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Roshan Bliss didn't set out to make television. He set out to be a mediator, then discovered that the conflicts he cared most about — the big, cultural, many-to-many kind — needed a different set of tools entirely. That discovery took him to the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, where he now leads efforts to bring democratic deliberation to a much bigger audience.
His latest project, A House Divided, is his boldest attempt yet: a reality TV show that brings three groups of people from across the cultural spectrum into a house for seven days to work through a real, community-defining conflict — with professional facilitators on hand and the audience voting along the way.
Roshan Bliss is a community organizer, nonprofit leader, and change strategist based in Denver, Colorado. He serves as Director of Democracy Innovations for the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), a 20-plus-year-old network of practitioners working in conflict resolution, dialogue across difference, and democratic deliberation. In that role, he leads NCDD's efforts to address democratic dysfunction and support depolarization at a cultural level. He is also the creator of A House Divided, NCDD's experiment in pairing big-budget reality television with deliberative AI technology to reimagine the public square for the attention economy. Roshan also consults with public-sector organizations working to make their decision-making more democratic.
NCDD: www.ncdd.org
A House Divided: www.housedividedtv.com
Consulting website: www.blisscollaborations.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/roshanbliss
Instagram: @NCDD_Network
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[00:00:00:00] Wilk Wilkinson: Okay. Picture three groups of strangers. One from the left. One from the right. One from the middle. Locked in a house together for seven days. Tasked with solving the culture war issue that's tearing their community apart. It's not a hypothetical. My guest today is actually building it. A reality TV show designed to turn the same conflict. The media loves to inflame into something that actually moves people forward. Stick around, because this idea is further along than you'd think. Welcome back, my friend, to the Derate The Hate podcast. I'm your host, Wilk Wilkinson, your blue collar sage calming outrage and helping to navigate a world divided by fog and those who would spread that fear, outrage and grievance. The Direct to Hate podcast is proudly produced in collaboration with BraverAngels.org, America's largest grassroots cross partisan organization working toward civic renewal, this podcast amplifies the mission that we share to foster a more respectful and united America where civic friendship thrives even when we disagree. Each week, through the power of story, conversation, and connection with incredible guests, we work to build bridges instead of barriers, not to change minds on the issues, but to change how we see one another when we differ. Because friends, it really is about bettering the world one attitude at a time. We did not create the hate, but together we can Derate the hate. So be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast, share it with a friend and visit BraverAngels.org to learn how you can get involved in the movement to bridge the partisan divide. Friends, I am so incredibly grateful that you have joined me for another powerful Derate The Hate episode. So let's get to it. Roshan Bliss moved to Denver back in 2010 to become a mediator. He wanted to help people on opposite sides of a dispute find their way to a resolution, but it didn't take long for him to realize that most of the conflicts pulling our country apart aren't between just two people, they're between millions. That realization pulled him out of one on one conflict mediation and into what he calls many to many conflict resolution. The messier, much bigger work of helping whole communities work through disagreement together. That path led him to the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation, where he started, in his words, as the blog guy. Today, he's NCDD’s director of Democracy Innovations, leading the organization's push to meet a polarized country where it actually lives. Which brings us to the project that we're really here to talk about. A House divided. It's part reality TV, part deliberative democracy experiment. And it might be one of the more creative attempts that I've come across to get people who disagree back in a room together. Or in this case, a house divided. Let's get into it with my friend Roshan Bliss. Here we go. Roshan Bliss. Welcome to the Derate the Hate podcast, man. It's good to see you again today.
[00:03:45:11] Roshan Bliss: Good to see you here, Wilk. Thanks for having me on. Means a lot.
[00:03:48:04] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. I'm very excited to bring you and your work here to the Derate the Hate listeners. You and I have had so many conversations. We've been we've been in contact with each other since, I don't know, a couple of years now, I think, but met in person the first time at a listen First Coalition summit in Mount Vernon and been doing stuff ever since. So proud to proud to have you here, man. Proud to bring your work to the Derate the hate listeners. And and as we get started, Roshan, one of the first things I like to do is give the audience a feel for, for who you are and how you ended up in this work. So you're the director of Democracy Innovations for the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation, NCDD and how did you end up in this bridging space? What was it that that you said, you know what this is? This is what I'm going to do. This is how I'm getting into this.
[00:04:48:08] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. Great questions. Thanks again for having me. It's an honor to be here. I so I moved to Denver, Colorado, which is where I live in 2010 to go to grad school for conflict resolution. I was trying to be a mediator, facilitator, negotiator. And I first got into this like bridging space through that work because, you know, so much of mediation, conflict resolution is about helping people who are on opposite sides figure something out. But I if you remember that time 2010, 2011, we have just seen and we're, you know, wrapping up with the the Obamacare town halls, that I think a lot of people forget. And it was this national conversation that then President Obama initiated to have lots and lots of public forums about health care reform. And let's just say they did not all go great.
[00:05:56:05] Wilk Wilkinson: And there was great.
[00:05:57:12] Roshan Bliss: Yeah, there was a lot of shouting, a lot of, you know, screaming at each other, a lot of like a lot of unproductive conversations about a thing is really important. And, you know, here's 16 years later is still important. We still got to figure out how we're going to make a health care more affordable for regular people. But I have been watching that in the light of, you know, my, my training and study of conflict. And it was in that period that I started thinking, like, surely there's got to be a better way for us to have that kind of conversation, as a, as a nation and make it way more productive. And I got introduced to a one credits, four week class from Doctor Martin Carcassonne, who is, you know, as much as a field like dialog and deliberation can have rock stars, he's one of the rock stars of this this world.
[00:06:53:16] Wilk Wilkinson: Absolutely.
[00:06:54:07] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. I'm glad you agree. But he he he he was offering a class on public facilitation and really introduced me to democratic deliberation as a practice and a field of work. And it it was like a thunderbolt, you know, it was like, this is the kind of work that I want to do because I was, to be honest, getting a little bored of the kind of 1 to 1 mediation training I was getting, because I was much more interested in the many to many conflicts that I would argue, a way bigger problem for us. And at that time, and certainly in this time, than, you know, individuals, you know, neighbors with parking, dark property line disputes or, you know, divorcing couples or whatever. And I was like, I want to do that kind of work. I want to solve those kinds of problems and be helpful to my community by helping support these many to many problems that we have that we can't figure out because there's so many, you know, parties to the issue. And so it was kind of off the races after I learned about democratic deliberation. And. It was also Doctor Carcassonne who introduced me to NCDD and I, I went, yeah, I went to one of their conferences and met the executive director, and I was I must spend like, what, 2223 at the time? And I asked the executive director, then Sandy backer of NCDD, like, how does a young person, you know, get into this field? And her response was basically like, that's a great question. I'm not really sure. But, you know, why don't you come play a little role at NCDD? I started off as the blog guy and guy. Okay. Yeah. And she said, you know, we'll figure it out together.
