But, we're absolutely clueless as to what this is or what it should be.

国家や社会は―

It seems like we need to have a conversation about democracy in our day and age.

新たなモデルへ移行していると

Let's think about it this way: We are 21st-century citizens,

誰もが思っているのではないでしょうか

doing our very, very best to interact with 19th century-designed institutions that are based on an information technology of the 15th century.

しかしそれがどんなモデルなのか どんなモデルであるべきかは

Let's have a look at some of the characteristics of this system.

誰も全く理解していません

First of all, it's designed for an information technology that's over 500 years old.

おそらく必要なのは

And the best possible system that could be designed for it is one where the few make daily decisions in the name of the many.

この時代における民主主義について

And the many get to vote once every couple of years. In the second place,

話し合うことです

the costs of participating in this system are incredibly high.

このように考えてみましょう

You either have to have a fair bit of money and influence, or you have to devote your entire life to politics.

21世紀に生きる私たち市民は

You have to become a party member and slowly start working up the ranks until maybe, one day, you'll get to sit at a table where a decision is being made.

19世紀に作られた制度と 何とかうまく折り合いをつけていますが

And last but not least, the language of the system — it's incredibly cryptic. It's done for lawyers, by lawyers, and no one else can understand.

そのもとになっている情報技術は 15世紀のものです

So, it's a system where we can choose our authorities,

この制度の特徴を

but we are completely left out on how those authorities reach their decisions.

見てみましょう

So, in a day where a new information technology allows us to participate globally in any conversation,

まず この制度は500年以上も前の

our barriers of information are completely lowered and we can, more than ever before, express our desires and our concerns.

情報技術に合わせて構築されています

Our political system remains the same for the past 200 years and expects us to be contented with being simply passive recipients of a monologue.

そのために可能な限り最良な制度が

So, it's really not surprising that this kind of system is only able to produce two kinds of results: silence or noise.

構築されたとしても

Silence, in terms of citizens not engaging, simply not wanting to participate.

少数が多数に代わって

There's this commonplace [idea] that I truly, truly dislike, and it's this idea that we citizens are naturally apathetic.

日々の決断をするもので

That we shun commitment.

多くの人々は 数年に１度投票するだけです

But, can you really blame us for not jumping at the opportunity of going to the middle of the city

また第２に

in the middle of a working day to attend, physically, a public hearing that has no impact whatsoever?

政治家になるには

Conflict is bound to happen between a system that no longer represents, nor has any dialogue capacity,

かなり高くつきます

and citizens that are increasingly used to representing themselves.

かなりの資金と

And, then we find noise: Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico Italy, France, Spain, the United States, they're all democracies.

影響力を持っているか 人生のすべてを政治に捧げるかの

Their citizens have access to the ballot boxes.

どちらかです

But they still feel the need, they need to take to the streets in order to be heard.

政党に属し

To me, it seems like the 18th-century slogan that was the basis for the formation of our modern democracies,

徐々に出世の階段を上らねばなりません

"No taxation without representation," can now be updated to "No representation without a conversation."

もしかしたら いつの日か 決断を下す地位にまで

We want our seat at the table.

上り詰めることができるかもしれません

And rightly so. But in order to be part of this conversation,

そして最後に 大事なことですが

we need to know what we want to do next, because political action is being able to move from agitation to construction.

この制度で使われる言葉は

My generation has been incredibly good at using new networks and technologies to organize protests,

難解です

protests that were able to successfully impose agendas, roll back extremely pernicious legislation,

法律家による法律家のための言葉であり

and even overthrow authoritarian governments. And we should be immensely proud of this.

それ以外の人には理解できません

But, we also must admit that we haven't been good at using those same networks and technologies

ですから この制度で 私たちの代表者を

to successfully articulate an alternative to what we're seeing and find the consensus and build the alliances that are needed to make it happen.

選ぶことはできますが

And so the risk that we face is that we can create these huge power vacuums that will very quickly get filled up by de facto powers, like the military or highly motivated and already organized groups that generally lie on the extremes.

権力者がどのように意思決定したのか

But our democracy is neither just a matter of voting once every couple of years.

私たちには全くわかりません

But it's not either the ability to bring millions onto the streets.

新しい情報技術によって

So the question I'd like to raise here, and I do believe it's the most important question we need to answer, is this one:

あらゆる話し合いに 世界中から参加できれば

If Internet is the new printing press, then what is democracy for the Internet era?

情報の障壁はかなり低くなり

What institutions do we want to build or the 21st-century society?

これまで以上に

I don't have the answer, just in case. I don't think anyone does.

望みや懸念を伝えることができます

But I truly believe we can't afford to ignore this question anymore.

政治制度はこの200年間

So, I'd like to share our experience and what we've learned so far and hopefully contribute two cents to this conversation.

変わっておらず

Two years ago, with a group of friends from Argentina,

そのまま受け入れることが

we started thinking, "how can we get our representatives, our elected representatives, to represent us?"

良しとされています

Marshall McLuhan once said that politics is solving today's problems with yesterday's tools.

そのため 必然的に

So the question that motivated us was, can we try and solve some of today's problems with the tools that we use every single day of our lives?

この制度から生まれる結果は

Our first approach was to design and develop a piece of software called DemocracyOS.

