October 18, 2023 • 29 mins
Professor Hélène Landemore explains to Azeem Azhar why, despite the threat of misinformation and polarization, technology might help bring about a new golden age for democracy.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
We're at the beginning of a new golden age for democracy.
That is a premise for today's conversation. I'm Azimazar. Welcome
to the Exponentially podcast. Democracy is having a popularity crisis.
Recent research found that the young are more disaffected with
it than at any point in the last fifty years.
(00:26):
Polarization is a common problem. The basic questions of state,
economic growth and fairness seem out of reach, and new
challenges technology, climate change, and social division loom. What if
we could engage people in new ways and have them
deliberate over the toughest political issues. Could this put democracy
(00:50):
back on track. I've come to New York to discuss
these questions with an expert on the subject, Professor Elen Londermore.
Democracy is having quite a tough time right now, isn't it.
We've had trust in government in the US its lowest
ever in history. Around forty percent of Americans think that
(01:13):
the twenty twenty election was rigged, and of course there
was January the sick. These are all signs of quite
deep rooted problems, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, they are. It's all around the world. Actually, I
think that democracies are in trouble. Two or third of
Americans and French and German think that governments are corrupt.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
This is really worrying. It's been going on for a while,
but I feel like the crisis is getting really acute.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And of course it's beyond the richer Western nations as well.
We see in India, the world's biggest democracy by population,
taking steps towards authoritarianism, and we look at the traditionally
the Middle East's most robust democracy Israel with people in
the streets.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yes, it's probably worse in those regions because you don't
have this sort of a long history and the social
welfare that helps the smooth over some of those difficulties.
So I think the crisis is very strong there as well.
And the one sort of light in the Middle East
was supposed to be Tunisia, but they are too. You
see a return to authorite ian practices and.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Set against this, we've got the new challenges of technology.
We know that over the past twenty years, technology has
created a small number of winners and lots of losers,
whether it's technology in the form of globalization, whether it's
technology in the form of the change in economies. And
(02:36):
now we've got artificial intelligence looming through the friendly face
of chat, GPT and others, threatening to flood our media
and social media environment with fake material, material that we
can't tell apart from things that are true, so that
again appears to be another force that we're going to
have to contend with. This is all looks to me
(02:57):
like it's quite bad news for me.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
These technologies are as you forces of niature. As you said,
they are flooding our systems. But precisely it's a responsibility
of our socioeconomic political systems to channel those things and
to protect us from them, and I think that's what's
feeling the most actually at the moment now.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Of course, I'm actually quite optimistic about some of the
prospects for democracy, which is why I've asked for us
to have this conversation. One issue is that many people
think of democracy as putting a tick in a box
on a piece of paper every four or five or
sometimes seven years. But there are many other ways of
understanding what democracy is, what it might mean, and how
(03:38):
citizens might show their democratic intent.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
To take us through some of those.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Options democracies in crisis, but I think it's also right
for a revolution, a change in the way we practice
it and we conceptualize it, and I think there are
a lot of signs that point to possibly brighter future
that involves citizens and tapdoor collective wisdom and respect in
their dignity as not just voters, but as full on
members of the community. We have a lot of things
(04:05):
to say and contribute. A lot of those democratic innovations
are taking place in Europe at the moment, but there
are signs everywhere. In fact, the OSID has documented close
to six hundred deliberative minipublics around the world, so it's
catching on.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Some of the new innovations bring back a sense of dignity, respect, capability,
capacity to the individual citizen, and they say, you actually
do have the faculties to participate in the decision making
that otherwise takes place in the smoke filled back room
of a party headquarters. These are things that you have
called mini publics. What is a mini public and what
(04:42):
are the different sort of subtypes of.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Mini public So a mini public is, as the name indicates,
a sort of a miniature version of the latter public
that you select on the business of random selections through
civic lotteries.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Say what you mean by that? A civic lottery, a.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Civic lottery where it's a phrase that's been coined in
my world to try and make it more visual and enticing.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
So not the lottery that I lose every or use.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
No exactly you're supposed to win in that scenario. So basically,
you receive an email or you get a letter in
the mail that says, oh, you've been selected to join
this citizens' jury or the citizens Assembly, or this deliberative
pool where you're going to meet other people just like you,
selected at random from the entire population to deliberate about
issues of interest. Could be healthcare, it could be immigration,
(05:28):
it could be end of life issues, it could be infrastructures,
the economic policy, anything. And then at the end, the
group writes up a set of recommendations that are supposed
to be transmitted to the government.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So we take a random selection of the population, the
taller and the less tall, the more sporty, the less sporty,
the more interested in politics, less interested in politics, the men,
the women, the young, the old, working, the not working,
this random selection that represents the nation, and we give
them a really difficult question. You talked about end of
(06:05):
life or healthcare that politicians haven't been able to solve,
and you put them in the room and you hope
that at the end of that process they come up
with recommendations that are better than would otherwise have come
through the traditional political process, right.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I mean it sounds quite ambitious, Dare I say it?
