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Transcript
Rob Johnson:
This is Rob Johnson, president of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. I’m here today with Frank McCourt, McCourt Global in conjunction with Science Po Georgetown University, and hopefully recruiting many more is looking at the nature of democracy, the nature of governance in the context of the technological platforms we have here today, and the challenges that his project, Project Liberty is raising, and these people are working on from the vantage point of the common good and humankind is an extraordinary endeavor and an extraordinary example. Frank, thanks for joining me.
Frank McCourt:
It’s a pleasure being here with you, Rob and thanks for speaking kindly about the project. I really appreciate it.
Rob Johnson:
I find that effortless to be enthusiastic after learning about it. Let’s talk first about your inspiration, then we’ll talk about what to do, but I’m curious in your own mind, where did this vision come from? What inspired you to launch in this direction?
Frank McCourt:
Yeah, well, I think I was inspired in part because of a great deal of concern about the direction things are headed in a country I love and in a country that my family for five generations has been a part of building. And I suppose if I dig deeper and really think about where does it all come from, it comes from a certain upbringing. I think about my great grandfather every day, an immigrant coming to this country at 13 and then starting a business in the late 1800s building roads when Henry Ford started building cars. And then literally, as I said, building this great country and sitting as a steward of a family and a business of five generations. Up until a decade or so ago, I never thought we’d be sitting here talking about the sustainability of democracy or capitalism for that matter, but I became very concerned about that and wanted to do something about it.
And that’s what is really the impetus behind this project is sitting idly by and complaining about it or opining on the problem. It’s actually trying to get in the game and do something to fix it. And lastly, I would just say that, again, growing up in Boston, large Irish Catholic family, seven kids, and so nine at the table, minimum, often many more, you can imagine that environment and what it was like. And we, as kids were very good at defining the problem. And my parents would always remind us before dinner was out, you’ve done a great job defining the problem, now what are you going to do about it? And Project Liberty is trying to do something about a really big problem.
Rob Johnson:
Yeah. I remember reading in some of the interviews that you’ve done, that you talked about America being, which you might call the product of migration that people picked up and did something different. They moved, it was geographic migration. And my sense was you were imparting to us that you may be in the same square miles. It’s not about picking up and running away. It’s about migrating our systems to be better and more supportive of humankind.
Frank McCourt:
Yeah. I couldn’t agree with that assessment more. When things are not good when we live in a physical place and we see this over and over, unfortunately in the world, people leave where they’re at when things become intolerable, but they do need a place to go. And that’s human migration of a physical nature. In this very country, as you point out was is the product of a physical migration from a regime, a structure, right? Where people felt underrepresented or not represented, would no longer tolerate a futile system, a monarchy, et cetera. And the form of governance and what their lives were like. And so they picked up and left and started a new project called America, new governance, a new model, a new set of values and a new set of principles.
And we’ve all lived with the benefit of that physical act. Well now we’re living in a digital world and very, very powerful, large structure. Which is in my opinion. And I’m just sharing an opinion, is very, very unhealthy. And not only unhealthy, is eroding trust at such a rate that the very systems that we rely on, IE democracy and capitalism, which are built on the premise of trust when you destroy the trust, the system’s crumble. There’s no logic that I’m aware of that if you remove the underpinning of a system, that it will survive. So it’s, I think, a very, very important time for us to define clearly, see clearly the problem, but I hope not dwell on the problem, but now really gather up our most creative selves, our best selves in a way, and do something about it, the, what are you going to do about it answer to that question.
Rob Johnson:
Mom’s echo in your ear.
Frank McCourt:
Exactly right.
Rob Johnson:
Yeah. Well, I think that not wallowing in the sorrow of how we say recognizing we’re in this difficult place and moving forward is a key part of what I’ll call the example you’re setting. There are lots of different things. People talk about, they talk about climate change. They talk about the military and the dangers of the Ukraine. They talk about instability in the financial system and what have you. Project is focusing on… What’s the place you’re zooming in on to make the difference?
Frank McCourt:
Yeah, we’re zooming in on what we see as core, a core fundamental problem. And if we solve it, the chances of solving all those other problems increases the likely-
Rob Johnson:
Is enhanced.
