technology | FutureSeeds

When Democracies Turn Digital To Fight Corruption

What to do when institutions are too corrupt? While trying to participate in elections in Argentina, Santiago Siri had many bad experiences including being asked to pay a large bribe to a judge. Hence, he co-founded Democracy Earth, an NGO whose purpose is to research and build censorship-resistant digital democracies. In this interview, I try to discuss in layman terms the amazing and cutting-edge research that is being led at Democracy Earth, right at the crossroads of technology, politics, and finance.

Upgrading democracy

Lyn Carson is a professor in applied politics, specialized in deliberative democracy, and the lead researcher at NewDemocracy. NewDemocracy’s mission is stated as follows: “NewDemocracy is an independent, non-partisan research and development organization; we aim to discover, develop, demonstrate, and promote complementary alternatives which will restore trust in public decision making”

In this interview, we talk about a number of different topics related to democracy, and I found it truly impassioning because Carson delivers insight into the structural changes and the processes that are necessary to harness public intelligence and decide altogether of our future. She details the difference between direct and deliberative democracy, and the importance of critical thinking versus opinion polls.