Stefan Roch

Even if you only watched movie versions of his books (which is the case for me, I only started reading Satantango a while ago) you really get the sense of his contemporary relevance: depicting, how easily order and humanity can collectively break down, but despite that, individual dignity can remain

László Krasznahorkai wins the Nobel prize in literature 2025 Hungarian novelist celebrated for dystopian, melancholic novels that ‘reaffirm the power of art’

The Nobel Price for literature goes to “the contemporary Hungarian master of apocalypse”. How fitting.
But a great choice none the less.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

We The People We The People invites Americans from across the nation into conversation, to voice their opinions on America’s founding ideals and today's challenges, in their own words.

#Wethepeople is a fascinating process started in the US last month.
Citizens from every congressional district will express and develop their ideas on fundamental democratic topics with help of GenAI and reflect on ideas of others.
Looking forward to first results.
wethepeople-250.org

Anton Pelinka und Claus Offe. Ein trauriger Tag für die Politik- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften.

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight Bernd #lastweektonight

❤️🍞
youtube.com/watch?v=k315...

Brilliant podcast by David Runciman and @cchwalisz.bsky.social asking all the right questions on deliberation, random selection and citizen assemblies. Best enjoyed in combination with @oliverescobar.bsky.social insightful paper: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

... But I think neither citizens do or will regard CA participants as their representatives, nor do CA participants regard themselves that way (they are representatives of their own life only). Thus, CAs (particularly in the age of social media) are not the answer to our democratic trust crisis.

...installment, which is brilliant. But the exit polls also indicate that the assembly barely affected people's decisions (www.rte.ie/documents/ne... p.105). I belief randomly selected CAs can be a brilliant participation tool to source input from a diverse crowd, leading to better policies ...

Great episode! David asking all the right questions and Claudia answering highly competently. Though, I'd be a bit more cautious on the prospect of CAs. We often use the Irish citizens assembly as a best practice, and Claudia rightly mentions that 2/3 of Irish citizens were aware of the 2018 ...

We are going to have to live here with each other

In Germany as in the US, this is one foundational idea that:
- needs consensus in our democracy (we can argue/fight about most of the rest)
- is currently under heavy attack,
- is were democratic renewal starts.

Absolut, ich glaube auch, dass Schultze gets the Blues wie kaum ein anderer Film zeigte, wie Aufbruch und Neugier auch in Teilen der Tristesse der Nachwendezeit möglich war. Mit Horst Krause geht eine Identifikationsfigur für einen Osten, der normal ist, wie jede andere Region in Deutschland.

Fernsehen: "Polizeiruf"-Schauspieler Horst Krause gestorben Der durch seine Rolle als Fernseh-Dorfpolizist bekannte Schauspieler Horst Krause ist tot. Er starb im Alter von 83 Jahren.

Die Figuren des Horst Krause sind etwa so sehr Teil meiner inneren Heimat wie für andere Ostdeutsche Ute Freudenberg oder für Westdeutsche Asterix. Das hat vor allem mit einem einzigen Film zu tun: „Schultze gets the blues“.

(1/2)

Großer Film, und eine große Identifikationsfigur des Ostens, ohne jemals stereotypischer „Ossi“ zu sein.
RIP Horst Krause.

Danke für den Post lieber Christian, der Film hat mich auch bewegt da er toll zeigt wie in Teilen der Tristesse manche Regionen der Nachwendezeit so etwas wie Aufbruch und Neugier möglich war. Die Rolle von Horst Krause als Identifikationsfigur wird glaube ich stark unterschätzt.

Ja! ähnlich @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social Buch #abundance.
"Vielleicht liegt der Weg, mehr Menschen zu erreichen, darin, (...) zu zeigen, dass Dinge möglich sind, an die sie selbst nicht geglaubt hätten. (...) Rechtsextreme können nur zerstören, die Aufgabe der Linken ist es, Dinge zu erfinden"

The Noise of Time review – Julian Barnes’s masterpiece Shostakovich’s battle with his conscience is explored in a magnificent fictionalised retelling of the composer’s life under Stalin

Highly recommended in that regard: www.theguardian.com/books/2016/j...

YouTube video by Florian Noack Shostakovich / F. Noack : Waltz No.2 | F. Noack, piano

50 years after his death, Shostakovich reminds us that in authoritarian regimes, resistance & conformity often intertwine. Politics may be painted black & white, but people live and create in shades of grey. He was a genius whose art was shaped by his own ambiguities. youtu.be/c1j5IOZmh6g?...

„The statistical fixation of the early 21st century that’s made so many bad predictions and fathered so many puzzling defeats must be abandoned. We are not in an era of small calculations but of great movements.“

Opinion | I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It’s Happening Here.

Lessons from Hungary for the US: „(To the) nation’s great (…) institutions: The illusion that you are smarter than the strongman, that you’ll outmaneuver him with silent cleverness, is just that — an illusion. Now, more than ever, your principled leadership matters.“ www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

A highly thought-provoking article, thanks for that @oliverescobar.bsky.social !
"Democratic innovations are conflated with deliberative democracy in policy and civil society discourses, media coverage, and even scholarly accounts (...). (This) reduces the actual diversity of the field."

Aweful.

Social media can support or undermine democracy — it comes down to how it’s designed Platform design is a silent pilot steering human behavior.

Designing social media to improve public dialogue is possible. Better yet, platforms like Pol.is and Rappler Communities are already operational.
www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/soci...

A small US city experiments with AI to find out what residents want Residents of Bowling Green, Kentucky, used machine learning to shape civic debate. The real test is whether the government acts on the results.

Bowling Green, Kentucky, is home to 75,000 residents who recently wrapped up an experiment in using AI for democracy: Can an online polling platform, powered by machine learning, capture what residents want to see happen in their city?

Bluesky's near-consensus that AI doesn't work and won't be a technology that has major knock-on effects on society is…not grounded in reality. No mater how loudly and repetitively people say it.

🌈💪💪🏻💪🏽💪🏿🌈

AI 2027 A research-backed AI scenario forecast.

Quite disenchanting, but highly informative and rich forecasting report on the future of AI: ai-2027.com

To all deliberative democrats around here, it is a particular pun that the authors have given their vision of the ultimate global AI doomsday machine the name "Consensus-1".

💥🇭🇺 Police have given up guarding Budapest’s Liberty Bridge as anti-government protesters shut down traffic on four major bridges, rallying against Viktor Orbán’s new law curbing freedom of assembly and banning the Pride march.

They vow to escalate with a 24-hour shutdown next week.

Danke lieber Ilko-Sascha für diesen bewegenden Nachruf.

Wem jetzt und in Zukunft die liberale Demokratie in Deutschland am Herzen liegt, sollte Gerd Poppe nicht nur ein Begriff, sondern Inspiration sein.

indeed!

Thanks, looking forward to continue the conversation!