Latest / 775 Alive / Ep032: Building Digital Democracy (Guest: Travis Misurell)

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Ep032: Building Digital Democracy (Guest: Travis Misurell) · 775 Alive

• 0:03
  Welcome to the 775 Alive podcast, your rural Nevada headquarters for decoding politics, economics, and general global shenanigans. I'm Crystal Newton, your business strategist, breaking down why Nevada's hustle is stronger than a sagebrush root in a windstorm. Here with my trusty co-host, Scott Gavorsky, PhD historian, here to explain the smart lessons of history, even if we are likely to ignore them. Grab your boots for a wild ride through today's most important news. [music ends] Scott - Okay, welcome back to 775 Alive. Crystal's having to stay back down in Vegas to take care of some business. I had to come back up here to Elko enjoying the cold weather, although we haven't got as much snow as one would hope yet this year. But we did have an opportunity to have a special guest in this week. Joining us today is Travis Misurell, the Future is Now Coalition. So welcome Travis for joining us from New Jersey.
• 1:01
  thank you. Thanks for having me.
• 1:01
  Scott - So the of digital democracy which is a word that we've heard quite a bit here uh probably over the last 5, 10, 15 years. Um, and you want to go ahead and give us some background on what you're doing, how you interpret the term, and then we can we can have a conversation about it.
• 1:18
  Travis Misurell - Yeah, sure. So, yeah, as a lot of people are saying that, you know, the concept in general is kind of an inevitability. What we're here to do specifically is we, we really want to be the people side of it.
• 1:36
  We want to be making sure that it's, it's in the right hands, that it's going to be citizen-owned, not, not owned by think, not owned by big tech, not owned by the party gatekeepers, but the actual citizens. Um, but so my my full rundown, so I'm the founder of FiNC, Future is Now Coalition. We describe ourselves as a civic utility and focus on our . . . the one thing we're focusing on is upgrading how Americans choose our leaders by using today's rules differently. We want to build a more direct democracy where citizens are actually represented. And so there's two key pillars to this. There's both digital democracy and digital politics. So for digital politics, it's really more of a . . . it's a lens, a new way to get aligned on what's actually broken before we talk about the tech itself. Digital politics helps people across beliefs see the same rigged patterns and start looking at democracy as a system that we could redesign and not just complain about. So the idea there is like not just building the tech but digital politics is more of like the implications of how politics can exist with this tech like that like how it could change how we do politics and that that's the digital politics side. So it's kind of like a reframe a new lens a new new way of doing politics. And then so digital democracy is where this is all heading. We want it to be the future home of Americans, America's politics built and owned by citizens. Think of it as a people-owned platform that makes elections more fair, leaders more accountable, and the participation simple enough for everyone to join in. In DD or digital democracy, every candidate will be seen, every citizen heard regardless of party. So we're envisioning really like one system showcases all the candidates equally, who runs their campaign, what . . . where where's the funding coming from the industry is there conflicts of interest, what are their promises do they deliver on their promises so that's the core of it and then there's going to be a lot lot of other pieces but the last piece to throw in here is that us at FiNC so we're not looking to build a tech ourselves we're seeing that there's already a bunch of people building different civic technologies, different movements across different or different organizations, different party lenses. We want to interconnect these people. We want to be the the connective tissue. So it basically be like multiple organizations might each run their own piece of digital democracy, but it'll be under this one large umbrella that is citizen-owned, has clear oversight by the people, but then interconnects these existing technologies and future technologies. So we're we're just the interconnecting piece. We're almost like the PR. We're going to want to do be the one that mainstreams this to the people, give some common language around this information and, uh, and really build the bridges that like we we want these different organizations to succeed, but they're only going to succeed if we work together and and really push this forward and overcome the status quo essentially.
• 4:31
  Scott - Okay. Well, a lot to unpack there. Crystal, you've been looking into this a bit, haven't you?
• 4:39
  Crystal - I have. It's, it's such a fascinating concept and as always I'm interested in the the execution and forgive me if I have this wrong but it does sound like it's, like um like a political Facebook, a Facebook for politics almost but would have to be powered by a really, really good AI that knows how to search every candidate, every issue, every person to be able to match them. Is that about right or do I have that wrong?