[00:08:51:16] Wilk Wilkinson: to Yeah. yeah, there's a few things that I want to I want to key on. First of all, I'm glad you brought up Martin Carcasson, And he's he's obviously he's on or a lot of people that are listening to this now probably just heard an episode handful of weeks ago with me and Martin. He's he's part of our Civic Scholars Council now at BraverAngels.org. his wicked problems mindset is is just hugely important and always on my mind now. And the idea of deliberation versus debate, all that is fantastic. One of the things I want to talk, I want you to keep on a little bit more for me, Roshan, is is this idea of many to many because I, I hadn't ever heard it put that way before. I just never heard anybody actually say that. But now that you say it, it makes so much more sense because, I mean, I've talked to people in mediation before, you know, I've talked to to people who've who've done this peace building thing before. But when we start thinking about, you know, collaborative action, what can we do together to better our communities that many to many mindset is, I think, I think important. So I want you to talk just a little bit more about that. Sure. Real quick. And Then we can we can move on from there a little bit more. And then I want, I want to bring to the listeners a little bit more about NCDD, what, you know, what the, the dialog and deliberation or coalition for dialog and deliberation really is what, what they do what what their, what their primary thing is.
[00:10:33:08] Roshan Bliss: Yeah, but let's start with the sort of many to many conflict framework because, yeah, it is, I think, super important for us to realize that, you know, as a nation at any large group of people, if you and your brother, coworker, whatever have an issue, mediators can be really helpful in helping you all solve the issue. But when it's a sort of cultural level issue or a policy disagreement that lots of people are having, it's what we call a it requires something more like what we call a multi-stakeholder problem solving process. And it's just, you know, there are lots more people and you can't fit that many in a room, and you can't have one mediator just sitting between. It's not as simple as one mediator sitting between two people, helping them figure out a problem. There's, you know, 100, 1000, 2 million people on one side of the table, metaphorically and the same, if not bigger number on the other side. And it requires a different approach and that type of work, in lots of ways. Our government was set up to be a multi-stakeholder conflict resolution process. You know, we do elections and representative government so that as an alternative to going to war about every conflict we've got.
[00:12:02:18] Wilk Wilkinson: About everything.
[00:12:03:11] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. So that's that's what we mean by this many to many. Problem is that there's a big group of people that has a different problem or that has a problem with another big group of people and the wicked frameworks problem that Doctor Carcassonne also taught me about. It. It's really important because it means that, like we those two large groups of people agree there is a problem, but they might disagree on what the problem is. So it's like you've got to fix the challenge of what are we even going to talk about before you can get into it. So it's quite a complex set of efforts you need.
[00:12:42:10] Wilk Wilkinson: Oh that's right. And one of the big things, you know, when I've talked to Martin about this before is, is that idea that we have to and just to your point there, Roshan, is, is we've we've got to define the problem that we're solving for and come to common terms on what that problem we're solving for is before we can start working on solutions. And, and you know, the idea that this, these things and one of the big things that I took away from, from our conversation when I had him on the podcast here is, is, you know, debate is, you know, you can just kind of pick in an either or and not really looking for the solutions, but this deliberation and then, you know, obviously this multi-stakeholder, you know, conflict resolution, multi multi-stakeholder problem solving process makes so much more sense. And and I think it brings a lot more nuance to the conversation because what we see too much of today, and I think you're going to agree with me on this is is especially when it's in the media or, you know, in soundbites, you know, we live in this world of of fast media and short soundbites. You know, they try to break it down into these either or things and life really isn't either or. Are they so much more nuanced? We have to have a better process, and people need to have a greater recognition that we don't live in a world, no matter how many times people try to make it sound that way. We don't live in just an either or world.
[00:14:17:11] Roshan Bliss: Hardly ever that simple. And that is a huge part of our problems. I mean, you hit on the head like the media would like to boil everything down to real simple binary choices. And the politicians, obviously, you know, benefit from making things sound that simple, too. And that's just not a complete way of looking at many or even most of the big challenges that our country, our, our communities are facing. And so you've got to figure out a way to help people have a conversation that's coherent and actually driving toward concrete action, instead of just everyone squawking at each other and scoring points and, you know, proliferating their own oversimplified version of the problem and the solution.
[00:15:11:02] Wilk Wilkinson: That's right. So with that being said, then let's let's get into before we get to the actual meat of what what what you're here to talk about today, I want to hear just a little bit more about NCDD. What is the National Coalition of Dialog and Deliberation? I know we said it a little. You mentioned it a little bit already, and it has a lot to do with what we've already been talking about. But just, just just give the listeners the quick and skinny. For those who don't know or haven't heard of the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation, what is that organization? What do they do?
[00:15:48:06] Roshan Bliss: Yeah, is a 20 plus year old organization. I think we're actually coming out on 25th anniversary soon. We are a network of practitioners, scholars, organizations that focus on dialog, which is often conflict resolution, anywhere from the 1 to 1 to to many to many types of conflict. That can be anything from community dialogs and all the way up to, you know, kind of peace building nationally, internationally, people who do that work are in the kind of dialog side of the coalition, the network. And then there's the deliberation side of the the network, which are people who do I often short handed to public engagement that goes beyond three minutes in a microphone where, you know, democratic deliberation. The thing that Martin Carcassonne has taught all of us so much about is a way for communities. Quite often it's kind of led by government, but any large organization or large community could could have a deliberation, but is basically the type of engagement where a large constituency needs to be able to weigh in to have it into, what are we going to do about X, Y, or z? Topic subject problem? It could be, you know, it doesn't have any problem. It could just be like, you know, we've got a bunch of money to spend on and we want we think we want to use it to improve the local park system. So how should we do that all the way to, you know, there's a new program or initiative a government wants to start or end, but they have to get public input on it. The deliberation side of the network is a world of, again, practitioners, scholars, people who study, people who do that kind of deliberation and public engagement. And it's it is NCDD is one of the premier sort of social for people in those those worlds of. Very cool. Yeah.
