Chapter 12
Digital Democracy (Democracy 2.0, 3.0,
4.0)
How to Make It Work?
Is democracy outdated, is it broken? Many people feel the current political system will
not work much longer. Suddenly, we are faced with unsustainability, mass migration, terror,
climate emergency, a financial system at the verge of collapse, and „Corona emergency”.
Some have suggested it is time for a data-driven digital state, and China would lead the way.
Eventually, however, people have realized that this might establish a global technological
totalitarianism. They understand that a data-driven and AI-controlled society could easily end
in a data dictatorship, where optimization will overrule more and more freedoms. So, how
to prevent that the world would eventually be run like a digitally optimized „Animal Farm”?
How to upgrade democracies with digital means? Here, I suggest to build participatory
platforms that support collective intelligence, and to engage in open formats such as „City
Olympics”, which combine competition with cooperation and bottom-up engagement.
12.1 The “Benevolent Dictator” Is Dead
When the book “Limits to Growth” was published in the early 1970ies,
1 the world
started to worry about its future. In the twenty-first century, it was suggested, some
of the planetary resources needed for survival would fall short, for example, oil or
water. Moreover, all simulation scenarios indicated that the world would fail to get
on a sustainable path, and the economy and world’s population would collapse. We
would see sky-rocketing death rates as never before.
At this time, people started to change their behavior. They avoided plastic bags, had
car-free Sundays, and established environmental movements. Politically, it should
have been required that, whatever we do from then on, would reduce the overall
consumption of resources every year. In fact, had we increased resource efficiency
at a rate of only 3% per year, the world would be sustainable by now. However, the
industry had different plans and demanded: “Put all the obstacles out of our way,
and we will fix the problems for you.” Neoliberalism, globalism, and free trade were
proposed as solutions. From the perspective of the year 2020, however, one can surely
1 Meadows [1].
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. Helbing, Next Civilization,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62330-2_12
249
Digital Democracy (Democracy 2.0, 3.0,
4.0)
How to Make It Work?
Is democracy outdated, is it broken? Many people feel the current political system will
not work much longer. Suddenly, we are faced with unsustainability, mass migration, terror,
climate emergency, a financial system at the verge of collapse, and „Corona emergency”.
Some have suggested it is time for a data-driven digital state, and China would lead the way.
Eventually, however, people have realized that this might establish a global technological
totalitarianism. They understand that a data-driven and AI-controlled society could easily end
in a data dictatorship, where optimization will overrule more and more freedoms. So, how
to prevent that the world would eventually be run like a digitally optimized „Animal Farm”?
How to upgrade democracies with digital means? Here, I suggest to build participatory
platforms that support collective intelligence, and to engage in open formats such as „City
Olympics”, which combine competition with cooperation and bottom-up engagement.
12.1 The “Benevolent Dictator” Is Dead
When the book “Limits to Growth” was published in the early 1970ies,
1 the world
started to worry about its future. In the twenty-first century, it was suggested, some
of the planetary resources needed for survival would fall short, for example, oil or
water. Moreover, all simulation scenarios indicated that the world would fail to get
on a sustainable path, and the economy and world’s population would collapse. We
would see sky-rocketing death rates as never before.
At this time, people started to change their behavior. They avoided plastic bags, had
car-free Sundays, and established environmental movements. Politically, it should
have been required that, whatever we do from then on, would reduce the overall
consumption of resources every year. In fact, had we increased resource efficiency
at a rate of only 3% per year, the world would be sustainable by now. However, the
industry had different plans and demanded: “Put all the obstacles out of our way,
and we will fix the problems for you.” Neoliberalism, globalism, and free trade were
proposed as solutions. From the perspective of the year 2020, however, one can surely
1 Meadows [1].
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. Helbing, Next Civilization,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62330-2_12
249