Speaker 1: Yeah. Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, a
Speaker 1: podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a legal status.
Speaker 1: This season is all about tech and how it can
Speaker 1: bring us together instead of tearing us apart. We're bringing
Speaker 1: you the people using technology for so much more than
Speaker 1: revenue and user growth. They're using it to help us citizen.
Speaker 1: It's October and a group of thirty or so revolutionaries
Speaker 1: in Buenos Aires, Argentina are poised to infiltrate a seemingly
Speaker 1: impenetrable fortress the government. And as they approached the palace
Speaker 1: of the Argentine National Congress, they told with them the
Speaker 1: symbol of their movement, a twenty foot tall wooden Trojan horse.
Speaker 1: M yeah, a Trojan horse like from Greek mythology. And
Speaker 1: if you need a little refresher on that story, it
Speaker 1: goes like this. During the Trojan War, the Greek's built
Speaker 1: this giant Trojan horse as a gift to the Trojans.
Speaker 1: Little did the Trojans know that the Greek warriors were
Speaker 1: actually hiding inside the horse. When the coast was clear,
Speaker 1: the Greeks emerged and totally sacked the city. Now, these
Speaker 1: Argentine citizens they've got the same plan to sneak into
Speaker 1: Congress and disturb the political order from the inside. They
Speaker 1: are Partio de laded or in English, the net Party,
Speaker 1: as in the Internet. There are a new political party
Speaker 1: in Argentina tackling one of democracy's biggest problems. Our democracy
Speaker 1: has remained the same for the past two hundred years.
Speaker 1: We're twenty century citizens interacting with nineteenth central institutions. Today
Speaker 1: we can speak for ourselves in almost every aspect of life,
Speaker 1: but we can only tell our governments what we want
Speaker 1: once every few years, and in between elections we must
Speaker 1: remain silent. Partito de laded is running for seats in
Speaker 1: Congress and they have a very different platform. They created
Speaker 1: an app called democracy Os where citizens could cast their
Speaker 1: own votes on legislation. If elected, the Partio de Larded
Speaker 1: representative would vote according to how citizens have voted on
Speaker 1: the app. The candidates are themselves the trojan horse. If
Speaker 1: they get into Congress, they would sneak every voice on
Speaker 1: democracy Os into Congress with them. Citizens wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: wait for years to speak, they'd have a say on
Speaker 1: every piece of legislation. As the party pulls this trojan
Speaker 1: horse through the streets. Children run alongside the procession. An
Speaker 1: excited crowd gathers when it comes to a stop at
Speaker 1: the doors of Congress. The party chance when you can
Speaker 1: network awaken who it was very powerful in the crowd
Speaker 1: is pa Mancini, one of the leaders of Partito de
Speaker 1: lad It's hard to make change happen, but we must
Speaker 1: move from protest to construction. Her word that October would
Speaker 1: be just the beginning of a lifelong pursuit to empower
Speaker 1: citizen voices. Since then, Pia has put her imagination to
Speaker 1: work building technologies that help people organize around the causes
Speaker 1: that matter to them. And now eight years later, she
Speaker 1: isn't just trying to rewire broken systems from the inside,
Speaker 1: She's making whole new systems entirely. Pia has developed this
Speaker 1: platform called Open Collective, and with it she's putting economic
Speaker 1: power in the hands of communities all across the globe.
Speaker 1: So how does somebody go from protesting at Congress's doorstep
Speaker 1: to building a new economic infrastructure and whatever happened to
Speaker 1: Partido de Laded. Pia Mancini tells us her story after
Speaker 1: the break. Yeah, hello, so nice to see It's so
Speaker 1: nice to see you tube A welcome. Thank you. So
Speaker 1: let's start with the basics. Can you introduce yourself and
Speaker 1: what you do. I'm PM and Chinni and I'm co
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of Open Collective and i am the
Speaker 1: mother of almost six year old who studied elementary yesterday.
Speaker 1: So it's very exciting. Are you excited about the school?
Speaker 1: I am excited. The amount of like relief and exhaustion
Speaker 1: in your voice, I believe you are exactly what is
Speaker 1: open collective. Open Collective at the core is an open
Speaker 1: finances are transparent finances platform that lets you fundraise and
Speaker 1: spend money for your community and full transparency and repair
Speaker 1: that with a global network of legal entities. That what
Speaker 1: they do is they hold the money for those communities
Speaker 1: and they deal with reporting and taxes and government so
Speaker 1: communities can focus on what they do and not focus
Speaker 1: on talking to accountants and lawyers. You say this is
Speaker 1: for communities. Who is Open Collective for more practically? Can
Speaker 1: you get specific? Yes? So we are mostly working with
Speaker 1: two large ecosystems, the open source ecosystem and the solidarity economy.
