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the climate crisis is getting worse and
worse but there is still hope but how
can we strive for and promote a
sustainable just and Democratic digital
future the next talk will hopefully give
us some answers to this
question Maya gel is a political
Economist and expert in sust
sustainability policy she holds a
professorship at the Lera University of
lunberg and I am very happy and proud to
welcome her at the Congress please give
a very warm Applause to Maya
[Applause]
GLE
thank you very much Karina thank you
Rina for getting me here thank you all
for being here on a Friday
evening I'm
impressed and I was even more impressed
when I came here um I had been invited
formerly and since I've got two little
ones it never really worked out because
they wanted to go see those grandparents
and then the other ones but this time
around it work and it was the notion
okay I'm going to hand them over to Dad
and then I could be here in the evening
on the Friday and I thought is that
really good space and R said believe me
people will turn up thank you for doing
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so and thank you for making this place
so nice um I mean a Congress Center
usually you come in and you feel like oh
this all stifling and not much oxygen in
here and not really a very inviting
space to hang around it's a big living
room you've created it into such a
fantastic place to be I understand now
why you feel this period of the year
should be spent together in such an
atmosphere so congratulations I'm very
very
impressed and obviously I'm also
really grateful cuz I only in 2019
really got the chance to work on
digitalization as this big process as a
kind of grade
transformation being talked about as
something that would reshape our entire
societies because formerly I've only
been working on the other big
transformation that's going to reshape
our societies which has to do with our
living conditions the natural ones and
um in
2019 we published a report we in that
matter meaning the German advisory
Council on global change to the
government on the interface between
those two big Transformations so 2017 to
2019 we got to work on this in an
interdisciplinary setup and it was
really fascinating to see how different
disciplines are looking at one and the
same thing in a very different way and
how one and the same term is being
understood in such a different way by
different disciplines and this is where
I felt we need to talk
and for the first time we started doing
a lot of conversations in the process of
writing the report
especially seeking out contact with what
we've called The Tech Community
you um because the Eco people are not
necessarily so prone of looking at the
technological POS
possibilities there has a history to it
because quite often it was said that ah
your doom stayers and Sayers it's all
going to be solved by technology it's
all going to be completely fine we can
continue with that same kind of model of
Economic Development and eternal growth
without changing a lot because
technology will do the trick and I think
this is one of the reasons why the ones
working in this system called biological
system were a bit cautious about the
technological promises and yet we also
understand and the more we dug into the
issue we understand them better without
the technological leap frogging that
digitalization offers today we won't
solve the sustainability crisis on this
planet and energy systems are just the
best example if you want to get from
fossil fuel based Energy Systems where
you can dig in the ground and you suck
it up and you provide from a centralized
way to having Renewables that are wind
and sun and geothermal and U maybe Bur
learning some of the biomass are all
coming from a diverse places and they're
functioning at different periods of time
you need a very smart way of
interlinking them and so there was a
very clear case where definitely those
two Transformations had to be married
and this is why we went into looking at
that and we're very on the one hand
surprised how little the planet was a
subject in the so-called Tech Community
and how openly received we were and
obviously the bits and Boer now with a
big place or stall around the corner um
they were one of the things emerging
from that to say these two have to come
together and really think about this
together in order to make uh the great
transformation an integrated one because
and this is what I'm I'm trying to going
to get it unless we're
really targeting the technological
Revolution at breaking some of those
long persistent sustainability
challenges it won't be the solution
and if we do it could be but it was very
very interesting because um as a last
remark on that report and I'll show a
few things from it uh further
on we tried to really write the Utopia
where that would happen how would this
look like like what would be the system
the society emerging if that was
successful and after about five rounds
we completely gave up because it just
so tuman show
like it just didn't come across as an
Utopia as something
desirable and so we ended up not writing
the one idea of how it could work but
looking at the basically space of
imagination how people that were writing
about the technological Revolution were
thinking about its potential outcomes
and that's a Soc called chapter three uh
six I think it is yeah where we gone
into sci-fi literature as an advisory
Council sustainable science because we
said we're not there yet we can't do the
imagination work we have to listen to
the people that are in that space
because typically what scien ISS are
doing their mapping from the past to
then maybe extrapolate in the future but
if we wanted to have something
transformative that is not extrapolated
that is reconfigured so new and this was
very
interesting yes reconfigured I'll go for
that one um because
it came out that there were loads of
different possible Pathways and it comes
to the point of who's driving those
Pathways with which ideas and that put
humans in their intent in a firm space
where we could get to working with and
emancipating ourselves from the big
stories of where this has to go into
trying to intervene in a way of shaping
the direction in the way that we think
is a desirable outcome so
it's utopian to a certain idea or degree
and at the same time for me the only way
that we as humans can anticipate where
