The first time I saw this mask was in the 2006 film "V for Vendetta."
The film starred Natalie Portman with a shaved head
and Hugo Weaving who played a masked vigilante.
Set in dystopian London in the year 2020,
the character wore this mask to hide his identity
as he sought to attempt a repeat of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605
when Guy Fawkes along with fellow conspirators
attempted to blow up the London Parliament buildings.
The plot failed when an anonymous letter was sent to the authorities
warning them of the attack.
When they searched the catacombs of Parliament,
they found Guy Fawkes guarding 36 barrels of explosives.
He was promptly questioned, tortured, and sentenced to death.
On the day of his execution, as he walked the steps to the gallows,
Guy threw himself from the staircase breaking his neck.
Nevertheless, his lifeless body was drawn and quartered,
and for hundreds of years, the English would mock his failure
wearing his face every fifth of November.
Two years after "V for Vendetta"'s release, in 2008,
the mask was adopted by the hacker group "Anonymous"
as they carried out cyber attacks against corrupt governments and corporations.
In 2011, when the Occupy movement burst onto the streets of New York,
Guy Fawkes was everywhere, appearing in places like Egypt
(Laughter)
London,
Brazil,
and Turkey.
My grandmother calls these masks kind of creepy
(Laughter)
and it's true.
They harbor a sense of chaos or refusal to submit
to the acceptable order of the modern world.
But for others, the masks represent an icon of popular rebellion,
a willingness to stand up with peoples around the world
and to fight against injustice.
I wondered a big question of myself,
"How does the face of a 17th century revolutionary
end up as the most recognizable symbol of protest in the 21st?"
Kalle Lasn is the founder of "Adbusters" magazine.
Last year, I found myself in his office speaking about the Occupy movement.
Inspired by the occupation of Tahrir Square, Egypt,
his team came up with the ♪occupywallstreet,
and the poster of the ballerina perched atop the bull.
The familiar words emblazoned above, "What is our one demand?'"
and below, "September, 17th. Bring tent."
(Laughter)
Hundreds heeded the call and proceeded to, you know, occupy.
The gathering dominated the airwaves,
an epic drama filled with powerful images and emerging heroes.
Everyone seemed to have an opinion,
but no one seemed to know what did they actually want.
On October, 15th, the Occupy movement spread
[Occupy Earth]
with over 150 encampments sprouting up around the world
including right here in Victoria.
One month later, at dawn, on November, 15th,
New York police forcibly evicted the Wall Street encampment.
A coordinated crackdown followed soon after in cities across North America.
Back at "Adbusters" with Kalle Lasn,
I asked him where the movement should go next.
"It's a mindbomb," he told me, "not a traditional movement."
A mindbomb is a powerful idea that catches fire
spreading from person to person, culture to culture.
He confessed the Occupy movement was a wild idea among many.
This one just happened to work, taking him by surprise, more than anyone.
You may be familiar with another word to describe a viral idea.
The word is "meme.'
Coined by evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, in the 70s
the term refers to a unit of cultural transmission
that requires the use of replicators in order to survive and evolve.
Memes propagate by spreading through us
from one host to another, each time modified, adapted, and remixed.
According to Kalle Lasn,
there's a war going on, and it's being fought with memes.
The battlefield
is the noosphere.
In 1911, Ukrainian scientist, Vladimir Vernadsky,
coined the term "noosphere"
to describe the third stage of evolutionary development on the planet.
First, there is the geosphere, the layer of minerals around the globe.
Then, the biosphere, the layer of organic life,
and now, the noosphere,
the sphere of human thought that shapes our world.
This is a neurological map of the human brain.
This is a map of the Internet.
Both structures are remarkably similar.
The first depicting a single human consciousness,
the other, our global consciousness.
This
(Laughter)
is the rapper PSY,
creator of the smash hit ' "Gangnam Style."
On December 21st, 2012,
which some consider to be the day of the apocalypse,
(Laughter)
or the rapture,
the video for "Gangnam Style" crossed one billion views on YouTube
making it the most popular video ever.
