 For us in India given that we had a very deep freedom movement and you know Gandhi had written this book while he was still in South Africa While he was fighting against British called hints were large or home rule Now home rule was the language in Hawaii and all over the world rule that true democracy Really is as much power in the hands of people and communities and at the local level Especially on issues that are life and death matters Issues of our water issues of our food and therefore In all of these 50 years of my work in movements The power of the local to say no to pollution the power of the local to say you cannot log our forest Which is the end of the first movement I was involved in the chip co movement where women came out to hug the trees that power to say no to injustice is A very vital part of democracy and Gandhi had a beautiful word for it called sappia gray the force of truth But you can't say no to the unjust the brute the violence against the earth the extractivism unless You create the alternative both of governance as well as economy I think the trick that has been played is to put democracy into purely electoral system and Take away its soul which is participation exactly and And and participation in a face that make a difference to life Therefore, you go to bring the economy back and this becomes particularly important when The economy is being made invisible See when you know when the Ford exploited the workers the walkers would organize They knew who's making the money from their exploitation But I would love to see how many people can see big tech As the new Dictators and enslave us. Yeah, they're so invisible the digital slavery is so invisible not only is it invisible It seduces you to become you're the slave you volunteer To be enslaved you volunteer to have Your data mind you volunteer So for me humanity rising Jim today is Humanity reclaiming its humanity its flesh and its blood and its love and its compassion and Solidarity and it's togetherness. Yeah, I really love what Vandana was saying That it starts at the local level and that is it's not just stars at the local level, but It's soul is at the local level Politics is has conformed to the Data-driven broadcast model of communication that obliterates person to person to person to person relationships Now it seemed for a while that social media was going to Allow us to reclaim Peer-to-peer relationships, but now we see how that has been hijacked by centralized power also even to a greater degree than before and now in the covert era the ideology that human life can be reduced to digital interaction has risen to a new height where where you know, you're not like like you're not supposed to protest against lockdown because You can still live Your virtual life Purchase your things that get delivered to your door have zoom meetings instead of live meetings Even dance parties where everybody dances in front of their camera together and has a great time And where also where every interaction is Surveiled and possibly controlled this fundamental right of freedom of assembly freedom of speech is now in the hands of of Corporations and really it's a corporate political complex. It's you really can't Distinguish anymore Between the state and the corporation they're totally interwoven into each other So democracy requires that first that we Revalue like we have to validate The things that cannot be reduced into data that cannot be converted into quantity the the transhuman dream or nightmare as the as Vanda and I would both put it depends on a basic ideology of quantity that that That that aspires to a future where everything is rationally optimized by Computer algorithms that keep track of every person and everything. It's called the Internet of Things to get everything Into the world of data so that you can Rationally administer the whole thing Toward a an ideal that is also Measurable so the basic ideology is that there is nothing that cannot be measured and That everything important can be measured and it's so so it this is a type of reductionism that has deep scientific roots The the reduction of life to quantity Economics is part of that ideology because it's the reduction of life to money, which is which is in economic Ideology it's it's it's The reduction of happiness to money It's the measure of utility as it's called in economics. So this is a huge ideology that encompasses economics technology governance and Democracy is really a reclamation of humanity as von Lennon the saving this this is saying this is what Humanity rising is it's to reclaim the qualitative is to reclaim the human is to reclaim the relational It's to come back into community into relationship Into the things that are not mediated by digits