Speaker 1: So we are helping both open source projects across the
Speaker 1: world to fundraise like as an open source software projects. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So open source communities open source software projects are in
Speaker 1: general faults around the world who are coming to other
Speaker 1: using a platform like gi hub for example, to create software.
Speaker 1: Companies and users want to support these open source projects.
Speaker 1: They want to give them funding so the maintainers can
Speaker 1: keep working on them because you know, otherwise it's volunteer time.
Speaker 1: But they don't have word to send the money. So
Speaker 1: imagine Google trying to send five thou dollars to a
Speaker 1: papal account in Ukraine that will get flagged real quick,
Speaker 1: real quick. So it's easier for Google to send funding
Speaker 1: to the open Source Collective, which is one of the
Speaker 1: non for profits we created. We have a network of
Speaker 1: three hundred non for profits around the world and we
Speaker 1: give fiscal sponsorship and you know, an umbrella organization to
Speaker 1: the open source projects. We currently have three thousand projects,
Speaker 1: three thousand open source projects. Yeah and yeah, okay, this
Speaker 1: is a good moment for me to just established in
Speaker 1: your definition in terms what is open source? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: open source essentialist software where you can see how being made,
Speaker 1: all the lines that constitute its code, and you can
Speaker 1: copy and using whichever way you want. You can grab
Speaker 1: a part of it, you can rehash it. It's like
Speaker 1: a mash up. This is different from what it's called
Speaker 1: proprietary software. That is software that is locked by the developer. Right,
Speaker 1: So Microsoft makes proprietary software because they don't want anyone
Speaker 1: to compete, to use their technology and compete. So proprietary
Speaker 1: software is almost like having a patent on your technology.
Speaker 1: And open sources just free, open technology for anyone to use.
Speaker 1: Open source enabled the startup revolution. Mm hmm. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned open source projects. What's the other type of community
Speaker 1: that you're supporting. Yeah, the solidarity economy totally appurely. Look,
Speaker 1: it's mutual aid groups, land trusts, giving circles, social move
Speaker 1: men's right, covid hit. A lot of people pulled money
Speaker 1: together to support each other. They wanted to support their
Speaker 1: neighbors by food for those who could make it. All
Speaker 1: of those mutually groups groups are coming together to support
Speaker 1: each other. Where who's going to receive the money? Are we?
Speaker 1: You know, it's a group of neighbors who's gonna put
Speaker 1: their own personal bank account. It's kind of weird, rights awkward,
Speaker 1: and it's also it might have implications for your tax reporting.
Speaker 1: And so we give these communities the open collective platform
Speaker 1: plus a five C three kind of as a service. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they can be up and running, receiving money without
Speaker 1: tax the actual received for their donors in like a day.
Speaker 1: So we are kind of radical administrators, right, we kind
Speaker 1: of which usually doesn't go together. Radical and administrative are
Speaker 1: very rarely said. I know, I know. We abstract the difficulty,
Speaker 1: the awful boring bits of having to raise and manage money,
Speaker 1: because we think it's very unfair that if you want
Speaker 1: to just pull money together, or if you just want
Speaker 1: to try an idea, or if you don't know yet
Speaker 1: what you want to be in the world. Maybe you
Speaker 1: want to be a club, Maybe do you want to
Speaker 1: be a non for profit. Maybe you're just testing an idea.
Speaker 1: Why should you pay up front the costs of having
Speaker 1: equity or having hierarchical structures that then it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to transition out of like why why are we doing this?
Speaker 1: And so the kind of metaphor that we use we
Speaker 1: say that communities are circles in a world that is
Speaker 1: made for triangles. Communities are circles in a world made
Speaker 1: for triangles. Yeah, so we kind of need to, you know,
Speaker 1: twist a little bit so we can fit into what
Speaker 1: the system understands is a legal entity. Here's the question
Speaker 1: of why open. What's the open part all about? Everything
Speaker 1: is transparent by design, so you know at a glance
Speaker 1: who gave money to a community and how that community
Speaker 1: spending the money. Philosophically, I don't think that transparency generates
Speaker 1: trust per se, because you know, because if everything is transparent,
Speaker 1: what's there to trust? Right? You just see it, right,
Speaker 1: Like trust kind of gets generated when you accept that
Speaker 1: someone is doing something without you having to see that necessarily.
