FAST FORWARD: A Dispatch from DC
A guest post by Peter Backes offering highlights from this year’s TEDxMidAtlantic
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Author’s note: It seems like a million years ago that I arrived in Washington DC in June of 2024 to spend the weekend with HiFi and Jackie Singh — meeting both irl for the first time — as we attended a weekend of thought leaders at TEDxMidAtlantic, hosted by Nate Mook and Dave Troy — a longtime ally who was the first guest on RadPod four years ago this month. I also met Bette member Peter Backes, who was able to attend this year’s Tedx MidAtlantic. I invited him to share his thoughts, and I’m so glad he did. It’s a great, disturbing, and dare I say it, uplifting read.—hsc
FAST FORWARD: Dispatch from DC
Highlights from TEDx MidAtlantic
by Peter Backes
At the beginning of November, my partner and I attended the TEDxMidAtlantic conference in Washington, DC. The theme was ‘FastForward’ with an eye toward the future and beyond the troubling times we find ourselves in.
Many of the sessions provided their own view into the fractured, dark crystal that reflects our troubled geopolitical moment along with various prescriptions and calls to action to provide light and clarity and promote a just society.
As my badge indicated, I was there to learn about and discuss ‘Democracy and fighting disinformation’ and I wasn’t disappointed.
Here are highlights from speakers on those and related topics.
Michael McFaul was first up to talk about his most recent book, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder. His thesis was that the world had entered a new era of disorder with the United States having abdicated its role as champion of democracy and was difficult to refute. Mr. McFaul pointed out that the struggle between forces that support democracy and liberalism and those that oppose it have shifted geographically and can now be found within nations where there was once a clear separation by borders. McFaul prescription is to advocate and promote even more strongly for democratic ideals and engagement.
Joe Trippi was up next to talk about oligarchs, social media, malevolent influence, and the concept of the Noosphere, which can be interpreted as global consciousness. One can imagine Vladimir Putin (a student of the Noosphere) taking a great interest in Joe’s talk. Joe’s solution, in part, to foiling oligarchs was to democratize social media and eschew oligarch-controlled media, social and otherwise. With social media free of influence in mind, Joe introduced sez.us. Will one more entry into the crowded social media space help turn the tide of oligarchs? Time will tell.
Malinformation - information that harms with the absence of important context - was top of mind for Elizabeth Booker Houston. A dedicated employee at the Food and Drug Administration until the second Trump administration. She left when changes at the agency became intolerable for professionals that believed in their mission to improve public health. She now spends her time and energy pushing back on regressive forces with humor and intelligence only now from outside of the government looking in.
Yassamin Ansari, the youngest female member of Congress, recounted her mother’s compelling story about fleeing the oppressive theocratic Iranian regime after the takeover by the mullahs and her own realization of the American dream as the daughter of an immigrant. She urged the audience not to take democracy for granted and recounted how many Iranians had assumed the mullah’s rule would be short-lived. Fifty years on, a return to a more liberal order in Iran still feels like a distant dream.
One of the most moving and disturbing talks was given by Miles Taylor. Miles had written a NY Times op-ed and the book ‘A Warning’ while working in the Trump administration, at first anonymously, about the reckless nature of Trump and his danger to the Republic. Miles described the high personal price he and his family paid both financially and emotionally having to endure threats by the President to prosecute him and credible threats to his life that Trump inspired, all for exercising that most American of freedoms, freedom of speech.
The last speaker offered up a vision of hope in a time of climate change and conflict. Florian Krampe made the case for adaptation and cooperation after conflict and in the face of climate change and environmental upheaval.
Humans can be at their best and most productive when struggling to overcome daunting situations that require collective action. And certainly, the times we are living through now and for the foreseeable future, qualify.
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Peter Backes is an IT professional and environmentalist and has been politically active most of his adult life. In 2016 after the election of Donald Trump, Peter became even more politically engaged, helping to expose and push back against illiberal forces and fight online disinformation. He is a founding member of Bette Dangerous.
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