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I suppose it sounds crazy to some people, but actually
it works. So the Citizens assembli Is in Ireland in
twenty twelve and twenty sixteen they were respectively on marriage
equality and abortion, contentious issue in a Catholic country like
Ireland where they had actually made it a crime. So
they had a sample of ninety nine randomly selected citizens
who deliberated over the course of several months, and at
(06:45):
the end they recommended that abortion be decriminalized and that
went to Parliament, and Parliament, which had been incapable of
coming up with that kind of conclusion over decades, put
that proposal to referendum and two third of the Irish
population approved of that changed.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So it really unblocked a clog in the political system
that had sat there for decades. When I was reading
about the Irish Citizens Assembly on abortion, I was really
fascinated by one part of the research, and it suggested
that the discussions amongst these participants were much more dignified
and were better able to deal with difficult questions than
(07:26):
the nature of the discussion that had happened within parliamentary
committees within the Irish Parliament, that those would be filled
with showboating and inflammatory talk and would steer away from
harder questions, and there seemed to be some evidence that
was the case just looking at that in general.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Is that your experience?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Absolutely, it's my experience, and I think the evidence shows
that's always the kids in Parliament's people grandstand and fight
and debate in this extremely adversarial manner. In Citizens Sam
Lizay actually deliberate the engage in respectful exchange of arguments
and views with people who disagree with them, but they
take them seriously and they listen carefully, And I think
(08:08):
the reason is structural. Like people who come in into
Parliament come in with a mandate or at least some
pre commitments and an allegiance to a party, so they
come with partisanship as a defining attitude, whereas in citizens
assemblies you have people who come in as who they are,
but no one knows whether they are Republican or Democrat.
Or pro life or pro choice. You don't know anything.
(08:31):
You just know that they are your peers. So it
fosters much more open mindedness and is much more conducive
to listening to each other.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And I'm quite curious about the individual's journey in that process.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
How do they feel.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
They come in shy and skeptical and vaguely distrustful of
the process, and they get to know each other, and
then by the third meeting usually it's like dating. I
always compare it to that, because there's a sort of
moment where they click and then they jail and the
form a collective. It's no longer just an aggregation of people.
(09:03):
It's truly a collective united by a common purpose, which
is very rare in our experience as citizens when we vote,
we don't have that. We have very sort of abstract
this idea of a collective. So they go through that,
and then by the end they usually say it's been
the most transformative experience of my life.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Now these citizens assemblies have a new fan in your
home country, which is France. I understand that President Macon
has and rather fallen for them.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yes, so I think the udo vests nudged him a little.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So these are the populist popular protests for the last
four or five years in France over initially cost of
living issues and now other issues of political representation and
so on.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Social movements basically triggered this deliberative experiment in the country
because in November twenty eighteen got really bad and so
Macron said, okay, let's talk to each other. So we
launched this great national debate and I was followed by
the first sort of nationwide city since assembly in my
country of France, with a convention on climate justice. And
(10:06):
because it was sufficiently successful. It wasn't perfect, but it
was sufficiently successful, he convened another one, the one on
end of life issues that I got to co govern.
I was on the governance committee of that one. And
this one was I dare say, more successful than the
first one, I think, because for many reasons, we were
the second to test this process. We had a slightly
easier topic I believe, narrower, less technical in many.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Respects, but emotionally very very important and touching on all
sorts of issues connecting to religion, culture, morality. Because it
was end of life, palliative care, questions of even of euthanasia.
I mean, these are difficult questions.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So you're right, they were very difficult, and particularly emotionally,
and so we planned for that actually by having a
psychologists onside from day one, and they were very useful
and absolutely needed the whole time. But what I meant
by it was slightly easier than climate justice, I think
it was because the country was ready to move in
the direction. I think over ninety percent of French people
(11:04):
are in favor of liberalizing the law and favoring some
kind of assisted suicide. And also the economic dimension or
costs involved in reforming the system I think are slightly
less daunting than on climate. So I think we managed
to get the group to work together and make proposals.
But my biggest source of pride, if you want, is
(11:25):
that we really maintain the trust of the citizens throughout
even though we made mistakes as a government of this Assembly.
We based it wrong at times, we organized votes that
quite didn't quite get to the right question. But somehow,
because we apologize and we are very transparent and as
accountable as we could be, the citizens maintain their trust
in us, and so that really helped the process succeed.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And briefly what was the final recommendation and how will
it get turned into a law.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
So the final recommendation is one, invests massively in palliative
care and make it so that it's a universal right
more or less and universally accessible. Second, liberalize the law
to allow for forms of assisted dying and forms of
euthenesia under conditions including of course consent right.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
A very very difficult, controversial issue.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
So let's think about where we've got to.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
We know that democracy is facing this tsunami of threats,
but we've also identified that there are ways citizens assemblies
amongst them, of getting citizens to look at difficult, contentious
political issues coming forward with a consensus, which then traditional
political systems can take forward and turn into law. But
(12:42):
I'm quite curious about why citizens assemblies actually work. What
is it about them that taps into this collective intelligence
and this desire to find a consensus.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
One I think is because they bring together this diverse
group of people that, in the Esque scenario is actually
descriptively representative of the larger population. You maximize what I
call the cognitive diversity of the group. You bring poor people,
you bring minorities, you bring a lot more women, you
bring a lot more young people and these perspectives are
(13:15):
currently lacking in our parliament. So when you bring that,
the richness of perspective and information that you get is
much higher.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Then.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
The other thing is that the process is conducive to
deliberation rather than debate or sophistry or antagonism and rhetoric.
It's really focused on Okay, we're in it together, we
have a problem to solve.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
How do we solve it? Or you do, of course
you do.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
But the differences that they're not rewarded for the behavior
the way the audition is the way politicians are rewarded
for that. On the contrary, it's very interesting because you
do have all the human types, so you have the
politicians type in those groups, but it doesn't work. You
do have also natural leaders that are actually very much respected.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
They have an influence. The voice really carries a lot
of weight.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
They do a lot of the work in the small groups,
and they're listened to by the other citizens. But that
doesn't mean that they're above the others. The only thing
that gives you more weight is if you have a
better argument or a better information.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
There are people who are taking you through this process
it's not like the novella Lord of the Flies. Right,
we're all just left on the island to figure our out,
You're right.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
So a third element is definitely the curation that goes
into this. Right, so you have expert facilitators at the
small group level that make sure that all voices are heard,
that there are not some dominant voices that crush the others,
that if there's a conflict, it's resolved peacefully.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
It is quite interesting because even if this sounds alien,
of course, most of these countries have already established the
principle that citizens drawn roundomly can get together in a
process and make judgment, because that's what a criminal jury
trial is. So we already have some sort of precedent
of this process.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Absolutely, and so this any publics are just taking the
concept and putting it on steroids.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
It's much bigger.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
For example, citizens a sound These range between one hundred
and three hundred and fifty people. They last much longer,
it can be month. They also are solving issues not
on the basis of unanimity but plurality or majogy role,
and they cover a lot more issues than just the
fit of one person.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Now, one area that I am really interested in right now,
moving at exponential rates is artificial intelligence, and a major
question is how do we govern artificial intelligence? How do
we get it to align to human values. Part of
the problem is we don't know what those values are,
and we don't know what people want from this technology.
