The World is Changing by Ankur Chaudhary

hello everyone

my name is uncle and i am going to talk

about the changing nature of

institutions

due to technology and the unforeseen

journey

the humanity would take in the times to

come

but let me start with a very interesting

story which happened

in the december of 2019. i was among

the many protesters who were at the cusp

of evolution

as with every pedestal on site i had my

own reasons

and my own will to be a part of it i

would everyday travel

for 40 kilometers with my backpack in

the delhi metro

to reach the protest sites as it were to

happen

i would pack my lunch and everything i

needed

to sustain the gut-wrenching cold of new

delhi

the first day of the pedestrian always

beard by the way

you try to find familiar faces people to

talk to

and even make a few friends while i was

on the site

an idea struck me let me just go and

talk to the police officers who were

at the site and i know it sounds so

weird

and since i had biscuits in my bag and a

near

not so dangerous face i was able to

become friends with them

and then i started my gossiping sessions

with a couple of police officers to know

their perspective

and what was their agenda to get the

british side

and i suddenly became part of their plan

by the fourth day

and started exchanging messages on

whatsapp we would discuss all sorts of

things

from friends to family to other

protesters

apart from the police officers i managed

to also become friends

with few of my fellow protesters on site

and i was added to their whatsapp group

as well

without realizing much about what’s

happening

probably because i’m not the smartest

when it comes to social cues

i was suddenly able to get the

perspective of two stakeholders

who were at the crosshairs in one of the

largest

protests in the history of independent

india

i would get general updates feedbacks

on the events of the day and the road

ahead and any news which

they seem necessary being part of those

whatsapp group

made me realize a couple of things about

the human journey

of protests of descents and how

technology is facilitating

a big part of it through mobilization

information

and advocacy if we take a bird’s-eye

view of the human history

we will encounter that there is a

specific reason

why we could dominate the animal kingdom

we could dominate

because probably we could gossip like i

did

and it is this a great ability to gossip

that has made us

the wise ones that has made us who we

are today

the homo sapiens what we term here as

gossip

refers to the exchange of ideas and our

reaction to those ideas

so gossiping was first of the many

things that we learned

and we made sure that we carry it in our

genes and pass it on to the coming

generations

exchange of information has been crucial

for our survival

as you may know but how this exchange of

information created system

this exchange of ideas led to the

creation of institutions

like marriage religion democracy

that has helped us build a system that

could sustain us

these institutions provided us with much

needed rigor

to function in a system that could

benefit both the stakeholder

and the non-stakeholder our society time

and again

has tried to dwell into aspects which

creates

and procreates a newer and a better

system

our government systems are not just the

result of the ideas of today

but they are also the result of the

ideas of our past

so when they evolve they also have a

retrospective thinking and analysis

attached to them

as what we call in policy the path

dependency approach

but how is technology changing the world

around us like

how is it available to protest lately we

observe that there is a diminishing

effect and we have technology to equip

that effect

it has not made us it has not just made

us express things the way

we want but also create systems which

are relevant to our times

the system today have made information a

widespread phenomenon

and that has enabled us to question the

entire paradigm of systems at large

we at this moment are creating more data

than we ever did in human history

technology is not just changing the way

we interact

but it has also changed the way we

respond and express

so by tuesday before you go to office we

would have created

as much data as we ever did from the

beginning of humankind

till 2003 there are pieces of

information lying around us

and now the onus is on us to make sense

of it

we have so much of information and so

many devices

to support that exchange of information

that it is very hard to ignore

to put it in context in 1960

out of every 40 people we had just one

tech device

but by 2005 we were even

one person one device by 2020

we had four devices being owned by a

single person

therefore there would be more channels

that could equip

us with information today platforms are

changing data over profits

there’s going to be one trillion chips

being manufactured every year

our five senses are going to be acquired

by machines

as i call it from internet of things we

will be moving towards

internet for everything but

what is really changing what has what

has all of this

to do with information because there is

an information revolution

and in this information revolution the

power lies with those

who create and spread that information

government and policy makers around the

world

are trying to adjust to and recapture

this

evolution which is happening online

as you may know our society has been

subject of manipulation

for hundreds of years this manipulation

created systems of tagging

and suffering for the masses it made the

powerful belief in the idea

that we that the evolution would be

suppressed

and manipulation would happen and it is

that same manipulation