we want to go and make small little
dents in the extrapolation of Trends
today to say no how do we bend that one
to get closer to the desired outcomes
how do we build a completely new path
that was never imaginable before and
this is how I've kind of built up this
talk into four sections one is called
context where it's a bit like in other
places we call the [ __ ] show where you
say what's the planetary state that
we're in so it's ecological system and
then the next one is about
transformation what is this process like
and how do we try to describe it in
transformation research and then there
is the way that we've looked at
digitalization playing out in the
sustainability transformation and the
last Point really is for us to discuss
and I would love to have have a bigger
chunk of the time to discuss with you
all could there be this European model
that for a long time has been talked
about as an alternative to a Chinese or
um us American surveillance I think
they're both kind of close in their
surveillance aspects one's called a
marke thing not sure if it deserves to
be called a market with such big players
there and the other one is a state
surveyance system so is there is space
for that and at least we've cast out
some of the ideas of how the digital
revolution could reach shape not only
our products but also especially the
governing Frameworks and our attention
what do we look at our architecture of
attention what do we prioritize and what
do we see when we look at the world to
make judgments about
desirability so those are the four and
then I would love to hear your feedback
and your ideas and any other things
you'd like to
add so where are we
at sometimes when we're in this
place
of saying it's all new or it's all
different or it's all very special today
I think it is helpful to think about
where we are in the longer period of
time also to understand what makes this
period very
special and when you look at this big
history one it comes in with a big bang
and then it has the solar system forms
and then very later on a million years
ago we were coming into this early
humans collective learning emerging
50,000 years ago then we started
settling it's called the first big
transformation in human coexistence come
from
nomadic roaming around into settling and
into shaping something like local
societies that would have a particular
space that they're connected to with all
the different institutions storages and
first time also technology applied in a
very different way when you think about
carts and wheels and then animals being
being used to power those so that's how
Transformations are always looked at as
an interplay between the imagination of
a society how it could look at the
technology at place and available the
energy
sources so using animals in a consistent
way to power up what humans could do by
themselves but also then the settlements
and the institutions the rules that
people are creating to be interacting
with each other and to organizing such a
society and then later on
came um the industrialization which is
typically looked at as this next big
reconfiguration of
societies and there obviously the new
energy source was the fossil fuels and
that just expanded what was the power
that Humanity had available in the
physical sense and you could use
machinery and you could speed up things
tremendously and you could widen the
space and extend the reach of how people
could communicate how people could roam
where they could get to resources and
how they
connected and again it was an interplay
then also between shared narratives and
shared stories nation states were formed
and totally new institutions were being
set up and
shaped and then we've seen from the
planetary point of view these last
10,000 years being very benign within
which we're now talking about this next
big transformation that is of a global
scale with a global connectivity between
um people in real time with global reach
in hardly any time span anymore compared
to with former where you had to go with
vessels powered by Coe now we're flying
and obviously it's coming faster and
thus shrinking what we can reach within
a
day and the important thing is that from
a planetary point of view the last
10,000 years have been really benign for
our
species and that is why the whole idea
of sustainability transformation
is a very conservative story in the
end it's all about changing the way that
humans organize their living including
how they power their energy
systems in order for those
climatic circumstances that you see up
there in the Hol scene the last 10,000
years to stay within that fluctuation
that made us anticipate the seasons that
gave us continuous rainfalls to work
with that didn't have so many droughts
and floods that were making it very
difficult for humans to do agriculture
or to service their very high powerered
economies as of
today and this is why this benign Hol
scene is something we shouldn't
risk and that is why I keep on
wondering how some parties that call
themselves conservatives cannot get this
as a
priority
I don't understand how anybody that
talks about individual freedom and
Liberties to be safeguarded cannot get
this this is securing freedom in the
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future and obviously as we have in the
title here the question
when this changes rapidly who gets to be
protected who's going to be behind the
dams who's in front of it who's going to
be leaving zones that have dried out
because of droughts and who's going to
put up
fences that is a question of social
justice so how can any party that's
concerned about social justice and
Equity not get this how have we come to
a situation that only green parties are
associated with this agenda what we're
wrong there in the end this is not green
in the end is our lives that we're
talking
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about and our potentials to really do
the things differently because when you
look at how we got to that place where
things get a bit
shaky that's the great
acceleration and it means that the way
that we consume today that we organ our
economies today that we power them uh
Etc is not normal or something that's
always been that way that has
fundamentally
changed obviously it's also changed with
it because of better provisioning and
you see the socio economic Trends are
the things that are on the human Soo