[00:18:01:20] Wilk Wilkinson: Very cool. Yeah. And that's that is needed and it's, it's needed for a number of reasons. But but mostly because we don't live in an either or world. You know, there's more to there's more to these things than we're either going to do this or we're going to do that. And and when it comes down to it, and I'm glad you I'm glad you clarified the idea. It's not always about conflict. Sometimes it's about finding the best idea to move forward on a particular thing. And it's not that there has to be conflict to make that happen, it's just it takes deliberation to come up with the best solution. and I like that. And it's good for people to understand that there's there's a lot of people out there doing that. So so the fact that you guys have brought together these different practitioners and that are specializing in this, and there's a resource for people out there to take advantage of is great. So so Roshan, one of the things and I just want to tell the listeners that one of the other through lines between your and my story and one of the things that we're involved in together is, is the civic collaboratory part of Eric Leiu’s Citizens University. I don't know if I don't know if I should call it. Eric Leiu’s Citizens University, but Citizen’s University, it's an incredible organization. Absolutely something that something that Eric Liu had reached out to me about, you know, a number of months ago and, and asked me to be part of this civic collaboratory and, and and when I arrived there and I saw that you were there, our friend, you know, Doctor Martin Carcassonne was there. People that that have worked in this space just thought leaders from all of these different spaces and then coming together for, couple days worth of, brainstorming and collaborative action and, and things like that. I thought it was fantastic. So, now that I'm part of this, this, this ecosystem and and realizing that they're bringing together all of these people four times a year for these these great kind of brainstorming and collaborative action sessions. It's great. One of the things that came up in this, this session we were at in Seattle a few months ago, was was a project that you're working on and, and that you presented to to the group there and then to me in a little bit more depth while we were there. And this thing is getting legs now and, and I'm very excited about it. I'm very excited to be part of it. And it's, I mean, whether I think it may be this week in terms of the, the time when this episode is going to drop or maybe next week. But let's tell the listeners, let's, let's tell the listeners what this is and, and, and why it's so excited or why you and I are so excited about it. And other people are getting more and more excited about it.
[00:21:01:18] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. Let's. So this project is called a House divided. That's kind of what we what we've started calling it, but it is an effort that's been it's a moonshot cultural intervention initiative that I've been leading inside of NCDD because in the last several years, you know, NCDD has has primarily been a sort of field building organization for most of its existence. But in the last five, maybe seven years, it's become obvious for lots of different reasons that the practitioners, scholars, the people in our network and network have a lot of skills that are increasingly needed for our communities, for our, our, our local governments, even our national governments that they'll have us but that we a lot of people don't know about this world and in those in those spaces where they need our services, but also that a lot of regular people just aren't aware enough of deliberation. And these processes that can be used to help them and their communities as well. But it's so much more. So here's the the gist. We are trying to make a reality TV show out of a deliberative process that we want to have happen for real, in a real community somewhere in the United States that is dealing with culture war issue, and use the reality TV show and its viewership to engage more people, regular folks, in a national deliberation, the American Idol style audience participation, if you remember, you know, some listeners may may be too young to remember American Idol back in the heyday when, you know, you could vote in between episodes on this singing competition for who should advance to the next round. So we are going to make a reality TV show, and we are going to have American Idol style audience participation made possible through deliberative tech tools that incorporate AI and can take hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people's opinions and sort of map them all into a kind of constellation of here's the five major ways that people think about this, and that people can engage continuously over the season. And we want we think that this project can can help us reimagine how the public square works for the attention economy, because there's so much drawing on our attention. As everyone knows, there's more TV and video than you can ever watch in a single lifetime. And in lots of ways, the the challenges of our communities and the efforts being undertaken to solve them, the conversations that those that those efforts entail are just getting drowned out by, you know, yeah, good TV, the next, you know, pop music concert or whatever it is. Yeah. And so if we can't, we can't beat that. We can't. So Joanne. No. So that's, that's the that's the kind of overarching vision of what this project is about. I can go into more of the detail of like, what's the premise of the show per se. But you talk.
[00:24:25:08] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah, yeah, we'll we'll get into that a little bit more. And, but there's a couple things that you just said there that, that I think I want to highlight as important to, to to recognize and why this project is so important. So, so those of us that work in this bridging space and many of the people listening to this, they're like, well, who doesn't know about the bridging space? But those of us who work in this, that do this day in and day out, recognize that there is a lot of people. I mean, there are.
[00:24:58:17] Roshan Bliss: I'd say most people.
[00:25:00:11] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. Most people just don't even recognize that the bridging space is a thing. I mean, in fact, until BraverAngels.org approached me back in 2021 to come on this podcast, I had no idea that the bridging space was even a thing. but the importance of this thing and all these kind of efforts that we do in this space, but this one here, especially that I think is hugely important, is we need to be thinking about we need to be thinking outside the box different ways that we can get our message outside of this bridging space, because those of us that are in it, of course, we're very responsive to all these great things. And and we're like, yes, this message is absolutely awesome, but the messaging is only as good as the number of people that hear it and see it. And if they aren't seeing it outside of that space and to the other point or one of the other very important points that you made is in this attention economy. I mean, you think about on YouTube right now, I saw a stat the other day that there is enough content uploaded to YouTube every single minute of every single day, and it might be every second of every single day, but every single minute of every single day that there is not a human being alive that could watch all the content that's uploaded in one minute of any given day in their whole entire lifetime. If they pin their eyes open and just watched nonstop from the time they were born to the time they. So. So that is the kind of thing that we are up against in this content creation aspect, part of the bridging space. Right? That's what we're competing against. So when you come up with an idea like this, Rashaun for A House divided, this reality TV show and you're combining the the principles of what we do in the bridging space, the principles of deliberation instead of just ugly, you know, ugly debate and whatever. And I want you to get into that a little bit, because there's a very important part of that here in this, in this show, when we when we think about how this thing can actually affect culture change, one of the big things we talk about at BraverAngels.org right now is courageous citizenship. What does it mean to, to to to convene, come together across difference for collaborative action. That's what this is. But it's showing it in a way that people haven't, haven't seen it in, in many ways to people who don't even think about it. So talk to me about what that structure is and how this is going to lead to collaborative action across different and make a real difference in lives, in the culture of our communities and how it's going to make it better.