Frank McCourt:
And so we’re not suggesting that Project Liberty solves all the problems in the world or that changing tech changes all human behavior. What we’re saying is that the current architecture of the internet is flawed and it can’t be fixed merely by regulation, or by tweaking it around the edges. We need to fix the model and change it completely and make the old model obsolete. And yeah, maybe by putting this into some context, when I refer to technology, I want to be clear and the problems associated with it, I’m talking about the idea of extracting and exploiting our data, surveillance, capitalism, and just surveillance period. It feels to me very incompatible with democracy and the other is social media and how it is designed actually to optimize for rage, optimize for anger, because that creates stickiness or time on online. You get what you optimize for with technology. Technology is just a tool, right? Like a hammer, a hammer is a tool.
Rob Johnson:
Yeah, it’s a means to an end. It’s [inaudible 00:08:41].
Frank McCourt:
And we can go out and build a house with that hammer. Or we can go out and and kill someone with that hammer. It’s a tool. And so we need the technology, I believe, to support democracy, to support a fair form of capitalism. And it can, so I don’t want to come across as being pessimistic in the least, I want to be realistic about the magnitude of the problem, but I’m highly optimistic that if we fix the fundamental flaws with technology and in how it’s currently being deployed, we cannot only solve and strengthen our democracy. We can actually then be in a position to solve other problems that have been really very difficult to even grasp. How could we solve that if we can’t even agree for instance, on facts and so on and so forth?
So if we can reset the technology and kind of reclaim our public square, refocus it all on the common good that this technology be should be serving a purpose. It should be for people and for society and strengthening, not for platforms. And just to create as much monetary value at whatever cost. So I think that if we can fix the technology and redirect it to work for democracy and for society, I think we’re going to find solving these other problems much, much easier, or at least much more possible.
Rob Johnson:
No, if you get it right, then the systems are more responsive to which you might call detecting discord and evolving towards a positive outcome. If the systems are refracted by that yearning, like you said, fomenting rage to increase time, to increase the advertising rate for the vendors.
Frank McCourt:
Not a good formula for democracy.
Rob Johnson:
It doesn’t have anything to do with, how do you say, meeting the challenges?
Frank McCourt:
Yeah. And let’s think about this for a minute, if you’re mantra or mission statement is to move fast and break things. Well, we move fast and we’re breaking things. If on the other hand, it’s move fast and fix things. Maybe we can fix a few things and maybe we can replace some of this despondency we’re seeing all around with a real hopefulness. And I believe that’s very, very possible. We’ve been beneficiaries of institutions that have supported these operating systems, democracy and capitalism very well or reasonably well, let’s say over the last 70 years, really I’m talking about post World War II, but that was an analog world. And now we’re living in a digital world and we can’t expect that a set of institutions designed to support these key operating systems will function at the highest level when we’re now moved from analog world to digital world.
So we need a new civic architecture for a digital world. And again, to me, I’m very hopeful at the same time that I’m very concerned because I think I’ve seen over and over again, the ingenuity of people, particularly Americans, to innovate and create once we get directed and aligned. And right now the very unfortunate part of things is that the technology itself is causing polarization and misalignment and misinformation and so on and so forth. So we need to fix this problem at the root cause to then in turn solve for lots of problem solving and lots of improvement for society and humanity. So, yeah, I think it’s a very, very critical moment for all of us.
Rob Johnson:
Well, as you mentioned with the social media, you can bombard and denigrate, be vicious, not even be truthful, but really take people down. When you look at surveys, whether it’s Gallup or Richard Edelman or whatever, the trust and faith in academic experts, scientists, government agencies, corporate leaders are all collapsing.
Frank McCourt:
Yeah. And it’s the key, it’s the key. Single key thing that these systems are built on is trust. And if we lose trust person to person or at, at a societal level, as I said earlier, I don’t think the systems have a chance. It’s logic. The very foundation they’re built on needs to be strong yeah. And needs to be maintained. That’s what continues to animate me. But that’s what got me off the sidelines here is just a grave concern that the rapid pace of this erosion of trust, there’s not an unlimited supply of it. And at some point there is a tipping point. And when we lose our democracy, it’s very, very hard to get it back. And I want to see our family’s business thrive for another five generations.
I love the country and I want to see other people’s businesses thrive and survive. And if we don’t have a set of rules and a framework that we all agree upon and we can all thrive within, then I think it’s a very, very, very different country and a very different world. And, so I hope that many people will get involved and it may not be our idea may not be the best idea. There may be someone else out there with a better idea. And if there is, I want to support that person and those ideas.
Rob Johnson:
They evolve.