• 5:14
  Travis Misurell - Um, mostly right. So, yeah, in simplified terms, it'll be like a political Facebook kind of a thing that that that's some of the features. And some of it would be AI.
• 5:26
  Some of the the irony is that like a lot of this data is already in existence.
• 5:31
  So for example, like opensecs.org right now has all federal and state candidates. You could put their information and see their funding. It's not necessarily the most user friendly, but the data is there. Um, so kind of what we want to do is funnel the information from them, Ballotpedia, other places. And then just put it in a more user friendly way. So, that part doesn't actually need to be AI specifically, but then AI now is going to also be a big part of it as well to make it, you know, more streamlined and simplified.
• 5:59
  Crystal - I was listening to an episode of you from two years ago and you kind of described it as like, almost like a dating matchmaking service for people looking for candidates that best suit their needs, wants, and desires. To me . . . and sorry, Scott. Well, I'll turn on this idea of these are a lot of subjective measurements and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on how to capture . . . because like I can think of . . .
• 6:33
  Scott and I are in a lot of politics and there's a lot of way to look at a candidate or a person in office and say yes they're doing what they said they're doing or no they're not. That in some ways can be a subjective argument. What do you how do how do you approach that? Travis Misurell - Yeah, great question. And it's not going to be simple in in the full execution, but, essentially, it you know, a lot of it the the the most clear part that we want to simplify and and quantify is the legitimacy of a candidate. Like, are they doing what they said they're going to do? Like even if I don't agree with that candidate, you know, if you know, let's say I'm a Democrat, they're a Republican or vice versa, like yeah, you already know they're not going to do what you want, but are they doing what those that supported them and voted for them want? So really trying to gauge the legitimacy of a candidate? Are their, are their intentions pure? Part of digital politics is looking at the lens of up versus down. Are they people serving or power serving? Power serving is like up up politics and you know so if they're going to say yeah I'm gonna oh we're going to fix health care by doing XYZ but then you know they're taking tens of thousands of dollars from big pharma and private health insurance and then when the legislation comes they're going to put a lot of things in there that specifically helps the people at the top instead of the average person. Those are the kind of things that we're looking for is like are are there conflicts of interest that are putting your . . . are focusing your, your . . . the legislation to help a chosen few or actually the voter themselves. So, you know, they might have a policy that maybe doesn't, won't even work at all when all said and done, but are they actually fighting for it? And you know, even with that said, it's still going to be hard. You know, there's riders in bills where like, you know, the bills about immigration, but then has something in there about like marijuana or something like, you know, they have like crazy things that are in there. So, that'll be hard to to start fleshing out, but between like algorithm and AI, we hope to start building like clear scores to like build like a zero to 100 score for that kind of stuff.
• 8:45
  gotten any support from the political parties? Any anyone that supports this effort you're making? Travis Misurell - Not, not like the establishment candidates. Not really the the the main parties. We're, we're we're kind of working our way outward in like from the outside in. So we're getting citizens. We're doing like a lot of podcasts right now. We're working on independent journalists to be involved with what we're doing. We're allied to a couple movements here and there. So that that's our ma those are our main focuses is like third parties movements. And then we're doing some, some underdog candidates, but like people like independent or third party candidates at this time. So that it's kind of like they're kind of the last step is going in deeper into the into the wolf, wolves' den.
• 9:28
  Crystal - Yeah. Scott, you are part of the establishment. What are you thinking?
• 9:36
  Scott - Yeah. And Travis, you and I have of the Elko County Republican Party up here in Elko County. But I do want to go back because one interesting part that you've mentioned is this up-down political lens concept and I'd also like if you could expand how this relates to the concept of gatekeepers. Of course, as a historian and an academic, the concept of gatekeeping is a key way we talk about the distribution of power in societies. But how do you see all these interacting together because it's an interesting concept.
