[laughs] Bye.

I appreciate the opportunity to continue to absorb what it is that you have done, what it is that you are doing over there, and to see what’s going on in Taiwan as a beacon of hope in a humanitarian sense. Thank you so much.

It’s beautiful. Audrey, I want to be respectful of the time allowance. I really, really appreciate wholeheartedly the time you spent with me this morning. There’s nothing but gratitude for this moment, this conversation.

One final thought I’d love to hear from you just for posterity, so that people can hear this in the future, is, if you could speak to the, I’ve heard you say it’s really not about the singularity, it’s about plurality. If you could speak to that.

Just take a breath for that, for the moment.

I guess it really speaks to people’s sheer lack of trust, maybe not even just with each other, but just with local municipality, or state government, or maybe even our medical system, which, as we now know, by today, as of this week, we passed the really grim milestone of ...

I really appreciate the explanation of, there’s really no innovation going on in that regard of, I’ll use the word lightly, just enforcing the digital fence.

There’s this kind of high tide, low tide wave crashing of clashing bits of information. There’s a very luke warm, barely any sort of contact tracing, as I understand it happening here. What is it that Taiwan was able to set up and in what kind of timeframe in terms ...

It seems as though I had been naively hoping that there would be some contact tracing consensus here, if not in the US, at least maybe in California or on the West Coast, or something. It seems as though people’s immediate jump into our state and federal governments cannot be ...

There is one more question I like to ask you while we have just a few more minutes. Maybe it’s a bit of a smaller [laughs] conspiracy theory inquiry. It has to do with people’s trust with technology as it pertains to contact tracing and digital fence.

That’s amazing. I hadn’t heard of that until you just mentioned it. I wonder if I have to look at any articles or news regarding that, so I can point people to that.

I wonder if you have any familiarity with what you can see having the distance [laughs] across the Pacific Ocean with this kind of level of conspiracy thinking that had its root at some point in the last several years and has grown into such a cross border situation?

Given the topic of conspiracy theories, up until this recently, I’ve been fairly uninformed regarding some of the bigger, longer-term ones that we seem to be living with here. Especially, the seemingly expansive universe of QAnon.

At the beginning of this conversation, you were mentioning a recent disinformation campaign that you were working on or you were helping to respond to. Can you talk a little bit about that?

I don’t know where to go from here at this moment. I think there’s something to be said. Maybe to speak to be in a self reflective moment, just for a second. It’s interesting to having heard many conversations, podcasts, interviews that you’ve been on in this instance to allow ...

Sunflower.

I wonder if you can speak to a little bit of a timeline from the revolution, moving forward, and how those blocks of time have maybe led into a smoother state of innovation, given the challenges we’re facing every day.

It seems here, our value systems, at least as portrayed in our media, seem continents or universes apart, and yet, as you say, to accept it as it is and to deal with it.

It’s interesting to hear what you describe as both parties can get…Actually, the value system was so close to each other and yet it gets so granular in this sort of level of refraction of light in which the granular levels are a little bit different. That’s fascinating.

There’s also something beautiful in that decay itself, maybe from a Taoist perspective, but given where we are now, and that we are several weeks away from an impending election that I truly hope will be happening, if you have any thoughts on how we can begin to innovate, given ...

Civic tech, exactly. [laughs] I keep coming up against this, like, how do we even begin to innovate here? There seems to be so much here that is beyond an expiration date, or beyond a certain level of decay.

It seems like, on those terms, there are some basic simple technologies set up that people can interface with all day, every day, and then there is the more sort of DIY aspects of more…

As I understand it, there’s a phone number set up, there’s one phone number that people can call in to ask questions, to raise grievances, all these.

It’s wonderful, the nature of, really the reality of innovation, or the presence of innovation, given what I’m able to view, and read about, and research, as I study Taiwan, the innovation seems exponential, at least from my kind of far away perspective.

I want one.

I feel like I’m speaking about it in a kind of, sort of a dramatic way, but I’m saying that just from my perspective of being in here and being surrounded by it. I wonder if you could speak to how you’re viewing this process that we’re going through here.

I wonder if, here, we are just having a…Not to simplify it too much, but we may just be suffering from a framing issue, to not see common values but to just see pure division by way of how we navigate through social media, how we navigate through adverts and ...

Which is actually a really good lead-in into…Perhaps it’s a better framing. Instead of focusing on cohesion, it’s really focusing on common values.

Does the perceived lack of cohesion bring us beyond a point of being able to unify together as a culture here?

I was curious if you could speak to the potential of, at some point, diversity in ideologies not purely about races or backgrounds in terms of places of origin. In terms of ideologies or religious differences, is there a point at which perhaps here there isn’t a possibility of real ...

With 20 national languages?

I wonder, given that here in the States we are an amalgamation of so many different cultures, races, languages, and ideologies, if there is a lack of social cohesion compared to a citizenry like Taiwan, which is predominantly Han Chinese, as I understand.

[laughs] Excellent. I’ve been ruminating on a question leading up to this conversation, again, to go back into the seemingly stark differences, culturally speaking, between the States and Taiwan.

Beautiful. I’ve heard of Wistaria, and I look forward one day to visiting. I also read that you touch on Taoism as a resource for how you develop your philosophies and how you operate as a digital minister. I wonder if you could touch on that as well.

I wonder if those notions, given the fabric of society in Taiwan, how…This is maybe too complex of a question at this moment.

That’s a community called Global Tea Hut, and I find it not only just something that, tea as an immersive experience is something that also touches on notions of hygiene, sanitation, cleansing not just physically speaking, but also spiritually speaking.

It’s something that I have been studying and practicing, through mentorship with actually an expatriate who was based in Miaoli, and I guess close to Taipei.

Are you familiar, by chance, with the Taoist practice of tea ceremony, also known as Cha Tao?

Are you a tea drinker, by chance?

Right, interesting. That’s good to point out. I appreciate that. I have so many questions all simultaneous at the same time. Are you drinking tea or coffee right now?

It seems as though the notion of masks as some kind of a personal infringement or censorship issue, it’s as crazy as wildfire here, quite literally.

I wonder if, given the predominant culture of “I, me, mine” here in the United States, how can anyone – not even just as a citizen here, but how can anyone – begin to speak to the larger society here to explain the difference between protecting yourself, and in doing ...

Yet, I don’t know how to respond to people when they share that it is seemingly science fiction, given not just the citizens perspective on the pandemic but also the government’s response. I wonder if you could speak a little bit to how that transparent governance, that two-way system is ...

Everyone that I had shared the story with and shared relevant current information regarding it, there is a moment in which people are temporarily able to almost see clearly, if you will, what is possible and what is happening elsewhere in this world that we share.

The people that I have shared the story of Taiwan with as it pertains to not just, as you mentioned, the pandemic, but the infodemic, from here, looks like science fiction.

From this perspective here in the States, everything I read about the response having come from Taiwan, as well as your background, and having listened to interviews you’ve given in the last six, seven, eight months regarding this topic.

Mm-hmm.

Wow. I’m just going to jump into it and just ponder out loud that I imagine that politically speaking, we may look like as much of a circus as we probably project out to the world, but I just want to know how your week. [laughs] How’s your week been ...

How are you this morning?

Great. Thank you so much, and good morning. I’m here with Audrey Tang calling in from Taiwan.