economic side going up being better this
meant that more people survived and also
the whole human population I've just
read we are 8 billion on this planet for
new years this whole population has
grown a lot huge success story from that
end less people died more survived and
Longevity went up as well so we stayed
around
longer on the other side that mean the
way that we do it has eaten into what
our planet can
replenish so those curves should
probably be flipped the other way I'll
try to make that as a suggestion cuz we
don't have as much carbon budget anymore
as we had before
we're talking about having to stop
emitting so much we don't have the same
marine fish capture possibilities if
we've run down the stocks to a certain
degree and they
implode so this is exactly the conundrum
that we're after to try to understand
how do we provide well for people
without eating into what our planet can
regenerate for us so we can do that in
the long
term and the most important thing that I
only learned through writing that report
and getting into the history is that we
are a bit late discovering and you know
that much better than I do
digitalization as a trend because it was
firmly behind the possibility to
accelerate like that to make things more
Speedy to connect more widely to extract
more from deeper places to discover
those Etc all has to do with the way
that we've used um digital
Technologies and this means they have
been servicing human imaginations of the
future and they were very successful
unto the point where we more and more
clearly saw that we're now in the state
of great
emergency we've accelerate a bit too
much or at least with too much waste and
with too much Surplus that we're taking
out and this is from the planetary
boundaries
framework it's been first published in
2009 um by a team of Earth system
scientists that we trying to say we're
having an issue that's beyond climate
change you see it's just one dimension
in there and we have a chance and I
remember having a conversation before
the report was published planetary
boundaries um a safe operating space for
Humanity it was called because they
wanted to avoid the same things
happening after the limits to growth
report in 1972 by the club of Rome where
everybody got so upset about questioning
that Prime success model of growth so a
lot was being done to undermine the
message Etc and they said how do we make
people understand that this is about
maintaining it's not questioning
something but it's maintaining what
we've
inherited and this is where they've come
to uh identify these nine different
dimensions and you see that each one of
them in itself is pretty important when
you talk to the Natural scientists today
they have a bit of a competition what's
worse right now the biodiversity crisis
or the climate crisis brand new is the
novel entities
that also I got to learn through um an
expertise we got has a lot to do as well
not only from microplastics Etc or
chemicals that come out of drugs we use
or the kind of hormonal intensity in our
groundwater Etc Rises up through the
pills that we're putting out
there but also has to do with newly
compounded materials to be feeding into
these very microscopic solutions that we
now use in digital devices so we are
spring a lot of things that we won't
ever be able to gather back again
without knowing yet what they will do to
the living systems and that is something
to put much more care to and not
carelessly start when we don't even know
how to reverse the trend and that's the
whole message there to say how can we
Steward this better how do we understand
it well so that we can manage it for the
long term and there obviously it is
completely important to see how
digitalization can also support this
once and if we understand and this is
one of my favorite quotes from pan zv
that the way that we power our economic
systems has to very much
change because that is the real
software behind what is being made
possible who can get revenues with the
development who is going to make
investments and who's going to cash in
from
Investments and this is why s Pasa SCA
he was writing about
biodiversity
put out this one statement the problem
with the notion that nature is
indestructible is this it is
wrong and once economists accept that
they are mistaken on this count it would
revolutionize the way in which we
calculate economic
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progress and it is for me sometimes
fascinating to see how little
valuable from the old school economic
lens healthy systems
are you're a real terrible business case
for a health system if you just work if
you don't have pain if you don't need
joint replacement if you're just
okay no good business case for the
health system as we have it
today it's much more convenient right
now to say oh we're going to replace
everything with deep Tech and it's going
to suck down the carbon once it's
Etc much more lucrative than saying how
about we're just not going to mow down
more
forests they are the most tremendous
carbon sink maybe only topped by ah more
Pete Pete places they are fascinating
and if we stopped drying them for Abri
culture it' be less lucrative but it
would be the most fantastic carbon sink
a functioning biological system that
regenerates itself healthily is not a
good business case in this model and
this is why we have to change it the way
that we look at things that are valuable
in the outcome and we have to be very
clear that it's breakthrough or
breakdown transformation is happening
Anyway by Design or by
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disaster and this is why I felt after
all these crisis that we've had this
call for back to normality and now we
have to stop and here and there it's not
going to work and only the Alternatives
have to say how much they're going to
cost and how people are going to be
impacted by it we completely lack
communication transparency and data
being put out on the costs of
maintaining the status
quo and why it's not
normal one of my favorite things is this
notion of oh we can't possibly eat less
meat it is a complete assault on us
Freedom a meat consumption is gone up
like that and B who would have ever
thought that civilized people treat
animals and their neighbor for Eastern
European countries in such a way just to
be able to eat twice as much meat as is
good for their own
systems that's quite a crazy
