WEBVTT - Circles in a World Made for Triangles (with Pia Mancini) 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.520 Yeah. Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, a 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:08.400 podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a legal status. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.639 This season is all about tech and how it can 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.960 bring us together instead of tearing us apart. We're bringing 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.720 you the people using technology for so much more than 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.000 revenue and user growth. They're using it to help us citizen. 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:38.800 It's October and a group of thirty or so revolutionaries 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.840 in Buenos Aires, Argentina are poised to infiltrate a seemingly 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:49.519 impenetrable fortress the government. And as they approached the palace 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.720 of the Argentine National Congress, they told with them the 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:58.480 symbol of their movement, a twenty foot tall wooden Trojan horse. 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.880 M yeah, a Trojan horse like from Greek mythology. And 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:06.120 if you need a little refresher on that story, it 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:15.560 goes like this. During the Trojan War, the Greek's built 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.319 this giant Trojan horse as a gift to the Trojans. 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:22.760 Little did the Trojans know that the Greek warriors were 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:29.080 actually hiding inside the horse. When the coast was clear, 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:51.160 the Greeks emerged and totally sacked the city. Now, these 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:56.960 Argentine citizens they've got the same plan to sneak into 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:01.520 Congress and disturb the political order from the inside. They 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:06.760 are Partio de laded or in English, the net Party, 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.200 as in the Internet. There are a new political party 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.840 in Argentina tackling one of democracy's biggest problems. Our democracy 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.760 has remained the same for the past two hundred years. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:24.760 We're twenty century citizens interacting with nineteenth central institutions. Today 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.800 we can speak for ourselves in almost every aspect of life, 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.280 but we can only tell our governments what we want 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.519 once every few years, and in between elections we must 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:43.280 remain silent. Partito de laded is running for seats in 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:47.960 Congress and they have a very different platform. They created 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:52.280 an app called democracy Os where citizens could cast their 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.800 own votes on legislation. If elected, the Partio de Larded 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.120 representative would vote according to how citizens have voted on 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.960 the app. The candidates are themselves the trojan horse. If 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.080 they get into Congress, they would sneak every voice on 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.800 democracy Os into Congress with them. Citizens wouldn't have to 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.440 wait for years to speak, they'd have a say on 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:22.160 every piece of legislation. As the party pulls this trojan 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:27.440 horse through the streets. Children run alongside the procession. An 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.000 excited crowd gathers when it comes to a stop at 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:40.320 the doors of Congress. The party chance when you can 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:47.120 network awaken who it was very powerful in the crowd 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.760 is pa Mancini, one of the leaders of Partito de 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:55.480 lad It's hard to make change happen, but we must 0:03:55.640 --> 0:04:01.280 move from protest to construction. Her word that October would 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.360 be just the beginning of a lifelong pursuit to empower 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.600 citizen voices. Since then, Pia has put her imagination to 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.800 work building technologies that help people organize around the causes 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:19.159 that matter to them. And now eight years later, she 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.800 isn't just trying to rewire broken systems from the inside, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.760 She's making whole new systems entirely. Pia has developed this 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.560 platform called Open Collective, and with it she's putting economic 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.400 power in the hands of communities all across the globe. 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.040 So how does somebody go from protesting at Congress's doorstep 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:46.520 to building a new economic infrastructure and whatever happened to 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:52.840 Partido de Laded. Pia Mancini tells us her story after 0:04:52.880 --> 0:05:15.160 the break. Yeah, hello, so nice to see It's so 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.600 nice to see you tube A welcome. Thank you. So 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.039 let's start with the basics. Can you introduce yourself and 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:30.080 what you do. I'm PM and Chinni and I'm co 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:35.400 founder and CEO of Open Collective and i am the 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:40.599 mother of almost six year old who studied elementary yesterday. 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.880 So it's very exciting. Are you excited about the school? 