The Socrates Program, in partnership with Aspen España, held two Socrates Seminars from April 25-28, 2013. Participants from the U.S. and all over Europe participated in the seminars, “The Decideers: How Google and Facebook are shaping the future of Privacy and Free Speech” and “The New Global Middle Class: How will Rising Global Consumption Transform Innovation, Trade, and Markets?” In addition to roundtable discussions, the weekend included special private visits to tourist sites in Madrid.
April 25-28, 2013
Madrid, Spain
“The Deciders: How Google and Facebook are shaping the future of Privacy and Free Speech”
Changes in technology are posing stark challenges to our conceptions of privacy and freedom in democracies around the world. As anyone who has struggled with an embarrassing Facebook photo understands, it’s increasingly difficult to escape your past or to reinvent yourself in an age when the Internet records everything and forgets nothing. In the seminar, we will discuss technologies that are transforming our conceptions of privacy and liberty ranging from gossip on Facebook to human cloning and genetic selection to body scanning and datamining at airports to Google and Twitter. We will discuss the struggles of companies like YouTube to decide when to block controversial videos that threaten to incite violence in the Middle East and around the world. We will discuss telecom regulations that can preserve privacy and free expression. And we will identify the range of legal, technological, and cultural options that citizens have as we struggle to respond to technological shifts, offering an analytical blueprint for translating values such as privacy and liberty into the twenty- first century.
Moderated by Jeffrey Rosen
“The New Global Middle Class: How Will Rising Global Consumption Transform Innovation, Trade and Markets?”
The strength of the middle class as producers, consumers, and voters has long been critical to the development of free market societies in Europe and North America. But today two dramatic new stories are unfolding. In Europe and the US the middle-class growth is threatened by global competition, depressed housing markets, and austerity that have driven up unemployment and depleted savings Yet at the same time a new global middle class, potentially even larger, is arising in emerging markets. With middle class consumption growing in China, India and other newly industrializing economies, and economic challenges facing the West, what will be the impact on global economic growth and innovation? How will technology and cultural differences impact this power shift and the future global marketplace?
Moderated by Jack Goldstone