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outcome and this is why transformation
is always being looked at something
that has several levels and those levels
are Interlink it but they also change at
different speeds this is a multi-level
perspective by Frank and others and it's
social ecological Technical Systems they
look at so they're trying to understand
how does this all play together in the
different societal
settings and what you see I've been
describing the first bit is this Earth
system and how that's changing that's
the landscape that's the backdrop
against which everything that we imagine
and invent is going to have to take
place and everything that we do is going
to impact how that thing develops but in
the very short term we won't be able to
affect it directly just with climate
change right now we have a break period
of 20 years even if we stopped right now
with the emissions it would take about
20 years until we have that stop in the
cascading CO2
cycles and this means we have to
anticipate and act early
a systems message and then we see that
sometimes the change in what the me or
regime level contains is a bit slow or
it needs a lot of warnings that are
being disregarded for it to change and
to change quick enough and those Meso
Level or regime levels are the ones that
are kind of re or shaping our freedoms
to act so a certain economic Paradigm
I've been referring to is very dominant
from the science side of saying what can
we afford to do why is it terrible if
GDP goes down what is it going to uh
mean in terms of cost benefit analysis
which are typically not including the
environmental costs or the long-term
costs in any decent
way policy Frameworks I think we've all
been witnessing how the last two years
were quite daunting when people were
trying or politicians were trying to
change those policy Frameworks I mean
just now we're seeing that I think it
was 1902 I don't know when this
uh subsidies for a um diesel fuels in
the land use sector were being
established now they should be taken
away and we have a huge upheavel against
updating the policy Frameworks under
which in this case Farmers
operate because it changes the market
patterns and that make it easier for one
particular way of doing things and more
difficult for
others social practices what are we used
to be doing what are our routines what
do we feel is unconvenient venient or
something you can't ask of people has a
lot to do with it and obviously the
technological possibilities that are
available and then typically who is
being driving change comes from the
niche in the micr level people that are
deviating from what we' call the status
quo to try to bring about something
different and quite often it's terms of
or periods of Crisis where they're being
looked at and listened to more
intensely and what I find important when
we think about
systems that we never forget that there
are linkages between all of that because
sometimes we feel so isolated or
sometimes we tend to say oh the
consumers don't want to change or the
producers don't really offer anything or
the policy makers don't give the
Frameworks the investors won't go with
it what in the end what we need to do is
to really think about how can change in
Behavior or orientation in one place
really mean that someone else can also
change that is the kind of way of
linking the relationships between the
elements and understanding those to
understand why Dynamic of change are
evolving and as I said before this
purpose and this grammar of what is
being said to be something a positive
development or a negative one obviously
had a lot of influence on what we deem
to be possible or
desirable and this is where I feel a lot
can be done to improve our understanding
of where we are and to make sure that it
always depends on how we explain the
world what people can imagine as the
next possible step for
changing and this is why the way that we
talk about things is so important and
I've been flipping back and forth now to
recast some of the dominant framings in
a different one that would then also
make the entire possibility space look
different but also the
desirability it's not freedom inhibiting
but it's Freedom enhancing once you take
up a time leap ahead once you think
about others that are not not in the
privileged spaces that can build the
walls and this is where it's so
important to really think do we have the
systems mindset and do we have an
awareness of the
ecological base upon which we are all
operating as beings but also on the
other side the technological imagination
and abilities to say we can organize a
lot of those relationships and Solutions
in a much better
way and this is why I think we should be
putting so much emphasis on talking
about how do we want to live and when
you speak with people today why they're
so tired about the transformation is
because many say we don't even know
where it's supposed to be
going so what is the vision of a society
that we want to live in what is that
common digital future that we're
aspiring to where sustainability and
best technology come together how do we
get there what is the pathway cuz then
every effort is a step in a Direction
right now it feels like it's going back
and forth and back and forth and no one
really knows why this is leading to
something and what that something looks
like and digitalization obviously has
been playing an important role in this
both as a promise that automatically
something like sustainabil would come
out of it but also as a threat I briefly
want to go in this before we go in the
imagination sustainable digital
infrastructures and digital tools for
sustainability have been discussed I
think before the crisis even more it's
like okay energy Mobility systems I
mentioned then the circularity can only
work if we have digital twins I learned
a lot about and modeling and where
things are going and so that you have an
idea where you could find resources
without them going to the bin becoming
part of a production process again
Etc obviously there are great examples
about decentralized energy systems but
also something like currencies that can
be shared over smartphones and get to
women
for example in very remote places that
formerly did not have a chance to have
access to credit and thus build their
own
businesses social cohesion could be
increased but could also mean we're
going into more divides depending on how
we use the
technology power I think generally when
