# Privacy, and Real and Local Collective Actions || PG, Kris Decoodt, Bastin Jafari, Koss

- Speakers: Kris Decoodt
- Channel: [Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress](https://streameth.org/ethereum-cypherpunk-congress)
- Date: 2026-08-09
- Duration: 33:34
- Topics: web3, privacy, now, crypto, cryptography, blockchain, data, security, human right, rights, tech, technology, internet, open source, free, freedom, ethereum, hackers, ethics, cypherpunk, dev, developer, dapp, decentralization, bitcoin, computer, surveillance, cyber, peer2peer, p2p, love, solidity, zk, zero knowledge, education, academy, w3pn
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-x0iwjFirizU
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0iwjFirizU

## Description

Plural Events - Privacy, and Real and Local Collective Actions

Deliberate Democracy in Practice: Privacy, Coordination, and Collective Action

Panelists: Piergiorgio Catti De Gasperi, Kris Decoodt, Bastin Jafari, Koss
Moderator: Nikoline Arns

Panelists

Piergiorgio Catti De Gasperi — Web3Privacy Now
https://new.web3privacy.info/
X: https://x.com/PG_CDG
Kris Decoodt
https://be.linkedin.com/in/krisdecoodt
Bastin Jafari
X: https://x.com/bastinjafari
Koss 
X: https://x.com/kosmostasis

Moderated by

Nikoline Arns
X: https://x.com/nikoline_nik

Follow Web3Privacy Now:

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🎤 Neocypherpunk Summit: https://s26ber.web3privacy.info/

