Lisbon Encampment and Web Summit Shocked to Discover They Both Have Tents, Assemblies and People Talking About Disruption
After two hours, nobody could tell who was the protester and who was the startup, and an investment fund was already valuing the people's assembly.
The rally scheduled for Thursday outside the Web Summit ended in a conceptual stalemate when participants on both sides realised they were doing exactly the same thing: sitting in a circle, talking about changing the world and asking that nobody interrupt.
A 23-year-old entrepreneur tried to pitch the people's assembly as "a decentralised participation platform at pre-seed stage". The assembly voted, unanimously and in 14 hours, to accept the description.
Meanwhile, a source from the Web Summit organisation insisted that the encampment's tents were "a co-living space with a view of the future" and asked not to be identified, not even by themselves.
A pensioner from Viseu who was passing through summed up the situation: "I just wanted to go to the cash machine." He ended up elected spokesperson by acclamation and invited to give a talk on scalability.
By the end of the afternoon, the two groups had agreed a joint statement of 4,000 pages, written by an artificial intelligence that also asked to speak at the assembly.
Nobody could tell who was the protester and who was the startup, and a fund was already valuing the people's assembly.
The reality behind the satire
Real news · expresso.pt · 10 November
Acampada de Lisboa marca concentração para quinta-feira em frente à Web Summit
This story, published by a real newspaper, inspired the piece above. The Falsumundi piece is made up; this story is not.