I think about when we've first thought
about this 2019 and now I'm a bit on the
kind of dystopian side to be honest so
you have to help me correct this but the
whole power notion the idea about
democracy the public discourse this
necessity of having a shared imaginary
space and agreement about reality that
we're
shaping is undermined intentionally by
the ones that are using what's been
called social media as a very asocial
way of driving wedges in
societies and this is why it's so
important when we think about the
possibility of um digitalization to
think about different orders of impact
that's what um we've been coming from
from the resource search cuz that's the
most obvious one when you start thinking
about how can digitalization help it's
this first order impact how do we really
make sure that we getting the CO2 curve
down the resource used down think about
all the planetary boundaries make them
come down so do things better do them
more
efficiently including and I think that's
a point where I'm a bit lost and I need
your views on this notion of generative
AI ever data deeper data neuronal
networks quantum
what is the actual added value compared
to shallow AI is it worth that amount of
processing power that amount of energy
and now we had the first um issues with
water in California and other places so
what's the leap frogging technological
advance in comparison to what more is
being taken out of the planet for me is
one of the things where I feel the
discourse might not necessarily show us
the cost benefit in a very helpful
[Music]
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way because the the second order impact
is an important one which is not only
looking at the products but comes back
to the system thinking a proper circular
region which ERS F Lipper where was born
is one good example or Bop or others
they are really trying to see how can we
make this circular space from the
industry and how do we use um
digitalization online platforms uh
communication tools Etc to make that
happen that goes beyond making one
device better into how do we share
better how do we create access better
and how do we get to that third order
impact which would mean the imagination
of how we can provide for human need
satisfaction without everybody having to
have
everything because we need to use it so
it's more using than
having and that would be a completely
different way of thinking of Mobility
systems or thinking about um also a
nutrition system but also Living Spaces
it would not necessarily mean having it
forever as well but moving around and
creating houses for example where you
can rebuild the walls after a particular
time when the kids are out you just make
it smaller someone else can come in it
really is about systems designed to
cater at the least uh or the lowest
ecological footprint to your human
needs and when we think about those
impacts you come to different thoughts
about where is the development of the
technosphere as we see it right now with
all those different aspects again that
you know much better or much more about
than I do but each one of them allows
for different tweaking a different
seeing a different connecting a
different reshaping than what we had in
space or in place before as
technological possibilities but the big
question always is which purpose is Serv
and who tells the stories about which
Transformations are unavoidable and
where you thus have to get behind and
when the biggest
benefactors from generative AI are the
ones that are saying every single
business model that won't have that in
its core will be out of business in 5 to
10 years you have a nice self-fulfilling
prophecy in there so how do we change
the story on every single business model
that doesn't really think how
Technologies can get to that formula of
best performance at lowest footprint
will be out of business that will be a
challenge to put
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up and this is why for for us and it was
a bit daunting because the Eco people
are already anti-progress right and then
you come out with a message where you
say technology yes is super important
but if it is going to be a savior
depends
it depends on what is the purpose that
we give them towards you and that is not
decided in the technological space but
that is decided and negotiated in a pre-
technological space of societal
decision-making and policy
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[Music]
Frameworks and and this is where I
feel is maybe the most important
place for many that are very cognizant
about that Revolution to speak up to say
we can think up the best technological
solutions but they're only going to
either make it out of the niche into the
mainstream or be staying on that purpose
track if you change the governing
Frameworks and I mean you again your
history the internet how it started was
it supposed to be coming and now what it
has turned into to Facebook meeting
friends and now manipulating people
making them really
unhappy um I mean this this whole idea
about what can grow under which kind of
Investments patterns and then what kind
of investment ideas and return on
investment um yeah your Notions of of
how much you want to earn is not
necessarily bringing out the most benign
or sustainable development mod um
business models and this is what we
should be talking about that was the
thing that we've said in the um report
our common digital future really has
several Dynamics if you want to see it
coming towards sustainability they all
start now and they're going to pan out a
different time spans we really have to
act now on the ecological crisis because
otherwise we're going to cross those
thresholds where it's going to be very
very difficult to repair any of that but
we also really already see and sometimes
I wonder if we're not um having the
social change kind of overtake the
environmental one when you look at the
most recent developments now how much is
it going to impact who is going to take
part in societal decision- making and
how and is democracy still going to work
if we're systematically eroding a common
base of agreement what we call reality
facts and evidence
[Applause]
base and then the third one the this
whole notion
of who do we want to be
um even if we were
able to replace everything that animals
do for us that plants do for us was
something
artificial is that really a place that
