Power of Ideas Part 2 with Dr. Ruth Backstrom

This week on  #ForWhatitsWorthwithBlakeMelnick , part two of my interview with Dr. #RuthBackstrom author of #IgnitingaBoldNewDemocracy .  In part one, Dr. Backstrom and I discussed the context for change; the eroding belief that our democracy can provide for the needs of all our citizens.
In part two, we pick up from where we left off and focus our conversation on the impact of the Reagan years, technology, social media, and the need to re-imagine education.   For what it's worth. 

The music for this episode, "How Come I Gotta" is written and performed by our current artist in residence, #DouglasCameron

You can find out more about Douglas by visiting our show blog and by listening to our episode, #TheOldGuitar

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Transcript

Power of Ideas Part 2 – with Guest Ruth Backstrom

[00:00:00] Blake Melnick: Well, welcome to this week's episode of, for what it's worth called the power of ideas. This is part two of my interview with Dr. Ruth Backstrom author of igniting a bold new democracy. Empowering citizens through game-changing reforms. In part one, Dr. Backstrom and I discussed the context for change. 

[00:00:50] The eroding belief that our democracy can provide for the needs of all our citizens. In part two, we pick up from where we left off and [00:01:00] focus our conversation on the impact of the Reagan years, technology, social media, and the need to re-imagine education. For what it's worth. 

[00:01:14] Ruth Backstrom: That would be game changing. That would be the one thing that if you unravel that the whole system. Would be different. Right? And it's like finding those key points of leverage where you could really make a difference.

[00:01:25] And Maine, the state of Maine in the United States did that for a while. They were funding all their local elections, 81% of their candidates were using state funding. And they got a really progressive agenda out of that. It was a great illustration of what we would get if we said no more to this.

[00:01:43] And they were successful. But then the Supreme Court came down and stopped some of that activity. And that this is one of the problems is we have these rogue institutions, which are stopping the growth of citizen, power. And so we really, we need to rethink other ways round it.

[00:01:57] Now, Nebraska interestingly, doesn't [00:02:00] have parties at the state level. Um, which is another thing, maybe the party system should be rethought, what we need is teams working together from different orientations that's really the best way to problem solve. Right? Right. You get everybody in the room.

[00:02:14] In fact, there's a story about Lincoln who said he'd like to have what he called a team of rivals, and he felt like he could hold the union together. President Lincoln could get all the different opinions in one room talking to each other, and that's kinda where we are. Everybody's comparing where we are to where we were during the Civil War because there's so much animosity.

[00:02:34] And I think we need the same kind of strategy. We need to bring people together who have different points of view and have them talking in the same room towards what they want. Recently, I had a group that I was, doing a talk with as I was selling my book, and they said, we wanna talk about our shared values.

[00:02:49] And I think that's a great place to start. This one woman was talking about how she went into a grocery store and started talking to this guy who had completely different [00:03:00] opinions than her, but they started talking about their values and he started to find some commonality, and I think that's a really good place to start.

[00:03:07] Blake Melnick: I agree with you. Business has been using core values to create a sense of United purpose and commitment from their employees. And if done well. In other words, if the values can be lived by the employees, they become integral to the business. To the hiring practices to the way businesses done. To the interaction with customers. 

[00:03:26] So I agree. And perhaps that's what we're missing. If we actually have those conversations, we'll find that we have similar basic core values. In terms of our desires and aspirations for our family and for ourselves, but it's very complex to do this within the existing system. 

[00:03:42] You're advocating pretty large scale change. How or where do we begin? 

[00:03:47] Ruth Backstrom: I think you just start. In our country we have two kinds of states. We have red states and blue states, 

[00:03:52] And what you do in the blue states, you need to push them to, to start to create the new vision that's possible. And in the red states, you need to [00:04:00] start to push them towards being less extreme, so , they're different strategies, in different places. But I think this could start locally.

[00:04:08] It already is in a way, like universal basic income. They're six mayors who interested in implementing this in the United States, cause they've seen, with homeless people, they've seen this as really successful. They gave them $500 a month, and after a very short period of time, 35% were able to be housed somewhere, 

[00:04:25] so in starting these experiments and then ramping them up and talking about them, there's not enough attention that goes to the things that are working. There's so much attention that goes to the , things 

[00:04:36] Blake Melnick: that are mm-hmm. 

[00:04:37] Another thing I really liked about igniting a bold new democracy was the conscious decision you made to focus on developing solutions and writing the book from a positive perspective, rather than a negative one. It's easy for all of us to sit back and point out what's wrong. We can all be armchair quarterbacks. 