## Transcript

Thank you, Robert. Yeah, he's fixing the slides so we can take advantage of our time and uh let the guests introduce themselves. Uh [laughter] oh, I know you can do it. So we should you are very cozy here on the sofa and this is really nice. It's like a plurality of colors, plurality of cultures. We have all the plurality right in front of us. Uh but maybe it's nice to know like uh just for who doesn't know you don't know uh who you are and also what is your role in the plural events in this time? >> There is a microphone there. Wow, technology. Uh, hello everyone. I'm PG. Um, I'm Italian. I'm 30 years old. Um, I started with Miga web provising now three years ago and I'm very interested in politics, philosophy, uh, and just collectivity and how we can together make something beautiful. >> Hi, my name is Bastine. Um, I'm half Iranian, half Russian. um the axis of evil [laughter] and um my background is in philosophy and computer science. So consequently I work as IT manager for a psychedelic research organization and um [snorts] yeah I I got to radical exchange and um yeah started engaging the space and organized the last two plural events here in Berlin. Hi. Uh, I'm Chris. Um, I I'm from Brussels, but I'm always a little bit between Brussels and Berlin and all over the world because I've been working in the blockchain space for the past 10 years. So, that means that I just go with the circus wherever wherever we go. Um and yeah, so I've been um always yeah working on looking for solutions how you can um I would say empower people and find um ways to also yeah do for example um decentralized fundraising etc. I've worked at Gitcoin, at GITH. Um I'm part of a a community hub as well in in Brussels called the Commons Hub and uh currently working at Logos and we were uh co-organizing the latest plural event uh that happened. >> Oh, hey guys. I guess we're doing nationality. So like uh a little bit of Europe, but grew up in Venezuela, which meant I got into blockchain in 2010. >> [laughter] >> looking at alternative systems like pretty much my whole life like governance mainly actually yeah we had a pass the baton in g at some point like which was quite cool and yeah I'm working right now with swarm protocol so it's like very aligned we're like members of the the whole the whole thing supporting with true privacy now but like um I'm living at the network school which is kind of like a very weird space it has a flag uh we can argue a lot about like where it stands But we basically hosted a one month event opening um an Ethereum focus hub. Um and we had the event uh as as one of these sessions uh which was quite a quite a lovely and chaotic space which we can talk about a little bit. [laughter] >> Cool. Thank you so much. Um yeah that leaves me um um yeah I'm Nicolina. I am originally Dutch. Um and I've been in Barcelona for the last 20 years after several countries. Um in relation to the plural events uh we basically started with the radical exchange chapters at Akasha Barcelona like um nine years ago um to really the challenge was to invite people that really did not agree with each other and make a interesting discussion around that which was a lot of fun. Um and we thought to extend this uh to different places, different cultures and see what the plurality of opinions actually can uh bring us and what we can learn from that. Um so this time it's really interesting because the first time web free privacy now and logos are here uh besides radical exchange and we're using tools like demrain agora polis and all this democratic tools that also is in plurality so we're not really using one um which is a nice challenge but it's interesting learning experience and this last edition we had um this is the fourth uh event that we're doing and uh thanks to logos as well in the circles. We had a lot of uh participations this time. So we had 16 locations, 16 cities on the same day talking about uh deliberate uh democracy, privacy and local actions. And just to for those who don't know plurality that well, so it's plural in action and originally I mean our this [laughter] is an original photo. Nobody has this from Audrey and Glenn. It's Audrey Tang and Glenn While. Uh they basically started the radical exchange uh movement a long time ago. And there's the book that has just been translated in German. Uh that is the plurality book. Uh of course it's open source and of course you can contribute. So you can just go there and add your thoughts about this as well. >> You can buy it. >> You can buy it at this time. Uh so yeah plurality is a a collaborative diversity. So we are not aiming to uh people have to uh agree with each other. We actually basically just studying what is the disagreements that we have of the pirality of opinions and uh see what we can learn from that. Um that's just a beautiful picture of a swarm because everybody loves this. So we had one topic 16 cities uh which in total was 261 people talking about deliberate democracy on the same day and uh apart from all the knowledge that comes out is really fun feeling to know that you're not the only ones talking about it and one of the important thing is that uh what Una was mentioning as well here before uh the third spaces where we actually can talk in person uh so this is not a digital zoom sessions that are really like in real life uh conversations where you have that freedom to really express your thoughts. Um this all partners that I mentioned already and that we I would I just wanted to ask from you guys because you all had like a very different role in the this plural events. Um the first the first question that came up in at least the Barcelona event was like what is deliberate democracy and I would like to ask you PG because you had some uh good theories about this. What is your what what for you means deliberate democracy? >> Wow they turn off. Okay. uh what I can share is that in Italy for example we had like my grandfather generation was very active politically. It means that they were gathering they had ideals they had values they had vision and they were actually fighting with each other verbally and in a