we want to live
in I'm always a kind of party pooper
when I have you seen those kind of
Vodaphone dogs the red roboty ones they
come and then they kind kind of wander
and waddle around and they have these
green eyes and they go h on their legs
when you come to close to them and
people are so fascinated by these
creatures waddling around the bits and
pretzels and other places and I just
think look at the real thing and you see
how deficient the replication is why do
you build things that are replacing what
is already there I don't get it why
don't
[Music]
we why don't we build the Technologies
and the solutions that are in service of
life that make life for the ones that
are already there easier and then really
be clear about it's a branch point we
can either have digitally supported
sustainability really look at the guard
rails the planetary ones use all the
possibility to map uh systems and their
development patterns and their tipping
points to avoid them to ensure social
cohesion or it's going to go exactly the
other way and the same holds in the
other areas as well a new humanism what
is the
mindset with which Technologies are
being developed and what are the ones of
the people that are most influential in
this I I don't necessarily think that
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and other
Silicon Valley investors have a very
friendly view on vast majority of the
other people on this planet they tend to
be in their way
and this is why this notion of
self-confidence and speaking up for the
world that we want to live in instead of
leaving that prediction about where we
can live and how it's going to look in
that future is being left to the ones
that are out there to gain a lot from
that development if it was
technology and that really don't care
about how many people come come along
but only about them being in the cockpit
and this is the conversation that we
should have and this is the kind of guts
that we should have because there's
three possible Pathways I think that
we've seen and that's my concluding
remarks a is this elitist consumption
control is for me it's radical
radicalism it's this libertarian and
totalitarian accounts are destroying any
former role model that we had of a world
of democratic welfare states where
actually the rules are kind of counting
for everyone even if you're a tech
billionaire
and digitalization I mean move fast and
disrupt first build monopolies get out
of the market system make sure that you
build new systems and you sit on top of
it the second one is the one that
doesn't really look at the planetary
effects and things we're already getting
there we're already getting there but
these unintended side effects because
we're not anticipating enough where
things fundamentally go in the wrong
direction or not gutsy enough because
we're trapped in short-termism and
policy makers can only act when the
sorry [ __ ] already hits the
fan that means we're going to rebound
off the cliffs we're going to be too
late it's going to be shock based
innovation in our societies but we want
to have Innovation societies that are
anticipating and imagining where they
want to go and this is why I think even
though it might sound a bit Ethiopian
but what is that web of life and
technology so how do we reshape the
social cultural forms of delivering on
Key System fun function in this case
also human needs Social Security welfare
economic sustainab uh stability nature
conversation and really say
digitalization should be a means to
higher ends and those higher ends are
democratically chosen and democratically
being put around CU it's our planet to
live on and not just a few thank
[Applause]
you
thank
you thank you very much for this very
inspiring talk and we now have quite a
bit of time for some questions so if you
want trust something please stand in the
line and we also have uh the possibility
to um post questions via masdon or IRC
but I would suggest we will start with
number two yeah thank you very much um
do you think that capitalism still has
answers to the problem you
[Applause]
named I'm I'm sorry I'm laughing only
because til I don't know if you're in
the room T and I just had a longer
interview and he was drilling me towards
that can you say capitalism now
and I think what is really important are
two things a is with this version of
Highly financialized capitalism there is
no solution especially not as this
financialized way of talking value value
creation Etc is more a value extraction
by now that doesn't pay a lot of care to
the either social or ecological systems
through which the money is being
channeled to make more money so it is
not in a service
of creating value in the true sense that
we all imagine it to be so unless we're
reconnecting financials with real world
values no
chance and this is where things that we
might deem are a bit too limited to T
Etc like the taxonomy but also impact
investing or a carbon price are all kind
of political reactions to that
understanding that we have too much of a
decoupling between the financials and
the real value values if that comes back
together again we still start from a
completely highly unequal
space so I don't think without changing
that towards a more equal
share of
possibilities to be taking at least four
or five roles in society where you're
shaping its direction that won't work
either those roles are as a consumer as
a citizen and we know when you have a
bigger pot of money those impacts are
higher in both of those roles but you
also have three more roles that not
everybody else in society has and that
is as an
investor as a role model cuz that's who
we look up to they've made a lot of
money they must be great and as someone
high in an organization because
typically High money returns comes with
hierarchy in an
organization so unle unless we also
think about how much hoarding a lot of
wealth in terms of financials means that
that you're more likely to play in all
those roles a much more
impactful role in shaping societies
we're not going to get to something
that's democracy in the real
sense I I don't know I've said before I
don't really care if we call it
capitalism afterwards or no for me it's
most important to really name the trends
and get working at the trends because
what I've witnessed so much
is Bam ISM stamp on your forehead and
then they do the flip side of saying if
you're not for capitalism then you must
must be either for communism or