[00:04:54] However, getting to a solution, a workable solution. Requires a different way of thinking [00:05:00] and it requires collaboration with others, listening to one another, exploring new ideas and building on the ideas of others. Not just offering up your own all the time. 

[00:05:09] Again, a difficult challenge. In our pre-call you and I discussed the impact of Ronald Reagan, Reaganomics, and the free market economies, et cetera. So in preparation for our discussion today, I did a bit of background reading about Ronald Reagan during his two terms as governor of California. There was quite a large gap between these two terms, 1967 and 1971. 

[00:05:30] But in the early days, Ronald Reagan was quite a reformer. He presented some groundbreaking gun control legislation. He increased social services. He increased tax rate and corporate taxes in order to pay for infrastructure and social services. Not the kinds of things we associate with Reagan during his time as president. 

[00:05:50] And as we discussed, it seemed like the eighties under Reagan was a watershed moment for democracy where the focus seemed to move from us. To me. [00:06:00] So let's talk a little bit about that period and what happened. 

[00:06:02] Ruth Backstrom: The labor unions, what he did with the airlines destroyed the labor unions in the United States and that was a huge source of protection for workers. Wages have been stagnant ever since basically, cuz there's no labor unions, there's nobody advocating very effectively for workers.

[00:06:17] So that was a huge downturn. Plus he stopped funding affordable housing and got interested in funding the battle over the weapons. Basically, he wanted to outspend the, U S S R. The most interesting thing he did actually is he talked to the leaders at the U S S R against all the other Republicans desires, they were like, you can't do that.

[00:06:38] He was an interesting man because he had these moments where he stepped out of the sort of tribe that he was in and then of course they all loved it after he managed to , make some 

[00:06:48] progress on.

[00:06:48] Blake Melnick: Yeah, he did have some great success. 

[00:06:50] But it did seem to be growing up in the eighties. There was a shift towards increasing one's own wealth, power, and prestige at the expense of everyone else. Let's [00:07:00] take the issue of homelessness, for example. Prior to the late eighties, early nineties, homelessness was not nearly as rampant in major cities in Canada. 

[00:07:09] I grew up in downtown Toronto and while of course there was a degree of homelessness. It certainly wasn't anything like the scale we see now. The massive increase in homelessness in every large metropolis, coincided with politicians, cutting social services, closing mental health facilities. Coupled coupled with the opioid crisis manufactured by big pharma. 

[00:07:30] It's little wonder why people's faith in the democratic system is on the wane. 

[00:07:33] Ruth Backstrom: Unless you have progressive taxation, you have a good, social safety net. And you, , have less inequality. Those are the three things that you need to have a robust democracy. We've gotta reduce the inequality and we have to start to increase our social safety net

[00:07:52] then, until Reagan, everybody, was on board for the idea of affordable housing. Suddenly affordable housing has [00:08:00] become really difficult. Everybody's like, not in my neighborhood. Right, right. Well, whose neighborhood is gonna 

[00:08:06] gore 

[00:08:07] to like, I was looking at this issue I think this is a really painful one, to see people on the streets, like stray animals.

[00:08:15] I think that's a terrible place to be in. And there's just this perception that your housing value will go down. It actually turns out if you put them in the right place, that actually increases the value because. They're part of, the pool, . People that are contributing to the GDP 

[00:08:30] Blake Melnick: It's interesting how those types of misconceptions form. I live at a mixed housing community there's co-op housing, subsidized housing, multiplex dwellings, and large single family homes. It's actually at a real exemplar of mixed housing. It's a vibrant community. It's safe neighbors take pride in the neighborhood. They work together to improve it. 

[00:08:53] Uh, by creating things like community gardens and green spaces and the property values are high and and continue to [00:09:00] rise because at its core essence, it is a community. The misconceptions around the impact of mixed community housing is similar to the reaction I saw from Americans when Obama introduced Obamacare. 

[00:09:14] I just couldn't understand why the average citizen was pushing back against something that would only lead to an improvement in the quality of their lives. Now, I know there were issues with the implementation of Obamacare and the costs, although this was largely because of Obama was blocked from implementing it the way he wanted to. 

[00:09:33] But looking across the border, it seemed to me the very people that would benefit the most from universal health care. We're the ones most vehemently opposed to it. What's that all about? 

[00:09:43] Ruth Backstrom: That's the kind of tribalism you get there's a lot of research in the United States about this, how people are voting against their own interests, right? Because they wanna be associated with the tribe, and if you vote against that, you're not associated with the tribe.