Millions around the world mimicked to the dance,
and no, I'm not going to do it here.
(Laughter)
Well...
(Laughter)
I ask you to consider "Gangnam Style" is a powerful meme.
"Occupy Wall Street" is a powerful meme,
but a certain type of meme,
a mindbomb.
It was a moment sparked by the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Spain,
but remixed into something different.
This was difficult for mainstream media to understand.
In fact, it took "The Rolling Stone" 40 days of the occupation
before they finally got it.
The reporter wrote, "If there was such a thing
as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it."
I visited Wall Street in October 2011, and what I found surprised me.
I saw a thriving human space filled with music, and art, dialogue,
sparkle fingers, and beauty in all its forms.
I saw willingness for people to sit down and look each other face to face.
This is one of my favorite signs.
It says, "I love humanity! Let's figure this shit out together."
(Laughter)
Yes, I also saw a shadow, I saw unresolved pain and wounding.
I saw general assemblies derailed. I saw anger, and I saw sadness.
But through it all, I recognized the mindbomb.
The challenges facing our world are vast and complex
from climate change to economic instability
to environmental collapse.
No one knows how to fix things:
not our politicians, our scientists, or our business elites.
The dominant culture has no landing gear.
The mainstream view of human nature says that you're an independent being
in an indifferent universe driven to maximize your own self-interest
and that ultimately, you're out for yourself.
It's no wonder people feel paralyzed, or overwhelmed, and indifferent.
After all, if the problem lies at the very core of our DNA,
that humans are flawed,
then what is the point of trying to save us?
"Occupy Wall Street" told a very different story.
Let me say this clearly,
"There is nothing wrong with you." There is nothing wrong with humans.
In fact, a message of "Occupy Wall Street"
is that our challenges are cultural, our challenges are structural.
We are the 99%, and we can choose to create
a more beautiful world that works for the 100%.
This is love: it is not a feeling; love is an action.
Love is what I saw emerge
at "Occupy Wall Street" and in the movement since
from the "Maple Spring" to "Idle No More" to "Occupy Gezi" and beyond.
We are prototyping a new collective organism
that wants to be born.
But we are not there yet.
Now let us try an experiment.
If we had one shot, what is the ultimate mindbomb
that we could craft and release into the noosphere?
I am not talking about revolution.
This is metamorphosis.
Now, you lovely people all sitting here, especially you up there,
I thank you for your attention.
But you and I both know the full potential for this talk is when it's posted online.
Therefore, I'm also speaking to those people watching it
on their computer, or tablet, on their phones.
The most powerful way to transmit memes is through story.
So let me tell you a story.
Billions of years ago, there was only darkness,
then, in a single moment, universe explodes into light,
stars, planets, galaxies,
and after an incredibly long time, sentient life emerges:
bacteria, troglodytes, dinosaurs, mammals, me and you.
Over millions of years, we build our societies,
we weave our cultures, we tell our stories.
There are peoples who keep within the bounds of life,
and peoples who push beyond them.
Fire, swords, ploughs, steam engines, airplanes, computers, the Internet.
And finally, today, climate change is happening.
The Sixth great extinction is underway.
All of life hangs in the balance.
If I could offer a single mindbomb
synthesized from the front lines of the emerging paradigm,
it would be this.
[Love is a mindbomb]
We are not a mistake.
Life wanted humans in the world,
but while this moment was inevitable, our survival is not.
You are here for a reason.
The very fact of your existence is proof enough.
You have a necessary and important gift to offer the world.
Now is the time to be courageous.
Now is the time to offer your gifts in service.
If you don't know what your gifts are, keep exploring, follow your bliss, yes,
but follow your fear, follow your uncertainty,
and follow your heartbreak.
From the emerging paradigm we recognize we are all interdependent.
Everyone of us reflects the fractal nature of the whole.
You don't have to save the world alone.
Treat every action as significant
and tap into the acausal process of change.
This is the realm of synchronicity
where the events of your life align according to a mysterious intelligence.
This is the emergence.
Love is the mindbomb.
Now, let's occupy the noosphere together.
Thank you.
(Applause)