２つしかないのです

DemocracyOS is an open-source web application that is designed to become a bridge between citizens and their elected representatives

「沈黙」もしくは「騒音」です

to make it easier for us to participate from our everyday lives.

「沈黙」というのは 関わることをせず

So first of all, you can get informed so every new project that gets introduced in Congress

話し合いに参加することを 望まないことです

gets immediately translated and explained in plain language on this platform.

私は本当に嫌気がさすのですが

But we all know that social change is not going to come from just knowing more information,

私たち市民は無関心で 関わりを持たないようにしているのだと

but from doing something with it.

よく言われます

So better access to information should lead to a conversation about what we're going to do next,

しかし 平日の日中に

and DemocracyOS allows for that.

わざわざ街の中心へと足を運んで

Because we believe that democracy is not just a matter of stacking up preferences,

全く影響力のない公聴会に

one on top of each other, but that our healthy and robust public debate should be, once again, one of its fundamental values.

自ら参加しないからといって

So DemocracyOS is about persuading and being persuaded.

私たちは非難されるべきなのでしょうか？

It's about reaching a consensus as much as finding a proper way of channeling our disagreement.

私たちは非難されるべきなのでしょうか？

And finally, you can vote how you would like your elected representative to vote.

当然の帰結として不和が生まれます

And if you do not feel comfortable voting on a certain issue,

自分の声を代表する政治家が不在で 対話の余地のない制度

you can always delegate your vote to someone else, allowing for a dynamic and emerging social leadership.

その一方で 市民は次第に自分の声を

It suddenly became very easy for us to simply compare these results with how our representatives were voting in Congress.

自分で届けようとするのです

But, it also became very evident that technology was not going to do the trick.

その結果 「騒音」が生まれます

What we needed to do to was to find actors that were able to grab this distributed knowledge in society and use it to make better and more fair decisions.

チリ アルゼンチン ブラジル メキシコ

So we reached out to traditional political parties and we offered them DemocracyOS.

イタリア フランス スペイン 米国

We said, "Look, here you have a platform that you can use to build a two-way conversation with your constituencies."

どの国も民主主義国家で

And yes, we failed. We failed big time. We were sent to play outside like little kids.

市民は投票権を有していますが

Amongst other things, we were called naive.

まだ不十分だと感じています

And I must be honest: I think, in hindsight, we were.

耳を傾けてもらうために デモ活動が必要と考えています

Because the challenges that we face, they're not technological, they're cultural.

近代民主主義の基礎となった

Political parties were never willing to change the way they make their decisions.

18世紀のスローガンである

So it suddenly became a bit obvious that if we wanted to move forward with this idea, we needed to do it ourselves.

「代表なくして課税なし」は

And so we took quite a leap of faith, and in August last year,

「代表なくして課税なし」は

we founded our own political party, El Partido de la Red, or the Net Party, in the city of Buenos Aires.

現代では「対話なくして代表なし」 と言えるでしょう

And taking an even bigger leap of faith, we ran for elections in October last year with this idea:

私たちは議論に参加したいのです

if we want a seat in Congress, our candidate,

それはもっともなことです

our representatives were always going to vote according to what citizens decided on DemocracyOS.

しかし 議論に参加するには

Every single project that got introduced in Congress, we were going vote according to what citizens decided on an online platform.

次に何をすべきか知る必要があります

It was our way of hacking the political system.

政治的行動というのは

We understood that if we wanted to become part of the conversation,

煽動から構築へと

to have a seat at the table, we needed to become valid stakeholders, and the only way of doing it is to play by the system rules.

促すことができることだからです

But we were hacking it in the sense that we were radically changing the way a political party makes its decisions.

私の世代は新しいネットワークや

For the first time, we were making our decisions together with those who we were affecting directly by those decisions.

テクノロジーを使いこなし

It was a very, very bold move for a two-month-old party in the city of Buenos Aires.

デモ活動を組織してきました

But it got attention. We got 22,000 votes, that's 1.2 percent of the votes, and we came in second for the local options.

デモを通して

So, even if that wasn't enough to win a seat in Congress, it was enough for us to become part of the conversation,

課題を投げかけ

to the extent that next month, Congress, as an institution, is launching for the first time in Argentina's history,

悪しき法案を退け

a DemocracyOS to discuss, with the citizens, three pieces of legislation:

権威主義的な政府を覆すことさえしました

two on urban transportation and one on the use of public space.

このことを心から

Of course, our elected representatives are not saying,

誇りに思うべきです

"Yes, we're going to vote according to what citizens decide," but they're willing to try.

同時に 認めざるを得ないのは

They're willing to open up a new space for citizen engagement and hopefully they'll be willing to listen as well.

私たちの世代には 不得手なこともあるということです

Our political system can be transformed, and not by subverting it, by destroying it,

使うネットワークとテクノロジーが同じでも

but by rewiring it with the tools that Internet affords us now.

代案を提案して

But a real challenge is to find, to design to create, to empower those connectors that are able to innovate,

意見の一致を模索し 実現のために

to transform noise and silence into signal and finally bring our democraciesto the 21st century.

連携を構築することは できませんでした

I'm not saying it's easy. But in our experience, we actually stand a chance of making it work.

そのため 私たちが直面するリスクは

And in my heart, it's most definitely worth trying. Thank you.

巨大な権力の空白状態の出現であり