constructive way. some some other times also physically. But all these like confront not confrontation all these like coming together and discussing what is like what they believe in what they feel good for their own community for their own city society uh was actually bringing some practical change in society and uh our generation lost like also physically these hubs this like political uh sections of political parties or squares or hubs indeed to actually discuss this idea. feels and we are very also distracted I think by a lot of things which is a pity because it's very rare to actually find some peers of mine 30 years old 20 years old 15 years old people that are talking about philosophy or politics or these kind of things um I think what has happened is that like having a lot of wealth in Italy in the last seven years we just delegated a lot of things and We forgot that coming together is the only way to actually um improve conditions of your lives because we are full of corruption in Italy. We have a lot of problems in the media. We have a lot of problems in politics for so many years. There is a lot of mismanagement of resources and people complains a lot. But people rarely come together and ask themselves what can we do together to improve this. And one of the key challenges I think a we lack this kind of physical spaces that can actually now be digital you know throughout all these tools that have been implemented in different like use cases around Europe and around the world. Uh what I also noticed is that these tools like Agora, Pol uh are actually well functioning where you have small smaller communities like for example in Switzerland every four months, six months you receive at home a letter that explains you exactly what uh can be the effect of your voting yes or no to something. uh and it's like um neutral explanation of this and you just you know you get information you are empowered with just saying yes or no and you ship back this envelope and it's done in Italy for example is very difficult very different and more difficult to actually understand what is going on what could be the turnover if you say yes or no so I hope that with this new tools that we have these digital means it will be more easy even for larger communities to get more information and take more conscious decisions So to address your questions, the liberal democracy, I think it's a matter of recognizing that we are the people, we are democracy. It's not about institutions or politicians that make like change, but it's us together. And we should actually recognize again that we are, you know, uh Italy, Europe, uh the world, you name it. We are actually society together. It's not just a matter of delegating these uh very important decisions to someone else and through these new technological means. It's not easy. Of course, it's not easy because it's uh you know coordination. We are all here talking about blockchain coordination and this and that and we still have the same problems. coordinating human beings is like one of the most difficult things ever probably technology can help and I'm super happy that we have some people like Audrey that for example is bringing forward this like way of how technology can empower democracy how cryptography can empower democracy in a way which is accessible for the people and not just for technologists so this is what I think means for me uh deliberate democracy like recognize and take back some ownership and responsibilities because It's not just uh we uh you know we deserve freedom, we deserve uh free speech, we deserve this and that. Yes, but it's also responsibility, is a matter of duty, is a matter of dedicating time to understand, to come together, take decisions, etc., etc. >> Cool. Thank you so much for this because it was like a really great question to start all the events with because it's like it's basically it's phrases deliberately a deliberate democracy. If you ask that to a group um nobody really knows what it can mean. So that is why we connected this with uh detecting like your local actions that you want to have like what are your problems that you have in your city in your town and then according to this we talk about what is your influence in that? How do you feel that you can change these things and then the the abstract concepts of deliberate democracy start to become more real in the group. At least that's what we saw um with all these different places. And when they start to talk about the the issues and the things that are wrong with their town, they get very passionate and then you can actually see that they wanting to change it and they don't know how. And that is where you get the the conversation was very interesting. Um, and Bastin, you also like you mentioned before like there this like tension between privacy and transparency and I would like you to explain a little bit what happened at least in Berlin from your point of view. >> Yeah, I mean we we started with the working definition of of privacy and transparency and um um so privacy basically is the right or the ability to um hide something from other people like some information in secret. And uh transparency is the ability to get this information from somebody like a politician or from the blockchain. And this is this is a uh it's a dichotomy. It's a tension field. No. So in some areas you want to have p transparency and you want to actually see what's going on. But in other cases you have to you have to secret. And um so we we asked a question okay like how do you uh negotiate between these principles. what I found like I had a group um that was concerned with the trash after race and um so we we talked about the problem and the the guy who came up with the with with the idea he said guys it's so nice to to just talk about it with somebody and then I come and I asked okay um so what about privacy and transparency and it didn't resonate at all so because it's it's a it's such an abstract problem that when you're when you're basically doing the the dirty ground work first, it it doesn't come up. And um I think it's interesting because this the dichotomy is not only technical, it's