Last weekend, the Pirate Party International prepared and organized a conference that took place in Frankfurt am Main. It was called Think Twice and it brought a nice mix of sociology- and technology-oriented presentations and speeches. The name was chosen for one and obvious reason: Perhaps we should think twice before accepting some statements as the truth. In the light of recent events this idea seems to be important almost in every field. And after all - the current world also teaches us that there might be more than one truth.Â
The mentioned "nice mix" was actually possible thanks to the PPI. The International Pirates put a big stress and importance on the preparations of the meeting. We gathered in the ver.di labor union building in downtown Frankfurt. Having three parallel sections for all the participants actually meant that everyone had a chance to see various presentations and talk about various and different topics.Â
The number of participants unfortunately dropped significantly, as the major airport in Europe - the Frankfurt International Airport - went on strike just during the weekend. Some guys that wanted to get there by plane just didn't make it. So the number of participants dropped from hundreds to tens. And some of the presentations had to be canceled (unfortunately).
But honestly - if there is something I do like, its the small conferences. I mean, the Think Twice session had something kinda similar with the meeting we had in Maastricht last year - and it was really nice. Having less people on the conference can be beneficial when meeting others because finding those you want to speak to is much more easy. There are no lines of people would like to talk to the presenting guy after his speech etc. With the upcoming European Internet Governance and Beyond there was actually a lot of topics that should be discussed.Â
What was actually the most interesting and intriguing idea that was mentioned at the whole Think Twice session? We discussed the stratified democracy model - a model how principles of most of the people are changing over time with the technological and economical progress. We evaluated the role of politicians in this model and how they can or can not benefit from various changes in our society that appear over time. And when mentioning technological progress, one should not forget about the most hip invention of recent years: 3D printers. That is why we also had a nice presentation about how the 3D print revolutionized the whole idea of manufacturing in general.
It's only too bad that the session was this short and that we had to end on Sunday. The people that were there at the conference were great and it was not that good to tell everyone goodbye so early. But journey from Frankfurt to Brussels is quite far so there was unfortunately no time for the rest of the session.Â
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I´m Swedish, I dare not buy any 3 d printer because of the rumer that they can make weapons and the security agencys will be looking into that. I fear I would become under extra much surveillance and maybe harassing if I did buy it. Rumer probaly made by greedy organisations that dont want people making own things and spare parts, to buy theyrs instead, but SÄPO and company may fall for it anyway and do bad things to buyers. I´m maybe in conspiracytheory but still to afraid to buy 3 d printer. If not for that I had bougt one long time ago.
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