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