Digital technology, democracy and revolution | Brook Dixon | TEDxCanberra

0:00 [Music] digital technology democracy revolution digital revolutionizes democracy digital democratizes revolution and here's my big line you can tweet this one if you want Digital of the people by the people and for the people who said it sense of me doesn't it resonates I said it I said it right here right now on the stage of

0:47 course I'm paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln his 1863 Gettysburg Address where he says that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth why then why do I conflate government in digital why do I say digital of the people by the people and for the people I say this because last year when I voted in the local election I realized that the sum total of my democratic expression had been one pay per vote in four years one paper vote in four years in the middle of a digital revolution and it seems to me that this revolution offers us a new birth of freedom for our democracy and I am certain that one paper vote

1:34 every four years does not a modern democracy make in fact it does not an ancient democracy make two and a half thousand years ago when democracy was first conceived in ancient Greece in eleven it was practiced as more participatory deliberative and most important regular embedded think of the ancient Athenians all 6,000 citizens would gather together regularly to discuss to debate and decide matters of state and here we are today another citizen assembly we're here to be inspired we want to imagine our future we want to discuss and debate but we have no power to decide not here not today we have our one paper vote every

2:21 four years the ancient Greeks so many years ago and still so far ahead of us in this respect of course in this respect think what the ancient Greeks bestowed on its democracy this great word more than that our philosophy an idea a way of life our belief that every citizen has both the right and the obligation to participate in society and democratic decision-making let's look at the word democracy demos the people Kratos power people power power to the people and we live in a democracy don't we don't we we say we do we believe we do we have the forms and fashions of democracy but if you review our democracy against the

3:06 standard of its which it was originally conceived I say we've regressed we progressed in two critical ways first what we demand of democracy second in what democracy demands of us and I say to you my message today is that we must demand more of our democracy we must demand that it progresses it evolves it modernizes it gives us more it gives more power to the people and we must demand more of ourselves for if we don't demand more change none will come if not us then who if not us then who you might ask yourself will Brooke why should our democracy change we have a system of government that works a system of government that has served as well a system of government based on hundreds

3:53 of years of tradition Westminster indeed we vote we have rights we're not an autocracy why should we change if only things were so simple if only we could go on as we are now but the price of freedom is eternal vigilance and just as times change just as culture changes just as our society changes and technology changes so too should our democracy you've all felt this need and necessity both personally and the grow make greater momentum that is pushing this forward both nationally and internationally at the moment you've failed it you've failed it when you see decisions of local and national importance influenced more by the

4:39 powerful than the people by the few rather than many you've felt it when our elected representatives play party politics for years upon years seemingly oblivious to the will of the people on important issues important issues of basic human rights and recognition of international conflict indeed of fundamental human existence you've felt the need for change as well when you feel that distance and disconnection from national decision-making that leaves us feeling disregarded and excluded and without a voice and the price of not changing is very grim the price of not modernizing our democracy

5:25 is grim study after study tells us that when people feel excluded from decision-making when they feel disregarded when they feel their voice is not being heard then the rise of regionalism insular ISM and other such isms don't evitable and when they finally can give voice in anger and frustration to their views one vote every four years then surprising and destructive may be the outcomes we only have to look around the world over the last 18 months to see that we only have to look around and see that so if we believe we believe that our democracies have changed what then can we do I'm

6:11 going to give you three things three things number one believe that our democracy can and should change it's a tough one we tend to see this as a fixed point around which all our democratic decision-making revolves I'm going to illustrate this by reference to Thomas Jefferson here's a man who basically built a democracy he wrote the Declaration of Independence of United States he was instrumental in framing their constitution and he saw quite clearly in those early days that many people looked at that Constitution with st. demonise reverence and deemed it like the Ark of the Covenant too sacred to be touched

6:56 but he also believed he saw quite clearly in fact and he wrote that just as times change just as culture changes just as science changes as we become more enlightened so too must our laws and our government and our institutions change also so want you to open your mind to the belief that our democracy must evolve and change open your mind also also open your mind to the forces that are quite happy with the status quo the forces that understand believers of power as it stands that are quite happy to wield greater influence than one-person one-vote the forces that are