[00:09:55] So there's this very strange disconnect that goes on. It's a state of [00:10:00] cognitive dissonance where how can you possibly have a functional democracy if people are not really voting in their own interests? Right, 

[00:10:06] Blake Melnick: It's a bizarre thing and maybe you're right. Maybe it is because their tribe is against it. When Medicare was introduced in the United States in 1965. There was a similar backlash. If you tried to take that away now, though. 

[00:10:20] Ruth Backstrom: ' which they're trying to do, 

[00:10:21] Blake Melnick: Yes, I've been following what's going on in states like Tennessee over the past month. Where there's a major rift forming within the states themselves, between the rural population and the urban centers. As politicians attempt to drive a wedge between the democratic, urban dwellers. And the Republican rural dwellers. 

[00:10:40] Where governors are trying to pass laws to intentionally separate their interests. And thereby creating more divisiveness 

[00:10:46] Ruth Backstrom: right. So they can keep their base. There's this gerrymandering that's gone Right. All over United States, especially in the state that I live in, and the trouble with that is that you don't really get the representation to look like the states, it's not really what the majority of people want.

[00:10:59] And , [00:11:00] there's a lot written about how we're now in the United States living under the tyranny of the minority. 

[00:11:04] Which, , if you follow us, you could go down that path. And the thing that's even more damaging for us has been the damaging of norms, the kind of hate and the vilification so that we've damaged our norms.

[00:11:19] And it's really hard when you damage norms. You were a teacher, so you can remember what it's like. It's like classroom discipline. If you lose it, it's very hard to bring it back. Get it back. Mm-hmm. And then that's true in societies too. Once you lose your norms, it's, Very difficult to bring those norms back.

[00:11:34] And so that's really what we need to do is we have to come back to a healthier place where we have healthier norms, where corruption and greed and lying and hating are not considered healthy values. 

[00:11:45] Blake Melnick: I frequently have conversations with people about the need to embrace common values, such as honor and integrity. But I'm often met with the response. It's not human nature. Humans are naturally selfish. We practice [00:12:00] survival of the fittest. We live in a dog eat dog world. These are simply our natural instincts. 

[00:12:07] But in thinking about this, we've accounted for. These natural human trades. If you want to call them that in our concept of liberal democracies, when we emphasize the right of individuals to pursue their dreams and ambitions, as long as they don't cause direct harm to others in our society and the process. 

[00:12:26] And we certainly have lots of examples where individualism and collectivism coexist. 

[00:12:31] where in pursuit of our ambitions. We are also advancing. The collective needs of our community or our society. 

[00:12:40] Ruth Backstrom: There's a lot of psychological research showing that the groups that could stay together, Lasted the longest.

[00:12:48] You know that capacity to be collaborative led to the longer civilizations basically. So while there's competition within groups, the more coherent groups are the longer, healthier their [00:13:00] civilization, 

[00:13:00] Blake Melnick: I couldn't agree with you more. Certainly the research around high performance teams and medicine research and professional sports support this. In high-performance teams, each team member assumes collective responsibility for understanding what needs to be done. And further, they also assume collective cognitive responsibility for learning the roles of their team members so they can fill in on a moment's notice. 

[00:13:25] I spent a good part of my career, helping organizations design and develop cultures of innovation and excellence. And it usually begins with a deep dive, collaborative, deep dive into the challenges, problems, and issues the people in the organization are experiencing. In an effort to understand the root cause of the problems before advancing any kind of solution. 

[00:13:47] My mentor friend and colleague, Dr. Marlene Scardamalia develop the 12 principles of knowledge building, and these principles have been core to my practice in knowledge management. The principle, which applies to what you've just said [00:14:00] is symmetric knowledge advancement were individuals pursue their personal objectives and goals while also advancing the larger goals of their community. 

[00:14:08] It's analogous to a win-win scenario and it's rooted in mindset. And interestingly much of my research and the research of others in the field over the past eight to 10 years around understanding and unlocking the innovation dynamic has pointed to mindset as a key attribute of innovators and innovation. 

[00:14:30] I think if we want to rebuild our democracies. It will require that we change our mindset so that we can balance the needs of individuals with the needs of the larger society. 

[00:14:40] Ruth Backstrom: Breathe the same air and drink the same water, 

[00:14:42] Right? 

[00:14:43] We talked about this in our pre-call in the 19th century, the period which saw the rise of the Robber Barrons, Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, et cetera. You know, these guys amassed extraordinary amounts of wealth, but they also created thousands upon thousands of jobs, vastly improving the [00:15:00] quality of life for all Americans. 