(15:46):
How could we use many publics to look at that question?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So I think that in the ideal we'd have a
global deliberative process involving all of humanity at different levels,
of different qualities.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
But we don't organize any sort of formal enforced laws globally.
I mean, there are some global agreements, but countries break
them really nearly. We're organized by nation states fundamentally. But
you're saying for this it should be global.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Well, given the exponential dimension, I feel like there's an
urgency in finally setting up the global infrastructures we need.
So why not see the question of the I as
like the impulsion.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
To do that?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Where would the political legitimacy for that come from. In
the case of the right to life citizens Assembly in France,
the legitimacy came from the existing legitimate political authorities who
said we want this process to run. Who could give
a Global Citizens Assembly on AI any legitimacy.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I believe we'd have to start from the existing institution,
So I guess the UN it's not ideal, right, So
I think we have to work.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
With existing institutions at least.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
That's my experience with the successful Citizens Assembly is at
the national level they always start from a cooperation with
existing institution.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
So I think we have just done there.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So one version is a sort of an artificial intelligence
version of the cop process that was run by the UN.
But could you do something else? Could you achieve that
legitimacy through a multilateral process where you just get enough
of the players to get together a bit like a snowball,
So you get the US and France and the UK
and perhaps Brazil and Nigeria and India, and then you've
(17:25):
got enough momentum perhaps to drag a lot.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Of Right, we knew what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
All these countries are going to pick up best on
Briters and it's going to be yet another doubles of
the origin and beautiful making.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Decisions for the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And I think that finally we have a chance to
do something a little bit different. We have the technologies,
the civic technologies to involve an Afghan shepherd, a Brazilian
seam stress, a Chinese software developer to talk about issues
that will affect all of us. I think it's time
to be a bit more ambitious, more democratic, and more visionary.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I think AI could help. For example, I was talking
about the rule of those facilitators.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Right, the facilitator who build.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
They're kind yeah, they're kind of indispensable because it's very
hard to synth this as the input right there, so
in the output.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So could I help with that? I believe that.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I think it would bring down costs, it would perhaps DEBAI.
It's actually a lot of what's happening, and as long
as humans are still in control at the end and throughout,
I think it would allow us to scale the citizens
deliberation that we are able to conduct at a national
level to the global level.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
The bit when you surprised me was when you said, well,
we could actually use these technologies to ensure global participation.
So that's a new methodology in a way that you're
introducing this. So how would you bring the Afghan shepherd in?
Would it be through a smartphone or would it be
flying him or her to whichever city this is actually
(18:55):
going to take place in.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Okay, So if we're going to go why not crazy
with this thought experiment, I would bring a thousand of
them so at random from different locations in the world.
You bring them into some kind of like really symbolic
place for a sufficient amount of time that they can
get to know each other, get to understand the process,
and listen to experts, because of course experts in all
(19:17):
these processes are crucial, but they have to be always
use that phrase, they have to.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Be on tap and not on top.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
They can't dictate the solution and the answer should come
from the citizens themselves. And I guarantee you this will work.
They will produce some kind of set of recommendations, and
you can replicate that at every level, at the national level,
at the regional level, at the city level.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
But at least you've.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Heard the voice of global citizens on this issue that's
going to affect all of us.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
The output actually seems to me, for the first time,
we would have a global consensus on an issue that
is not a set of backroom deals exactly papered over
to look like a consensus, but actually is a real consensus.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yes, it won't be the product a series of compromises
and negotiations. It will be the product of a deliberation.
So the way I see it is that when you
start doing them locally and you get the output, that
will form the material that this Global Assembly can think about,
rather than go straight to the global.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
But these things take time to set up. But the
thing that struck me was that Macon's you told me
yesterday got the Grand Debates going not in two years.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
But in a co two months. Yeah, right, in two months.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
And we got COVID vaccines not in eleven years, but
in sixteen months. So we've got precedent of getting these
things up and running very very quickly.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
So, in addition to going to the Moon, let's focus
on doing something really bold and ambitious about democracy.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
So let me recap where we've got to. We recognize
now that citizens Assemblies could be a very powerful tool
to revive and refresh democratic engagement and tackle some of
these issues lezation and lack of trust. We've seen, and
we've got an increasing evidence base that they work across
the world.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
What stands in the way.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Of them becoming part of the political rhythm of life,
the way that a congressional committee is just nothing out
of the ordinary.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
They happen all the time.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
What's stopping us from doing all this, I think is
spathly the usual conflict of interest coming from people who
benefit from the status quo, right, But it's also a
lack of imagination and attachment to all the ideas about legitimacy, accountability.
