Introduction to forthcoming book Statecraft and Policymaking in a Hybrid World

‘Generationally speaking, the task of the “day” is, for all, to nurture a common understanding of what plurality means in a hyperconnected era, and for policymakers, to partner with society, instead of parenting it”![1]

Gotta come on up to the House. Come down of the cross, we can use the wood. – Tom Waits

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I believe that the day is not far off when all people will have some tool, call it a wallet, a router, a phone, a crypto mining device (maybe all of that) that runs all computation locally on that device and gives out only contextual, time-limited and scope-based information; a companion to assist you in educating yourself and others in living together on a small planet that is tumbling about in vast space. In fact, the 1976 novel Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy, describes this tool in her ‘utopia’ of a society combining local bio food and resilient communities running on high tech renewables and distributed ledgers provisioning services. Maybe it was not a utopia but just a vision? She calls the device a kenner. I want to bring her vision alive in an actionable way.This book addresses the main problem of our time, the lack of agency of democratic actors in government and institutions to foster, steer and rule de jure and de facto. 


[1] Nicole Dewandre, in Rethinking the Human Condition in a Hyperconnected Era: Why Freedom is Not About Sovereignty But About Beginnings.