Speaker 1: But transparency helps a lot in situations where trust takes
Speaker 1: a lot of time to build. Give me an example
Speaker 1: of a collective that has benefited from this open transparent funding,
Speaker 1: legal administrative support. One of the first collectives that really
Speaker 1: showed the quick impact that we could have was called
Speaker 1: Meals of Gratitude. Meals of Gratitude Okay, late February or
Speaker 1: March last years, so very very early on, they realized
Speaker 1: that they needed to feed first responders in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and so they were like scrambling to you know, figure
Speaker 1: out how to buy all of these meals for folks
Speaker 1: working around the clock in hospitals. And it went from
Speaker 1: zero to a gazillion in like three days. Suddenly we
Speaker 1: were like pushing I don't know how many thousand meals
Speaker 1: a day, and I'm like, I'm so grateful that we're
Speaker 1: able to do this. Another one, more recent is we
Speaker 1: were able to get to families of open source developers
Speaker 1: from Afghanistan out of Afghanistan. So open source is not
Speaker 1: something that Taliban understand. You didn't see that coming. I
Speaker 1: just open source is not something to Taliban understand. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's beautiful. Continue so, but I mean it's very
Speaker 1: risky for developers working in open source because they're collaborating
Speaker 1: with you know, foreign powers or whatever the narrative is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it could be the CIA exactly. They're just doing
Speaker 1: code on something in English. And this is terrifying. And
Speaker 1: so we needed to very quickly raise money to get
Speaker 1: these two families out and we spent up a collective
Speaker 1: and in nothing we had, you know, raise enough money
Speaker 1: to get both families off to Pakistan. Wow, it feels
Speaker 1: very disruptive. Pierre M Look, I have to say that
Speaker 1: it is. It's it's been amazing, especially for me last
Speaker 1: year personally, to see all of these different groups just
Speaker 1: coming together, and we were able to deploy millions of
Speaker 1: dollars two communities across the United States and across the
Speaker 1: world because we were like already set up for this,
Speaker 1: and the growth last year has been surprising. Our goal
Speaker 1: right now is finding ways of moving money from the
Speaker 1: center to the fringes. I think it's absolutely unfair that
Speaker 1: only corporations, whether for of you no nonprofit, but corporations
Speaker 1: are incorporated in a territory toy. You need to be
Speaker 1: in a territory, which is insane. They have hierarchical structures
Speaker 1: or or vertical triangles. Triangles, only triangles can receive money.
Speaker 1: That's unfair. Because the hard work that communities are doing
Speaker 1: to improve the state of the world, it's incredible. We
Speaker 1: have more and more open source projects that are employing
Speaker 1: or contracting their maintainers filter and so we are creating jobs.
Speaker 1: This is putting the community as a new economic unit,
Speaker 1: the community as a human you know, an economic unit
Speaker 1: that is able to hire, to raise money, to spend
Speaker 1: to do everything that we give for granted that corporations
Speaker 1: can do without having to become something that they're not.
Speaker 1: Where did all this come from here? How did you
Speaker 1: come up with the idea for open Collective. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't my own idea. Probably a collective. There you go,
Speaker 1: you get it, you get it. My co founder, Savior,
Speaker 1: and both had experience where we went through this particular
Speaker 1: pain of needing to put money to do what we
Speaker 1: wanted to do and not being able to do it
Speaker 1: because of bureaucratic hurdles. We are coming from very different contexts,
Speaker 1: like my experience was in politics, his experience was in
Speaker 1: the startup movement in Belgium, mine in Argentina. Were like,
Speaker 1: if the two of us are going through the same
Speaker 1: there must be other people going through this, and so
Speaker 1: we started thinking about how to solve this problem and
Speaker 1: Open Collective was born in two How did you get
Speaker 1: into politics in the first place? Goodness, My family was
Speaker 1: always very let's say, argumentative. I can't see that at all.
Speaker 1: How did that show work? That at the dinner table?
Speaker 1: Was that on the way to school? What does it mean? Oh?