What democracy looks like an unwillingness to try at new.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Things, the one issue being, of course, that if you're
a politician, a process like this looks like you're giving
up power.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
It is giving up power.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
In fact, i'll tell you what happened on the first
day of the Convention on end of life. The President
of the National Assembly came to greet this convention.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
And the President of the National Assembly is that the
equivalent of the Senate leader.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
What it's more the House of Representatives there But anyway,
but they had felt sidelined by the first convention because
they felt like Macme was just trying to connect with
citizens without going through Parliament. So this time around she
came to address the new convention and it was a
polite thing to do, and we appreciated it. But then
the thing she said was you are not representative of
(22:23):
the people. You have a legitimacy, but not that to decide,
and she was very angry. She said something like, it's
out of the question that randomly selected people replace elected officials, But.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
In fact I think that's what we should do.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
We should not necessarily replace them, but there should be
a transfer of meaningful power from elected assemblies which have
lost a lot of legitimacy, which are not doing their work,
to those citizens who can actually do the job better
if it takes away some of their power. And it
turns out that elected officials remain quite good at certain things, fine,
but there needs to be a registribution of power, and
(22:57):
a lot of people are not comfortable with that. Tooth
and nail to keep things as they are or do
what you know, it's called a participation washing when you
pretend to do these things but you don't empower them,
so they are just purely ornamental.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
So revolutions aside.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It sounds like we have to figure out how to
get over this impediment of the elites not wanting to
give up power. But when you also look at major
political change, it often requires a charismatic leader. We can
think of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair
in the UK. Does a movement like this need a
(23:35):
charismatic political leader who can stand up and articulate it?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Oh God, I hope not.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I think there are other examples, like Black Lives Matter
the Yellow Vests.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
There are no charismatic leaders.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
It's all movements of the people with an express desire
to be as equal it. You know, in the Black
Lives Matter movement, leader fool rather than having a cult
figure showing the way. I think this focus on individuals
as saviors is not good.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I think that individuals as saviors is a malaise that
actually exists in the technology industry as well.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
We look at these founders as entrepreneurs, as saviors, and
we ignore the role of process and participation and engagement
of very large numbers of people.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
They're sort of twins, aren't they.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
If you ask engineers, I think they know who made
the iPad, and it's not the CEO.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
The CU is governing this thing.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
But I think the culture of the leaders, it comes
from our bias towards individuals. Also the training we give
our elites whether it's in schools that I went to,
where it's all about succeeding as an individual achievement as
opposed to a group achievement. It comes from the business
schools where we inculcate in students worship of the industry captain.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
All of that has to change. I think our education
system is inculcating the wrong value.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
It seems like another thing that we could do to
make this system more prevalent is to make these assemblies permanent.
Some of the ones we've talked about in our discussion
are one offs. They may run for several weeks or months,
but they look at single issues and then they disband.
And I know that in some places, the city of
Brussels in Belgium have established permanent assemblies to look at
(25:24):
key issues. I think that could be one way of
normalizing that, perhaps having even a permanent citizens assembly on
artificial intelligence, for example.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yes, I think that's probably what we should head for next.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
In fact, I always thought that the main purpose of
a randomly sticted assembly of a large size should be
to be a general agenda center. Just what was the
keys in ancient Ethens? In mentionine Athens, we always focus on
the people's assembly where people were shouting and voting, but
the agenda setter was actually a body of five hundred
randomly slicted citizens.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
That's a lot of citizens, considering we only need a
thousand for seven and a half billion, eight billion population Earth.
To look at Ai and Athens needed five hundred out
of yes, a few tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
They didn't have probability theory. I don't know how they
figured out that number. But I'm also in awe of
how they run that thing.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Because, as I said, I was part of a group
that tried to govern an assembly of one hundred and
eighty six and it was so difficult. So how do
you do it at the scale of five hundred or
one thousand. We still have to figure out a number
of things before we can do this perfectly right, But
I think it can be done.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I'm an early signals person. I'm a systems person.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
The things I look at are at the earliest part
of their exponential takeoff rate. So I look at these
processes and I think, actually, there is possibly something that
is going on here. There is some momentum to help
us rethink what this engagement looks like. If this continued,
how does that actually reshape with the sort of the
(26:52):
systems that we have within our countries.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I see it more as diffusing throughout society at large.
So you would have, yes, at the national level, the
more visible institution that are staffed with randomly selective citizens,
hopefully on a permanent businis. But more importantly, I think
than this focus on the big sort of assemblies, I
think at every level, in schools, in hospitals, in firms,
you could have randomly selictive bodies of citizens integrated into
(27:17):
the decision making process. So to bring in this perspective
of the lived in experience ordinary wisdom, and I think
it would sort of diffuse through our society and mix
for much healthier society in general.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
The premise for our conversation today is that we will
in a few years look back at this time as
a turning point for democracy, not its death, but the
start of a new golden age.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Do you think that's possible.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I think that's possible.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I think there's nothing guaranteed, and we have to work
really hard to make it happen, but I think it's
definitely possible.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Hello, Lonsmore, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Reflecting on my conversation with Ellen, I'm struck by the
increasing amount of evidence there is that deliberative systems work.
They reduce polarization, they find commonalities between groups, and they
come up with creative solutions to difficult political questions. But
they do threaten many existing players within our politics, grandstanding
(28:24):
politicians and the parties that support them. Will those groups
readily give up their power? I'm not so sure. But
as exercises in deliberative democracy have more success, I think
they'll gain more credibility and little by little they might
unclog our jammed politics. Thanks for listening to the Exponentially podcast.
(28:50):
If you enjoy the show, please leave a review or rating.
It really does help others find us. The Exponentially podcast
is presented by me azeem As are the sounders. Signer
is Will Horrocks. The research was led by Chloe Ippah
and music composed by Emily Green and John Zarcone. The
show is produced by Frederick Cassella, Maria Garrilov and me Azimazar.
(29:11):
Special thanks to Sage Bauman, Jeff Grocott and Magnus Henrikson.
The executive producers are Andrew Barden, Adam Kamiski, and Kyle Kramer.