[00:27:56:02] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. So the initial idea came from, my sort of understanding that our dialog, our deliberative meet convening our quite often, especially when there's conflicts hugely entertaining for a third party to watch. You know, it's got all the all the, all the trappings. There's interesting, believable characters. There's real conflict that needs to be solved and clarity about whether we whether they can. And there's quite often, you know, satisfying outcomes. So you've got this whole story arc that looks a lot like a story of any movie, TV show, whatever. And why don't we just bring more cameras? You know, it's kind of the core insights so the more people can see and know about this stuff. but it needs to be entertaining, right? Because like we just said, there's so much video you could never see at all. And so this has got to be worth people's time. It's got to actually get people it can't be preachy or, you know, feel like like you're being asked to eat your broccoli. So the premise of this reality TV show that is entirely serious and like we're in the process of making three people from the left, right and center each. They are locked in a house together, and they are given seven days to address and come up with a proposal for how to solve a real hot button, or a culture war issue that is tearing their community apart. There's a real people from a real community in the States that we would bring cameras. They would we would lock them in a house together, and it would be basically Big Brother meets jury duty. Or if you're familiar with the People's Court battle courtroom TV show.
[00:29:44:16] Wilk Wilkinson: Judge Wapner.
[00:29:45:22] Roshan Bliss: It was.
[00:29:46:08] Wilk Wilkinson: That way bad.
[00:29:47:17] Roshan Bliss: Was that there? I frankly can't remember. But yes, that so the idea is that these people will come to the house with their own, you know, constituents say, let's say, for example, that the issue that's kind of tearing that that specific community that comes around the part is trans bathrooms in high schools. And just for instance, that we don't know what the first issue will be. It'll depend on the community. We good. But we will bring people who think that's great and then we should have more of them, will bring people who think that's, you know, wrong and that we should never do that. And some people who are in the middle right, because the left right center thing is not about their political affiliation. It might track their affiliation, but it's actually about their sort of cultural outlook and their relationship to.
[00:30:39:13] Wilk Wilkinson: It's a great point to highlight.
[00:30:40:17] Roshan Bliss: Yeah, I think it's really important because this is not about politics. It's about our cultural divides, because that's really a way in which we're we're becoming increasingly polarized. What's your relationship.
[00:30:51:15] Wilk Wilkinson: The idea that not everything is a rigid binary.
[00:30:53:20] Roshan Bliss: Exactly. And like, what's your relationship to authority to tradition, those types of things. So if that's the issue, will bring some people across the spectrum of belief or orientation to that, that problem. And they'll do some getting to know each other and us, the audience, getting to know each other or getting to know them, types of kind of challenges. And the first phase, they'll be roommates too. So they'll have they'll be, you know, bunking with people who they disagree with. They'll be having to make dinners together, you know, maybe the the toilet will flood and not have to fix that problem together. Like there's going to be other problems besides the cultural issue they're addressing.
[00:31:36:16] Wilk Wilkinson: But just for the record, hopefully there's no toilets flooding on television, but we're just going to hope for that one and we just don't know yet.
[00:31:44:02] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. You know, who knows what will happen. But it.
[00:31:48:21] Wilk Wilkinson: Real life.
[00:31:49:11] Roshan Bliss: This is this is all structured around a process that in the deliberative world we think of as it's almost like a trial, but it's through deliberation where the the juror. But this is a kind of like jury of, of our peers who's deciding on some issue. And they will get just like in a trial, help to understand the issue from but hear about it from multiple sides that, you know, disagree with each other, like the lawyers for the defendants and lawyers for the plaintiffs definitely disagree on, you know, what's happened and what should be happening. But they'll get the people in the house we call, we will call them. Jurors will be informed by kind of teams of experts that are on either side or many sides of a, of a given issue, and then they'll go into deliberations and they will have professional facilitation help as well as some conflict professionals on site. Those people won't be the focus. They're kind of like the coaches more than the players in this, and that's that. We think that it's going to be really entertaining TV, and that it's going to give people the kind of the the conflict and the fights that we've that so often we're being, you know, riled up for by the media and the politicians anyway. but we do believe that because there is a process that we're building in and because there's process experts, people who can help them deliberate, help them move through their their conflicts, that this fight, even though it starts as an argument, is actually going to turn into, you know, people are going to come for the boxing match and they're going to stay for the you know, I never thought about it that way type of moments that we, we our, our dialog deliberation world of professionals, we know we can reliably generate those topics. Yeah. And by seeing by seeing it, the regular viewer will have their eyes open to a whole different world and a whole different way of relating.
[00:33:53:10] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. And I think that's fantastic. I mean, any time that we can provide examples of what can come out of good, good deliberation, good conflict, you know, these, these things because we are not going to ever live in a world without conflict. But what we do with that conflict, how we react to how we act in a in accordance with those that, that that disagree with us on a particular thing. These things are all hugely important. And providing good examples of that. Roshan, is I think is is of the ultimate importance. So I think so people need those good examples. They need they need to realize that, that it's not we don't have to live in a constant stalemate based on disdain and contempt for those that we disagree with. That's right. I think this is going to be a good example of this. And this isn't just a pie in the sky idea either. I want to make sure that people understand that this thing is getting legs. Now talk. Just just take this last. We're nearing the end of our time here. Take this last minute or so to talk about some of the great things that are happening in terms of moving this thing from concept to reality. and then we'll round out our time by just telling everybody where they can find out more about it.
[00:35:12:16] Roshan Bliss: Sure. So we have recently gotten enough funding raised to actually film what's called a sizzle reel. It's basically a trailer for a TV show without making the whole TV show. And we are. Yeah. Depending on when this is released, we either are just about to film this weekend or we just ended filming last weekend and we we are on track to have the final sizzle reel available by Labor Day. And in addition to that, we have we are being vetted by one. And maybe at the point of this recording or two social impact incubator funds who see the value of this type of thing and want to make sure it happens. We have initiated a few different conversations with deliberative with folks in the deliberative tech world. There's a whole range of tools that support people having many to processes digitally, and some of those are AI powered, and it's kind of AI for good instead of for profits. And that's going to be that type of deliberative tech is going to be the core of what's going to be essentially a platform that we'll use to invite audience participation from the screen so that viewers can weigh in on the arguments they're having, on the questions they are and aren't addressing, on what this character did in a sort of social way that you're inputting to the forum, but you're also reacting to other people's takes and ideas. And we're hoping that that tool is also going to be able to get plugged into social media platforms. Very nice. And we are we're getting a we're putting together an increasingly impressive coalition of folks who work in the civic and bridging organizations, who work in the civic and bridging spaces to support that. By the end of the back half of the first season, we would like to be convening in-person watch parties so that you can have a conversation with people who you disagree with in your community about the thing that just happened on TV, and that's where we talk about it as a reimagining of the public square, because we actually the goal is to make a successful and engaging reality TV show. But behind that, the strategy is to leverage that TV show to change the way that we all are having conversations and help them be more productive and get into the sort of area where actually getting enough input from the community, where we can start to see something like public public opinion turning into public judgment, where we actually know and we've worked through these problems. There's a whole bunch of science behind the show that we haven't had time to get into, but people can learn more about it.