• 10:08
  Travis - Misurell. Yeah. Yeah. Great part of the digital politics. So up-down politics again up is power first people and downserving candidates are the . . . or are the people serving. So like upserving candidates are the ones that really have to always answer to their biggest donors, the power above them, the party leaders. They're the ones that take those that have more power than them and more influence than them to be risen from from the bottom. Whereas the downserving candidates are like the grassroots candidates. So they try to lean more towards small dollar donations. Limit their big money and and super PAC money and things like that. And they're really trying to appeal to the average voter and say, and say I'll rise in power by getting more votes by the people rather than aligning myself with those that are above me. I want to serve those that are you the voters and get more just public support. So going into more of your question there. So like a lot of what we talk about is bridging the gap between public opinion and government action. So for example what digital democracy . . . another feature of digital democracy that we want to build is where there's polling throughout like anyone anywhere in the country can can get pulled and then eventually have more like district-level polling, statewide polling, all of it broken down. And so if you're a representative of a specific district eventually we want it to be more of like all right, let me look at my district where do they stand on immigration? Where do they stand on this? Where do they stand on that? And actually build their policies around what their district wants instead of shoving the district to be shoved into two boxes and so a lot of what we want to gauge is like okay this is what their this is what your voters want and this is what you're giving them and is there a big gap between those two things. So that's one side of it. And then the gatekeeper side is really like the way we talk about . . .
• 12:15
  a lot of the election process especially like national primaries is that you know kind of feels like there's a Democrat establishment pick and there's a Republican establishment pick and both and the sides kind of shove that candidate through before you even know, before citizens even know who's running in a primary. The parties generally know who they want to win in the primary and then so the establishment media puts them at at the forefront and show "Oh this is the, this is the most popular candidate we think they're going to win" and this and that and so they have the big donor money, corporate in corporate influence, the party leaders are all kind of subtly pushing as much as they can without breaking any rules. So the game is stacked that they . . . it, you're not you're not saying, "Hey, Hey voters, here Republican voters, here Democrat voters, let's do a healthy primary. Here are your choices. What do you guys want, voters?" They don't really do that. They push their candidate. You know, there's the a lot of the grassroots candidates will never make it on the debate stage. They'll never get any establishment media attention. So that's that gatekeeping where they shut out the voices that are either threatening or just not part of the the status quo. And so, you know, we want to build a shared system where, you know, maybe their party is going to cut them out, but this shared infrastructure will have eventually have digital debates where, you know, it could be a Green Party and Democrat and Republican and an independent all debating each other. You know, there'll be different polling methods where America could show the electability of these candidates. You know, does America want this person? It's too much to dive into in this moment, but, like one idea is this people's primaries that while the Democrats and Republicans have their own primary, we're going to have like a digital primary where Americans can vote who they want. And then essentially it'll be like in this Senate race, it looks like the Libertarian is trending really well. So they have a legitimate chance to win in the general election, but in this other seat, you know, there's not enough support for any alternative candidate. So you might just want to vote for the lesser of two evils. But I guess all in all we want to give more choices and better choices to the citizens and really like enforce that they need to have their input, that if the citizens want a certain candidate, that's who the party should be respecting that does not happen right now and we're we're finding ways to reframe and restructure it in this new digital space that would give give a leg up to those candidates and allow them to have a chance to rise up.
• 14:56
  Scott - Yeah. And I'd like to continue going with this because I think there's an interesting point. Of course, we're having a lot of debates right now. You're absolutely right. Internally, in party politics, you know, probably the best example is the Kamala Harris, or the the decision of the Democratic party to run Kamala Harris basically totally foregoing a primary. But there's also, there's also a question on this in terms of political parties, are by definition private organizations, right? And should private organizations be forced to choose leadership that people who do not want to become members of that organization or do not voluntarily become members--are they beholden? Now, it's one thing if you're looking at a tactical advantage because a particular candidate's polling well and bringing then in.
• 15:56
  But this is at the base of a lot of stuff right now, for instance, about the open primary system, the ranked-choice voting system. And of course, the whole idea of the primary itself historically, this emerges in the early 20th century as a way to force open political party politics. But what we now, now we have this sort of drift into this argument, "Okay, political party, you're a private organization, but you've got 50,000 voters in a district who don't register with your party, but they're going to get to choose your your candidate." Doesn't that sort of undermine the whole idea of having a a right of assembly and having the ability of an organization or a movement or whatever choose who's going to represent them?