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:49.279 I am excited. The amount of like relief and exhaustion 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:54.080 in your voice, I believe you are exactly what is 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:58.599 open collective. Open Collective at the core is an open 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:02.839 finances are transparent finances platform that lets you fundraise and 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.640 spend money for your community and full transparency and repair 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:12.120 that with a global network of legal entities. That what 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.440 they do is they hold the money for those communities 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.480 and they deal with reporting and taxes and government so 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.839 communities can focus on what they do and not focus 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:27.080 on talking to accountants and lawyers. You say this is 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.760 for communities. Who is Open Collective for more practically? Can 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:36.320 you get specific? Yes? So we are mostly working with 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:43.159 two large ecosystems, the open source ecosystem and the solidarity economy. 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.960 So we are helping both open source projects across the 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:52.120 world to fundraise like as an open source software projects. Yeah, absolutely, 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:56.240 So open source communities open source software projects are in 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.160 general faults around the world who are coming to other 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:05.080 using a platform like gi hub for example, to create software. 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.880 Companies and users want to support these open source projects. 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.000 They want to give them funding so the maintainers can 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.720 keep working on them because you know, otherwise it's volunteer time. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.440 But they don't have word to send the money. So 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.360 imagine Google trying to send five thou dollars to a 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:27.119 papal account in Ukraine that will get flagged real quick, 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:32.280 real quick. So it's easier for Google to send funding 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.520 to the open Source Collective, which is one of the 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:36.960 non for profits we created. We have a network of 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.320 three hundred non for profits around the world and we 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.720 give fiscal sponsorship and you know, an umbrella organization to 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.840 the open source projects. We currently have three thousand projects, 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:52.080 three thousand open source projects. Yeah and yeah, okay, this 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.240 is a good moment for me to just established in 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.800 your definition in terms what is open source? Yeah, so 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:05.760 open source essentialist software where you can see how being made, 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.760 all the lines that constitute its code, and you can 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.840 copy and using whichever way you want. You can grab 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.160 a part of it, you can rehash it. It's like 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.480 a mash up. This is different from what it's called 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:24.840 proprietary software. That is software that is locked by the developer. Right, 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.560 So Microsoft makes proprietary software because they don't want anyone 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.680 to compete, to use their technology and compete. So proprietary 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.920 software is almost like having a patent on your technology. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:40.920 And open sources just free, open technology for anyone to use. 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:47.080 Open source enabled the startup revolution. Mm hmm. So you 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.680 mentioned open source projects. What's the other type of community 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:54.080 that you're supporting. Yeah, the solidarity economy totally appurely. Look, 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:59.880 it's mutual aid groups, land trusts, giving circles, social move 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.160 men's right, covid hit. A lot of people pulled money 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.280 together to support each other. They wanted to support their 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.560 neighbors by food for those who could make it. All 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.880 of those mutually groups groups are coming together to support 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.959 each other. Where who's going to receive the money? Are we? 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:19.720 You know, it's a group of neighbors who's gonna put 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.520 their own personal bank account. It's kind of weird, rights awkward, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.880 and it's also it might have implications for your tax reporting. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:31.920 And so we give these communities the open collective platform 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:36.320 plus a five C three kind of as a service. Yeah, 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.760 so they can be up and running, receiving money without 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.760 tax the actual received for their donors in like a day. 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.000 So we are kind of radical administrators, right, we kind 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:51.920 of which usually doesn't go together. Radical and administrative are 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:56.800 very rarely said. I know, I know. We abstract the difficulty, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:02.000 the awful boring bits of having to raise and manage money, 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.400 because we think it's very unfair that if you want 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.280 to just pull money together, or if you just want 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.360 to try an idea, or if you don't know yet 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.560 what you want to be in the world. Maybe you 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:13.600 want to be a club, Maybe do you want to 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.600 be a non for profit. Maybe you're just testing an idea. 