[00:38:03:21] Wilk Wilkinson: And that's that's deeper than we need to get into here. But no, this is this is exactly you know, this is exactly what we need as a country right now. We need, like I said, more examples of people coming together, collaborative action across differences, making real things happen that have tangible results from that action. It's it's and it's awesome.
[00:38:25:12] Roshan Bliss: One more thing about what we also need is.
[00:38:28:20] Wilk Wilkinson: That please do.
[00:38:30:04] Roshan Bliss: We need to we need more examples of ways that we, on whatever side of whatever divide we sit on, can see people on the other sides of those divides as real and full humans. And that's a core part of this show, is that we're going to bring people.
[00:38:46:17] Wilk Wilkinson: Together.
[00:38:47:12] Roshan Bliss: And we're going to every every character is going to be treated with dignity and respect and like, there's nobody know. Like, you know, we edited it so that the one person looks like the villain because we want. And science shows that, you know, when we see people as just just people, as full people, that they're no longer boogeyman over there who we have to fight and maybe, you know, kill to, to be safe, right?
[00:39:12:11] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. I mean, when we turn people into I've said this in so many interviews, you and I've talked about this, Roshan is is when we turn people into caricatures built based on the worst, the worst things that we believe about the other side. We begin to justify all the ugly things that we can imagine doing to those caricatures, those monsters, those villains. And yes, we do need to see more examples of the good in those human beings that sit on the other side of a particular issue than we do. Very good.
[00:39:46:13] Roshan Bliss: We're we're.
[00:39:48:13] Wilk Wilkinson: At the end of our time. But where can people find out more about you, Roshan? Where can they find out more about this project? And, yeah, I'm just happy to have you here, man. Thank you so much.
[00:39:58:21] Roshan Bliss: Of course. And people can find out more about the TV show at HouseDividedTV.com There's a there's going to be lots more to come. This is all, you know, being done out of, you know, essentially the very limited resources that nonprofit worlds can offer us. And my free time. So the website is going to continue to grow, but that's the best place to kind of tune in. You can sign up for our newsletter there. Folks can of course find out more about it on NCDD.org – Which is the National Coalition for Dialog Deliberations website. And there's tons of resources that folks will be interested in there. And if they want to know about me personally, I they can check out my consulting website, Bliss collaborations.
[00:40:50:19] Wilk Wilkinson: Thank you so much. And yeah, we will have we will have all those links in the show notes and people can check it out. And hopefully a day in the very near future you will see a house divided as a reality TV show that is all about collaboration, deliberation and and real action across difference. So thank you so much for Roshan, I appreciate you, man.
[00:41:14:18] Roshan Bliss: Thank you. Appreciate you, and good luck with the rest of the continued growth of the podcast and all the great work you guys are doing over there at BraverAngels.org.
[00:41:24:05] Wilk Wilkinson: Friends, I want to thank you so much for tuning in. And if there's anything in this episode that provided exceptional value to you, please make sure to hit that share button. If you haven't done so already, please be sure to subscribe to get the Derate The Hate podcast sent to your email inbox every week. We really are better together. So please take a moment to visit BraverAngels.org and consider joining the movement towards civic renewal and bridging our political divide. This is Wilk wrapping up for the week saying get out there. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything you've got. And remember, it's up to you to make every day the day that you want it to be. With that, my friend. I'm going to back on out of here and we will catch you next week. Take care.
Transcript is AI generated and may contain errors [00:00:00:00] Wilk Wilkinson: Okay. Picture three groups of strangers. One from the left. One from the right.
One from the middle. Locked in a house together for seven days. Tasked with solving the culture war issue that's tearing their community apart. It's not a hypothetical.
My guest today is actually building it. A reality TV show designed to turn the same conflict. The media loves to inflame into something that actually moves people forward. Stick around, because this idea is further along than you'd think.
Welcome back, my friend, to the Derate The Hate podcast. I'm your host, Wilk Wilkinson, your blue collar sage calming outrage and helping to navigate a world divided by fog and those who would spread that fear, outrage and grievance. The Direct to Hate podcast is proudly produced in collaboration with BraverAngels.org, America's largest grassroots cross partisan organization working toward civic renewal, this podcast amplifies the mission that we share to foster a more respectful and united America where civic friendship thrives even when we disagree. Each week, through the power of story, conversation, and connection with incredible guests, we work to build bridges instead of barriers, not to change minds on the issues, but to change how we see one another when we differ.
Because friends, it really is about bettering the world one attitude at a time. We did not create the hate, but together we can Derate the hate. So be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast, share it with a friend and visit BraverAngels.org to learn how you can get involved in the movement to bridge the partisan divide. Friends, I am so incredibly grateful that you have joined me for another powerful Derate The Hate episode.
So let's get to it. Roshan Bliss moved to Denver back in 2010 to become a mediator. He wanted to help people on opposite sides of a dispute find their way to a resolution, but it didn't take long for him to realize that most of the conflicts pulling our country apart aren't between just two people, they're between millions. That realization pulled him out of one on one conflict mediation and into what he calls many to many conflict resolution.
The messier, much bigger work of helping whole communities work through disagreement together. That path led him to the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation, where he started, in his words, as the blog guy. Today, he's NCDD’s director of Democracy Innovations, leading the organization's push to meet a polarized country where it actually lives. Which brings us to the project that we're really here to talk about.
A House divided. It's part reality TV, part deliberative democracy experiment. And it might be one of the more creative attempts that I've come across to get people who disagree back in a room together. Or in this case, a house divided.
Let's get into it with my friend Roshan Bliss. Here we go. Roshan Bliss. Welcome to the Derate the Hate podcast, man.
It's good to see you again today. [00:03:45:11] Roshan Bliss: Good to see you here, Wilk. Thanks for having me on. Means a lot.
[00:03:48:04] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. I'm very excited to bring you and your work here to the Derate the Hate listeners. You and I have had so many conversations. We've been we've been in contact with each other since, I don't know, a couple of years now, I think, but met in person the first time at a listen First Coalition summit in Mount Vernon and been doing stuff ever since.