which made us trust the powerful

and what is this role of social media

this whatsapp facebook’s twitter of the

world

because the times have changed in the

past

we weren’t able to find what was

happening a few blocks away

and today we have people tweet to us

about it

i was made part of those whatsapp groups

which gave me information

the very information which is not out

there in the media

but it is out there in a personalized

manner

on my whatsapp when czechoslovakia was

invaded in 1968 by the soviet union

we didn’t know what was going on on the

ground at least

the television cameras couldn’t get in

but today

we have all the required information to

know and understand

any crisis which we would be facing as a

human society

and due to this tectonic shift

what happens in these emerging countries

is that

all of a sudden because of unprecedented

connectivity

everybody is empowered and god knows

what’s going to happen

because they have grown without doubt

rather with choices with different

voices

and with an ability to choose among them

by exercising some critical thinking

and it is this critical thinking that

has enabled us

to resent as well there is a growing

intellectual consensus

that the world is sailing into uncharted

territory

a health marked by authoritarianism

shallow populism and extremism

we have diminishing faith in our

institutions

which bound us and therefore

there needs to be some questions which

needs to be answered on priority

just as an example in 2015

the world was changing for a lot by the

way but in 2015

shortly after donald trump announced

that he was running for president

polz found out that only 19 of americans

trusted the government always or most of

the time

a princeton study that looked at 1779

different policy issues

found that economic elites and business

groups had substantial impact on u.s

policy

while citizens and mars based interest

groups had little or none

so we can fairly assume that there is a

divide which exists

but how would this technology democracy

and this access to information gonna

serve us how would it evolve our systems

we know democracy as a form of

government which gives

more freedom to express but how we know

democracy as a representative one

is said to change as a participatory one

democracy is a work in progress it’s

neither complete

nor absolute technology has enabled

us and made us powerful enough to

question the system it has made us

question

the forms of government and our leaders

at a much more increased pace

therefore if the french revolution were

to happen today

it would happen at a much faster base

disentangling the complex forces

that are driving these changes can help

us better understand what

ails democracies today and potentially

guide us

towards compelling solutions the

democracy

is set to evolve the forms and functions

of manipulations and the systems of

manipulations

are going to evolve information is much

more widespread and accessible

we are now capable of questioning the

premise of information

we are being supplied with

it will evolve our revolutions it will

connect our systems

of education of poverty of health care

and many others it will make us debate

discuss and descend the arguments which

we are presented with

we will have informed participation and

not just participation

today we are overwhelmed by the supply

of tools to correct things around us

systems can survive with or without

technology

but they will evolve only when we have

technology

that will enable participation it is the

need of the art to democratize our

democracy

and create better value systems to

combat global challenges

in this speed of disruption this

acceleration speed of disruption

is bound to create chaos but that would

be a very beautiful chaos to participate

in

today we are non-violently

transformative

rather than being violently

revolutionary the idea of

evolutions have changed now

it is not just about taking power from

one small group of people

and then giving it to the other group

institutions cannot be imposed on people

from the top

but they will be built from bottom up

one interaction at a time

we need better systems to be put up in

place through those information channels

censorship will be wiped out and

government will be exposed

more and more people are disclosing

information to create an

open society to create an open future

technology particularly social media has

the power to make institutions open

to create broader consensus we are now

equipped with a platform to support that

voice

we have the potential for more medium

movement and black life matter

campaign we are the open source

generation

and we have promised ourselves that we

will strive towards keeping the

tradition of

gossip alive to create a better world

because i for one went to that pradesh

site

just to be added to those whatsapp group

probably because that

led me to much more information than i

would have had

by watching television and that’s the

power of social media

to equip someone like me

to understand what’s happening out

to get those ground information

and it is the technology which has

enabled that

and today i can proudly say that i would

be able to change those systems around

me

because of those on ground information

and as i say as i conclude technology

is beautiful it would accelerate and

change systems

but it is us who are going to do that by

being participation

by being participants of that great

revolution

because we shape the world we live in

every single day

through the tools we create and we use

we paint the picture

every day with the brush of technology

to

help to use technology

to revolt to protest to create to debate

to descend and also to help

thank you so much