In Taiwan, we have every year a major election followed by a referendum, followed by a major election, followed by a referendum, and so on. This it’s even/odd, even/odd years. My work is primarily in the gap between one vote and one referendum.

And have the conversation be binding in terms of setting the agenda of the people in the administration here, and then have the administration respond in the here-and-now rather than having to wait for the parliamentary session or for the next voting or for the next referendum, which all takes ...

That’s right. So, the work that I’m doing, I refer to it as continuous democracy, meaning that it is more a shorter interval between conversations. So, actually, a little bit like in Greece, but not in Rome [laughs] – ancient – it’s about just random people interested in a public ...

Yeah, cause you are an expert, right? [laughs]

That’s right! [laughs]

Athenian, or…?

So, democracies. What kind of democracy are you referring to? What kind of democracy would you like to discuss?

I usually use telepresence or hologram, things like…which is even more environmentally [laughs] sustainable.

That’s great. I read on your CV that you’re location-independent. Does that mean that you fly over the world?

What brings you to Taiwan?

How are you?

Of course. Of course. Yeah, right after our talk.

We’ll be on the record with a transcript published after 10 days of editing.

Thank you for your questions.

Yes.

我想這個對話才剛開始，你說這個對話往哪一個地方走也不一定，但是有對話本身是一個好事，這個是我的回答。

我有很多朋友因為這一次的公投才所謂的出櫃，就是跟家裡的人說他同性戀的經驗，或者是雙性戀的經驗，或者是跨性別的經驗，他家人第一次瞭解到他的角度來看婚姻，或者是他們家長角度看婚姻是不一樣的。

因此當公投說「您是否覺得民法婚姻……」之類的時候，投的人、蓋下去的東西，看到「婚姻」二字的時候，很可能腦裡冒出來是不一樣的，年輕的朋友是去戶政事務所登記，但是老一輩的朋友冒起來，很可能是辦一個很大的喜酒，如果是信別的宗教也許有證婚的動作，我想這個對話的開始，是我們這一次公投才讓這個對話開始。

這個事情就像Paul剛剛講的，我們在講marriage的時候，我們現在採取2007年以後一種西方的觀點，是國家所給予的權利、保護等等，但是這個在2007年以前在臺灣並不是這樣子的，我們覺得婚姻就是家族的事情、是大家的事情，所以我覺得重點倒不是哪一邊對。很可能並沒有哪一邊對的問題，很可能是同樣「婚姻」兩個字，不同世代的朋友們腦裡冒出來的景象完全不一樣。

但是比我年紀小的朋友們，我們從2007年改成登記婚制度之後，對婚姻的想像是完全不一樣的，在2007年之後婚姻是政府的動作，你去戶政事務所登記結婚，登記完之後不管你有沒有辦婚禮，不管你婚禮是在之前或者是之後辦，甚至乾脆不辦婚禮，或者是婚禮只有兩個見證人來，隨便，這個都叫「婚姻」。這是小一輩的朋友們、2007年以後結婚的朋友們，對婚姻是這樣的想像。

但是活動發生之後也許可以登記，但這個登記是事後追認，結婚是家族的事情、社會的事情，盛大辦一個儀式，婚姻就完成了。但是state，我們政府很後面再做就好了。就像人出生就出生了，你再去辦出生登記，那個是事後的事。

接下來我就要講感受的部分，我自己小時候我記得家人告訴我說婚姻是一個社會儀式，就是要請客、請好命婆之類的，有一些社會角色，要辦一個很大的婚禮活動，而這個活動發生之後，婚姻就完成了。

那至於臺灣作為一個言論自由、集會、結社自由這麼高的地方，當然大家都有自由去覺得說，好比像您剛剛提到同性戀者的永久結合，像婚姻的權利要不要叫「婚姻」，這個是雙方都有言論自由去說，一邊覺得應該就叫「婚姻」，另外一邊叫「伴侶」或「同性婚姻」或是別的，但總之不是婚姻，我想這個也是事實的部分。

第二個也是事實的部分，我想這一次就像剛剛淑麗說的，大家在FB上面確實也都看到了很多人換成彩虹顏色的頭像，或者是有一個是「Together Stronger」，大家在一起就可以變得好像比較強一些，我想在公投之後有這樣子一個大規模的、大家覺得好像要在一起變得更強的想法，我想這個也是事實。這個是我們都可以客觀看到的，我想這些大概大家都不爭執，這些都是真的。