Speaker 1: My god? The dinner table? The dinner table and then
Speaker 1: arguments in the morning for who got to read the
Speaker 1: newspaper first, and one section of the newspaper and then
Speaker 1: you know, arguing about what we were reading. And my
Speaker 1: dad and I. We were very similar in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, and then we thought politically very differently, so,
Speaker 1: you know, and so I grew up in an environment
Speaker 1: where politics was very much part of our lives, and
Speaker 1: I studied political science because I was interested in power dynamics,
Speaker 1: and I was interested, like maybe because of my father.
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that. Having a second, it's okay,
Speaker 1: if you want to lay back on a couch, take
Speaker 1: some deeper, we can go there. Breakthrough happening, And and
Speaker 1: then there was a bit of of a moment where
Speaker 1: something kind of clicked. I was campaign managing for a
Speaker 1: friend of mine who then became mayor of this craft
Speaker 1: quite loud, large city outside of Monte Sides. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, this was maybe twenty ten something like that. July,
Speaker 1: which is winter in Argentina and it gets pretty cold,
Speaker 1: and so we were visiting a neighborhood talking to folks
Speaker 1: and we went into this barn and it was stuck
Speaker 1: up to the ceiling with matrices and construction materials and
Speaker 1: things like that. And don't, like, great, are we gonna
Speaker 1: build things or housing for folks in need here in
Speaker 1: the area? What's the plan? How are you doing this?
Speaker 1: I was so excited, and he looks at me like
Speaker 1: literally like if I was from another planet. He looks
Speaker 1: at me, He's like, are you crazy, PI, elections are
Speaker 1: next year. This are staying here, And I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: what are we keeping this until elections because that's what
Speaker 1: we used to get votes? And then it just clicked
Speaker 1: and it wasn't that my friend was corrupted. It was
Speaker 1: just that the system is what it is. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: what am I doing here trying to get someone elected
Speaker 1: to be mayor of a city where this is going
Speaker 1: to still happen because the system is not going to change.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna eat him up and chew him out
Speaker 1: when they're done. And so at the same time, I
Speaker 1: run into this absolutely crazy bunch of people doing a
Speaker 1: different type of political party called the net Party and
Speaker 1: Party lad. So that's how I got more into politics. Yes,
Speaker 1: and how was that approach different from everything you just
Speaker 1: described as not ideal? So alert was a hack. Essentially,
Speaker 1: we wanted to influence the way decisions are made in politics,
Speaker 1: and so we created democracys. Hold up, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I'm walking this path with you, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: first year that political system. Got it, join a new
Speaker 1: political party. Got it. So then we started democracy OS.
Speaker 1: What is this democracy operating system? Yeah, so please explain, okay,
Speaker 1: got it. So democracy OS is a platform for citizens
Speaker 1: to read on legislation that was translated from a political
Speaker 1: and legal jargon that no one understands, you know, because
Speaker 1: that's that's the hack of the lawyers. You make a
Speaker 1: human readable version of legislation. Yes, you got it, and
Speaker 1: so um so we did that, and then it was
Speaker 1: a platform for citizens to vote how they would like
Speaker 1: their representatives to vote. Right, And if they felt they
Speaker 1: couldn't vote themselves or something because they didn't have time,
Speaker 1: they didn't want, they didn't understand, you know, they knew
Speaker 1: someone else who might know better whatever, they could delegate
Speaker 1: that vote on this other person. Right. So, if there's
Speaker 1: a healthcare piece of legislation, and you know folks that
Speaker 1: work in the healthcare system, but they will never access
Speaker 1: the lobby power to influence legislation because they are healthcare workers.
Speaker 1: But you trust them, you know that you would like
Speaker 1: them to vote for you, so you could delegate your
Speaker 1: vote on them. And that makes sense. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are people who I use right now informally right, you
Speaker 1: know a lot more about this, tell me how I
Speaker 1: should vote? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's a technology that
Speaker 1: helps citizens weigh in and even delegate their authority on
Speaker 1: certain topics based on the expertise and their networks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's exactly right. And so we created this
Speaker 1: and we were like, it would be great if government,
Speaker 1: you know, Congress, use this. And so we were like, hey, Congress,
Speaker 1: do you want this? And they're like, no, thank you,
Speaker 1: go play outside. Surprise surprise exactly, and the like that's
Speaker 1: the door, you know, and we're like, okay, great, So
Speaker 1: how on earth do we become valid stakeholders in this
Speaker 1: conversation our own ears? Do we get them to pay attention?