[00:15:01] They really help build the American dream, which became almost a universal concept. In other democratic nations as well, it was aspirational and built around a set of shared values. If you were honest. Honorable diligent worked hard. You could create the life you wanted for yourself and your family. And by virtue of these shared values, create a better society for all. 

[00:15:24] I'd like to shift gears a little here, Ruth, in your book, you intentionally adopt a very optimistic viewpoint. And you take great care to illustrate some pivotal moments in American history and some positive legislation that allows us the reader to reflect on what we can learn from our past to help us move forward. 

[00:15:44] You begin with the GI bill. 

[00:15:46] That's right. That my first chapter starts with the GI bill, right? Mm-hmm. Because it is, it's such a great example of what societies can do.

[00:15:53] It's good. And it was, really just a collection of men who were in the American Legion who decided [00:16:00] that instead of having veterans come home and have nothing to come home to as they had after World War I, they wanted something for them at the end of World War ii. And that something was, free education and subsidized housing, which was a radical idea at the time, because until then most people didn't have access to their own home, and they certainly didn't have access to higher education.

[00:16:26] And so 7.8 million veterans came home and went to colleges, which is huge. And it just changed the shape of America overnight and created a great, economic boom as well. Mm-hmm. For every dollar that we invested, we got a $7 return as the G D P rose because people were more educated and it's just something we should think about as we move forward. The interesting thing is it gave rights to a group of people that, didn't have rights. Nobody thought that it was the right of a veteran to have education, but that has lasted throughout time, [00:17:00] which shows that you can have power if you take it.

[00:17:04] You know that once you take it, it's much easier to maintain it

[00:17:08] We need to invest in people again. Right. In that same way as we're in this huge transition period where some people can make so much money using their technology and technology has sort of helped to make this huge gap between the haves and the haves nots, but there's a way that we should think about investing in people to make up for that discrepancy.

[00:17:30] And it will pay off just as it did in the GI Bill. We just have to figure out, the right investments to make. . Some of the other things that we've done you know, the examples are state led. One thing that was interesting is that in North Dakota, they created their own state bank. And that was really important because in the 2008 debacle, they just sailed right through it. While neighboring Minnesota was having double digit depressions. In terms of their labor force not being able to get employed. I think it, it's really helpful in a way to kick [00:18:00] some of the power down to a local level where you could control it.

[00:18:03] Right. And, and this was in North Dakota, which is not a radical hotbed, you know, it was just a very persuasive speaker got together, and this happened in the early, 20th century. A very powerful speaker and a great organizer got together and they talked them into creating a new party. And then part of that new party's platform was to create their own state bank so they could control their own wealth.

[00:18:25] And so that bank, for instance, during the depression, they bought up all the land of the farmers and then sold it back to to them after the depression was over. It's a great example of how communities can take care of themselves if you get some more of the control down to the level of the community or the state. 

[00:18:42] Blake Melnick: I have mixed feelings about this, at least in the context of Canada. The idea of centralized government versus provincial government. If I take healthcare as an example in Canada, universal healthcare, like education is a federal right. But it's up to the provinces to administer, and while good in [00:19:00] theory, it creates a certain level of disparity in terms of access and quality. In some provinces. Usually the wealthier ones, the level of care is good and others not. So in addition, a number of provinces have protectionist, highly regulated policies. Which to some degree explains our current shortage of doctors. 

[00:19:17] If I'm licensed to practice medicine and Ontario, my license to practice does not extend to the province of British Columbia. The same holds true for teachers and other professionals. In the case of healthcare in British Columbia to address the doctors shortage. Our provincial leaders have decided to license nurse practitioners and to recognize foreign credentialing of doctors so that we have more doctors that will. 

[00:19:43] Eventually be licensed to practice in the province, but this is a provincial piece of legislation. It does not extend to the other provinces. So isn't this really the same thing. In your example, with North Dakota, where one state has done something really progressive. But [00:20:00] this good idea hasn't been picked up translated or transferred to other states. 

[00:20:05] Ruth Backstrom: Actually there's a lot of states talking about it. , especially after the pandemic. And it's in process. I think we'll see a lot of states, actually start to do that.

[00:20:12] But I think this brings up a really interesting point, which is, I think on a larger level, what you want is shared values, right? But you might implement the expression of those values differently, and this is where, you need some kind of mediating force between those things.

[00:20:26] Of course we had this terrible problem with racism in the south for so long. 

