Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Amanda Chu
Recently,
I came across an interview with Yuval Harari
where he said,
"We should never underestimate human stupidity.
It’s one of the most powerful forces in the world."
This reminded me of an essay by the Italian Carlo Cipolla
where he talks about "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity"
and in particular, his first fundamental law of human stupidity:
"Always and inevitably,
everyone underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation."
(Laughter)
So I want to talk about stupidity!
But I want to talk about it - in particular, I want to ask,
Is humanity stupid?
But I mean that in a collective sense: Are we [collectively stupid]?
Because obviously, there are very many highly intelligent people in the world.
Even here, I'm sure, in this room,
there are many very clever people -
probably some less clever people
but surely, no stupid people, right?
(Laughter)
Not here.
But seriously, I think this question is really important.
Is humanity stupid?
Can we collectively make clever decisions?
Or is there no hope?
Because it would be pretty stupid
to pump so much pollution into the atmosphere
that we poison the air we breathe,
to knowingly and willingly heat the planet
so that we change the climate and change the weather systems
that we rely on to grow the food we need to eat.
It would be pretty stupid
for a single species on such a beautiful blue planet
to let it burn.
So we'd better start making some clever collective decisions pretty soon,
or it’s going to be too late.
But how did we get here? How did we get to this point?
To understand that,
I want to look at the history of decision making:
how we made collective decisions in the past,
how we are making collective decisions today,
and how we could make better collective decisions
tomorrow and into the future.
So first, to the past.
For hundreds of years, all throughout the Middle Ages,
we had what you might call "Game of Thrones" style decision making -
various powerful houses slaughtered one another
to try to take control and be the ones who made the decisions.
It was always a battle between various rich factions.
And here we see a bit of a pattern:
that the arrows of political and economic power
are often in alignment,
or to put it more simply, the rich often rule.
But then, in 1215, in the UK, they signed the Magna Charta.
This marks the symbolic beginning of the era of classical liberalism.
The aristocracy and the nobility and the other rich people
had had enough of the "Game of Thrones,"
and they decided to put some constraints on the powers of rulers;
for example,
you could no longer just throw your vanquished enemy into a dark dungeon
and leave them there to rot.
It is absolutely no coincidence
that at the end of the final episode of Game of Thrones,
all the various rich factions sit around
and try to come up with a better way to make collective decisions.
The end of Game of Thrones
is all about this transition to classical liberalism.
Then, after the Middle Ages, some major changes happened:
the industrial and scientific revolution led to the birth of capitalism
and the rise of a new group of wealthy people
who were typically excluded from political power.
This was perhaps the first time in history
that the arrows of political and economic power
came out of alignment,
and this led to war, bloodshed, and revolution.
Now the rich men, who were victorious in these various revolutions,
both in the US and in France,
had to decide how to make collective decisions.
And perhaps not surprisingly,
both groups of rich men came to more or less the same decision:
that rich men should rule.
So they held elections where only rich men could vote,
they elected rich men to legislatures, and rich men then made the laws.
This is the phase that I've called "electoral republicanism,"
and it brought about the happy outcome
of realigning our arrows of economic and political power.
But some people, such as not-so-rich men,
weren't very happy about this,
and they struggled
and, in some places, eventually won the right to vote.
And this ushered in a new phase of decision making
which was soon being called "democracy."
Now other people,
women in England and elsewhere in the world,
and men and women of color in the US
demanded and eventually won the right to vote.
So now, approximately 90 % of adults in our societies can vote.
Migrants are probably the largest group of disenfranchised people
in our societies.
But what's surprising, perhaps,
is that even though most adults can now vote,
the composition of our parliaments,
of our elected legislatures, our congresses
haven't changed that much.
A hundred years after women won the right to vote,
most of our rulers are still typically rich men -
not all of them, just most of them.
The arrows of political and economic power
are still quite firmly in alignment.
Perhaps this answers our question: Is humanity stupid?
Or is the system by which we select our decision makers stupid?
Are elections stupid?
Who wins elections?