Speaker 1: And so we're like, okay, let's do what they do.
Speaker 1: Let's build a political party. But we run for elections
Speaker 1: with this idea that if we got a seat in Congress,
Speaker 1: we would only vote according to the decision made on democracys. Ah.
Speaker 1: So that was a hack stakes, sir high. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've heard of campaign promises, but that's a different level
Speaker 1: of commitment. Yeah. For the political establishment in the you know,
Speaker 1: Bueno scilence, it was like, wait, what you're gonna do
Speaker 1: what And did you end up getting a seat? No,
Speaker 1: we missed that seat for not a lot. It was
Speaker 1: very close. We pushed the bars so far of what
Speaker 1: was perceived as doable. You know, we almost made it.
Speaker 1: And we're like a crazy band of folks with software
Speaker 1: saying like, we're not gonna about what we think, We're
Speaker 1: gonna about what people decided on this platform. And then
Speaker 1: it was after the campaign, I think one of the volunteers,
Speaker 1: the developers working on the Democracy OS platform centers and links,
Speaker 1: thaying like, have you faults seen this? It was democracy
Speaker 1: is translated to French used in Arabic to discuss the
Speaker 1: constitution in Tunisia, and we had no idea what was
Speaker 1: going on. The developers, they're looked for online voting, they
Speaker 1: run into democracy s. They did their own copy of
Speaker 1: Democracy o S and they were using it themselves to
Speaker 1: discuss the Tunisian constitution. That for me was like mind blowing.
Speaker 1: It felt like there was a emergent need because if
Speaker 1: something was being used at the same time in monoside
Speaker 1: is in Tunisia for the same purposes, the world needed
Speaker 1: this and the world was ready to use this, and
Speaker 1: I became kind of focused on using democracy or as
Speaker 1: in different contexts, or we use it for in Mexico
Speaker 1: and the City of Mexico, for the constitution in the
Speaker 1: center of Mexico, for like a piece of legislation in
Speaker 1: Sri Lanka with the candidate in Colombia for the referendum.
Speaker 1: The tools that we're putting out there were being picked
Speaker 1: up by the same type of groups in different languages,
Speaker 1: different purposes, different places. At one point, democracy was translated
Speaker 1: into thirty different languages, and we didn't do them. And
Speaker 1: so I think that that's what really bulls me from
Speaker 1: open source and technologies. This ability of creating tools that
Speaker 1: you don't control and that you just released into the
Speaker 1: world and people use for me is it's beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. Where in your path did technology
Speaker 1: become a tool you would use for all of the
Speaker 1: system's power political thinking, Well, we felt that technology was
Speaker 1: the missing piece and how citizens could have agency. We
Speaker 1: felt that technology was what made evident that the system
Speaker 1: was unbelievably closed. Because it's not that they didn't have
Speaker 1: the tools to open up, they just didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it. They chose to hold on to the status
Speaker 1: School up because they want to stay in power. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: What did this experience do broadly, I mean the experience
Speaker 1: of being rejected by the systems of power. You're trying
Speaker 1: to change the experience of finding power through of the people,
Speaker 1: through technology, through community organizing. What did that experience due
Speaker 1: to your understanding of how power works. I think that
Speaker 1: we are very naive and we thought that you could
Speaker 1: change a system from within. We thought that if we
Speaker 1: could get there with the right tools and the right
Speaker 1: people and the right hacks, systems could be incrementally rewired
Speaker 1: until they worked better. And I guess what we missed was,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, power wants to stay
Speaker 1: in power, right, the start of school is never going
Speaker 1: to devolve power because they want to remain being the
Speaker 1: start of school. So there's all of these like awful
Speaker 1: ego game that happens while they're like, Oh, you're so amazing,
Speaker 1: you're doing great things. Participate to democracy, come with us,
Speaker 1: and there they change a little bit for everything to
Speaker 1: remain the same. And I think we hit a wall there.
Speaker 1: We were missing how conservative power is, even if they
Speaker 1: think progressive, or even if they say they're progressive, because
Speaker 1: it's just the system will do anything that the system
Speaker 1: can to self perpetuate, and we didn't realize that. So
Speaker 1: if you cannot transform the current system, how do you
Speaker 1: build an alternative that is appealing enough that you crystallize
Speaker 1: it in a way that inspires people. You build bridges
Speaker 1: to bring faults over? Right, what tools do you have?