So proud to proud to have you here, man. Proud to bring your work to the Derate the hate listeners. And and as we get started, Roshan, one of the first things I like to do is give the audience a feel for, for who you are and how you ended up in this work. So you're the director of Democracy Innovations for the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation, NCDD and how did you end up in this bridging space?
What was it that that you said, you know what this is? This is what I'm going to do. This is how I'm getting into this. [00:04:48:08] Roshan Bliss: Yeah.
Great questions. Thanks again for having me. It's an honor to be here. I so I moved to Denver, Colorado, which is where I live in 2010 to go to grad school for conflict resolution.
I was trying to be a mediator, facilitator, negotiator. And I first got into this like bridging space through that work because, you know, so much of mediation, conflict resolution is about helping people who are on opposite sides figure something out. But I if you remember that time 2010, 2011, we have just seen and we're, you know, wrapping up with the the Obamacare town halls, that I think a lot of people forget. And it was this national conversation that then President Obama initiated to have lots and lots of public forums about health care reform.
And let's just say they did not all go great. [00:05:56:05] Wilk Wilkinson: And there was great. [00:05:57:12] Roshan Bliss: Yeah, there was a lot of shouting, a lot of, you know, screaming at each other, a lot of like a lot of unproductive conversations about a thing is really important. And, you know, here's 16 years later is still important.
We still got to figure out how we're going to make a health care more affordable for regular people. But I have been watching that in the light of, you know, my, my training and study of conflict. And it was in that period that I started thinking, like, surely there's got to be a better way for us to have that kind of conversation, as a, as a nation and make it way more productive. And I got introduced to a one credits, four week class from Doctor Martin Carcassonne, who is, you know, as much as a field like dialog and deliberation can have rock stars, he's one of the rock stars of this this world.
[00:06:53:16] Wilk Wilkinson: Absolutely. [00:06:54:07] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. I'm glad you agree. But he he he he was offering a class on public facilitation and really introduced me to democratic deliberation as a practice and a field of work.
And it it was like a thunderbolt, you know, it was like, this is the kind of work that I want to do because I was, to be honest, getting a little bored of the kind of 1 to 1 mediation training I was getting, because I was much more interested in the many to many conflicts that I would argue, a way bigger problem for us. And at that time, and certainly in this time, than, you know, individuals, you know, neighbors with parking, dark property line disputes or, you know, divorcing couples or whatever. And I was like, I want to do that kind of work. I want to solve those kinds of problems and be helpful to my community by helping support these many to many problems that we have that we can't figure out because there's so many, you know, parties to the issue.
And so it was kind of off the races after I learned about democratic deliberation. And. It was also Doctor Carcassonne who introduced me to NCDD and I, I went, yeah, I went to one of their conferences and met the executive director, and I was I must spend like, what, 2223 at the time? And I asked the executive director, then Sandy backer of NCDD, like, how does a young person, you know, get into this field?
And her response was basically like, that's a great question. I'm not really sure. But, you know, why don't you come play a little role at NCDD? I started off as the blog guy and guy.
Okay. Yeah. And she said, you know, we'll figure it out together. [00:08:51:16] Wilk Wilkinson: to Yeah.
yeah, there's a few things that I want to I want to key on. First of all, I'm glad you brought up Martin Carcasson, And he's he's obviously he's on or a lot of people that are listening to this now probably just heard an episode handful of weeks ago with me and Martin. He's he's part of our Civic Scholars Council now at BraverAngels.org. his wicked problems mindset is is just hugely important and always on my mind now.
And the idea of deliberation versus debate, all that is fantastic. One of the things I want to talk, I want you to keep on a little bit more for me, Roshan, is is this idea of many to many because I, I hadn't ever heard it put that way before. I just never heard anybody actually say that. But now that you say it, it makes so much more sense because, I mean, I've talked to people in mediation before, you know, I've talked to to people who've who've done this peace building thing before.
But when we start thinking about, you know, collaborative action, what can we do together to better our communities that many to many mindset is, I think, I think important. So I want you to talk just a little bit more about that. Sure. Real quick.
And Then we can we can move on from there a little bit more. And then I want, I want to bring to the listeners a little bit more about NCDD, what, you know, what the, the dialog and deliberation or coalition for dialog and deliberation really is what, what they do what what their, what their primary thing is. [00:10:33:08] Roshan Bliss: Yeah, but let's start with the sort of many to many conflict framework because, yeah, it is, I think, super important for us to realize that, you know, as a nation at any large group of people, if you and your brother, coworker, whatever have an issue, mediators can be really helpful in helping you all solve the issue. But when it's a sort of cultural level issue or a policy disagreement that lots of people are having, it's what we call a it requires something more like what we call a multi-stakeholder problem solving process.
And it's just, you know, there are lots more people and you can't fit that many in a room, and you can't have one mediator just sitting between. It's not as simple as one mediator sitting between two people, helping them figure out a problem. There's, you know, 100, 1000, 2 million people on one side of the table, metaphorically and the same, if not bigger number on the other side. And it requires a different approach and that type of work, in lots of ways.
Our government was set up to be a multi-stakeholder conflict resolution process. You know, we do elections and representative government so that as an alternative to going to war about every conflict we've got. [00:12:02:18] Wilk Wilkinson: About everything. [00:12:03:11] Roshan Bliss: Yeah.
So that's that's what we mean by this many to many. Problem is that there's a big group of people that has a different problem or that has a problem with another big group of people and the wicked frameworks problem that Doctor Carcassonne also taught me about. It. It's really important because it means that, like we those two large groups of people agree there is a problem, but they might disagree on what the problem is.
So it's like you've got to fix the challenge of what are we even going to talk about before you can get into it. So it's quite a complex set of efforts you need. [00:12:42:10] Wilk Wilkinson: Oh that's right. And one of the big things, you know, when I've talked to Martin about this before is, is that idea that we have to and just to your point there, Roshan, is, is we've we've got to define the problem that we're solving for and come to common terms on what that problem we're solving for is before we can start working on solutions.
And, and you know, the idea that this, these things and one of the big things that I took away from, from our conversation when I had him on the podcast here is, is, you know, debate is, you know, you can just kind of pick in an either or and not really looking for the solutions, but this deliberation and then, you know, obviously this multi-stakeholder, you know, conflict resolution, multi multi-stakeholder problem solving process makes so much more sense. And and I think it brings a lot more nuance to the conversation because what we see too much of today, and I think you're going to agree with me on this is is especially when it's in the media or, you know, in soundbites, you know, we live in this world of of fast media and short soundbites. You know, they try to break it down into these either or things and life really isn't either or. Are they so much more nuanced?
