
not even sure it’s a good thing to
imagine that happening I mean the
reality is when you look at the culture
channel and see the consequence of this
credible fragmentation it’s wonderful
there is so much more accessible today
to my children from culture around the
world and music that never would have
been created before in film that is you
know television now is ten thousand
times better than film in America and
it’s all because of this technology so
on that that channel things are
wonderful it’s just on the democracy
channel where if you need to run a
democracy where you expect we the people
are gonna understand what the issues are
were hopeless in the cut with a
consequence of this fragmentation so
that would mean your answer would be
more to search for new political models
well I think the critical thing we have
to understand is you know we take it for
granted that by We the People what we
mean is all of us at this time what do
we all think at this time about a
particular issue so you know in 2003 we
asked the American people should we
invade Iraq seventy-three percent said
yes we should invade Iraq and that was
taken as the will of the American people
even though those people knew squat
little about all sorts of issues related
to the facts that you know got us into
that terrible terrible war now that what
that suggests to me is that rather than
thinking about the people as being all
of us as we happen to be at any
particular time we ought to start
thinking about how do we create
representation or representatives of the
people who actually could know something
and to liberate about something and make
a judgement about something that can
stand for us right I mean if you think
about the Republican tradition smaller
Republican like classical Republican
tradition thought of citizens as a
public office and the president is a
public office and the chancellors of
public office and a member of the
Bundestag as a public off is part of a
public office all of those public
offices except the people
make determinations of public policy
after having a chance to learn a chance
to deliberate a chance to bounce their
ideas off their colleagues and with
staff that helps them figure those
issues out only we only this public
office is expected to know everything
and answer the question whenever
somebody during dinner calls and asks
should we invade Iraq we are set up to
appear embarrassing and stupid because
we have none of the conditions that all
those other officials get to make
judgments but we could build it
differently I mean there are an
incredible number of experiments driven
by this insight trying to create models
where representative randomly selected
groups of people you know imagine last
year and I just described going to
Mongolia and watching 700 Mongolia’s who
had been randomly selected from Mongolia
perfectly representative of Mongolians
you know Mongolia is a country the size
of Western Europe with a hot weather
about 3 million people so half of these
people had travelled for two nights in a
bus to get to Ambattur to sit down and
deliberate about constitutional change
because the law in Mongolia says before
you can propose an amendment to the
Constitution you have to run it through
this thing called a deliberative poll
they had studied the issues they were
normal literally representative group of
people I you know as a kind of a leaf
harvard law professors about they’re not
going to understand anything here but as
my translator translated those
conversations I was astonished at the
depth of understanding and sensitivity
as they went through those issues they
spent the weekend discussing those
issues and at the end they gave a
picture of what the Mongolian this group
of Mongolian people think about that
issue and when you get this glimpse of
We the People not embarrassing you begin
to think well how do we build that
everywhere how do we begin to create a
picture of in
of the people that is edifying and
inspiring as opposed to the vision we
have when they see you know the product
of an election like the 2016 election in
the United States and and that’s not a
technical challenge it’s really a
political child it’s a cultural
challenge it’s in a it’s the need for us
to recognize how we have to rethink who
we are in an age where there is no
common conversation again wands can’t
wands intervention at the beginning is
perfect here right his whole point was
how does the technology force us to
rethink fundamental questions of ethics
my question is how does the technology
force us to rethink fundamental
questions about democracy and if we
don’t do that the anti Democrats are
going to win very soon okay thank you
very much I know you wanted to end this
TED talk on time for the first time so
thank you very much I think we all can
understand this that we want to
deliberate more that we want to be part
of this and there are so many
interesting experiments right now going
on in Europe in the United States
everywhere and where people are coming
together in the way you describe and I
think it needs much much more public
focus and a much more broader discussion
of how we the people really want to
execute all right thank you very much [Applause]
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