Speaker 1: What sund boxes to play around with? New systems can
Speaker 1: you build? Because you need to experiment and how do
Speaker 1: you live through that? Right? Like, I'm very American. It's
Speaker 1: the country I've known the most. That's the country I've
Speaker 1: been in my whole life, and many of my ancestors
Speaker 1: going back many generations. But I sometimes get attached to
Speaker 1: this idea of a democratic experiment. It's a sandbox, you know,
Speaker 1: it's everything you just described. Um, So trying things, experimenting
Speaker 1: is absolutely ingrained in the DNA of the process, you know,
Speaker 1: the democracy more of a process in product anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the main things when we were
Speaker 1: campaigning for the net Party that we got from people
Speaker 1: was like, what am I going to decide? This fear
Speaker 1: that we have in us that we can't really make
Speaker 1: decisions because we don't know, you know, because only those
Speaker 1: in power, no or whatever. We've spent such a long history,
Speaker 1: thousands of you being told that we couldn't be part
Speaker 1: of this decision making process, that we've inherited this notion
Speaker 1: that we can't participate, and now we believe it right.
Speaker 1: We believe that we're not able to and so we
Speaker 1: need to live through decision making. We need to lead
Speaker 1: through building new institutions. We need to experience that to learn.
Speaker 1: There's there's no teaching how to decide and fail, and
Speaker 1: so what some boxes can we build so we are
Speaker 1: able to fail in our experimentation with new forms of
Speaker 1: political institutions, new forms of democratic arrangements. So a lot
Speaker 1: of my time shifted towards thinking alternative systems right and
Speaker 1: what alternative systems need. And I kind of focus very
Speaker 1: strongly on open collective because it's an alternative path of
Speaker 1: having economic power and building around the territory. If you're
Speaker 1: a global network of climate activists and you don't know
Speaker 1: where you need to incorporate, we got you. It's fine,
Speaker 1: don't worry. You don't need the territory, We'll do that
Speaker 1: for you. And so open Collective has that kind of
Speaker 1: ingrained in it right of like building outside nation states.
Speaker 1: I guess one of the things that I learned is like,
Speaker 1: if you can't beat them, make them absolute. If you
Speaker 1: can't beat them, make them absolute. Yeah, you can't beat
Speaker 1: the nation state. You cannot, right, So stop trying. Build
Speaker 1: around it until it becomes obsolute, build around it until
Speaker 1: it collapses, until decades on something different. It's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: it's gonna evolve into something else, or it's going to
Speaker 1: decay into something. But the nation states weren't always here
Speaker 1: and they're not going to be here always, right. There
Speaker 1: a social construct, and so I very tired of being
Speaker 1: forced to think of the territory and the nation state
Speaker 1: as the vector that organizes power. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the work that I do has to do with how
Speaker 1: we abstract that layer out. Mm hmm. So so here's
Speaker 1: an here's another question for you. The way we practice
Speaker 1: technology and the way we practice democracy. What is that
Speaker 1: relationship historically and where do you see it going? It's
Speaker 1: very interesting. So technology used to be you know, main frames,
Speaker 1: a prabatory, and I guess it became open and collaborative
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have borders, and the Internet really really
Speaker 1: scaled that to a whole new level, and so democracy
Speaker 1: is being more in the open, democracy is being more
Speaker 1: on a global layer like the Internet is means that
Speaker 1: the planet becomes like a new jurisdiction. We all come
Speaker 1: together as peers that share the commons. That is a planet,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter where on Earth you are born,
Speaker 1: you have agency over certain decisions that impact all of
Speaker 1: us globally. So the main example of that are the
Speaker 1: easy one is climate change. Right, Why on earth are
Speaker 1: we letting nation states have any say on climate change
Speaker 1: when they're really the ones who should decide our citizens
Speaker 1: that are coming together as a global network because there
Speaker 1: is no such thing as a nation for climate change,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, right, there are no borders are meaningless,
Speaker 1: and we now have that parallel between the Internet creating
Speaker 1: this global network and the global democratic institutions that we
Speaker 1: can create on top of that. Now, owners ship is
Speaker 1: not trivial here, right, as much as we try to
Speaker 1: forget about it and denied they are you know, the
Speaker 1: cables under water are controlled by someone the Internet infrastructure.