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.560 Why should you pay up front the costs of having 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.800 equity or having hierarchical structures that then it's very difficult 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.600 to transition out of like why why are we doing this? 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.560 And so the kind of metaphor that we use we 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.680 say that communities are circles in a world that is 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.760 made for triangles. Communities are circles in a world made 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.760 for triangles. Yeah, so we kind of need to, you know, 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.640 twist a little bit so we can fit into what 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:49.160 the system understands is a legal entity. Here's the question 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.840 of why open. What's the open part all about? Everything 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.560 is transparent by design, so you know at a glance 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.480 who gave money to a community and how that community 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.319 spending the money. Philosophically, I don't think that transparency generates 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:10.160 trust per se, because you know, because if everything is transparent, 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.600 what's there to trust? Right? You just see it, right, 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.760 Like trust kind of gets generated when you accept that 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.280 someone is doing something without you having to see that necessarily. 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:25.520 But transparency helps a lot in situations where trust takes 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.400 a lot of time to build. Give me an example 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:34.680 of a collective that has benefited from this open transparent funding, 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:40.440 legal administrative support. One of the first collectives that really 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.800 showed the quick impact that we could have was called 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.240 Meals of Gratitude. Meals of Gratitude Okay, late February or 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.120 March last years, so very very early on, they realized 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.679 that they needed to feed first responders in the pandemic, 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.120 and so they were like scrambling to you know, figure 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.080 out how to buy all of these meals for folks 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.160 working around the clock in hospitals. And it went from 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.520 zero to a gazillion in like three days. Suddenly we 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:10.880 were like pushing I don't know how many thousand meals 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.600 a day, and I'm like, I'm so grateful that we're 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:20.240 able to do this. Another one, more recent is we 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:25.240 were able to get to families of open source developers 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.520 from Afghanistan out of Afghanistan. So open source is not 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:36.440 something that Taliban understand. You didn't see that coming. I 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.320 just open source is not something to Taliban understand. I mean, 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:46.920 that's that's beautiful. Continue so, but I mean it's very 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.839 risky for developers working in open source because they're collaborating 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.120 with you know, foreign powers or whatever the narrative is. Yeah, 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.160 and it could be the CIA exactly. They're just doing 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.720 code on something in English. And this is terrifying. And 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.400 so we needed to very quickly raise money to get 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.280 these two families out and we spent up a collective 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.720 and in nothing we had, you know, raise enough money 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:16.560 to get both families off to Pakistan. Wow, it feels 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.160 very disruptive. Pierre M Look, I have to say that 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:25.760 it is. It's it's been amazing, especially for me last 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:30.640 year personally, to see all of these different groups just 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.400 coming together, and we were able to deploy millions of 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.360 dollars two communities across the United States and across the 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.880 world because we were like already set up for this, 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:49.520 and the growth last year has been surprising. Our goal 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.240 right now is finding ways of moving money from the 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.760 center to the fringes. I think it's absolutely unfair that 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:01.719 only corporations, whether for of you no nonprofit, but corporations 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.320 are incorporated in a territory toy. You need to be 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.920 in a territory, which is insane. They have hierarchical structures 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:15.640 or or vertical triangles. Triangles, only triangles can receive money. 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.200 That's unfair. Because the hard work that communities are doing 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.920 to improve the state of the world, it's incredible. We 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.880 have more and more open source projects that are employing 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:32.480 or contracting their maintainers filter and so we are creating jobs. 