• 16:43
  but like right now the the problem is we're stuck in a two-party system. So, anytime somebody says that, oh, well, these are private, you know, private organizations, but they're our only choice to choose our government. So, you have two private gatekeepers to make our choices. So, then at the end of the day, we have to . . . we're stuck with our lesser two evils, that we either have a a privately chosen Democrat or privately chosen Republican. But government, that's government's the one place where it's . . . the private shouldn't be involved. You know like when I'm buying a car private industry, when I'm going to you know whatever go to a restaurant private, but like the whole point of government is that it's for the the country and being able to pick what America wants. So that's where I'd say it it it doesn't work. Like if it wasn't, if we kind of built the better structuring and there were it was a multi, even if just a multiple party system, at least that would be more fair that there's multiple private that there'll be comp . . . like more competition. But we're basically in a duopoly by these two private industries that are selecting our candidate for us. And what's worse is they're telling us that we we have a voice. They're telling us that we get to choose, but then they're doing all these underhanded, you know, they're stacking the game against the . . . what, what the American people want. So, all in all, like, you know, we're even neutral when comes to open primaries that we're neutral that that's for America to end up deciding. But, really what we want to do is like, okay, so if Democrat, and if there's these two party machines, well, now we're going to build a citizen-owned party machine that's all digital. You could still be a Democrat, Republican, and still be part of the digital machine. You could be a third party or independent. You're still part of this new machine. So, we're going to build a decentralized, democratized, citizen-owned machine that also will be privately owned. The legal structure is going to be that every American can opt into an equal ownership of this technology and platform. So, it'll be like a private entity overseeing the public election system, basically being a third machine. But the difference is whether, like there could be people in it that are different parties, different anything, and still share the same infrastructure that helps like choose you know go through a candidate selection process that advertises them, that shows the citizens "Hey I am a choice you can vote for me if you support me." So that's . . .
• 19:17
  sorry Crystal, I just want to get pick up another aspect because you identified something else on this gatekeeping and that's why I'm sort of obsessed. It's not just the parties. We also have a problem with a structure of election laws that actively discourage third parties. Now, we can argue if the main two parties have done this, but--and I'll show my age here. The classic example of this is Ross Perot when he runs for president in 1992, where he has to dump millions of dollars into investigating 50 different sets of arcane state laws about how you qualify to be on the ballot as president, right? We had the effort of the Democrats in many states to keep the Green Party off the ballot, right? The whole party off the ballot. And this has been a bugaboo for years. How do you, how do you sidestep not the party interest, right, but the idea that there are these sort of odd structures that make it so difficult for outside candidates to even get into the the legal side of the system to begin with?
• 20:24
  Yeah. Another really great question. Yeah, so it like we would even say like it's going to take a long time. It's not like overnight, even with this completely launching, it's not like overnight third parties will be viable but what we want to start loosening the reins and like, okay here look there's a couple wins this this election, maybe three senators are now third party and this happened and that happened like you know that might happen slowly. But the beauty of what we want to do is that there's a difference between how somebody identifies politically and what party they're actually in you know. An example would be like Bernie Sanders, he's independent and democratic socialist, whatever. But then when he's running for president, he's a Democrat, whether the Democrats like it or not. I actually just double-checked on the rules on that. And there's certain states that might be stricter, but you . . . if the people want you, you can run, you can run as a Democrat or Republican, without the party want the leaders wanting you to run. And you know, so we're not even saying that necessarily right away third parties can win. We're saying, hey, if you if you feel you have to run as a Democrat, that's fine. Republican, that's fine. But we're going to build infrastructure to be very clear like this is your party you're running logistically, but this is how you identify and you know that identifying as something is is is very different. So it's really just kind of like blowing up the system. Like our big thing is like we . . . the thing we say is like we can't we can't change the rules, but we could change the game. So like everything we're about, we're not looking to change legislation. First, we have to win and gain a lot of better candidates before legislation can be changed. But before that, we can we could just change the game. Like, you know, most people want things to be digital. Everything else in our lives are digital. You apply for jobs online and you order, you can order food online and like you do social media online. Like politics is the only thing that's like not caught up to the times. And so we have a chance to kind of reframe how we choose our candidates. So again, like the people's primary that we would have, it's almost like it'd be one primary, but there would be a Green Party, a Libertarian, an independent. There might even be a grassroots Democrat and Republican in that same primary. They could even be part of the Democrat primary and part of our people's primary. We're not going to shut them out. And so it allows a more fluid ability like, hey, certain states maybe third parties are viable. Others maybe you have to have the independent ticket. Others are going to just primary the main candidates. and any which way you do it, we're going to support it and we're going to build infrastructure that allows to rise your name and your voice in this system.