Frank McCourt:
Yeah. But let’s evolve together and let’s make this a collective project. I think this is a, this is a project. This is a problem, big enough for all of us to pay attention to and to get involved in. And Project Liberty has three tracks associated with it. It’s not just a tech solution to a tech problem. Yeah, there’s a tech track and a tech solution. Something we call a decentralized social networking protocol, which we’ve created, which is open source, and we’ve gifted to humanity. And if adopted, it would fundamentally change how the internet works, but there’s also a governance track and a movement track because we really feel people need to get involved. Society needs to get involved to fix this and want to see it fixed. And this time around, we need to have real governance. And by governance, I mean, we need a conversation and agreement upon what are the values and the principles that we’re going to agree on here, that we want the technology to support and to help thrive. In other words, if we want democracy to thrive, let’s optimize for democracy, not rage.
Rob Johnson:
I’m looking at the challenge. You are a beacon, you’re going for it. You’re seeing it in this larger context of the common good and the systems that support them. My sense is in a time where expertise has been denigrated to engender trust is a formidable challenge. And I guess I’m saying people have their habits, you’re building a new platform. How do we catalyze the shift to the new platform to recognize that we might call collective health of going from dependence on those systems to these new systems?
Frank McCourt:
Again, I could be missing the mark here, but I’m a huge believer in people. And I’ve seen time after time after time, if there’s something that’s credible, authentic, doable, can be very bold, but doable and hopeful, people get very excited about it and rally behind it and make it happen. If we can replace some of this despondency, that’s creating this instability and leading to this lack of trust and so on and so forth with a hopefulness and a future that people can see it as a possibility. I think we can shift the energy completely here. Right now we’re stuck. And there’s very little discussion about the future, right? There’s a lot of discussion about past grievances and lots of discussion about can we make things like they used to be and so on and so forth. We’re stuck.
Rob Johnson:
Yeah. When people are afraid, they become nostalgic. They lurch backward rather than evolving forward many times.
Frank McCourt:
Yeah. And they want to recreate a time that maybe-
Rob Johnson:
Felt better.
Frank McCourt:
Even wasn’t really like they think, but it felt, like you say, it felt better. If we can feel better about the future, why not go for it? People want what makes them feel better if it’s real. I think that what we’re seeing though, is that in the recent past, people are being sold something about making them feel better. That’s not genuine.
Rob Johnson:
Right, it’s a mirage.
Frank McCourt:
And it’s not being spoken to honestly. And if we have a project that’s a collective project, right? It’s not just one person’s project or one thing. It’s not like that, it’s a collective project. It’s something, it’s let’s put that man on the moon again and do it collectively and be excited about it and feel good about it. I think that changes completely the dynamic.
Rob Johnson:
I think that we are in a place, we are wallowing in fear, creates otherness, blame, hostility, polarity, but none of those things help you regenerate. When you say stuck, that’s the word that really came to my mind is when you’re stuck. There’s a lot of work done in mind science about the three regions of the brain and the old parables of fight and flights and so forth. But when you shame people, things get worse.
Frank McCourt:
Absolutely.
Rob Johnson:
And the nature, the healing, the moving beyond is about, like you said, that regeneration of trust and my Chinese friends who are often very good at criticizing the United States say, “When you look at the history of China, when did rebellions happen? It wasn’t when the adults were damaged. It’s when they feared for their children’s future.”
Frank McCourt:
Absolutely.
Rob Johnson:
That’s the propulsion and you and I have young children, I have two grandchildren, one on the way, the anxiety that often inhabits my day dream is what am I going to do for their future? And feeling confidence in that, I think will calm an awful lot of nerves. And I think the Chinese have an insight there.
Frank McCourt:
I think that’s exactly right. And we can get into another conversation about how the Chinese people are looking at internet usage and technology and so forth, but that’s a conversation for another day.
Rob Johnson:
Sure.
Frank McCourt:
But that insight regarding fear and that insight regarding how we look at the world as, as parents and grandparents and through the eyes of our kids and the world we’re going to leave for them is I think very, very powerful. And I think we can turn this fear around because I haven’t ever found or met a person that won’t trade fear for hope if the hope is real.
Rob Johnson:
There may be people trying to bombard you from finding or feeling the hope for their own narrow purposes. But I think the example that you’re creating with this project and with your vision and your work and the team you’re putting together is the basis for hope. And we’ll conclude this chapter and we’ll come back again. We’ll talk about some more of those other dimensions, but I really am glad you could come in today and let me share with our audience, the pathway you’re on. And I’m going to ask a lot of people to check this out and join.
Frank McCourt:
I appreciate it a lot and be happy to come back anytime. I enjoy the conversation and you’re hugely thoughtful person. So it’s a pleasure to have this conversation with you,
Rob Johnson:
Pleasures mine. Thank you.
Frank McCourt:
Thank you.
