Yeah, two minutes. Start counting...
I was just talking with Saskia Sassen about that on a radio show a few hours ago. She has this idea of expulsion. People just dislocate, because of the ecological impact and the governmental issues that Blaise just described. The fact is that they fell off the statistics. We don’t see them from the GDPs anymore.
We don’t see them from any kind of numbers anymore, because they stopped registering, they were dislocated. I would echo that I think the greatest danger is that we stop seeing, we stop reflecting, and that our vision we have for the future becomes a tunnel vision of a future, that only allows one possibility and excludes everybody out.
Now, I know that during tonight, everybody is reading poetry at Quai d’Orsay. [laughs] I have a very short poetry of a minute and a half that I’d like to read for you that talks about reflections. Again, we do this thing. I will be reading in English.
Through radio and television,
one person can speak
to millions of people.
Now, for the first time,
we can listen to millions of people
through the internet.
Like many of you, I was a digital migrant;
22 years ago, I moved into the internet
when I was 12 years old.
In the cyberspace, as in the physical world,
new migrants and natives have much to learn from one another.
Our particular approach is through Open Data, and Open Space.
Open Data turns raw measurements into social objects:
people gather around budgets, laws and regulations.
These become topics of discussions just like “today’s weather”.
Open Space blends our individual feelings into shared reflections:
within a reflective space, we gradually become aware
of ourselves, forming a crowd — the “dēmos” in Democracy.
Transparent, like a glass;
Reflective, like a mirror.
These are the two democratic properties
of digital spaces.
We, the early makers of digital democracy in the 21st century,
are like the early makers of reflecting telescopes in the 17th century;
we’re full of innovations and eager to explore the stars.
Personally speaking,
I’m very happy to learn that the Night of Ideas
is making an space of such innovations around the world.
For only through learning from each other,
can we truly enter an Age of Science —
then eventually going beyond it,
into the Age of Reflection.