We have to have a better process, and people need to have a greater recognition that we don't live in a world, no matter how many times people try to make it sound that way. We don't live in just an either or world. [00:14:17:11] Roshan Bliss: Hardly ever that simple. And that is a huge part of our problems.
I mean, you hit on the head like the media would like to boil everything down to real simple binary choices. And the politicians, obviously, you know, benefit from making things sound that simple, too. And that's just not a complete way of looking at many or even most of the big challenges that our country, our, our communities are facing. And so you've got to figure out a way to help people have a conversation that's coherent and actually driving toward concrete action, instead of just everyone squawking at each other and scoring points and, you know, proliferating their own oversimplified version of the problem and the solution.
[00:15:11:02] Wilk Wilkinson: That's right. So with that being said, then let's let's get into before we get to the actual meat of what what what you're here to talk about today, I want to hear just a little bit more about NCDD. What is the National Coalition of Dialog and Deliberation? I know we said it a little.
You mentioned it a little bit already, and it has a lot to do with what we've already been talking about. But just, just just give the listeners the quick and skinny. For those who don't know or haven't heard of the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation, what is that organization? What do they do?
[00:15:48:06] Roshan Bliss: Yeah, is a 20 plus year old organization. I think we're actually coming out on 25th anniversary soon. We are a network of practitioners, scholars, organizations that focus on dialog, which is often conflict resolution, anywhere from the 1 to 1 to to many to many types of conflict. That can be anything from community dialogs and all the way up to, you know, kind of peace building nationally, internationally, people who do that work are in the kind of dialog side of the coalition, the network.
And then there's the deliberation side of the the network, which are people who do I often short handed to public engagement that goes beyond three minutes in a microphone where, you know, democratic deliberation. The thing that Martin Carcassonne has taught all of us so much about is a way for communities. Quite often it's kind of led by government, but any large organization or large community could could have a deliberation, but is basically the type of engagement where a large constituency needs to be able to weigh in to have it into, what are we going to do about X, Y, or z? Topic subject problem?
It could be, you know, it doesn't have any problem. It could just be like, you know, we've got a bunch of money to spend on and we want we think we want to use it to improve the local park system. So how should we do that all the way to, you know, there's a new program or initiative a government wants to start or end, but they have to get public input on it. The deliberation side of the network is a world of, again, practitioners, scholars, people who study, people who do that kind of deliberation and public engagement.
And it's it is NCDD is one of the premier sort of social for people in those those worlds of. Very cool. Yeah. [00:18:01:20] Wilk Wilkinson: Very cool.
Yeah. And that's that is needed and it's, it's needed for a number of reasons. But but mostly because we don't live in an either or world. You know, there's more to there's more to these things than we're either going to do this or we're going to do that.
And and when it comes down to it, and I'm glad you I'm glad you clarified the idea. It's not always about conflict. Sometimes it's about finding the best idea to move forward on a particular thing. And it's not that there has to be conflict to make that happen, it's just it takes deliberation to come up with the best solution.
and I like that. And it's good for people to understand that there's there's a lot of people out there doing that. So so the fact that you guys have brought together these different practitioners and that are specializing in this, and there's a resource for people out there to take advantage of is great. So so Roshan, one of the things and I just want to tell the listeners that one of the other through lines between your and my story and one of the things that we're involved in together is, is the civic collaboratory part of Eric Leiu’s Citizens University.
I don't know if I don't know if I should call it. Eric Leiu’s Citizens University, but Citizen’s University, it's an incredible organization. Absolutely something that something that Eric Liu had reached out to me about, you know, a number of months ago and, and asked me to be part of this civic collaboratory and, and and when I arrived there and I saw that you were there, our friend, you know, Doctor Martin Carcassonne was there. People that that have worked in this space just thought leaders from all of these different spaces and then coming together for, couple days worth of, brainstorming and collaborative action and, and things like that.
I thought it was fantastic. So, now that I'm part of this, this, this ecosystem and and realizing that they're bringing together all of these people four times a year for these these great kind of brainstorming and collaborative action sessions. It's great. One of the things that came up in this, this session we were at in Seattle a few months ago, was was a project that you're working on and, and that you presented to to the group there and then to me in a little bit more depth while we were there.
And this thing is getting legs now and, and I'm very excited about it. I'm very excited to be part of it. And it's, I mean, whether I think it may be this week in terms of the, the time when this episode is going to drop or maybe next week. But let's tell the listeners, let's, let's tell the listeners what this is and, and, and why it's so excited or why you and I are so excited about it.
And other people are getting more and more excited about it. [00:21:01:18] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. Let's. So this project is called a House divided.
That's kind of what we what we've started calling it, but it is an effort that's been it's a moonshot cultural intervention initiative that I've been leading inside of NCDD because in the last several years, you know, NCDD has has primarily been a sort of field building organization for most of its existence. But in the last five, maybe seven years, it's become obvious for lots of different reasons that the practitioners, scholars, the people in our network and network have a lot of skills that are increasingly needed for our communities, for our, our, our local governments, even our national governments that they'll have us but that we a lot of people don't know about this world and in those in those spaces where they need our services, but also that a lot of regular people just aren't aware enough of deliberation. And these processes that can be used to help them and their communities as well. But it's so much more.
So here's the the gist. We are trying to make a reality TV show out of a deliberative process that we want to have happen for real, in a real community somewhere in the United States that is dealing with culture war issue, and use the reality TV show and its viewership to engage more people, regular folks, in a national deliberation, the American Idol style audience participation, if you remember, you know, some listeners may may be too young to remember American Idol back in the heyday when, you know, you could vote in between episodes on this singing competition for who should advance to the next round. So we are going to make a reality TV show, and we are going to have American Idol style audience participation made possible through deliberative tech tools that incorporate AI and can take hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people's opinions and sort of map them all into a kind of constellation of here's the five major ways that people think about this, and that people can engage continuously over the season. And we want we think that this project can can help us reimagine how the public square works for the attention economy, because there's so much drawing on our attention.
As everyone knows, there's more TV and video than you can ever watch in a single lifetime. And in lots of ways, the the challenges of our communities and the efforts being undertaken to solve them, the conversations that those that those efforts entail are just getting drowned out by, you know, yeah, good TV, the next, you know, pop music concert or whatever it is. Yeah. And so if we can't, we can't beat that.
We can't. So Joanne. No. So that's, that's the that's the kind of overarching vision of what this project is about.