[00:20:30] Blake Melnick: Right. And I did want to discuss this while you said the GI bill as an exemplar of the type of legislation that is needed now. The benefits of the GI bill didn't extend to blacks. It seems racism in the United States is very much an ongoing problem. And that is a country. The us seems unable to solve it. 

[00:20:50] Ruth Backstrom: that's right. That's a good place to start. We have to really realize the inequities we created by these policies, and it makes sense to counterbalance them [00:21:00] because we created them. We have to take responsibility for them and move on and somehow remedy them.

[00:21:07] So, a good example of something that's working is the Harlem Children's Zone. And what they did is they started on one block and they just went around and said, what do you need? It was just sort of recreating the social safety net that they didn't have basically, and they created three charter schools, and they went on extended to 97 blocks.

[00:21:27] But they created a very healthy, thriving neighborhood by doing this, by just meeting people's ongoing needs. And that's the kind of thing that needs to happen. We need to create a kind of reparation so we can have thriving neighborhoods, if we think of the vision that we want, we want everyone living in thriving neighborhoods where they can.

[00:21:45] Bring out their full potential. Right. That's really the dream that I have for America in the future

[00:21:51] Blake Melnick: And it's a good dream, but the racism piece is a challenging one for the United States. It seems like attention is brought to it regularly through some [00:22:00] horrific event. George Floyd, for example, it's picked up by the media gains national attention. But after a series of mass protests, usually accompanied by violence and destruction of property. 

[00:22:11] And there are a few sacrificial lambs, but once it's off the front page, things revert back to the way they were until the next incident. It never seems to result in legislation which looks to address the root causes of systemic racism. Now again, I'm only looking at this from the perspective I get from the media and it's largely us media too, but I don't see much progress being made. 

[00:22:34] Ruth Backstrom: there are things changing that we're not hearing about them as much like Camden New Jersey, cut down on its police force actually.

[00:22:42] And its crime was lowered too. And it's not, that's not a formula that works everywhere. Like some places they cut down on the crime and it gets worse. But somehow there are places where, basically the police are more of a harassing force than a helping force. That's really, I think, the [00:23:00] distinction.

[00:23:00] If you have a police force that's doing too much harassment and you cut back, you have less crime because people are not reacting to the negative influence of the police. Whereas if you have another city where. Crime is not being punished, then it's just, every man for himself. He gets worse. So it's, it's finding the situations where the right response, , is needed, 

[00:23:19] Blake Melnick: I'm wondering if the lack of progress around racial inequality. It's partly a business issue. Tied to profit and employment. I assume there's a quarter system for the police linked to RAs and convictions. I know the prison workers union is one of the largest in the united states All to say do you think there are broad vested interests that are best served maintaining the status quo as it relates to race crime poverty et cetera And if so how would you propose addressing this?

[00:23:52] Ruth Backstrom: You have to create a new system. That's what we found is there. Cincinnati succeeded in doing it by having oversight. The federal [00:24:00] oversight helped them to actually move out of this crazy quota system.

[00:24:02] That's just, A terrible system where you're actually feeding off the most vulnerable population. you're giving them tickets so you can get this extra. Funding for your city. You know, there's a gap between what cities have and what they need. And they often cover that gap by putting fines on the most vulnerable people in their community. 

[00:24:21] Which is just a terrible way to fund those. I know. I document that in my book . I think it's really important, program to get rid of. 

[00:24:29] Blake Melnick: Well, let's shift focus again, there are a couple of other topics from your book. I want to discuss before drawing this interview to a conclusion. The first is the impact of technology and media. I can say with a certain degree of certainty that the Visitas. And current crisis of faith in our democracies. 

[00:24:45] Has been perpetuated by technology, social media and algorithms, along with mainstream media. And as we discussed earlier, the bubbles enabled by algorithms, which keep like-minded people with like-minded people resulting in a series of echo [00:25:00] chambers. 

[00:25:00] Ruth Backstrom: That's right. Tristan Harris has done the most work in this. He did the, movie, the Social Dilemma, and he talks about creating a, social media that actually serves democracy. And I think that's a really great idea. And he's particularly concerned with the recent,

[00:25:16] forward movement of, artificial intelligence so quickly. Can be really dangerous. Oh, yes. 

[00:25:21] Blake Melnick: Damaging to it. Yes. 

[00:25:22] Ruth Backstrom: So it's really important that we get on top of this right away and Europe is already doing some things, that quite enough, but it's a real existential threat for our civilization.

[00:25:32] We have to address. I mean, we have so many of these sort of threats. We have climate change and then we have this AI that really needs to be addressed. 

