WEBVTT

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Across the world, democracy is on a

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decline. Authoritarianism is on the rise.

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Global freedom has eroded for the 18th

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consecutive year.

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Audrey Tang, mm-hmm. What is your

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greatest hope for democracy across the globe?

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That people see democracy as a

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social technology, something that people

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can construct together, that they can

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improve in the here and now.

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We can code up political

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[Music]

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systems. The Sunflower Movement was a

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real turning point for Taiwan's

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democracy. When the Sunflower Movement

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happened, I typed to my colleague, I have

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to leave now. Democracy needs me. I

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brought a very long cable for internet

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connection. I live streamed through

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Twitter. Everybody saw it is possible for

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democracy to evolve, to come up with

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novel policies simply by asking the

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people, what should we do?

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[Music]

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Together. I was born with a heart defect.

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And one day I just fainted. I woke up in

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a hospital and they told me the hole in

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my heart has grown. I could die. This

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awareness that everything can be reset

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tomorrow reminds me of Taiwanese

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democracy. We can lose our democracy

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just with a couple of

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missiles. I think there's a lot that the

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world can learn from

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Taiwan. The US is running on a 250-year-old

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operating system. There is a strong

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desire to move beyond this and

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properly rethink from first principles

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what would democracy in the 21st century

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actually look like. We can make the

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government more open to the public. It'll

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be easier for people to access the data,

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to analyze it.

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Transparency. Audrey has created the

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opportunity to make Taiwan the most

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exciting constitutional democracy in the

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world. I think it's a very critical

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moment. China really wants to invade

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Taiwan. You're sitting on a place that is

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the flash point if there's going to be

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World War III. And yet there's calm in the

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eye of the hurricane. And that calm, I

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think, emanates from all that Audrey's

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done. We can become co-creators of our

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democratic system, reconfiguring society

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in a way that is more transparent, more

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inclusive, more fair.