socialism we've seen in the past that
doesn't works the best system we've had
is capitalism so shut up right end a
conversation so I'm in cisu I think it
is very important to say this type of
capitalism as we have it right now has
no chance to serve a sustainable future
or serve everybody full
stop and if whatever comes afterward
words it's called capitalism with some
prefix postfix whatever fix I don't care
we can also call it something
different so next question would be
number one
hi um you mentioned imagination a lot in
your talk and I really appreciated that
because um to be able to shape something
obviously we have to be able to imagine
what we're trying to shape and the new
shape and all of that right so my
question is are you familiar with solar
punk I assume you are so the second
question is do you see a role of solar
punk in all of this in the
transformation that has to happen and
what role would that be thank
youh I would need for you to say what
you think solar Punk is in total like
what are the different aspirations
they're going into
what is it the it's it's it's a lot of
things right it's a literary gen that is
that is there to help us imagine the
future that is after the uh
transformation or helping us imagine the
transformation right but it can also be
understood as a movement as a practice
as a as a way of actually making the
transformation happen right so there
it's multifaceted so so the so I guess
the third question is which which of
those two or like somewhere in between
of them like would you see a role do you
see a role uh in in this transformation
mhm
I think it's always both and I do think
that giving it just one label is
limiting where we could go to because
what I've learned from doing a lot of
campaigns is it's very difficult to
really describe exactly where you want
to go and where everybody can write
their names under but it's much more
easy to say on what we don't want any
longer and this no and is a better
strategy and then you can align align
solar Punk and you can align other
places in the bits and boy and whatever
else to say we're totally in agreement
on what has to stop and what we'd like
to see more of but we don't have to give
it one name necessarily but it can share
some I don't know we tried principles
before as something that has a clear
idea about systems design but is not
saying how exactly it has to look um so
I think what is really the most
important is that we refrain from making
it too small too onward and at the same
time be completely clear that what is in
place right now has no future every
single sustainability projection says
business as usual
scenario no terrible idea right so yes
that means no not maintaining what there
is but trying something else and this is
where then the variety and when you
thought about the niche players ideally
we have a bit of a diversity especially
because culturally different spaces
function differently and some narrative
or some imagination works better in one
place we did a research on sustainable
development strategies what are the best
sustainable development strategies and
very clearly came out was this battles
man Foundation at the time that it
always was very important how it was
labeled so in Bhutan it was the gross
national happiness in Ecuador was Bren
and then in Germany were more
technocratic so we were okay
with and then others need slightly
different ways of saying it so that it
resonates with something that's already
in place and you will always have to
look at as well what kind of policy
changes or governance changes you want
to do depending on what's already there
and this is where I think this Balancing
Act is and saying there is similarity
that we don't go behind and then we will
see that there's multiple solutions that
we will need and we'll probably never
end up with exactly the same in
different places which is great because
we need diversity
anyway thank you
do we have a question from the internet
from masteron or V
RC yes um the internet likes to know
what are the next political steps and
need to be taken
mhm easy
question right don't really stand still
anymore
um I wonder I I mean I
think for me the biggest defense moment
will be the European collection uh
election probably which is already in
the next spring cuz when I think about
where did I see more Visionary
approaches it was in the commission
where they had under the green deal the
tripartite with the digitalization and
the social equity and the green uh
transition as the three main anchors and
we're literally trying to link those
across institutions also from a systems
change point of view one can judge
whether it was yeah really successful or
no but I don't even on the German level
see an imaginary space like that or an
idea unit it was called where people
from all different directorates were
coming together and we're really
thinking about if you want to have those
outcomes what are the different policies
from from different areas on the EU
level and the EU is the only one at
least for market and for any Market size
that would be big enough for saying this
could be the new industry or this is
something that would be able to live up
and geopolitical times as we have
smaller than that I think is it's just
unrealistic so for me the EU election is
something that is probably the most
important to get attention to and to
make sure that it's not being taken over
by lots of people that have one thing in
mind that is destroy the European Union
and um then we can talk about after that
what we might want to say to fua vising
and if he really feels that's a
digitalization place that he's governing
over and then certainly a possibility to
push again that there might be something
like a digitalization strategy that
actually cuts across Resorts and has a
purpose to it and an idea to
it o I don't know if that's going to
happen in this legislation or maybe it's
going to be parked to the next one so
the EU I think for me is the most
important level right
[Applause]
now next question would be number
one hi so you mentioned a report you
wrote or you worked on a lot and I was
wondering why we find that report to
read it and so on because if you said I
didn't hear it and I would really like
to read it yeah it was uh on the slides
and is called our common digital future
but I didn't say the report is called
our common digital future so yeah it's
2019 uh the website is
www.