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.080 This is putting the community as a new economic unit, 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.480 the community as a human you know, an economic unit 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.840 that is able to hire, to raise money, to spend 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.520 to do everything that we give for granted that corporations 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.760 can do without having to become something that they're not. 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.360 Where did all this come from here? How did you 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.640 come up with the idea for open Collective. So it 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.520 wasn't my own idea. Probably a collective. There you go, 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.760 you get it, you get it. My co founder, Savior, 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.119 and both had experience where we went through this particular 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.440 pain of needing to put money to do what we 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.640 wanted to do and not being able to do it 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.040 because of bureaucratic hurdles. We are coming from very different contexts, 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.840 like my experience was in politics, his experience was in 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:34.400 the startup movement in Belgium, mine in Argentina. Were like, 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:36.600 if the two of us are going through the same 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:39.400 there must be other people going through this, and so 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.400 we started thinking about how to solve this problem and 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:47.640 Open Collective was born in two How did you get 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.360 into politics in the first place? Goodness, My family was 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:58.240 always very let's say, argumentative. I can't see that at all. 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:00.960 How did that show work? That at the dinner table? 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.200 Was that on the way to school? What does it mean? Oh? 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.240 My god? The dinner table? The dinner table and then 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:08.640 arguments in the morning for who got to read the 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.600 newspaper first, and one section of the newspaper and then 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.120 you know, arguing about what we were reading. And my 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.600 dad and I. We were very similar in a lot 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.000 of ways, and then we thought politically very differently, so, 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.400 you know, and so I grew up in an environment 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:29.280 where politics was very much part of our lives, and 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:34.240 I studied political science because I was interested in power dynamics, 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.040 and I was interested, like maybe because of my father. 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.120 I hadn't thought about that. Having a second, it's okay, 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:43.800 if you want to lay back on a couch, take 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:49.840 some deeper, we can go there. Breakthrough happening, And and 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.640 then there was a bit of of a moment where 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:56.520 something kind of clicked. I was campaign managing for a 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.480 friend of mine who then became mayor of this craft 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.880 quite loud, large city outside of Monte Sides. And I 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:06.760 don't know, this was maybe twenty ten something like that. July, 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.399 which is winter in Argentina and it gets pretty cold, 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.119 and so we were visiting a neighborhood talking to folks 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.159 and we went into this barn and it was stuck 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.520 up to the ceiling with matrices and construction materials and 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.920 things like that. And don't, like, great, are we gonna 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.679 build things or housing for folks in need here in 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:29.639 the area? What's the plan? How are you doing this? 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.399 I was so excited, and he looks at me like 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.880 literally like if I was from another planet. He looks 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:36.879 at me, He's like, are you crazy, PI, elections are 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.680 next year. This are staying here, And I'm like, wait, 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:45.399 what are we keeping this until elections because that's what 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:49.320 we used to get votes? And then it just clicked 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:51.800 and it wasn't that my friend was corrupted. It was 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:56.399 just that the system is what it is. And I'm like, 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.240 what am I doing here trying to get someone elected 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.320 to be mayor of a city where this is going 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.760 to still happen because the system is not going to change. 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.560 It's just gonna eat him up and chew him out 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:12.760 when they're done. And so at the same time, I 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:17.480 run into this absolutely crazy bunch of people doing a 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:22.440 different type of political party called the net Party and 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:29.560 Party lad. So that's how I got more into politics. Yes, 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.639 and how was that approach different from everything you just 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:38.600 described as not ideal? So alert was a hack. Essentially, 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:44.720 we wanted to influence the way decisions are made in politics, 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:51.680 and so we created democracys. Hold up, wait a minute, 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.520 I'm walking this path with you, and I'm like, okay, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.560 first year that political system. Got it, join a new 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:02.520 political party. Got it. So then we started democracy OS. 