Session 2: Everyday Rebellions
Hasan Elahi, privacy artist
• Detained in Detroit and asked about where he was on 9/11
• His name was mistakenly put on a government watchlist
• Luckily he had an enormous amount of information / documentation on what he was doing that day
• Since then, he has been watched by the US government
• Took 9 consecutive lie detector tests
• He has since chosen to inform the FBI every time he takes a trip or gets on a plane – phone calls, emails, pictures
• All the artifacts of his life cross-validate each other – receipts, bank statements, pictures
• Eventually became an art project
• From his server logs, the FBI, NSA and White House are still visiting his website
Maajid Nawaz, anti-extremism activist
• Globalization of hate
• Terrorists have been using the Internet to propagate their messages and create a global phenomenon
• For 13 years, he was involved in an extremist Islamist organization
• British-born, he was recruited as a teenager into a global Islamist organization
• He rose to leadership, and at the age of 24, he found himself in jail in Egypt for 4 years
• He learned in that extremist Islamist organization how to communicate across borders
• Localized parochialisms have become interconnected and are becoming mainstream and transnational
• Domestic politics are being affected by transnational issues
• Difference between ideas and narratives – idea is the cause, narratives are the ways to sell that cause
• There is no equivalent democratic social movement – because of complacency, political correctness, political & economic failure, and the ideology of resistance
• Neoconservatives have been supply-led (democracy) rather than demand-led
• We need a grassroots, youth-led movement to spread democratic culture – democracy, to date, has just been one of many choices
• As a choice, when democracy is seen to fail, people say, well we tried that and it didn’t work
• Social movements are loose networks with ideas and narratives to bind them together
Justin Hall-Tipping, nanotech venture capitalist
• Describing a nanomaterial made of carbon a thousand times more conductive than copper
• Transparent and flexible at the nanoscale
• Combined with polymer and affixed to window, state can be changed with a millisecond pulse to allow light and heat through (or not)
• Working with University of Florida
• Imagine if we didn’t have to rely on synthetic light at night
• Two nanomaterials combined, a detector and imager – width 600 times smaller than a decimal place – transparent and flexible film that lets you see in the dark, the power plant of tomorrow
• Today the best energy storage is the lead acid battery
• Working with University of Texas–Dallas to build a box made of nanomaterials that can park an electron and then release it – even beam it where you want it to go
• Power of grid of tomorrow is no grid
• Clean efficient energy will one day be free
• The answer to clean water is to gain control over the building block of life – the electron
Yves Rossy, jetman
• (Video of human flight using rigid powered wing over Swiss Alps, Straits of Gibraltar, English Channel, etc)
• His body is used in tests since his body is an integral part of the structure, used to steer wing
• Gains altitude when he arches back
• Pushing shoulders forward goes into dive
• “It’s fun” (to laughter)… “I feel like a bird”
• He discovered freefalling at 23 – the dream, to fly free with no machine
• He flies at 190 miles per hour with 55 kilos on his back (on 55 kilo body)
• Uses 2 parachutes
• Instruments are altimeter and fuel
• Landed at the bottom of Grand Canyon – much safer as top is rocky, has cactus, and has funny wind dynamics
• (Bruno: When are you developing a two-seater?”) “Have you ever seen a tandem bird?”
• He would like to share it, do formation flights
Hasan Elahi, privacy artist
• Detained in Detroit and asked about where he was on 9/11
• His name was mistakenly put on a government watchlist
• Luckily he had an enormous amount of information / documentation on what he was doing that day
• Since then, he has been watched by the US government
• Took 9 consecutive lie detector tests
• He has since chosen to inform the FBI every time he takes a trip or gets on a plane – phone calls, emails, pictures
• All the artifacts of his life cross-validate each other – receipts, bank statements, pictures
• Eventually became an art project
• From his server logs, the FBI, NSA and White House are still visiting his website
Maajid Nawaz, anti-extremism activist
• Globalization of hate
• Terrorists have been using the Internet to propagate their messages and create a global phenomenon
• For 13 years, he was involved in an extremist Islamist organization
• British-born, he was recruited as a teenager into a global Islamist organization
• He rose to leadership, and at the age of 24, he found himself in jail in Egypt for 4 years
• He learned in that extremist Islamist organization how to communicate across borders
• Localized parochialisms have become interconnected and are becoming mainstream and transnational
• Domestic politics are being affected by transnational issues
• Difference between ideas and narratives – idea is the cause, narratives are the ways to sell that cause
• There is no equivalent democratic social movement – because of complacency, political correctness, political & economic failure, and the ideology of resistance
• Neoconservatives have been supply-led (democracy) rather than demand-led
• We need a grassroots, youth-led movement to spread democratic culture – democracy, to date, has just been one of many choices
• As a choice, when democracy is seen to fail, people say, well we tried that and it didn’t work
• Social movements are loose networks with ideas and narratives to bind them together
Justin Hall-Tipping, nanotech venture capitalist
• Describing a nanomaterial made of carbon a thousand times more conductive than copper
• Transparent and flexible at the nanoscale
• Combined with polymer and affixed to window, state can be changed with a millisecond pulse to allow light and heat through (or not)
• Working with University of Florida
• Imagine if we didn’t have to rely on synthetic light at night
• Two nanomaterials combined, a detector and imager – width 600 times smaller than a decimal place – transparent and flexible film that lets you see in the dark, the power plant of tomorrow
• Today the best energy storage is the lead acid battery
• Working with University of Texas–Dallas to build a box made of nanomaterials that can park an electron and then release it – even beam it where you want it to go
• Power of grid of tomorrow is no grid
• Clean efficient energy will one day be free
• The answer to clean water is to gain control over the building block of life – the electron
Yves Rossy, jetman
• (Video of human flight using rigid powered wing over Swiss Alps, Straits of Gibraltar, English Channel, etc)
• His body is used in tests since his body is an integral part of the structure, used to steer wing
• Gains altitude when he arches back
• Pushing shoulders forward goes into dive
• “It’s fun” (to laughter)… “I feel like a bird”
• He discovered freefalling at 23 – the dream, to fly free with no machine
• He flies at 190 miles per hour with 55 kilos on his back (on 55 kilo body)
• Uses 2 parachutes
• Instruments are altimeter and fuel
• Landed at the bottom of Grand Canyon – much safer as top is rocky, has cactus, and has funny wind dynamics
• (Bruno: When are you developing a two-seater?”) “Have you ever seen a tandem bird?”
• He would like to share it, do formation flights
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