• 23:06
  I'm definitely rooting for you, Travis. I can imagine how difficult this road is. I'm glad that you're going after it with zest and zeal. But I love this overarching concept that, you know, in democracy really requires that every citizen is educated and that they're unsiloed. And that's kind of the bigger point that I wanted to make because what you're suggesting is a platform that would essentially break the siloing that's happening in this country. And again to go back to another episode I listened to of yours, you had mentioned that this was your way of changing the world. And as I got into what you're trying to do, I was like, if he's successful, this will actually turn everything around because everyone's been siloed and everyone has been told there's you can eat chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream. And you're like, there's actually 31 flavors here. Yeah. And if we all got on the same page, we'd be able to see that. That being said, it's an enormous task ahead of you. And I wish you all the best. But was that what you were thinking when you thought that this could change the world?
• 24:23
  You nailed it right there.
• 24:23
  Crystal - Yeah. And there's just . . . I mean there's no other way to execute a democracy. Everyone's got to be educated. It's just . . . Yeah.
• 24:34
  but you know, on the siloing issue, and Crystal and I have been talking about this because I prefer sort of the older term that was used, interests, right? That groups have interests. When we talk about redistricting, we talk about communities of interest. And I think there . . . I don't want to say it's natural siloing because people can belong to multiple silos.
• 24:59
  But this is a real issue that I'm sort of grappling with politically and Nevada is a great case of this, right? Part of the reason for this podcast is bridging that rural-urban divide where we're in a state where, you know, the 15 rural counties are only 11.5% of the population. And there's a very strong argument, well, the people in Vegas want a stadium. So, you know, sorry, rural communities, you don't get hospitals, you don't get roads, you don't get stuff because, you know, most people want a stadium. And you know, Crystal used the phrase, well, you know, people can see what other people really need. Well, how how viable is that, right? How viable do you think this system is on sort of exposing these alternative viewpoints without a a forceful mechanism to require the majority to recognize those?
• 25:56
  there. Yeah, it's definitely something we we think about regularly. Not to get in all the details but basically in one of the structurings that we want to do like eventually there'll be citizen debates on this platform, like different ways to discuss policy issues but we're going to divide people into clusters, clusters and subclusters. So, for example, like with health care there's essentially three main clusters. You either want like universal health care, you want like private private market but with one public option to get the pricing down, or you want like all private with some way to keep competition down. And then you know yeah there's like 50 different ways to do healthcare but we kind of you have to, you have to . . . you're forced into one of those three categories. You can make a subcategory but you're kind of forced in those three categories. But anyway the the the point to to where you're what you're talking about you know it it is important about those other interests and so like some of how we would flesh out this clustering is like you know so all right we're in the you know people are in a universal healthcare cluster this and then like at the end of the day it would be like all right you need to come up with like the five, like five most important points why is this the best choice and then there could be like a whole way to choose that and vote on like what are best five choices is but then before like people really go into like some meaningful polling or a voting situation, we want them to you have to listen to the other five, the five points against it. Why does the sec, the other cluster want, why do they think is the best? So like each of these three clusters you basically have to hear the five points for the middle cluster and five points for the last cluster before you can make your own decision. That's some of it. I mean, there's, there's a lot to to figure out how to fix this issue, but I 100% agree with you. I don't think like just knowing that another . . . in another person's interest is not being met is one thing, but to actually care, it's . . . that's a whole other battle. Now I would argue that more once people really feel like they're starting to win, they'll feel more okay with compromise. Like right now, citizens feel like they never get anything they want. They're always losing. So like when something comes up, they'll they'll grasp on it to for dear life because they don't win anything. So they want to win this one. But like if you got like, you know, two, three really important policies to you got got passed now and things are going well and like and then something new comes and you didn't agree with it, you're like, well, I got a couple things good. I, you know, maybe I'm a little bit more open to compromise now. So we do hope that would happen. But you know, so but long, long story short, I agree that what you're saying is a huge, huge concern. It's definitely fundamental to what we want to figure out digital solutions to.