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:08.760 What is this democracy operating system? Yeah, so please explain, okay, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:14.400 got it. So democracy OS is a platform for citizens 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:21.000 to read on legislation that was translated from a political 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.040 and legal jargon that no one understands, you know, because 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.760 that's that's the hack of the lawyers. You make a 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:31.400 human readable version of legislation. Yes, you got it, and 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.359 so um so we did that, and then it was 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.280 a platform for citizens to vote how they would like 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:41.320 their representatives to vote. Right, And if they felt they 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.920 couldn't vote themselves or something because they didn't have time, 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.240 they didn't want, they didn't understand, you know, they knew 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:50.520 someone else who might know better whatever, they could delegate 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.000 that vote on this other person. Right. So, if there's 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.600 a healthcare piece of legislation, and you know folks that 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.679 work in the healthcare system, but they will never access 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:06.480 the lobby power to influence legislation because they are healthcare workers. 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:08.600 But you trust them, you know that you would like 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:10.800 them to vote for you, so you could delegate your 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.879 vote on them. And that makes sense. I mean, there 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:19.239 are people who I use right now informally right, you 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.119 know a lot more about this, tell me how I 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:27.960 should vote? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's a technology that 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.480 helps citizens weigh in and even delegate their authority on 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:36.600 certain topics based on the expertise and their networks. Yeah, 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:39.320 that's that's that's exactly right. And so we created this 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:42.440 and we were like, it would be great if government, 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.000 you know, Congress, use this. And so we were like, hey, Congress, 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:48.119 do you want this? And they're like, no, thank you, 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.880 go play outside. Surprise surprise exactly, and the like that's 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.560 the door, you know, and we're like, okay, great, So 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:59.040 how on earth do we become valid stakeholders in this 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.120 conversation our own ears? Do we get them to pay attention? 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.600 And so we're like, okay, let's do what they do. 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:12.040 Let's build a political party. But we run for elections 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.800 with this idea that if we got a seat in Congress, 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:22.879 we would only vote according to the decision made on democracys. Ah. 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.959 So that was a hack stakes, sir high. I mean, 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:30.600 I've heard of campaign promises, but that's a different level 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:36.399 of commitment. Yeah. For the political establishment in the you know, 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.959 Bueno scilence, it was like, wait, what you're gonna do 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.960 what And did you end up getting a seat? No, 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:50.560 we missed that seat for not a lot. It was 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.639 very close. We pushed the bars so far of what 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.560 was perceived as doable. You know, we almost made it. 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.520 And we're like a crazy band of folks with software 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:04.679 saying like, we're not gonna about what we think, We're 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.680 gonna about what people decided on this platform. And then 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.320 it was after the campaign, I think one of the volunteers, 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:16.359 the developers working on the Democracy OS platform centers and links, 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:20.840 thaying like, have you faults seen this? It was democracy 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:27.439 is translated to French used in Arabic to discuss the 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.960 constitution in Tunisia, and we had no idea what was 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:38.600 going on. The developers, they're looked for online voting, they 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:42.520 run into democracy s. They did their own copy of 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.560 Democracy o S and they were using it themselves to 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:50.640 discuss the Tunisian constitution. That for me was like mind blowing. 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:57.440 It felt like there was a emergent need because if 0:22:57.520 --> 0:22:59.879 something was being used at the same time in monoside 0:22:59.920 --> 0:23:03.439 is in Tunisia for the same purposes, the world needed 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:06.199 this and the world was ready to use this, and 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:10.440 I became kind of focused on using democracy or as 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:13.520 in different contexts, or we use it for in Mexico 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:15.679 and the City of Mexico, for the constitution in the 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:19.119 center of Mexico, for like a piece of legislation in 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.000 Sri Lanka with the candidate in Colombia for the referendum. 