David Ravella is the managing editor. Exponentially was created by
Frederick Cassella and is an Eat the Pie I plus
one limited production in association with Bloomberg LC
We're at the beginning of a new golden age for democracy.
That is a premise for today's conversation. I'm Azimazar. Welcome
to the Exponentially podcast. Democracy is having a popularity crisis.
Recent research found that the young are more disaffected with
it than at any point in the last fifty years.
(00:26):
Polarization is a common problem. The basic questions of state,
economic growth and fairness seem out of reach, and new
challenges technology, climate change, and social division loom. What if
we could engage people in new ways and have them
deliberate over the toughest political issues. Could this put democracy
(00:50):
back on track. I've come to New York to discuss
these questions with an expert on the subject, Professor Elen Londermore.
Democracy is having quite a tough time right now, isn't it.
We've had trust in government in the US its lowest
ever in history. Around forty percent of Americans think that
(01:13):
the twenty twenty election was rigged, and of course there
was January the sick. These are all signs of quite
deep rooted problems, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, they are. It's all around the world. Actually, I
think that democracies are in trouble. Two or third of
Americans and French and German think that governments are corrupt.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
This is really worrying. It's been going on for a while,
but I feel like the crisis is getting really acute.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And of course it's beyond the richer Western nations as well.
We see in India, the world's biggest democracy by population,
taking steps towards authoritarianism, and we look at the traditionally
the Middle East's most robust democracy Israel with people in
the streets.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yes, it's probably worse in those regions because you don't
have this sort of a long history and the social
welfare that helps the smooth over some of those difficulties.
So I think the crisis is very strong there as well.
And the one sort of light in the Middle East
was supposed to be Tunisia, but they are too. You
see a return to authorite ian practices and.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Set against this, we've got the new challenges of technology.
We know that over the past twenty years, technology has
created a small number of winners and lots of losers,
whether it's technology in the form of globalization, whether it's
technology in the form of the change in economies. And
(02:36):
now we've got artificial intelligence looming through the friendly face
of chat, GPT and others, threatening to flood our media
and social media environment with fake material, material that we
can't tell apart from things that are true, so that
again appears to be another force that we're going to
have to contend with. This is all looks to me
(02:57):
like it's quite bad news for me.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
These technologies are as you forces of niature. As you said,
they are flooding our systems. But precisely it's a responsibility
of our socioeconomic political systems to channel those things and
to protect us from them, and I think that's what's
feeling the most actually at the moment now.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Of course, I'm actually quite optimistic about some of the
prospects for democracy, which is why I've asked for us
to have this conversation. One issue is that many people
think of democracy as putting a tick in a box
on a piece of paper every four or five or
sometimes seven years. But there are many other ways of
understanding what democracy is, what it might mean, and how
(03:38):
citizens might show their democratic intent.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
To take us through some of those.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Options democracies in crisis, but I think it's also right
for a revolution, a change in the way we practice
it and we conceptualize it, and I think there are
a lot of signs that point to possibly brighter future
that involves citizens and tapdoor collective wisdom and respect in
their dignity as not just voters, but as full on
members of the community. We have a lot of things
(04:05):
to say and contribute. A lot of those democratic innovations
are taking place in Europe at the moment, but there
are signs everywhere. In fact, the OSID has documented close
to six hundred deliberative minipublics around the world, so it's
catching on.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Some of the new innovations bring back a sense of dignity, respect, capability,
capacity to the individual citizen, and they say, you actually
do have the faculties to participate in the decision making
that otherwise takes place in the smoke filled back room
of a party headquarters. These are things that you have
called mini publics. What is a mini public and what
(04:42):
are the different sort of subtypes of.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Mini public So a mini public is, as the name indicates,
a sort of a miniature version of the latter public
that you select on the business of random selections through
civic lotteries.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Say what you mean by that? A civic lottery, a.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Civic lottery where it's a phrase that's been coined in
my world to try and make it more visual and enticing.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
So not the lottery that I lose every or use.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
No exactly you're supposed to win in that scenario. So basically,
you receive an email or you get a letter in
the mail that says, oh, you've been selected to join
this citizens' jury or the citizens Assembly, or this deliberative
pool where you're going to meet other people just like you,
selected at random from the entire population to deliberate about
issues of interest. Could be healthcare, it could be immigration,
(05:28):
it could be end of life issues, it could be infrastructures,
the economic policy, anything. And then at the end, the
group writes up a set of recommendations that are supposed
to be transmitted to the government.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So we take a random selection of the population, the
taller and the less tall, the more sporty, the less sporty,
the more interested in politics, less interested in politics, the men,
the women, the young, the old, working, the not working,
this random selection that represents the nation, and we give
them a really difficult question. You talked about end of
(06:05):
life or healthcare that politicians haven't been able to solve,
and you put them in the room and you hope
that at the end of that process they come up
with recommendations that are better than would otherwise have come
through the traditional political process, right.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
I mean it sounds quite ambitious, Dare I say it?
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I suppose it sounds crazy to some people, but actually
it works. So the Citizens assembli Is in Ireland in
twenty twelve and twenty sixteen they were respectively on marriage
equality and abortion, contentious issue in a Catholic country like
Ireland where they had actually made it a crime. So
they had a sample of ninety nine randomly selected citizens
who deliberated over the course of several months, and at
(06:45):
the end they recommended that abortion be decriminalized and that
went to Parliament, and Parliament, which had been incapable of
coming up with that kind of conclusion over decades, put
that proposal to referendum and two third of the Irish
population approved of that changed.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So it really unblocked a clog in the political system
that had sat there for decades. When I was reading
about the Irish Citizens Assembly on abortion, I was really
fascinated by one part of the research, and it suggested
that the discussions amongst these participants were much more dignified
and were better able to deal with difficult questions than
(07:26):
the nature of the discussion that had happened within parliamentary
committees within the Irish Parliament, that those would be filled
with showboating and inflammatory talk and would steer away from
harder questions, and there seemed to be some evidence that
was the case just looking at that in general.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Is that your experience?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Absolutely, it's my experience, and I think the evidence shows
that's always the kids in Parliament's people grandstand and fight
and debate in this extremely adversarial manner. In Citizens Sam
Lizay actually deliberate the engage in respectful exchange of arguments
and views with people who disagree with them, but they
take them seriously and they listen carefully, And I think
(08:08):
the reason is structural. Like people who come in into
Parliament come in with a mandate or at least some
pre commitments and an allegiance to a party, so they
come with partisanship as a defining attitude, whereas in citizens
assemblies you have people who come in as who they are,
but no one knows whether they are Republican or Democrat.
