Few speakers at DLD this year were more sombre than The Economist's deputy executive editor Kenneth Cukier. “Civilizations aren’t killed,” Cukier says, “they commit suicide.” It's now "three minutes to midnight" in Europe, he warns, and what he called the priceless "vase" of the liberal order is about to shatter. Borrowing from Hemingway's description of personal bankruptcy, Cukier argues that civilizational suicide comes "slowly, then suddenly". So can anything avert this collapse? Cukier isn't particularly optimistic, but nor is he hopeless. The vase hasn't shattered yet. The hope, he suggests, is with new peaceful technologies that can help reinvent democracy. But if the European clock really is teetering at three minutes to midnight, it's hard to be persuaded by Kenneth Cukier’s abstract promises of ethical technology.
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