RadicalxChange Warsaw:

Europe and The

Futures of Pluralism

Where? MAŁA WARSZAWA - Otwocka 14, 03-759 Warszawa, Poland

When? Tuesday, 18 October 2022, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM CEST

With Europe at war, the world has profoundly changed since our conferences in Taipei and Denver last December. More than ever, we must step up together and embrace the power of diverse cooperation.

This October, the RxC community will gather in-person (& Online) in Łódź, Poland (Oct 15-16) and in Warsaw, Poland (Oct 18).

Here we invite you to our conference in Warsaw: “RadicalxChange Warsaw: Europe and The Futures of Pluralism.” The event will take place on Tuesday, October 18th, 2022 at the Mała Warszawa conference center, with the support of Wildland.

Together we will learn of pioneering digital democracy practices in Ukraine, Estonia, and across Eastern Europe. We will experience works of art as windows to connection, and examine European institutions through the frame of pluralistic governance. We will uplift the work of activists, social fabric weavers, and critical voices. And we will consider European cases for community currencies, data cooperatives, decentralized identity systems, communication tools, and other pro-social digital infrastructures and civic technologies.

This event follows the 2022 Freedom Games in Łódź, where RadicalxChange, with the support of Fundacja Liberté!, has an entire program on “21st Century Infrastructure: From State Capacity to Shared Capacity."

Schedule

Our day will go from 10 AM to 6 PM CEST (UTC+2). Registration opens at 8:30 AM CEST (UTC+2).

8:30am-10:00am

Registration & coffee

10:00am-10:25am

Increasing Returns and RadicalxChange

Capitalism ignores increasing returns processes, even though these are the real sources of our prosperity. By ignoring and parasitizing them, capitalism “bleeds the goose” that lays its golden eggs. Harnessing and proliferating increasing returns will depend on governing them as such: less private property, more shared democratic control. This is the work of RadicalxChange.

10:30am-11:15am

Imagining How Democracy Could Work

To make necessary social progress this century, democracy must recapture the world's imagination. Democracy is itself a technology, and it is in need — and capable — of evolution. It is itself an ideal, a human project that is just beginning. This panel will discuss how democracy-to-come could work, what it might look and feel like, and how this imagination informs the steps we can take today.

11:30am-12:15pm

User Agency and Democratic Data Governance

Most people agree platforms should not control our digital lives, but when conversations move to precise alternatives, natural misalignments arise. For instance, some want user agency and individual control of data. Others see almost all data as shared, interpersonal, and in need of democratic governance. This panel will discuss new paradigms for data governance.

12:30pm-1:15pm

Forking Capitalism for the Common Good

All notions of economic value derive from our social foundations; capitalism's focus on the former has tended to erode the latter. A focus instead on our relationships will be central to new political economies that deliver broad empowerment and flourishing. This panel will feature two examples of this relational work: Gribouilli in Paris and the Black Swan collective in Berlin.

1:30pm-2:15pm

Artists and Technology: Substitution or Co-Evolution

In conversations about the future of technological disruption, most people might not think first of the art world. And yet web3 brought the NFT craze in 2021, on the back of empowering artists and creators, and more recently attention has swung to AI text-to-image generators, such as DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, which have led many to wonder — or worry — about the future of human art and creation. This panel will discuss the interaction between emerging technologies and artists, and how technology could better complement and co-evolve with artists to empower more creative and meaningful works.

2:15pm-3:15pm

Lunch break

3:15pm-4:00pm

Connecting Across Difference Through Art and Culture

Art and culture help shape our social lives. They weave us together, strengthening civil society and the social fabric. They shed new light on human experience, helping us become more aware and perceptive of our world, both seeing its injustices, which can help spur mobilization against them, and helping us imagine positive visions of how to better live together. At the same time, much of our artistic and cultural institutions are shaped by media and technology. This panel will discuss the role of art and culture in society, how modern platforms tend to constrain art and consolidate culture, and the opportunities to better support art and culture in all their diverse complexities.

4:15pm-5:00pm

Web3 and The Dream of Radically Distributed Governance

While most uses of web3 technologies have been for financial speculation and accumulation, those same technologies can be repurposed to support "plural publics" and cooperation across diversity. This panel will discuss how blockchains create "common knowledge" and why they could play an important role in most human coordination if they start to hold social context.

5:15pm-6:00pm

Strengthening Civic Hacktivism

War in Ukraine, crises in our institutions and social fabric, catastrophes on the horizon. The challenges we face appear global, existential, and insurmountable. But as Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” If we are to make any real positive change in the world, it will come out of the fabric that already exists, out of our own local communities and “hybrid neighborhoods”. This panel will discuss the role of civic hacktivism and the interplay between technology and social movements.

Why you should come

All are welcome to join, and we’ll be covering topics like:

  • Examining European institutions through the frame of pluralistic, decentralized governance models
  • Considering European cases for community currencies, data coops, DeID systems, SBTs, and other pro-social technologies
  • Paving the blockchain/web3 roads to increased user agency, interoperability, political participation, and funding the common good
  • Uplifting the work of activists, social fabric weavers, and critical voices
  • Experiencing works of art as windows to connection and means of change.

A guide to Warsaw / lodging / travel

Freedom Games

RadicalxChange will also be participating in the Freedom Games 2022, October 14-16. See our schedule for the Freedom Games here.

The event will be recorded

Please note that the event will be filmed and photographed. We will make photos and recordings of the event available online for all interested parties.

Event participants who do not want to be photographed or filmed should ask for a special sticker at the registration desk on-site. By placing the sticker on your name tag, you will notify our crew that you would prefer not to be included in the recordings.

COVID-19 on-site protocol

Polish law does not require event participants to show proof of vaccination or undergo a rapid test on-site. Masking is encouraged but not mandatory. If the epidemic situation and the legal requirements change we will notify all registered event participants about the new requirements prior to the event date.

More about RadicalxChange

RadicalxChange (RxC) is a global movement for next-generation political economies. It advances plurality, equality, community, and decentralization through upgrades of democracy, markets, the data economy, the commons, and identity. RxC connects people from all walks of life - ranging from social scientists and technologists to artists and activists. The movement is ever-evolving and always welcoming new people and ideas to make our social world more diverse, equal, and free.

More about Wildland

Wildland is a new, open protocol for data management spun out of the Golem Foundation. Wildland’s endgame is to redefine the way individuals manage their digital data. Its innovative data-centered approach is designed to provide an alternative to the currently dominant service-oriented model of delivering software to end users. This boils down to giving individuals explicit control over the choice of data storage infrastructure, therefore, guaranteeing data availability and accessibility while preserving users’ privacy and digital sovereignty. Learn more about this initiative here.