• 28:42
  if you're if you're open to hearing them. I think if you converted the . . . you know people spend so much time on their phone playing those stupid games like Candyland and stuff. I'm amazed how many hours go into that. If you could change this system into a game where you get points, you might be able to get people to keep coming back because they spend so much time like playing games in this country. I'm like, can we convert some of that to politics? Is is anybody proud of their citizenship? It's not too much to ask. Like you're born into the best country in the world. Invest an hour a week. Like, you know, but I mean that's too much to ask. But second suggestion, if you can call Elon Musk, I think if he got behind it, it would take off.
• 29:30
  quick, what you're saying is gamification is definitely part of what we want to do. Like if you could score like how much you involve yourself as a citizen, how much are you learning? Like yeah, that you're gaining score by learning more information and stuff like that. So yeah, absolutely. That'll that's another fundamental to to what we're building. And then your thing with Elon, like maybe maybe not him specifically, but I do think there's . . .
• 29:53
  there's people out there that are just going to love what we're doing and they're going to really push this to the forefront. So, it's just a matter of being . . . them being aware about it.
• 30:04
  Scott - And can we talk about the technology? Because this is . . . this has been an emerging problem. right. So, for instance, ElKo County where I am, Crystal, when she's not in Vegas, lives in the neighboring county of Humboldt, but Elko County is the fourth largest county in the United States. 17,000 square miles, population density overall, about 1.2 people per square mile.
• 30:26
  going on about the ballot fraud. Yeah, they're they're still going on about the . . .
• 30:33
  this is a separate issue, but you know, and we have, you know, some fairly significant, large Native American communities where they're really struggling to bring this digital world into this, right? There's not, there's not the possibility of bringing a fiber optic cable to some ranch that's 30-some miles or the problem Duck Valley is having is weaving it up through this very narrow canyon to try to get in or they have to go through another state. And this is having all kinds of ramifications on stuff such as, for instance, our social media, right? Tik Tok is much less popular out here because the system just doesn't have the bandwidth, right. How do you . . . I mean, doesn't this proposal that you're offering really need a high-end technical network to function properly?
• 31:22
  Travis Misurell - Well, in . . . on the end user doesn't necessarily like . . .
• 31:31
  yes they would need internet, but it wouldn't be heavy duty. I mean that's only when they're streaming videos, like video content, like we are going to have a section for like journalists and podcasters. So streaming videos will take the usual bandwidth. But no like all the processing will happen on the, on the back end. We are talking about slowly carefully figuring out how. Like a blockchain would be part of this because blockchain technology is a more trustworthy technology once you understand how it's . . . like it's kind of like democratically stored information. It's stored on many, many people's computers instead of one big one. But so there will be a huge side for processing and whatnot. But I mean, it's kind of like AI, like we're all using AI, but it for for your phone standpoint, it's almost like just like a text message or a DM on on the other side, those that are processing the artificial intelligence is doing crazy stuff on the back end and a lot of processing power. So, it would be the similar scenario. But to your concern, I mean, they do need internet.
• 32:34
  What we would envision in the future is like for those that don't have internet, there'll be like kind of these hotspots. Either you could go to a library or there would be like dedicated recreation buildings and different things where you could go specifically. Maybe it's only around election season or around certain certain times, but where people could go there to access the free internet and be able to get on this platform, you know, if they don't have full access at home.
• 32:58
  Crystal - I am kind of interested that this I guess you, that is one of your stated things is to make sure it's like a third-party oversight of voting, but it occurred to me that you if your platform had enough traction and you had enough like people interacting and you could see which way the election was going to go, if you had election results that were far different than what everyone had been talking about and polling about, then you could actually have cause to be like, well, maybe we should audit this vote, you know.
• 33:38
  Travis Misurell - Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
• 33:43
  and that brings up the issue of trust. I mean, this is fundamental to any democratic system, right? How do you build and maintain trust? And I would argue this is one of the things that's really decayed in American society over the last 20 or 30 years. So particularly up here, and Crystal's already alluded, there's a lot of concerns about election fraud being generated by computer systems. I've actually been invited by county commission to participate in writing a report on this here locally because so many people were concerned about it. How do you bridge that gap of building trust here in a system that to many people just seems to replicate what we've already seen with the polling environment, already seeing the online stuff, we're having the the bot issue right now, right? I mean, how do you build that trust in something like this?