Speaker 1: So I think technology still needs to decentralize a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot more to be able to be the
Speaker 1: truly support system that a global democracy needs. Yeah, earlier
Speaker 1: you talked about the fear many of us have when
Speaker 1: it comes to exercising our own power. Why should I
Speaker 1: get to decide? I don't know enough, I'm not expert enough.
Speaker 1: What do you have to say to people who hear
Speaker 1: this conversation and are not excited but are terrified. I
Speaker 1: think we've accepted this idea that we can't participate because
Speaker 1: we've never done it. And I am not saying it's
Speaker 1: gonna work well. Every time we're likely to make that decision,
Speaker 1: they can't be worse decisitions, and once the governments are
Speaker 1: making it's a low low bar. But even then, I
Speaker 1: think we should start small. And I think that cities
Speaker 1: are very powerful, are really great grounds or sundboxes for
Speaker 1: us to learn how to citizen. I truly believe most
Speaker 1: people are descent and are good people, right, I honestly
Speaker 1: believe that I think the vast majority of humanity are
Speaker 1: just good people. We're mostly you know, living in a
Speaker 1: system that benefits are elevates. You know, they're not so
Speaker 1: good people. But at the end of the day, most
Speaker 1: people I think are good and they will do the
Speaker 1: decent thing when it comes down to it, and I've
Speaker 1: seen it happened over and over and over, and so
Speaker 1: I think we need to start building paths to make
Speaker 1: real decisions. And participatory budgeting is a really good like
Speaker 1: tool that we can use because it's an inexpensive way
Speaker 1: to learning how to have agency and see what happens
Speaker 1: to you. And if you know, deciding it's not your thing,
Speaker 1: will find someone else that I can decide for you
Speaker 1: and that you trust enough. But it's your choice. It's
Speaker 1: your choice. I love that you know. P You mentioned
Speaker 1: participatory budgeting, and I know some people don't know what
Speaker 1: that is. Basically this process where community members decide how
Speaker 1: to spend part of a public budget, giving them power
Speaker 1: over actual money. And I know there's thousands of cities
Speaker 1: around the world, including my city in l A that
Speaker 1: if used this to decide budgets on all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: it's really beautiful. What other types of infrastructure do you
Speaker 1: think we need? Your obviously very invested in open collective
Speaker 1: around legal financial administratives and a radical administrative what other
Speaker 1: pieces of the puzzle and messing. I guess what we're
Speaker 1: missing is a space where we can large number of
Speaker 1: people like in the millions, right, can come together from
Speaker 1: different countries around the world and decide on something. There
Speaker 1: was a really cool project that someone was trying to
Speaker 1: fund raise for an organized that it was gonna pull
Speaker 1: something like a billion dollars and they were going to
Speaker 1: try to get I think three hundred million young people
Speaker 1: from around the world to vote on a participatory budgeting
Speaker 1: process for that billion dollars. And I think that the
Speaker 1: money and the participatory budgeting aspect was the least interesting one.
Speaker 1: The most interesting one was building a network of three
Speaker 1: hundred million young people that have collaborated at scale outside
Speaker 1: a nation state. I think networks changed the world. And
Speaker 1: once you have that network and it's formed, you have
Speaker 1: that global social fabric you can build things with that
Speaker 1: that is going to bring about so much change into
Speaker 1: the world. So we need to build this global social tissue.
Speaker 1: You're you're ridiculous, and I mean that in the most
Speaker 1: complimentary way possible. Pia, you have given me so many
Speaker 1: more reasons to be optimistic. Thank you for pushing our
Speaker 1: thoughts to new places, thinking literally outside of our borders,
Speaker 1: threatening some powers that be and uh and being fun
Speaker 1: in the process. Really appreciate you. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me and for listening. One thing
Speaker 1: I admire so much about Pia is her courage to
Speaker 1: just try. Partido de laded didn't win the election, and
Speaker 1: that's okay. The goal was just to try. They wanted
Speaker 1: to see how far they could go, how far they
Speaker 1: could push our perception of what's even possible, and in
Speaker 1: that attempt they succeeded. Other folks around the world took
Speaker 1: democracy os and they ran with it, mashing it up
Speaker 1: for their own democratic experiments, pushing the bar even further.
Speaker 1: And they were able to do that because Pia and
Speaker 1: her friends took the first step. Even though it may
Speaker 1: not always seem like it, there's no lack of beautiful,
Speaker 1: imaginative good intention people in this world. Some might want
Speaker 1: to help their neighbors, Some might want to challenge the
Speaker 1: political establishment with their own trojan horses, literal and metaphorical.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is that matters to you, it's worth trying.