[00:25:39] Blake Melnick: Well, and we are experiencing so many different trues these days just by giving everyone a voice through social media. Imagine what it will be like when AI can actually learn and mimic human beings, people will be able to manufacture truth with a simple command. 

[00:25:55] Ruth Backstrom: And security issues they can use your voice now. I mean, yeah. We really have to get on top of [00:26:00] this for so many different reasons

[00:26:01] Blake Melnick: well, I couldn't agree with you more. I was involved in the early days of AI development, as well as in the development of collaborative systems that were the forerunners of present day, social media. The intention behind these early developments was very altruistic. We focused on heuristics, latent semantic analysis. 

[00:26:19] And natural language processing algorithms were designed to identify the nuances in natural language and dialects determining whether the underlying meaning or intent was similar. And this was all done for the purpose of fostering connections. Connections between people and connections between people and their ideas. 

[00:26:38] Collaborative media was similar. Many of the early precursors to social media were aimed at education and promoting. Deep collaboration, discourse and knowledge advancement while eliminating the geographical barriers to participation. Ironically, the main driver was the democratization of knowledge through the application [00:27:00] of technologies of use technologies designed to enhance human creativity and productivity. 

[00:27:06] Unfortunately now instead of technologies of use, we've become directed by the technology itself. Almost as if we have no choice in the matter. We're told X number of jobs will be replaced by technology. The next few years, people are writing about the future of work. As if it's a foregone conclusion. 

[00:27:23] Something that's going to happen to us. Rather than something that we can help to shape. 

[00:27:28] Ruth Backstrom: Yeah, I think so. And I think that's part of this sort of laissez-faire ideas about laissez-faire economics. And these things don't work. We have to really assert our desires to make the world the way we want it to be.

[00:27:41] Blake Melnick: You advocate that we need to regulate social media. When I first read this in your book, I thought, boy, this is difficult. ground to tread particularly during these times where any attempt at regulation, however well-intentioned will be seen as an attack on personal rights and freedoms. 

[00:27:57] Tell us how you would propose to do this. 

[00:27:59] Ruth Backstrom: We [00:28:00] eliminate anonymity on the net, which means you have to identify yourself as a user because it turns out that a lot of the. Offensive behavior on the internet is done by a very small minority of people who probably wouldn't do that. If they could be, identified, right?

[00:28:15] Because that would affect the reputation and you'd have some kind of recourse. That's one technique that I think would be really helpful. But I also think talking in terms of our values , we should think of this as our public space. You know, what do you want being talked about in our public space, right?

[00:28:35] And what should we discourage in our public space? In our country, it used to be accepted that you didn't really want hate speech on college campuses. And now there's hate speech on college campuses. And I think that's not a good choice. I mean, I know there are a lot of people who think, well, that will offend freedom of speech.

[00:28:53] But I think there are certain norms that we should have that include, [00:29:00] not promoting things that take us in a direction that we don't want to 

[00:29:03] Blake Melnick: but isn't this part of the problem. These days, Ruth what's causing the backlash and anger that people feel they are unable to express themselves for fear of being labeled or canceled, or in some cases losing their job. If we truly believe in the virtue of free speech and freedom of the press, shouldn't we be willing to take the good with the bad. 

[00:29:24] Ruth Backstrom: It's a hard balance. Yeah. And I, but I think that there's certain realms, 

[00:29:27] there's plenty of freedom of speech going on. It doesn't have to always happen on the university. What we want on the university is speech that's gonna help us create a better society, which is to me is the real role of the university, is to convey knowledge and help us redesign all these systems 

[00:29:44] unfortunately our universities have become corporatized, students are burdened with debt that they can't really address the problems that we have. They often go into making a big, effective, business which doesn't solve these problems that we have and sometimes actually adds to it if it's doing [00:30:00] negative things to the environment.

[00:30:01] So we really have to reconceptualize the role of the university again, to being something that's really positive , 

[00:30:08] Blake Melnick: Well, the corporatization of universities is certainly an issue and I applaud Biden's efforts to address the student debt issue. By forgiving student loans. European nations, particularly Denmark are much further along in promoting bold ideas around education. The Danish government realized that negative impact of student debt on the wellbeing of their economy sometime ago. 

[00:30:30] And they asked the question, why would we want young people graduating with a huge debt when they complete their studies? Wouldn't it be better , if they were able to graduate. Debt-free. So they could immediately become contributers to society and to the economy. Where they could apply their talents to developing new businesses, creating jobs and increasing the country's GDP. In fact, Denmark goes even further. 