• 34:40
  can I just . . . poor Scott. He's had to deal with this for like a few years now. And he has actually gone through the process and like he's like, no matter what you do, people are still like, "Nope, it's probably got the devil inside the machine." Like I . . . It's just . . . So he's been dealing with this for a while and it's a bit of a bugaboo for us in politics. Like . . . ugh.
• 35:04
  understand that. Um Yeah. So what I would say I mean you know not not everyone's going to get this but like you know tech is a tool, so it's not the tech itself, it's who's running, who's in control of the tech, is really the the the factor on trust. And so you know it's the same thing with like anything from a hammer to a gun. It's it's how the people use it kind of a thing. But so the way we want to do it, so first of all like you know we're going to move very slowly in how the security sides of this happens, blockchain, like how much blockchain do we use, AI . . . I know like those are things that people don't always trust, so we're going to go slowly on that. But um the biggest answer I have is that we really want to have people feel like they're part of this from day one. So like before we even launch any major part of this platform, we want citizens to feel that they are part of this. So there's going to be a lot of polling, focus groups, surveys. We're going to be asking people not just how like the tech stuff, but also policies and like some morale of like how the system itself should be built. And we want really, we want people to really feel ownership down in this process. You know, even like, you know, where I say like every citizen's going to have an ownership stake that that's probably going to take a couple years to flesh out, but right away like we're launching our digital politics hub in January and that's going to be like a coordination hub. People could already start putting their name to be a future owner of this platform immediately start getting in be part of the insights on this. We want them to see every piece of every step of this. Who's involved? What are we working on? You know, as the tech gets involved, there could be a developer like it's gonna be all transparent information. So like a you, a developer, you do trust can look at the coding and assure you that it's safe, you know. So there's not everything's going to be as absolutely transparent as humanly possible. And with with people being part of this, you know, um I know it can't be that simple. There's going to be a lot of like, you know, people on different sides being paranoid or this or that. So, we'll have to kind of work through those things, but really really want people to feel like they have they really do have a say in this, that their feedback matters, their their their oversight matters, and just, you know, you know, have them walk them through the process. And part of that, too, is that . . . as this launches, it's a . . . I forget the exact psych like name for it, but there's a psychology point of like, you know, if somebody's built something themselves, they're going to care about it more. So, so citizens are literally going to be part of building this system from scratch. So, they're going to like so they're going to trust it more because they they were part of the building of it and they saw it come into fruition. So, it's those kinds of things that we hope that this is we like think as a whole we like our biggest service that we need to sell is trust. We have to prove that we're trustworthy, that we're going to be the referee, that we're going to make sure the game is fair. As this gets panned out, and that citizens are going to continue to have control and oversight in it. Scott - And you just mentioned the date, so I think, and we want to be respectful of your time, of course. How can somebody go ahead and find out more about this project and get in contact with you or join this when it launches here in, oh, just a few weeks in January 2026?
• 38:23
  first step here is what we're calling the digital politics hub. So, it's not the full digital democracy yet. Right now, we're really we're looking to scale up our coordination phase.
• 38:33
  So this is where people could put their name in there. They could recommend trusted voices that they care about, different movements, different grassroots politicians, different podcasters, just anything political that they feel should be part of this the building and just be part of this this as as a whole. So a bunch of different features are going to be launched in January to . . . so people could immediately get involved, start giving their feedback, start engaging, helping make this happen, grow the people power. So, um, in order to do that right now, you just go to futureis.org. If people join our newsletter at the bottom in the footer, we're going to alert them exactly when it launches and the different updates. But that should be about January 5th is when this should launch. The digital politics hub side. Again, it's not even like big coding or anything. It's more basic, but it starts coordinating who wants to be involved in in which kind of ways, how to start giving input into this and start like networking different people that want to be part of this. So yeah, so it's going to be our website's a good starting point and then once it launches it's going to be hub.futureis.org is going to like lock you into this. It's more of like a web app. Scott - Okay. Well, and that's good. And we'll go ahead when we run this and drop this episode, go ahead and all those links to our materials as well. So, yeah, again, this has been an interesting topic that's been talked about. It's great that you were able to join us today, Travis. We really appreciate it. And if any of you out there want to get hold of Crystal or myself or ask some questions, go ahead and shoot us an email at info@775alive.com.
• 40:14
  But Travis, thank you again. Until then, I'm Scott Gavorsky Crystal - And I'm Crystal