Original title: "Highlights of the Century Dialogue" Gordon Levy praised Taiwan's democracy for "attracting global attention", and Vitalik Buterin hopes that Russia can also change"

Original author: Ting, BlockTempo

The key agenda of the ABS 2024 Asian Blockchain Summit, Plurality Summit, was held on the 8th. Well-known Hollywood actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, former Minister of Digital Development Tang Feng, "Radical Markets" author Glen Weyl, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin started a conversation entitled "Symphony of Open Minds: Creative Collaboration in a Diverse World".

The four people started from the perspective of the multiverse and explored many topics in depth. In addition to discussing this year's US presidential election and their views on the US TikTok ban, they also conducted in-depth discussions on topics such as the source of optimism, democratic systems, and the relationship between social media and democracy.

Exploring the Sources of Optimism

As the host of this conversation, Gordon-Levy first stated that when he read the book "Multiverse", what impressed him most was optimism. He bluntly stated that in recent years, the continuous impact of negative information brought by the epidemic and social media has made him and many people feel pessimistic, but after being exposed to the idea of ​​the multiverse, he is full of hope again, so he hopes to understand what makes the participants feel optimistic in today's world?

Glen Weyl believes that both optimism and pessimism have their problems. Optimism is basically "you will like what you are about to get", while pessimism is "you will get what you don't want". However, he hopes that people will become strong and resilient, meet challenges and survive, just like Tang Feng bravely faced congenital heart disease:

"I hope that our society will not wait for things to happen, but will take responsibility and show initiative."

Vitalik Buterin mentioned the "technological optimism" he proposed in an article last year, saying that technologies like AI may bring about major changes within five to ten years and should not be underestimated. He proposed a "d/acc" (decentralized accelerationism). This philosophy emphasizes defense, decentralization, democracy and differentiation, seeks to create and maintain a more democratic world, and tries to avoid centralization as the preferred way to solve problems.

Vitalik Buterin's Expectations for Russia to Achieve Democracy

It is worth noting that Gordon-Levitt also revealed that he once talked with a Russian taxi driver about the differences between Russia and the United States, that is, the differences between democratic governments and authoritarian governments. The taxi driver told him that Russians do not want democracy, but prefer strongman authoritarian leaders, which impressed him deeply. So he was curious whether Vitalik Buterin, as a person with a Russian background, agreed with the taxi driver's opinion?

Vitalik Buterin responded that in many political discussions, people often talk about "millennium civilization traits" or national characteristics, but he believes that many people's ideas are driven by events in the last 30 to 50 years. However, he cited Germany's transition from autocracy to democracy as an example, emphasizing that he still has hope for Russia to achieve democracy:

“Germany tried to establish democracy but failed. There was a theory that German culture had its own special path and was destined to be more authoritarian and militaristic than other countries. But now in Berlin, you see graffiti everywhere calling for peace. People are concerned about climate change…

I hope for similar changes in Russia, and I am not naive. Such changes will not happen easily, and they will not be easy for Germany either, but I still have hope.”

Does social media undermine democracy?

Gordon-Levy mentioned the importance of social media in the operation of democracy, and cited the example of a US presidential candidate (referring to former US President Trump) who is still spreading lies through social media that he had won the 2020 US presidential election. He emphasized that social media has weakened democracy, so how can social media better support the operation of democracy?

Tang Feng suggested that social media should be sorted based on pro-social attributes such as constructiveness and curiosity rather than on participation, which would improve the quality of life of users and promote better democratic interaction. She pointed out that such a sorting mechanism has been experimented with in Taiwan, and the results showed that people would spend less time but their quality of life would improve.

Vitalik Buterin complains about social media scams

At the end of the speech, Gordon-Levitt then asked the participants about their experience in using social media. Tang Feng recommended a browser extension "News Feed Eradicator" that can integrate Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. Replace the homepage updates of social platforms with inspiring quotes to reduce the interference of social media on yourself.

Vitalik Buterin believes that the early X platform was very useful, but over time, the quality of interactions declined, and various fake V God accounts appeared to promote fraud. He believes that social media needs to be improved, and he now prefers to write blog articles.

Glen Weyl said that his feelings were more complicated. Whenever he interacted with the cryptocurrency community, 98% of the information would be scams or bad content, and only 1% of the content would be very informative and interesting. In his opinion, after Musk took over the X platform, the proportion of content he did not enjoy increased by about one to two orders of magnitude:

“If you fire 90% of the people who make what seems like important technology investments, that has some impact on product quality.”

In summary, this dialogue of the century, from optimism, the current state of democracy in various countries, to the interference of social media platforms, all revolved around the theme "Symphony of an Open Mind: Collaboration to Create a Diverse World", and brought key inspiration to the application scenarios of the next generation of openness and democracy, and collaborative technologies such as blockchain and AI.

Original link