wbgu dode and you can download
everything for free there in English and
in
German thank
[Applause]
you number three your
question yes Maya let's look into this
room thousand more than thousand people
here and today these are experts highly
skilled
workers so unfortunately maybe we are
today part of the problem tomorrow we
could be part of the solution do you
have a simple message for us how we
could contribute to the
[Applause]
transformation
I think if this purpose was really
nailed down and asked for to be made
transparent from your community that are
the innovators the ones that know where
we're going would be hugely important on
the kpis for startup financing on the
kpis what open Innovation should bring
into places on kpis what digitalizing
bureaucracies means don't put what's
there on digital speed transform them
first so that they can achieve goals and
include citizens much better and be more
effective in processing information
before you put it on a digital system
designed to uh deliver on that purpose
transparency I think if you could help
with an architecture of awareness to say
we always really want to be very clearly
showing what does maintaining the status
quo cost us so that we shift the burden
of proof on the ones that want to stay
where we are away from all these
Alternatives that don't get out of the
niche but have lots of answers on how
that sustainable life could look like
that be
fantastic and another question from
number
four uh yes hello um you mentioned the
farmer protests in Germany and in
Netherlands and uh it's a bit strange to
see people that are very much at the
Forefront of um climate change they they
see it in the everyday work um yet they
are protesting against changes that are
supposed to be uh good for the climate
and right-wing populist parties are kind
of coopting these kind of protests so
that's very much I think something that
is a strange development and I was
wondering if you have any idea how that
could be
prevented I
wish um well I think that the
the overall challenge is that
we have accepted to call what is
currently the status quo
normal and that we've been used to a
promise that political forces are only
then legitimate in a democracy if they
make everybody constantly better off
than the year
before and on that basis democracy has
its social
contract and only the ones that have
least organizing power are the ones that
know very well that that promise is only
holding for some much more than
others and I feel what is very important
is to there also open up a the time
span to look at what kind of subsidies
have been paid what kind of business
models came out of this and some of the
biggest farms are so big now because
through through the subsidy schemes the
small ones all went bust because it was
per space per hectares that you got
compensated or per amount of animals so
it had an
inbuilt concentration factor and then
obviously those are the ones that take a
lot of the power in terms of public
space and loudness to defend the
subsidies being taken away again so the
losers from changing policies tend to
shout loudest if they can if they're in
the
eons and this is where I feel this this
notion of where do you want to have your
business model contribute to is
something that you at least can have in
a private conversation so it really
depends on the spaces that you design
I've had those with Farmers when I said
first very angry and then we got into
talking about what is it that you love
about your
profession and then slowly but surely
they come to the point of saying we
would just like to be able to live from
our produce
but we've been shoved in a system where
that's
impossible and then you can talk about
how you would get back into this
entrepreneu spirit that doesn't hold for
everybody some just really think it's
great to have that entitlement of
€300,000 every single year before you've
done
anything yes I understand but that has
to be made transparent and said nice but
it is one of those like the way that we
keep animals like how did that happen
how could we have been so so ignorant of
those side effects for so long it has to
be corrected but it takes the political
courage and it takes this opening up of
what is it that we're talking about is
that a business model is that something
you can be proud of is that a produce
that you associate with and you feel is
in your profession or in your identity
something you are proud of so that's the
pull factor in this kind of liberalizing
or liberating yourself from a system
that constrains this and you get it from
Engineers you get it from designers from
Architects they know how much much
better they could do things and they
feel constrained by the way that right
now the financials are working or the
subsidies or the standards so that's the
pull and the other one is yeah confront
the ones that really don't want to
change and don't want to be asked into
uh shaping the change tell them that it
is something that we understand would be
nice to keep but it's just not working
if it's supposed to becoming at a system
that works for
everyone
dear Maya I thank you so much for this
inspiring talk and I would love to
listen to you for hours and hours and we
have still lots of questions I know but
unfortunately um our time is up so I say
thank you and once again one warm Round
of Applause please for my AG thank
you thank
you
[Music]