The lost art of democratic debate

It seems to me that one of our problems as a country is that we have lost the ability to debate. Debate seems to have been reduced to gathering as many Twitter followers as possible in order to impose an idea, or, if that space is not enough, people set up their own social network where those who think alike publish long essays proving how wrong everyone else is. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the energy debate. It worries me (and I’m not the only one) that decisions are being made (or not made) based on perceptions, without any rational basis or grounding, without debating what the consequences and the best alternatives are.

We have lost the ability to debate democratically. That is why I want to point you to this TED video, so we start keeping in mind that it is essential to raise the level of our debates, because we could be mortgaging the future of our country.

(it has Spanish subtitles):