Or pro life or pro choice. You don't know anything.
(08:31):
You just know that they are your peers. So it
fosters much more open mindedness and is much more conducive
to listening to each other.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And I'm quite curious about the individual's journey in that process.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
How do they feel.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
They come in shy and skeptical and vaguely distrustful of
the process, and they get to know each other, and
then by the third meeting usually it's like dating. I
always compare it to that, because there's a sort of
moment where they click and then they jail and the
form a collective. It's no longer just an aggregation of people.
(09:03):
It's truly a collective united by a common purpose, which
is very rare in our experience as citizens when we vote,
we don't have that. We have very sort of abstract
this idea of a collective. So they go through that,
and then by the end they usually say it's been
the most transformative experience of my life.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Now these citizens assemblies have a new fan in your
home country, which is France. I understand that President Macon
has and rather fallen for them.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yes, so I think the udo vests nudged him a little.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
So these are the populist popular protests for the last
four or five years in France over initially cost of
living issues and now other issues of political representation and
so on.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Social movements basically triggered this deliberative experiment in the country
because in November twenty eighteen got really bad and so
Macron said, okay, let's talk to each other. So we
launched this great national debate and I was followed by
the first sort of nationwide city since assembly in my
country of France, with a convention on climate justice. And
(10:06):
because it was sufficiently successful. It wasn't perfect, but it
was sufficiently successful, he convened another one, the one on
end of life issues that I got to co govern.
I was on the governance committee of that one. And
this one was I dare say, more successful than the
first one, I think, because for many reasons, we were
the second to test this process. We had a slightly
easier topic I believe, narrower, less technical in many.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Respects, but emotionally very very important and touching on all
sorts of issues connecting to religion, culture, morality. Because it
was end of life, palliative care, questions of even of euthanasia.
I mean, these are difficult questions.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So you're right, they were very difficult, and particularly emotionally,
and so we planned for that actually by having a
psychologists onside from day one, and they were very useful
and absolutely needed the whole time. But what I meant
by it was slightly easier than climate justice, I think
it was because the country was ready to move in
the direction. I think over ninety percent of French people
(11:04):
are in favor of liberalizing the law and favoring some
kind of assisted suicide. And also the economic dimension or
costs involved in reforming the system I think are slightly
less daunting than on climate. So I think we managed
to get the group to work together and make proposals.
But my biggest source of pride, if you want, is
(11:25):
that we really maintain the trust of the citizens throughout
even though we made mistakes as a government of this Assembly.
We based it wrong at times, we organized votes that
quite didn't quite get to the right question. But somehow,
because we apologize and we are very transparent and as
accountable as we could be, the citizens maintain their trust
in us, and so that really helped the process succeed.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And briefly what was the final recommendation and how will
it get turned into a law.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
So the final recommendation is one, invests massively in palliative
care and make it so that it's a universal right
more or less and universally accessible. Second, liberalize the law
to allow for forms of assisted dying and forms of
euthenesia under conditions including of course consent right.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
A very very difficult, controversial issue.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
So let's think about where we've got to.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
We know that democracy is facing this tsunami of threats,
but we've also identified that there are ways citizens assemblies
amongst them, of getting citizens to look at difficult, contentious
political issues coming forward with a consensus, which then traditional
political systems can take forward and turn into law. But
(12:42):
I'm quite curious about why citizens assemblies actually work. What
is it about them that taps into this collective intelligence
and this desire to find a consensus.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
One I think is because they bring together this diverse
group of people that, in the Esque scenario is actually
descriptively representative of the larger population. You maximize what I
call the cognitive diversity of the group. You bring poor people,
you bring minorities, you bring a lot more women, you
bring a lot more young people and these perspectives are
(13:15):
currently lacking in our parliament. So when you bring that,
the richness of perspective and information that you get is
much higher.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Then.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
The other thing is that the process is conducive to
deliberation rather than debate or sophistry or antagonism and rhetoric.
It's really focused on Okay, we're in it together, we
have a problem to solve.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
How do we solve it? Or you do, of course
you do.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
But the differences that they're not rewarded for the behavior
the way the audition is the way politicians are rewarded
for that. On the contrary, it's very interesting because you
do have all the human types, so you have the
politicians type in those groups, but it doesn't work. You
do have also natural leaders that are actually very much respected.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
They have an influence. The voice really carries a lot
of weight.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
They do a lot of the work in the small groups,
and they're listened to by the other citizens. But that
doesn't mean that they're above the others. The only thing
that gives you more weight is if you have a
better argument or a better information.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
There are people who are taking you through this process
it's not like the novella Lord of the Flies. Right,
we're all just left on the island to figure our out,
You're right.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
So a third element is definitely the curation that goes
into this. Right, so you have expert facilitators at the
small group level that make sure that all voices are heard,
that there are not some dominant voices that crush the others,
that if there's a conflict, it's resolved peacefully.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
It is quite interesting because even if this sounds alien,
of course, most of these countries have already established the
principle that citizens drawn roundomly can get together in a
process and make judgment, because that's what a criminal jury
trial is. So we already have some sort of precedent
of this process.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Absolutely, and so this any publics are just taking the
concept and putting it on steroids.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
It's much bigger.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
For example, citizens a sound These range between one hundred
and three hundred and fifty people. They last much longer,
it can be month. They also are solving issues not
on the basis of unanimity but plurality or majogy role,
and they cover a lot more issues than just the
fit of one person.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Now, one area that I am really interested in right now,
moving at exponential rates is artificial intelligence, and a major
question is how do we govern artificial intelligence? How do
we get it to align to human values. Part of
the problem is we don't know what those values are,
and we don't know what people want from this technology.