[00:30:56] They assess the job needs in the marketplace. And will [00:31:00] actually pay students to take degrees in these particular fields and assure them of a job upon graduation. 

[00:31:06] Ruth Backstrom: The other thing that Danes have done really well are these folk high schools. Sure. Um, And so they have this great civic education pattern, baked into their system. I was talking to this one sustainability director from Copenhagen, and she was saying, neighborhoods compete to see you can get the lowest carbon footprints.

[00:31:23] And they're all educated in how to do it through these folk high schools. Which is kind of the image that I have. We need to have more civic education baked into our system. I talk about the idea of learning hubs where people can come together, learn stuff, and actually also contribute and 

[00:31:38] and have their opinion matter 

[00:31:39] Blake Melnick: along those lines, the Finnish government created a free online course to educate their entire population about AI. This is a great example of technology of use using technology to advance the understanding of an entire population about something which will impact all of their lives in the future. [00:32:00] 

[00:32:00] How smart is that? 

[00:32:01] Ruth Backstrom: We should spread that worldwide. That would be a great thing to have everyone do. Yeah.

[00:32:05] Blake Melnick: The Finnish government is more than happy to share this program in fact, I was invited to take the course shortly after it was released, which I did. Again, a brilliant example of purposeful use of technology. Advancing the understanding and capability of an entire population. 

[00:32:23] I don't know why our schools and universities are still being run like factories. It's a little mindblowing. We have all this wonderful technology out there. Why are we using it to connect classrooms of students around the world? Why aren't we engaging young people in helping to solve the problems they're going to be faced with when they graduate? 

[00:32:42] while they are at school. 

[00:32:44] It makes sense to me that we engage the brain power of young people that present different perspectives, the perspectives of their academic disciplines, whether that be engineers, sociologist, artists, educators. Who are [00:33:00] looking at the problems and the challenges and advancing solutions using their different perspectives. Why aren't we doing things like that? 

[00:33:09] Ruth Backstrom: That's a great question. And I think, there is power in meeting in groups, I do advocate for that. It's interesting when I talked to, Manfred Hill Rele, who is in charge of dynamic facilitation in, Volo Drop Austria, he said the most important thing that happens is the learning in the group.

[00:33:28] I was like, it's so great that you're implementing what they want you to implement. He was like, yeah, that's good. But really the most important thing is the learning in the group. Mm-hmm. And I think that there's a lot of emotional learning that happens in the group as well. And that, is really in some ways, the area that we're weakest in right now.

[00:33:47] We really have to get together and learn how to listen and to evolve into being more collaborative. That to me is a real challenge for our species right now. 

[00:33:56] I like to think of it as tapping into the collective [00:34:00] intelligence. Like there's a moment there where you go beyond yourself. And are no longer thinking in terms of your own ego, but thinking about working with the group on finding the best solutions. And that's a really important moment, is that moment where you start to think solidly as a group.

[00:34:17] That's what we need to get better at. So we can come up with really powerful solutions that are satisfying. 

[00:34:22] Blake Melnick: You talk a lot about. The role of schools and universities in your book. So let me ask you a question. I know this is a rather blasphemous one, and it's probably going to upset a bunch of teachers out there, but do we really need schools and universities anymore? Given the ubiquitous nature of knowledge and information?

[00:34:40] Everybody has access to the same information and knowledge. We don't require teachers or professors to provide us with content. We need to move away from the metaphor mind as container. So do we really need these institutions?

[00:34:56] Ruth Backstrom: I do think we need them. We just need them reshaped because I think [00:35:00] that bringing people together is especially important right now. And this is an opportunity for people to get, come together and share their ideas 

[00:35:07] Blake Melnick: Well, this'll be a tall order, given that, at least in my experience, education or the education system is the most resilient to change.

[00:35:18] The ivory tower does exist. If you don't have the letters PhD after your name, you can't participate in a design of the system. 

[00:35:28] Regardless of the experience and knowledge you may bring to the table, through the work that you've done.

[00:35:34] The focus in universities at least, is largely on publishing rather than on teaching or learning.

[00:35:42] Do we need to go back to a more classical model of education where students are taught the interrelationship between domains of knowledge and where the fundamental purpose is learning rather than employment.

[00:35:55] Ruth Backstrom: Especially because we need to train people for using their own talents.

[00:35:59] Blake Melnick: [00:36:00] And teach people how to accommodate the perspective of others. 