7:43 blocked and breaks democratic reform and evolution for centuries and millennia big business lobbyists political parties the wealthy the social elite traditionalists all these that are still in the way of democratic reform think how many centuries that talk or struggle for all classes to get the vote for women for the oppressed and what do we have after centuries of struggle what do we have we have one pay per vote every four years do you want more from your democracy I do I want more the second thing you can do is to be a digital democracy Digital of the people by the

8:30 people and for the people what do I mean by this I mean that we should harness the momentum of the digital revolution to modernize our democracy quite simply Digital is a game changer for democracy it Able's us to deal with one of the greatest challenges of democracy the challenge of coordination can you imagine what it was like to coordinate six thousand Athenians all together in decision-making how much more complex is it to coordinate millions how much more complex is it to coordinate millions and it's this complexity of coordination that has given us a new form of democracy which is an indirect democracy or a representation rather than direct by the people that proximity for the people the demos and where does that

9:18 leave us we could have so much more we could have so much more than that digital throws it out the window throws the arguments of indirect democracy representation out the window imagine the ancient Greeks many of them could not attend the assembly because they were too busy working on their farms can you imagine what they would do with digital technology one hand on the plow plowing the field other hand mobile phone voting just checking out what those ancient Persians are up to got to keep an eye on them in other words they'd be doing more than we're doing more than we're doing and we can have so much more we can have so much more we can have crowd-sourced legislation we can have web-based community budgeting

10:05 we can have online voting hold your horses I hear you say online voting you're trying to take away our democracy sausage no no we say no to that I'm not trying to take away you democracy sausage I want you to celebrate and practice democracy more often and have that sausage more often let's save that democracy sausage a couple of times a year at least and while you might miss while you might miss the cardboard ballot box and a piece of paper that goes in it I know no one will miss a postal plebiscite are we serious we are in the middle of a digital democracy a digital revolution and we're asking people to be surveyed by post this isn't just things I'm

10:54 making up this is real this is happening around the world when I traveled around the world on a Churchill fellowship last year I saw great things in smart and digital cities the greatest of all was Digital democracy happening in real time and you can google this I want you to go home and check out hashtag digital democracy and go and talk about Civic technology two examples in Brazil they created an online portal a democracy er which allows people to participate in national parliamentary debate and had great success including including sourcing vast portions by crowdsourcing of legislation and in Seoul where they say the citizen is the mayor they understand democracy they put the citizen first they've created a suite of digital tools so that citizens can practice and participate and

11:39 co-create their city in its future and voting on their mobile phones mobile voting they push out real-time issues for the citizens to vote on to provide ideas on and even to propose their own ideas for citizens to vote on imagine if we here today if we here today had our democracy Australia app what issues we'll be voting on how would we be holding our representatives to account what matters would we be putting forward our views for public debate just imagine the third thing we can do is to be active activist citizens asking not what our democracy can do for us but what we can do for our democracy the greatest strength of democracy has always been an

12:24 active citizenry just as just as complacency has always made its Achilles heel we must be active we must not be content to be told but the government is too complex to the people not content to be so dismayed by what's happening political spheres that we withdraw from democracy and turned our back on it we must be active and digital technology makes it so much easier and we can start right here today we could tweet our politicians but I believe they ignore them too busy composing their own I understand so when you find two minutes perhaps in a little break today you might wish to write them off a quick letter an email if you will which I believe they have to respond to and you might say do you remember I believe in

13:10 democracy I believe our democracy should evolve as times and science and culture changes I would like to have a greater role in our democracy I believe that technology can play a part in its evolution I would appreciate your advice on your policies to advance our democracy fair your sincerely citizen TEDx hashtag digital democracy and there you have it momentum we can all provide momentum to the positive progress of our democracy whether people have a greater role power to the people Digital democracy digital of the people by the people and for the people [Applause]