(15:46):
How could we use many publics to look at that question?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So I think that in the ideal we'd have a
global deliberative process involving all of humanity at different levels,
of different qualities.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
But we don't organize any sort of formal enforced laws globally.
I mean, there are some global agreements, but countries break
them really nearly. We're organized by nation states fundamentally. But
you're saying for this it should be global.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Well, given the exponential dimension, I feel like there's an
urgency in finally setting up the global infrastructures we need.
So why not see the question of the I as
like the impulsion.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
To do that?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Where would the political legitimacy for that come from. In
the case of the right to life citizens Assembly in France,
the legitimacy came from the existing legitimate political authorities who
said we want this process to run. Who could give
a Global Citizens Assembly on AI any legitimacy.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I believe we'd have to start from the existing institution,
So I guess the UN it's not ideal, right, So
I think we have to work.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
With existing institutions at least.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
That's my experience with the successful Citizens Assembly is at
the national level they always start from a cooperation with
existing institution.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
So I think we have just done there.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So one version is a sort of an artificial intelligence
version of the cop process that was run by the UN.
But could you do something else? Could you achieve that
legitimacy through a multilateral process where you just get enough
of the players to get together a bit like a snowball,
So you get the US and France and the UK
and perhaps Brazil and Nigeria and India, and then you've
(17:25):
got enough momentum perhaps to drag a lot.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Of Right, we knew what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
All these countries are going to pick up best on
Briters and it's going to be yet another doubles of
the origin and beautiful making.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Decisions for the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And I think that finally we have a chance to
do something a little bit different. We have the technologies,
the civic technologies to involve an Afghan shepherd, a Brazilian
seam stress, a Chinese software developer to talk about issues
that will affect all of us. I think it's time
to be a bit more ambitious, more democratic, and more visionary.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I think AI could help. For example, I was talking
about the rule of those facilitators.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Right, the facilitator who build.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
They're kind yeah, they're kind of indispensable because it's very
hard to synth this as the input right there, so
in the output.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So could I help with that? I believe that.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I think it would bring down costs, it would perhaps DEBAI.
It's actually a lot of what's happening, and as long
as humans are still in control at the end and throughout,
I think it would allow us to scale the citizens
deliberation that we are able to conduct at a national
level to the global level.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
The bit when you surprised me was when you said, well,
we could actually use these technologies to ensure global participation.
So that's a new methodology in a way that you're
introducing this. So how would you bring the Afghan shepherd in?
Would it be through a smartphone or would it be
flying him or her to whichever city this is actually
(18:55):
going to take place in.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Okay, So if we're going to go why not crazy
with this thought experiment, I would bring a thousand of
them so at random from different locations in the world.
You bring them into some kind of like really symbolic
place for a sufficient amount of time that they can
get to know each other, get to understand the process,
and listen to experts, because of course experts in all
(19:17):
these processes are crucial, but they have to be always
use that phrase, they have to.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Be on tap and not on top.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
They can't dictate the solution and the answer should come
from the citizens themselves. And I guarantee you this will work.
They will produce some kind of set of recommendations, and
you can replicate that at every level, at the national level,
at the regional level, at the city level.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
But at least you've.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Heard the voice of global citizens on this issue that's
going to affect all of us.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
The output actually seems to me, for the first time,
we would have a global consensus on an issue that
is not a set of backroom deals exactly papered over
to look like a consensus, but actually is a real consensus.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yes, it won't be the product a series of compromises
and negotiations. It will be the product of a deliberation.
So the way I see it is that when you
start doing them locally and you get the output, that
will form the material that this Global Assembly can think about,
rather than go straight to the global.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
But these things take time to set up. But the
thing that struck me was that Macon's you told me
yesterday got the Grand Debates going not in two years.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
But in a co two months. Yeah, right, in two months.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
And we got COVID vaccines not in eleven years, but
in sixteen months. So we've got precedent of getting these
things up and running very very quickly.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
So, in addition to going to the Moon, let's focus
on doing something really bold and ambitious about democracy.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
So let me recap where we've got to. We recognize
now that citizens Assemblies could be a very powerful tool
to revive and refresh democratic engagement and tackle some of
these issues lezation and lack of trust. We've seen, and
we've got an increasing evidence base that they work across
the world.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
What stands in the way.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Of them becoming part of the political rhythm of life,
the way that a congressional committee is just nothing out
of the ordinary.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
They happen all the time.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
What's stopping us from doing all this, I think is
spathly the usual conflict of interest coming from people who
benefit from the status quo, right, But it's also a
lack of imagination and attachment to all the ideas about legitimacy, accountability.