it's I would say it has a spiritual and psychological element between like openness and intimacy or openness and closeness. And I think if we want to um have a conversation with people about that, we need to get down to to the reality layer and get away from the uh abstraction layer and get more concrete with these topics. >> Yeah, thank you so much. Does anyone have the any thoughts about this as well? Like if feel free to add. Yeah, it's it's indeed like the the privacy element in in this discussion where I was also in Berlin was indeed not the most important. Um well, it was because it was like where does privacy come in? Where does transparency come in? And I think it's always it's a thing of like uh transparency for the powerful. And I think like for the individual you want privacy, but for the people in power, you want transparency. And that's just a very important thing. And um in this in this specific case, uh yeah, there was the trash cleanup we discussed. Uh there was um a discussion of next bike in Berlin that is uh kind of disappearing. The last news on this is from January. So that was one of the actions we proposed to to create awareness around this and see what we could do. Um and um there was transparency was very important because it was like where can we stay in the loop of what's happening? There was literally no news since January. Not from the company but also not from the government but so it was already May when we did our event. No news nothing. And it's like okay can we where can we stay up to date when decisions are made by our government and that is very tough. So in that sense it definitely came up and and was important and transparency from the people in power not we're not there when there's a lot to do for sure. >> Okay cool I see you having some thoughts about this as well. >> Yeah I guess like um I mean I don't know but I will have to explain like what the neighbor school is I guess. Um up to you. Um yeah, very quickly like u the neighbor school is like basically an experiment by biologist on like a take on the neighbor state book. you hear about this idea of like naent postnation kind of like new like sovereigns take which is quite interesting but like it it basically functions as a membership community but if I think about it actually it's definitely if it was if it were to become a country tomorrow it won't be a democracy is a business but if I think about it from the perspective of like transparency um there's basically like this uh every week there's like a launch and and people it functions like a focus group kind of like a small town hall type type of space but you get the you get access to like understand what's going on in a in an ongoing basis and everything is completely transparent but you know it is a business and a payment membership so yeah if I think about it everything is quite transparent and and very clear which is huh not what I will think if in in a different way it's definitely not it won't function as a democracy if we were thinking about that but I like full access to what's what's going on in a sense which I I don't if I think about it where I grew up. Yeah. So tradeups. Um thank you Dan. So cool. Yeah. It's it's interesting to see the different uh realities of where these events are taking place and what kind of conclusions we can take from that. Uh just to give like an example like uh in the network school the discussion about transparency was like maybe not so present or like what do you want to change in your surroundings when you are kind of like inside this business like u community and then there was like for example in Barcelona came up there was one a comment that said like yeah but privacy I mean what's what's the point like it would make so much more impact if you actually stand up and and say like this is what I stand for and do that out in the and and actually make something happen. But then in Africa, there were groups that were discussing the how difficult it is to even just gather around, not even getting to like what you're even talking about, but just gather in groups because it gets you arrested. So then you you see a little bit of different perspectives on uh on similar problems, which is interesting. um we gathered all the insights and uh this panel is now no way long enough to even like go into all the details. So I kind of like uh did like a con like a knowledge dump in an article that has a lot of um a lot of content from all the different locations on some specific questions. Um and in the end we have the QR code that you can go there and check them out. I would I mean we don't have time especially because also Chris I wanted to ask you because Logos was uh studying a lot what kind of actions are coming out of the plural events and uh yeah because I mean I maybe you would like to highlight that I don't know if you want to go through the slides already. Yeah. Well, or >> I don't know how we are on time. >> I don't know. Uh we could do towards the end as well, but um yeah, no on actions. So like the thing that that logo is brought into the mix. So plural events are um multiple cities where they discuss a topic together. Um and I think it's it's great first of all that people come together and have discussions. But the thing that we want to bring in from Logos was also like let's get to action. Let's do something. let's let's not forget that we have that we're people who have power. Um and so yeah, that that was the first step where we just asked people, okay, we're thinking about the concept of deliberate democracy. Um now think of one very specific issue in your city or or region that you would like to make better and that you feel that you can make better. So with logos, we organize circles in every city that are actually specifically around this. We call it winnable issues. So there's one specific thing you that is reasonable that is small enough um but impactful and that you can change. So we came with this uh angle a little bit in this edition and uh people found an issue um and then came up with a proposal or um yeah an implementation of like how they wanted to do it and um we we made