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.520 The tools that we're putting out there were being picked 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.840 up by the same type of groups in different languages, 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:32.520 different purposes, different places. At one point, democracy was translated 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.240 into thirty different languages, and we didn't do them. And 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:41.080 so I think that that's what really bulls me from 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:45.040 open source and technologies. This ability of creating tools that 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:48.960 you don't control and that you just released into the 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:56.040 world and people use for me is it's beautiful. Yeah, 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:12.480 we'll be right back. Where in your path did technology 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:16.320 become a tool you would use for all of the 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:24.479 system's power political thinking, Well, we felt that technology was 0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:29.000 the missing piece and how citizens could have agency. We 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:33.080 felt that technology was what made evident that the system 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.760 was unbelievably closed. Because it's not that they didn't have 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:39.159 the tools to open up, they just didn't want to 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:42.719 do it. They chose to hold on to the status 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:46.320 School up because they want to stay in power. Mm hmm. 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:51.440 What did this experience do broadly, I mean the experience 0:24:51.440 --> 0:24:55.520 of being rejected by the systems of power. You're trying 0:24:55.560 --> 0:25:00.600 to change the experience of finding power through of the people, 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:05.200 through technology, through community organizing. What did that experience due 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:09.760 to your understanding of how power works. I think that 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:14.320 we are very naive and we thought that you could 0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:17.480 change a system from within. We thought that if we 0:25:17.520 --> 0:25:20.240 could get there with the right tools and the right 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:25.160 people and the right hacks, systems could be incrementally rewired 0:25:25.240 --> 0:25:29.439 until they worked better. And I guess what we missed was, 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:31.720 at the end of the day, power wants to stay 0:25:31.760 --> 0:25:34.080 in power, right, the start of school is never going 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:37.840 to devolve power because they want to remain being the 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:41.560 start of school. So there's all of these like awful 0:25:41.840 --> 0:25:45.400 ego game that happens while they're like, Oh, you're so amazing, 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:48.280 you're doing great things. Participate to democracy, come with us, 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:51.320 and there they change a little bit for everything to 0:25:51.400 --> 0:25:55.680 remain the same. And I think we hit a wall there. 0:25:55.800 --> 0:25:59.600 We were missing how conservative power is, even if they 0:25:59.640 --> 0:26:02.679 think progressive, or even if they say they're progressive, because 0:26:02.720 --> 0:26:05.600 it's just the system will do anything that the system 0:26:05.680 --> 0:26:09.919 can to self perpetuate, and we didn't realize that. So 0:26:10.000 --> 0:26:12.919 if you cannot transform the current system, how do you 0:26:12.960 --> 0:26:16.199 build an alternative that is appealing enough that you crystallize 0:26:16.240 --> 0:26:18.960 it in a way that inspires people. You build bridges 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:22.320 to bring faults over? Right, what tools do you have? 0:26:22.440 --> 0:26:25.720 What sund boxes to play around with? New systems can 0:26:25.760 --> 0:26:29.359 you build? Because you need to experiment and how do 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:33.320 you live through that? Right? Like, I'm very American. It's 0:26:33.320 --> 0:26:35.720 the country I've known the most. That's the country I've 0:26:35.720 --> 0:26:38.960 been in my whole life, and many of my ancestors 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:42.560 going back many generations. But I sometimes get attached to 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:48.159 this idea of a democratic experiment. It's a sandbox, you know, 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:53.359 it's everything you just described. Um, So trying things, experimenting 0:26:53.960 --> 0:26:58.159 is absolutely ingrained in the DNA of the process, you know, 0:26:58.280 --> 0:27:02.680 the democracy more of a process in product anyway. Yeah, 0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:04.720 you know, one of the main things when we were 0:27:05.000 --> 0:27:07.800 campaigning for the net Party that we got from people 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:11.439 was like, what am I going to decide? This fear 0:27:11.760 --> 0:27:13.840 that we have in us that we can't really make 0:27:13.880 --> 0:27:16.760 decisions because we don't know, you know, because only those 0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:20.800 in power, no or whatever. We've spent such a long history, 0:27:20.840 --> 0:27:24.640 thousands of you being told that we couldn't be part 0:27:24.680 --> 0:27:28.240 of this decision making process, that we've inherited this notion 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:31.520 that we can't participate, and now we believe it right. 0:27:31.560 --> 0:27:34.639 We believe that we're not able to and so we 0:27:34.720 --> 0:27:38.480 need to live through decision making. We need to lead 0:27:38.560 --> 0:27:42.639 through building new institutions. We need to experience that to learn. 0:27:42.960 --> 0:27:46.399 There's there's no teaching how to decide and fail, and 0:27:46.480 --> 0:27:48.840 so what some boxes can we build so we are 0:27:48.880 --> 0:27:52.760 able to fail in our experimentation with new forms of 0:27:52.760 --> 0:27:57.000 political institutions, new forms of democratic arrangements. So a lot 0:27:57.040 --> 0:28:01.719 of my time shifted towards thinking alternative systems right and 0:28:01.760 --> 0:28:05.480