"... we also see the spread of really pernicious cybersecurity legislation, which is spread under the guise of protecting people online, but is really about enabling online censorship, so that people feel too scared to put messages online. And those processes, I think, have started to really erode the emancipatory potential of this technology."

#NicCheeseman, political scientist, 2025

https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/fixing-democracy%3A-how-to-stop-election-rigging

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#podcasts #PastPresentFuture #TechRegulation #CyberSecurity

"... my hypothesis is that as Citizens’ Assemblies become more widely known, as we have more examples where people know that, OK, this is worth my time because I know the government is going to do something, that will also have an impact on response rates. We're still really early in the wider historical sense of this democratic innovation."

#ClaudiaChwalisz, CEO, Democracy Next, 2025

https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/fixing-democracy%3A-citizens%E2%80%99-assemblies

#podcasts #PastPresentFuture #FixingDemocracy #CitizensAssemblies

All countries that claim to practice 'compulsory voting', don't. Because they all offer a 'no confidence' option. Which is, in effect, not voting.

It's a nonsense, and a distraction from meaningful attempts at democratic reform

https://nzpod.co.nz/podcast/past-present-future/fixing-democracy-compulsory-voting

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#podcasts #DavidRunciman #PastPresentFuture #democracy #elections #CompulsoryVoting

"It might in the US seem impossible that a society based on 'American freedoms' could turn into this kind of repressive theocracy overnight."

#DavidRunciman, August, 2024

https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes

A year later ...

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#podcasts#PastPresentFuture#GreatPoliticalFictions

I've never thought deeply about exactly what people might mean when they talk about "the polycrisis". So I'm glad I got the chance, thanks to David Runciman doing an episode about it for his History of Bad Ideas series;

https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/the-history-of-bad-ideas%3A-polycrisis

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#podcast#PastPresentFuture#HistoryOfBadIdeas#DavidRunciman#polycrisis

"The answer 'we have to fix capitalism' doesn't help. It might be true, but it doesn't help.

So here's where I think there are some ... interventions that would require a change in political will to enable. But there's very little stopping them other than a lack of political will, which is largely a result of capture of political power by economic interests."

#ShannonVallor, 2025

https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/the-history-of-bad-ideas%3A-value-free-tech

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#podcasts#PastPresentFuture#HistoryOfBadIdeas #regulation #TechRegulation

"So the idea is, that guns aren't neutral, but it is also true that who we are, plus the technology, that leads to the affordances it has."

#ShannonVallor, 2025

https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/the-history-of-bad-ideas%3A-value-free-tech

#podcasts#PastPresentFuture#HistoryOfBadIdeas #technology #affordances

"What If… The French Revolution Had Happened in China?"

"David talks to world historian Ayse Zarakol about how the East might well have risen to global dominance before the West. What if the key revolutions of the modern world – political and industrial – had happened in Asia first?"

https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes

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#podcasts#PastPresentFuture#DavidRunciman#AyseZarakol#FrenchRevolution#China