it we we increased a little bit the the stakes by just saying we do a little uh contest a bount we will give a bounty for the different um locations that actually execute on the action. So think of a thing that you can do and if you can then also try to make it as concrete as possible that it could be executed within one week with minimum three people and there were bonus points for people who actually did it because that's already an improvement I think that you're like okay we c there's an issue we can do something and then you actually do it crazy but that's possible and so uh I think it did steer um the the event in a certain direction and I I was reading through all the um the different locations and it was really impressive to see how many wonderful ideas came up and I sensed it as well like in Berlin uh we were I don't know how many people we were >> yeah between 15 and 20 people and there were so many ideas that we decided to split up in in three groups to work out different ideas and that happened in other in other cities as well um and yeah honestly for me it's heartwarming to just see the how genius genius some of these ideas were and I think there were two I would say like two categories some were very concrete uh we had uh uh for example uh trash cleanups uh in in Brussels they did that uh we one in in Berlin also one of these came up in uh in Lisbon they were going to create mobile uh public uh local gardens uh there were also um in Nigeria I know there for um things of um improving decision- making processes and and allowing people to vote on issues. In Rome, they um they they they did a thing of uh beer a beer contest, right? That was it. >> Yeah. It's called drunk for good. >> Drunk for good. That was it. [laughter] So they had all these fun but sometimes very genius actions that they came up with. And the two categories I would say is on the one hand there were people who were like okay we're going to do an action with no permission. We just want to create something because the government is not taking action so we will. And then there's another part and another group that was more like how can we increase uh participation in government processes. Uh I am personally a little bit more fan of taking action yourselves because we've seen how governments are kind of failing and not doing such a great job. And I think the beauty of all of this and we sensed it as well is people come together and they see how how much power they actually have. You just need a group of just like two four people and and and you just say let's do something. Okay, we come together again next week and we actually do it. Um I saw like in Rio for example they did that they came together a second time they had a whole plan they mapped it all out of how they wanted to implement some of the things that they did. So yes that that was really beautiful to see. Yeah. And it's it's also interesting to see the differences between cultures. Like for example, Barcelona, there is a lot of people that have a lot of faith in our democratic system in Spain. And they actually searching like if the question was like, "How do you want to participate as a citizen?" Most of the people still were like, "No, I'm going to talk to the authorities. We're going to present a proposal and like we're going to do this like this." It was more around like how do we shape the proposals in a way that people paying attention rather than like real like derilla actions like completely bypassing the system and uh of course in in other countries this was completely different. So you can see like uh also by the ways that people want to interact like what is the trust that they have in the system in this culture >> which is a very interesting comparation as well. >> And I I saw also like in many action proposals that there were the the topic of privacy versus transparency came back in the concrete proposals as well. There were quite some proposals of how can we hold governments accountable? how can we actually ask for transparency in some of the things that should be happening and are not happening. Um so yeah there was this this uh this constant dynamic between different approaches for people. It was really interesting to see >> and also the one of the biggest challenges of course the facilitation of groups like that. Uh I mean how do you really get all the the people in the room to speak out and not uh you know throwing stones at each other. Um, and this is something like I mean fortunately like most of the circles and also the hubs in the the hubs network they're already kind of used to doing facilitation like that. So it's it's pretty good but also like in a network school uh maybe you you had some issues about the polarization. [laughter] >> Uh yes and no. I mean you got me thinking how how how an event like this will have gone if I was still in Venezuela but like because I had a civic innovation lab there for like I don't know how long. It's still running. Um, >> next next plural event. >> I mean, if I if I ever get I cannot go back to country right now. We'll we'll have to wave it uh for reasons. Anyway, um yeah, actually uh we started the event pretty much like putting it out there on the table like there is a format guys. Do we follow the format? Yes and no. And eventually like kind of like people deviated entirely and we just allowed that to happen. We had like I don't know like well I see I see one of my friends that was there around here hidden. I'm not gonna well don't raise your hat anyway unless you want to point yourself out but anyway like um it was more like open-ended in that sense and people initially got really heavy into geopolitics and like topics um but then just it just winded down a little bit the the the main reason I will say is like this is a a community that has like over 250 people that are committed to lead there long term uh but regardless there's uh there's turnover there's cohorts like every month. So people come and go and and every month there's like 500 plus people. So it makes a difference if you're actually sitting down on the third or fourth or first week with the different kind of people are