The clever people win elections, or the cunning people win elections?
The honest people win elections,
or the people who know how to manipulate our fears and anxieties win elections?
And when we vote, do we make informed decisions,
or are we swayed by powerful media conglomerates
and other groups peddling fake and biased news?
And once elected,
do politicians care more about the long-term good
of people and the planet,
or do they care more about how they could win the next election?
Now I know that calling elections stupid in our societies
is tantamount to heresy.
Aren't elections the cornerstone of democracy?
Aren't they the fundamental basis on which democracy is built?
The answer, the simple answer to that question is,
"No, they're not."
Aristotle, more than 2,000 years ago, in the birthplace of democracy,
said, "it is thought to be democratic
for the officers of constitutional government
to be assigned by lot,
for them to be elected oligarchic."
The people in Aristotle's time
thought democracy meant lottery, or random selection,
and that election meant oligarchy.
The better way to make collective decisions
has been known for thousands of years,
and fortunately, it's being rediscovered today.
And that is using "sortition,"
which is simply the technical name for "random selection" -
we must randomly select people
and bring them together in citizens' assemblies,
which are happening all over the world.
In Ireland, they have held two citizens' assemblies;
in France, President Macron
is holding a citizens' assembly on the climate emergency;
in Scotland, they are holding two citizens' assemblies;
in Wales, they held a citizens' assembly last July;
and events using sortition
have happened in Australia, in Canada, in Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Brazil.
All around the world, events using sortition have happened,
and these are just a tiny handful of the hundreds of recent events.
But what's more exciting to me than these ad hoc, one-off events
is what's happening in OstBelgien.
In the German-speaking region of East Belgium,
they have created a permanent, randomly selected citizens' council
to sit alongside the elected parliaments.
But how would you run a citizens' assembly?
How would you set up a citizens' senate?
Well, the first thing you want to do
is randomly select a broadly representative bunch of people.
This is typically done in two steps.
The first step, you send out invitations to a lot of randomly selected people;
and from those that respond, you do a second random selection,
where you make sure that you get half men and half women,
and proportional numbers of young and old, rich and poor.
You cannot ask to be a part of the citizens' assembly,
and you cannot buy a seat in the citizens' assembly.
The random selection is crucial;
it's what makes it fair.
Everyone should have an equal chance
of being selected for the citizens' assembly.
So this is your citizens' assembly.
The second step is to pour information into that citizens' assembly.
This is obviously very tricky.
For example, who gets to choose the experts?
Who gets to fact-check what they say?
How do you make sure that there is a balanced range of views
presenting to the citizens' assembly?
I'm not going to talk much about that today;
I only want to say that it can be done,
it has been done and done well many times all across the world.
Then, after you have your ingredients,
a broadly representative bunch of people in an informed environment,
you mix.
The technical name for this mixing is "deliberation."
It's not a debate, with winners and losers,
and it's not just a friendly chat at the pub.
It's deliberation.
What this means
is you do not only say what you think and feel,
but you say why you think and feel the way you do.
You say, I think this because ...
And it's the "because" that's really important;
it's the because that lets you understand and empathize with others,
and for others to understand and empathize with you -
and then, we make a decision.
This decision -
after you have sprinkled your citizens' assembly
with your information
and you have mixed with deliberation,
you get to decide.
This is not public opinion.
It is not what you get when you run a public opinion poll.
It's what you get after people have considered the evidence,
listened to the advice of experts,
and then deliberated with people who are very different to themselves.
People like you and me,
who do not care about getting good media coverage
and who do not care about winning the next election.
What you get,
instead of a media soundbite,
is trusted public judgment.
This to me is the democratic ideal
and how we could - and in some places are -
make clever decisions today.
So humanity can be collectively clever.
Citizens' assemblies are a better and fairer way
to make clever democratic decisions.
Of course it's not easy being collectively clever;
it takes a bit of work.
But I've seen it happen again and again and again and again.
So the more important question to me now
is how do we replace elections with sortition
before the planet burns.
Thank you, grazie.
(Applause)