An overview of how democracy could become more participatory and deliberative

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The speaker has a dream of what a timeline for democracy could look like
Starting with smaller-scale interventions like different voting processes can build up the practice of democracy in society
Enabling more organizations to run in a cooperative manner is a possible next step
Voicing how taxes are spent through participatory budgeting could increase understanding of funding based on needs
Community currencies could build internal wealth and exchange with other communities
Global mechanisms of deliberative democracy could allow for different countries to make decisions in different ways

Democracy in action has looked the same for generations. Constituents might go to a library or school every one or two years and cast their vote for people who don't actually represent everything that they care about. Our technology is rapidly increasing in sophistication, yet our forms of democracy have largely remained unchanged. What would an upgrade look like - not just for democracy, but for all the different places that democratic decision-making happens?

On this episode of Your Undivided Attention, we’re joined by political economist and social technologist Divya Siddarth, one of the world's leading experts in collective intelligence. Together we explore how new kinds of governance can be supported through better technology, and how collective decision-making is key to unlocking everything from more effective elections to better ways of responding to global problems like climate change.

Correction:

Tristan mentions Elon Musk’s attempt to manufacture ventilators early on in the COVID-19 pandemic. Musk ended up buying over 1,200 ventilators that were delivered to California.

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