there and if the people are actually leaving the next week. So there's you know they're just going to go then there's there's no a particular commitment to solve anything or actually really tackle something. uh but if you're actually more on the long-term side of things then okay there is an horizon of things that you can do and you can actually come together so I will have reframe that uh but actually I just I just pointed out like we had the logos team come over and so like Guru and Danish were there and we ended up having like an unofficial logo circle that like uh which was initially proposed by Lassar when he was around just as well so anyway no longer logos but anyway uh so it was kind of like if I think about it I would just came back to my mind like the conversation kind of like ported out towards her. It was like a organic natural rich and we we didn't even had I didn't even mention that at the time. I wasn't even thinking about it. Um but yeah, it's just thinking about how these technologies can be used. So at least the roles of or like how let's say the the lever or the dial is set in terms of transparency and privacy at the space it is important. It came out like quite a few times. But yeah, it was mostly an unruly type of setting or like you know it's also oh we want we we record this thing. No, like okay, sure. Let's just let's just like LAR and have fun a little bit like for a couple an hour plus. And yeah, then it ended up with this other wider conversation. But like yeah, I will definitely fine-tune how can this happen for long-term type of like horizon thinking rather than than just the the short well, we are there permanently. So >> look, this is the technology we used in Barcelona, right? >> It's it's it's not so harmful. It's like as it looks it's it's actually really nice. We use this just with a little microphone inside and we would just throw it to someone and then they would have the word and that is like kind of already preventing people talking over each other because if you are holding this gently then you can uh express your opinion. So this is high-tech but it worked really well for us at least. >> Is the microphone in the uh >> I think we are about the time that we need to announce the bounty winners. So yeah, I don't know if you want to do that. >> We're at time, right? Almost. Um, but I did want to say like uh the the tool that we used with uh the quadratic voting. >> Yeah, vocawa is called. It was really fun to to do it to make decisions together on what the topics were because we had like 10 topics and then we decided on three and with quadratic votes which you could see on screen what people are voting for. It was a lot of fun because we change people were like colliding and changing. Oh, you're voting for this. So we changed some of the topics and you saw them change in real time. It was a lot of fun. >> Yeah, it's cool. We used a lot of the damn brain as well to to gather all the the conversations and it gets like anonymized when you when they make the transcript. So it's it's not uh linked to any identifier which is very interesting and it's been proved very useful especially to to gather all the insights. >> Yeah. So definitely check it out. The all these tools are available open source uh online and in the article as well. Right. So then we go to we had a little contest and we have three winners. We didn't tell the winners yet who that they won. Um we had we didn't it was just really to activate people. It was not huge amounts. We we're giving away like a thousand euros in total. But so on the number three, so this I already explained. This is what they had to do. One of the parts that they had to do was actually share it online. Um which some people forgot. [laughter] Um and then so um >> yes [laughter] >> so for Rome is Rome is number three. So they had their drink for good program um um regarding so there was waste sorting through partnerships with local bars number three. Um they then you have Rio. So this was a participatory game um where they like really this is just the start of it. So it was like creating posters based on what are the local frustrations and really surfacing those. So there the number two they won €200 euros and then the number one who gets €600 to really um yeah execute on what they had in mind is Lisbon. So they created park spa parking spaces as temporary community parkletits um and they will continue doing this. So I'm very happy that they won. So that's that's the winners. So cool. >> Yeah. And and really like thank you to like everybody that participated. It was just amazing to see the diversity and we did do some uh calls for like the the aftermath and how to organize it and we we tried to gather you know to guide this as much as we could from like hubs network. Um but yeah we're looking forward to the next one. uh we are thinking to do it in the mid of September and we can act we actually have a chance to link it to official citizen assembly of European Parliament. So that's just the the cliffhanger here. Keep your keep posted to be uh to be informed with the the QR code that I think is here somewhere. Yes. Okay. So yeah, the QR code goes to the article with all the insights. Uh it's a lot of text so you might want to throw it in the AI to understand it. Uh and the the hubs network Twitter is at least where the you can get informed about the next plural events. >> There's a few you asked good questions already in in the article. There's questions with per topic, right? So it's >> and it specifies per uh city what they answered and also some comparations actions about what are the contradictions, what are some crazy quotes that you saw like the things like that. >> I thought we spoke for like one hour. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I was trying to get everything for you. [laughter] >> That's all it takes. >> So yeah, if you want to participate on next plural event, uh let me know and uh I hope to share a lot more insights uh next round and actually have a policy framing around this. So it could be cool. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you guys for coming. [applause]