[00:36:03] Ruth Backstrom: Instead of imposing, I mean there was always this debate in education is education , to model and shape the person or is it to pull out the talents of the person. Yes. Dewey said it's both and of course it's both. But , we haven't done as well at pulling out the talents of people as we should.

[00:36:19] And that's the exciting thing about this new era in a way, is that we can move away from this wage based system and really bring out the talents and use them more effectively than we are now.

[00:36:30] Would like to see the Ivory towers come down, actually. I mean, one of the problems is a lot of the knowledge never really gets to where it can be useful. It gets stuck in those ivory towers. They all talk to each other. One of the things I really didn't like about education was problems do not divide themselves neatly into little fields, 

[00:36:45] so I always wanted a more renaissance approach I was really interested in psychology and education and sociology, and I wanted all those things to come together to solve problems, because there was really no way to solve them if you just stayed in your own [00:37:00] discipline.

[00:37:00] Blake Melnick: Ruth, we're approaching the end of our time, so let's cut to the chase. You've touched on individual elements we need to address in order to create stronger democracies and a better quality of life for citizens. The politics, the education, technologies, social services. So where do we begin?

[00:37:15] Ruth Backstrom: What we need now. It's something to pull people forward towards. So they stop fighting with each other. There's a really great book called Abundance where he talks about what technology is gonna bring to us, which is abundance. Everyone will have access to education the Khan Academy is already doing. And we ought to be able to solve the problems of wealth and stuff because. We can spread things easily around the world now and share. The biggest barrier, I think, is our own mindsets, right? , we have to go into a mindset that we're all in this together and we have to take care of each other. We can use our talents 

[00:37:48] Blake Melnick: And whose role is that? Is that the universities? Is that where we start? Do we start with schools?

[00:37:54] We could start with schools. I think schools is a great place to start and that's where I'd actually like to do some of these talks [00:38:00] because I think schools it's an obligation to society.

[00:38:03] They really need to start to help us design these new systems that we can then implement. And that's happening to some extent. But the other thing we need is a better system of letting people know about the things that are working so that we can spread them. for instance, universal basic income. Andrew Yang. Did some of that, but I think that needs to get revved up. We need to rev up the things that are working, the solutions that are 

[00:38:26] out there instead of feeling bad about the things , the changes that are coming

[00:38:30] a lot of it, as we touched on is policy. We just need to create policies that allow citizens to have a greater voice in government. 

[00:38:38] Ruth Backstrom: Ireland is really close to that. They've done a number of these assemblies and that there's talk, I think, of actually having a citizens assembly. It's just ongoing all the time, but the people rotate in and out so they wouldn't get stuck in special interests 

[00:38:51] That's one way you could make sure that the voice of people was being baked into the system. I think in the meantime, convening these citizen assemblies or citizen [00:39:00] councils, Is a really good way to go. 

[00:39:02] Blake Melnick: Ruth, we've reached the end of our time. There's so much more I'd like to talk to you about. I'm sure we could go on for days. I will say this to you, however, and to our listeners, this is a great read. I think it should be included in high school and first year university curriculum where people can use your book as a launchpad to deeper, more meaningful conversations about the world we want to create for ourselves.

[00:39:25] Thanks so much for coming on the show.

[00:39:26] I encourage everyone to not be shy about activism, to get involved, to pull their talents out because it's really important.

[00:39:34] And also I think everywhere we should. Advocate for these citizen assemblies to happen those are my calls to action. 

[00:39:41] Thank you so much for having me's been great for me too. 

[00:39:43] This concludes my two-part interview with Dr. Ruth Backstrom author of igniting a bold new democracy, empowering citizens or game-changing reforms. This is a fantastic book. And I would highly recommend everyone read it. It will at the very least [00:40:00] provoke, some deep thinking and likely some engaging discussion. 

[00:40:03] Dr. Backstrom has kindly provided me with a limited number of signed copies of her book. So we'll make them available to you shortly. via links in our show notes through our Facebook show page for what it's worth the podcast series and feel free to sign up. It's an open group and finally through our blog for what it's worth podcast.com. 

[00:40:22] Well, I'm hitting the road for the next few weeks. So there will be a break in the season. But we'll pick up where we left off when I returned, but before I go, I have a special announcement to make. Our previous guest on the show, Tom Locke, author of moments in time is a finalist in the general nonfiction category. 

[00:40:40] Of the 2023 next generation book awards. 

[00:40:44] Congratulations, Tom. I absolutely loved moments in time. We still have a few signed copies left. You can order them using the link on our show, Facebook page or in the show notes for Tom's episode. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. For [00:41:00] what it's worth.