Good. Bye.

It’s very good to talk to you. I look forward to seeing you in New Zealand.

It seems a kind of moderate aim, given the somewhat grandiose claims for what the Internet could do for the world.

Right. So you’re not actually trying to change the system. You think that if people listen, and talk, and listen, that’s... that’s enough?

I don’t understand.

I’m wondering how that’s compatible with activism. Activism implies that you want to change a system; individual anarchism implies that the system doesn’t matter because you’ve got your own thing going on.

Going back to the original question of what a conservative anarchist is. You describe yourself, I think, as a proponent of "individual anarchism". How does — how is that — what does that mean?

I mean, this is why Donald Trump is able to run for the president, because an awful lot of people don’t want to listen constructively — they just want to shout at each other.

You know, if most people wanted to listen constructively, then you wouldn’t have to do what you doing. You know what I mean? Surely most people don’t.

In the long term, do you see what you were doing growing? Or will it always be for activists, and in someway a minority activity?

Yes.

Can you clarify for me what the protest was about?

And so this was a kind of a whistling-blowing exercise?

But the 1985 doesn’t refer to the year right? It refers to the help line number.

And there was a "1985" movement, in which you were involved. What is that movement?

And so you’re suggesting that, putting it online and having everybody see and be seen in some way — it moderates the dialogue?

And what was the outcome?

In 2014, you had a big year in Taiwan. You had big social protest, the Sunflowers movement, which as far as I can gather was against the ratification of a trade treaty with china. And you had the occupation of Parliament. I think that you found that very interesting, in ...

What is a "civic hacker"?

And is that is that because you’ve realistically included people in the plan, or is it that you’ve made people feel as if they’d been included? Because that’s two different things, isn’t it?

And are you suggesting that, what the government is putting in place in a couple weeks time — the proposal — that would not have happened had this exercise not taken place?

You know, when you have that kind of debate online, what is to stop interest groups or stakeholders from loading the debate, stacking the participants and distorting the outcome?

And the taxi drivers happy with this?

I don’t understand how the existing taxi drivers can be protected under such a system.

So what’s the outcome?

What are you doing with Uber? It is controversial around the world. New Zealand has issues with Uber, the government says it’s not playing by the rules and we’re thinking about banning it. I don’t know what the status is in Taiwan, but you’ve done some interesting experiments, with open ...

How do you do that? How do you encourage people to see the other side of the argument?

You know, one of the one of the concerns about the Internet, with sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc, is that far from enhancing the quality of civil society — we just talked about getting people engaged in the budget discussion, but in general — far from enhancing the quality of ...

That would be correct. I mean how do you get into it so early? How were you able to leave school at 12, how were you able to see the future and something that actually wasn’t invented at that exact point?

So you were a prodigy, right?

And you retired at the age of 33.

You’re able to do this, because as far as I can understand it, you were a computer prodigy? You left school at 12 to code, at 15 you had your own start-up, you were into the world wide web actually as soon as it was invented if not before. You ...

I suppose, more to the point: Have you any evidence that you’re engaging people previously uninterested in democratic participation?

Have you any evidence — I mean, you know one of the concerns is "clicktivism" — Have you any evidence that this actually increased people’s engagement in the process?

And so the government is complicit and co-operative with your doing, right?

There’s a real discussion with the civil servants.

And what has this achieved, or what are you trying to achieve?

One of the things that you’re involved in and improving the workings of government. What do you say, g-0-v? What is it?

I’m interested in both the conservative and anarchist parts, and how they are linked together, actually.

Ok. Let me start. You describe yourself as a "conservative anarchist", and let’s start off about what that means.