Speaker 1: Pia is a powerful reminder that we can use tech
Speaker 1: to unlock more than money. We can use it to
Speaker 1: do all the things we believe. Citizening means to show
Speaker 1: up and participate, to invest in relationships. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: happening beyond the boundaries of the nation state thanks to
Speaker 1: technology to understand power. That's what creating a new economic
Speaker 1: model is all about, and all to support the collective
Speaker 1: and open collective. It's not too late to make a difference.
Speaker 1: We can try from within the current system. But if
Speaker 1: that fails, we can build something new. As Pia said,
Speaker 1: if you can't beat them, make them obsolete. Next week
Speaker 1: we go to Taiwan where a group of civic hackers
Speaker 1: succeeded in infiltrating the government and they change the system
Speaker 1: entirely from the inside out. We have this digital public
Speaker 1: infrastructure that functions the same as the town hall so
Speaker 1: that they're not forced to deliberate about important civic topics
Speaker 1: in the digital equivalent of Nike ups like Facebook. Next time,
Speaker 1: Audrey toime H. Pia got me so fired up. I
Speaker 1: hope she did the same for you, because it's time
Speaker 1: for some action. Let's start nice and easy with something
Speaker 1: you can all do by yourself, no special equipment necessary.
Speaker 1: I want you to think about when you feel most
Speaker 1: positive or optimistic in your week, what are you doing,
Speaker 1: Who are you around, what media are you consuming? Now
Speaker 1: work backwards from that, do more of those things that
Speaker 1: make you feel good. I promise. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be a life coach here. I just think the world
Speaker 1: needs more optimists for us to reach our collective potential.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to citizen when you're only cynical, you're
Speaker 1: something else. I want you to try visit open collective
Speaker 1: dot com just understand it more. I think of it
Speaker 1: as a combination of Patreon meets Kickstarter meets easy to
Speaker 1: use accounting software watch ps ted talk is called how
Speaker 1: to Upgrade Democracy for the Internet Era and learn more
Speaker 1: about her beliefs and journey. Then think about a local
Speaker 1: project or informal group, maybe a mutual aid society that
Speaker 1: could benefit from Open Collective and tell them about it. Finally,
Speaker 1: and then we're getting real warmed up here. I want
Speaker 1: you to consider supporting an open source project of your
Speaker 1: own while moving away from private mega malls like Facebook.
Speaker 1: Now that doesn't mean you have to go start a
Speaker 1: software company. It just means start using something like the
Speaker 1: Signal app instead of Facebook. That's an open source, encrypted,
Speaker 1: nonprofit messaging platform which was initially launched by the Forward Foundation.
Speaker 1: And if you use open source to build your produc
Speaker 1: up that's making you money, then give back to the
Speaker 1: open source community. Just because this open source doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's free. It was paid for by somebody's time. You
Speaker 1: know where you can find some great open source projects
Speaker 1: to support over at open Collective, dot com, Boom Full Circle.
Speaker 1: Speaking of dot com, We've got our own with links
Speaker 1: to all these actions and more at how do citizen
Speaker 1: dot com? Follow us on Instagram? At how do Citizen
Speaker 1: tag us in your post about supporting a collective? Be
Speaker 1: a circle in a world dominated by triumphs? How do
Speaker 1: Citizen with barrettun Day is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio Podcasts and dust Light Productions. Our executive producers are Me,
Speaker 1: barrettun Day, Thurston, Elizabeth Stewart, and Misha Yusaf. Our senior
Speaker 1: producer is Tamika Adams, Our producer is Ali Kilts, and
Speaker 1: our assistant producer is Sam Paulson. Stephanie Cohne is our editor,
Speaker 1: Valentino Rivera is our senior engineer, and Matthew Laie as
Speaker 1: our apprentice. Original music by Andrew Eapen, with additional music
Speaker 1: for season three by Andrew Clawson. Original composition for the
Speaker 1: Trojan Horse story by Sam Paulson. This episode was produced
Speaker 1: and sound designed by Sam Paulson, with additional production help
Speaker 1: from Darwin Knicks. Special thanks to Joel Smith from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Rachel Garcia at dust Light Productions. Okay,
Speaker 1: now for the real question for you, which which crypto
Speaker 1: should I be getting into