What democracy looks like an unwillingness to try at new.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Things, the one issue being, of course, that if you're
a politician, a process like this looks like you're giving
up power.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
It is giving up power.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
In fact, i'll tell you what happened on the first
day of the Convention on end of life. The President
of the National Assembly came to greet this convention.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
And the President of the National Assembly is that the
equivalent of the Senate leader.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
What it's more the House of Representatives there But anyway,
but they had felt sidelined by the first convention because
they felt like Macme was just trying to connect with
citizens without going through Parliament. So this time around she
came to address the new convention and it was a
polite thing to do, and we appreciated it. But then
the thing she said was you are not representative of
(22:23):
the people. You have a legitimacy, but not that to decide,
and she was very angry. She said something like, it's
out of the question that randomly selected people replace elected officials, But.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
In fact I think that's what we should do.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
We should not necessarily replace them, but there should be
a transfer of meaningful power from elected assemblies which have
lost a lot of legitimacy, which are not doing their work,
to those citizens who can actually do the job better
if it takes away some of their power. And it
turns out that elected officials remain quite good at certain things, fine,
but there needs to be a registribution of power, and
(22:57):
a lot of people are not comfortable with that. Tooth
and nail to keep things as they are or do
what you know, it's called a participation washing when you
pretend to do these things but you don't empower them,
so they are just purely ornamental.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
So revolutions aside.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It sounds like we have to figure out how to
get over this impediment of the elites not wanting to
give up power. But when you also look at major
political change, it often requires a charismatic leader. We can
think of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair
in the UK. Does a movement like this need a
(23:35):
charismatic political leader who can stand up and articulate it?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Oh God, I hope not.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I think there are other examples, like Black Lives Matter
the Yellow Vests.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
There are no charismatic leaders.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
It's all movements of the people with an express desire
to be as equal it. You know, in the Black
Lives Matter movement, leader fool rather than having a cult
figure showing the way. I think this focus on individuals
as saviors is not good.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I think that individuals as saviors is a malaise that
actually exists in the technology industry as well.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
We look at these founders as entrepreneurs, as saviors, and
we ignore the role of process and participation and engagement
of very large numbers of people.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
They're sort of twins, aren't they.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
If you ask engineers, I think they know who made
the iPad, and it's not the CEO.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
The CU is governing this thing.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
But I think the culture of the leaders, it comes
from our bias towards individuals. Also the training we give
our elites whether it's in schools that I went to,
where it's all about succeeding as an individual achievement as
opposed to a group achievement. It comes from the business
schools where we inculcate in students worship of the industry captain.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
All of that has to change. I think our education
system is inculcating the wrong value.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
It seems like another thing that we could do to
make this system more prevalent is to make these assemblies permanent.
Some of the ones we've talked about in our discussion
are one offs. They may run for several weeks or months,
but they look at single issues and then they disband.
And I know that in some places, the city of
Brussels in Belgium have established permanent assemblies to look at
(25:24):
key issues. I think that could be one way of
normalizing that, perhaps having even a permanent citizens assembly on
artificial intelligence, for example.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yes, I think that's probably what we should head for next.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
In fact, I always thought that the main purpose of
a randomly sticted assembly of a large size should be
to be a general agenda center. Just what was the
keys in ancient Ethens? In mentionine Athens, we always focus on
the people's assembly where people were shouting and voting, but
the agenda setter was actually a body of five hundred
randomly slicted citizens.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
That's a lot of citizens, considering we only need a
thousand for seven and a half billion, eight billion population Earth.
To look at Ai and Athens needed five hundred out
of yes, a few tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
They didn't have probability theory. I don't know how they
figured out that number. But I'm also in awe of
how they run that thing.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Because, as I said, I was part of a group
that tried to govern an assembly of one hundred and
eighty six and it was so difficult. So how do
you do it at the scale of five hundred or
one thousand. We still have to figure out a number
of things before we can do this perfectly right, But
I think it can be done.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I'm an early signals person. I'm a systems person.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
The things I look at are at the earliest part
of their exponential takeoff rate. So I look at these
processes and I think, actually, there is possibly something that
is going on here. There is some momentum to help
us rethink what this engagement looks like. If this continued,
how does that actually reshape with the sort of the
(26:52):
systems that we have within our countries.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I see it more as diffusing throughout society at large.
So you would have, yes, at the national level, the
more visible institution that are staffed with randomly selective citizens,
hopefully on a permanent businis. But more importantly, I think
than this focus on the big sort of assemblies, I
think at every level, in schools, in hospitals, in firms,
you could have randomly selictive bodies of citizens integrated into
(27:17):
the decision making process. So to bring in this perspective
of the lived in experience ordinary wisdom, and I think
it would sort of diffuse through our society and mix
for much healthier society in general.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
The premise for our conversation today is that we will
in a few years look back at this time as
a turning point for democracy, not its death, but the
start of a new golden age.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Do you think that's possible.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
I think that's possible.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
I think there's nothing guaranteed, and we have to work
really hard to make it happen, but I think it's
definitely possible.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Hello, Lonsmore, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Reflecting on my conversation with Ellen, I'm struck by the
increasing amount of evidence there is that deliberative systems work.
They reduce polarization, they find commonalities between groups, and they
come up with creative solutions to difficult political questions. But
they do threaten many existing players within our politics, grandstanding
(28:24):
politicians and the parties that support them. Will those groups
readily give up their power? I'm not so sure. But
as exercises in deliberative democracy have more success, I think
they'll gain more credibility and little by little they might
unclog our jammed politics. Thanks for listening to the Exponentially podcast.
(28:50):
If you enjoy the show, please leave a review or rating.
It really does help others find us. The Exponentially podcast
is presented by me azeem As are the sounders. Signer
is Will Horrocks. The research was led by Chloe Ippah
and music composed by Emily Green and John Zarcone. The
show is produced by Frederick Cassella, Maria Garrilov and me Azimazar.
(29:11):
Special thanks to Sage Bauman, Jeff Grocott and Magnus Henrikson.
The executive producers are Andrew Barden, Adam Kamiski, and Kyle Kramer.
David Ravella is the managing editor. Exponentially was created by
Frederick Cassella and is an Eat the Pie I plus
one limited production in association with Bloomberg LC
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