我們不是說比紐西蘭、澳洲，或者一些北歐或者是歐洲的朋友們市民空間來得大，可能沒有到這個地步，但是至少在這個區域，我們應該是自由的程度是最大的，按照這個網站的寫法，可能跟加拿大也是類似，是比美國好一些的，這個都是事實，我想這個是可以彼此同意的。

這也是在世界上有一個叫做「CIVICUS Monitor」組織，每一次只要發生一件事，是把人的言論、自由、集會自由、結社自由等等剝奪掉的國家力量去剝奪人民自由的，當地的人權團體就會回報到這裡，然後這個國家就會扣分，直到這個國家的法制或情況改變，讓這一些人有這樣的自由為止，所以確實你看「亞洲」，再選「完全自由」，只有臺灣而已，而且一路到非洲都是這樣子，我想這個是事實。

我想第一個是我們先看事實的部分，您剛才說在世界上臺灣是不是一個比美國還要自由的地方？我想這個是可以實際去量測的。

我就用現代漢語回答。

有同步翻譯。

Would you like to...because there’s people watching live streaming.

Like finally.

It is the far easier, actually, question to ask than how many representatives are we going to include today from carbon-based and silicon-based life forms, which will not work, actually, in this setting.

In this sense, they’re not that different from other existing categories that we put on people, the identity politics that Paul just talked about. If we free them up, we think about how to live together.

Basically, everybody gets to modify and change and tweak the norms around these creatures so that they can fit better into the social fabric by us understanding also better from their perspective.

If you don’t like the red flash used to communicate emotion, you can change it to a face of a dog. Why not? Use other non-verbal means to communicate. The whole point is that it is not a one-on-one relationship. It is not a single lab in the MIT or ...

If you go to Jianguo flower market, buy some flowers, put it into the pot, put it onto those PEVs. They will follow you like companion animals. By the end of it, you can hop on one and it drives you home.

It’s not just because assistive rhymes with collective so that I can say assistive intelligence working with collective intelligence. It actually really works this way. They’re kind of slow. It doesn’t harm anyone if they run into buildings. They are self-driving. It’s all open-source. You can change it to fit ...

I just want to say these persuasive electric vehicles are coming back to the social innovation lab soon. They’ve visited twice already. They’re self-driving tricycles. When we talk about AI here, I always talk about assistive intelligence, not artificial, assistive intelligence.

Great technology.

Yes.

There’s portable microphone next to every seat.

Since we have an example, and so would somebody else follow?

I also go to people. When I talk about masses, I talk about specific interventions that brings speculative design into the masses, not the masses in abstract.

People crowdfund and crowdsource themself into this kind of atmosphere. When I talk about the masses, I’m not talking abstractly. Because of my office hour in the social innovation lab -- this is my office, by the way -- so anyone can come and talk to me including rough sleepers, ...

There’s many more cases like these where the initial intervention of speculative design, I will not say "art" because it’s too positive a term, [laughs] design is more positive in this case. Art may be dystopic, but speculative design always positive. Showing the possibility space.

Also, it brings a different imagination by staying in front of these street vendors a little bit, you’re already participating in the solidarity-building movement by essentially not seeing them as "vulnerable populations," but useful contributors and not just useful, but artful contributors to the streetscape.

They are operating in Ximending and the Social Innovation Lab right now. These are the kind of social innovations that I speak of, because at first, it is in the masses. You can’t get more massive people than Ximending around here.

They began to sketch, and now they have a monitor here that can show advertisements, that can, through crowdfunding, share WiFi. You can bring your phone for charging, sharing folded umbrellas and so on.

Basically, the group’s working on enabling them for better interaction, for redesigning the wheelchair to be a mobile station to connect them to the city services of fair trade and so one. They began with nothing else than just a sketch. That’s all they started with.

Because of their unique geometric composition, they get much more people’s attention. Also, gets people into a more relaxed and collaborative mood. Using those regulative designs to address the issue of not knowing what the street vendors’ financial flow is, of their limited interaction with the people on the street, ...