I can go into more of the detail of like, what's the premise of the show per se. But you talk. [00:24:25:08] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah, yeah, we'll we'll get into that a little bit more. And, but there's a couple things that you just said there that, that I think I want to highlight as important to, to to recognize and why this project is so important.
So, so those of us that work in this bridging space and many of the people listening to this, they're like, well, who doesn't know about the bridging space? But those of us who work in this, that do this day in and day out, recognize that there is a lot of people. I mean, there are. [00:24:58:17] Roshan Bliss: I'd say most people.
[00:25:00:11] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. Most people just don't even recognize that the bridging space is a thing. I mean, in fact, until BraverAngels.org approached me back in 2021 to come on this podcast, I had no idea that the bridging space was even a thing. but the importance of this thing and all these kind of efforts that we do in this space, but this one here, especially that I think is hugely important, is we need to be thinking about we need to be thinking outside the box different ways that we can get our message outside of this bridging space, because those of us that are in it, of course, we're very responsive to all these great things.
And and we're like, yes, this message is absolutely awesome, but the messaging is only as good as the number of people that hear it and see it. And if they aren't seeing it outside of that space and to the other point or one of the other very important points that you made is in this attention economy. I mean, you think about on YouTube right now, I saw a stat the other day that there is enough content uploaded to YouTube every single minute of every single day, and it might be every second of every single day, but every single minute of every single day that there is not a human being alive that could watch all the content that's uploaded in one minute of any given day in their whole entire lifetime. If they pin their eyes open and just watched nonstop from the time they were born to the time they.
So. So that is the kind of thing that we are up against in this content creation aspect, part of the bridging space. Right? That's what we're competing against.
So when you come up with an idea like this, Rashaun for A House divided, this reality TV show and you're combining the the principles of what we do in the bridging space, the principles of deliberation instead of just ugly, you know, ugly debate and whatever. And I want you to get into that a little bit, because there's a very important part of that here in this, in this show, when we when we think about how this thing can actually affect culture change, one of the big things we talk about at BraverAngels.org right now is courageous citizenship. What does it mean to, to to to convene, come together across difference for collaborative action. That's what this is.
But it's showing it in a way that people haven't, haven't seen it in, in many ways to people who don't even think about it. So talk to me about what that structure is and how this is going to lead to collaborative action across different and make a real difference in lives, in the culture of our communities and how it's going to make it better. [00:27:56:02] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. So the initial idea came from, my sort of understanding that our dialog, our deliberative meet convening our quite often, especially when there's conflicts hugely entertaining for a third party to watch.
You know, it's got all the all the, all the trappings. There's interesting, believable characters. There's real conflict that needs to be solved and clarity about whether we whether they can. And there's quite often, you know, satisfying outcomes.
So you've got this whole story arc that looks a lot like a story of any movie, TV show, whatever. And why don't we just bring more cameras? You know, it's kind of the core insights so the more people can see and know about this stuff. but it needs to be entertaining, right?
Because like we just said, there's so much video you could never see at all. And so this has got to be worth people's time. It's got to actually get people it can't be preachy or, you know, feel like like you're being asked to eat your broccoli. So the premise of this reality TV show that is entirely serious and like we're in the process of making three people from the left, right and center each.
They are locked in a house together, and they are given seven days to address and come up with a proposal for how to solve a real hot button, or a culture war issue that is tearing their community apart. There's a real people from a real community in the States that we would bring cameras. They would we would lock them in a house together, and it would be basically Big Brother meets jury duty. Or if you're familiar with the People's Court battle courtroom TV show.
[00:29:44:16] Wilk Wilkinson: Judge Wapner. [00:29:45:22] Roshan Bliss: It was. [00:29:46:08] Wilk Wilkinson: That way bad. [00:29:47:17] Roshan Bliss: Was that there?
I frankly can't remember. But yes, that so the idea is that these people will come to the house with their own, you know, constituents say, let's say, for example, that the issue that's kind of tearing that that specific community that comes around the part is trans bathrooms in high schools. And just for instance, that we don't know what the first issue will be. It'll depend on the community.
We good. But we will bring people who think that's great and then we should have more of them, will bring people who think that's, you know, wrong and that we should never do that. And some people who are in the middle right, because the left right center thing is not about their political affiliation. It might track their affiliation, but it's actually about their sort of cultural outlook and their relationship to.
[00:30:39:13] Wilk Wilkinson: It's a great point to highlight. [00:30:40:17] Roshan Bliss: Yeah, I think it's really important because this is not about politics. It's about our cultural divides, because that's really a way in which we're we're becoming increasingly polarized. What's your relationship.
[00:30:51:15] Wilk Wilkinson: The idea that not everything is a rigid binary. [00:30:53:20] Roshan Bliss: Exactly. And like, what's your relationship to authority to tradition, those types of things. So if that's the issue, will bring some people across the spectrum of belief or orientation to that, that problem.
And they'll do some getting to know each other and us, the audience, getting to know each other or getting to know them, types of kind of challenges. And the first phase, they'll be roommates too. So they'll have they'll be, you know, bunking with people who they disagree with. They'll be having to make dinners together, you know, maybe the the toilet will flood and not have to fix that problem together.
Like there's going to be other problems besides the cultural issue they're addressing. [00:31:36:16] Wilk Wilkinson: But just for the record, hopefully there's no toilets flooding on television, but we're just going to hope for that one and we just don't know yet. [00:31:44:02] Roshan Bliss: Yeah. You know, who knows what will happen.
But it. [00:31:48:21] Wilk Wilkinson: Real life. [00:31:49:11] Roshan Bliss: This is this is all structured around a process that in the deliberative world we think of as it's almost like a trial, but it's through deliberation where the the juror. But this is a kind of like jury of, of our peers who's deciding on some issue.
And they will get just like in a trial, help to understand the issue from but hear about it from multiple sides that, you know, disagree with each other, like the lawyers for the defendants and lawyers for the plaintiffs definitely disagree on, you know, what's happened and what should be happening. But they'll get the people in the house we call, we will call them. Jurors will be informed by kind of teams of experts that are on either side or many sides of a, of a given issue, and then they'll go into deliberations and they will have professional facilitation help as well as some conflict professionals on site. Those people won't be the focus.
They're kind of like the coaches more than the players in this, and that's that. We think that it's going to be really entertaining TV, and that it's going to give people the kind of the the conflict and the fights that we've that so often we're being, you know, riled up for by the media and the politicians anyway. but we do believe that because there is a process that we're building in and because there's process experts, people who can help them deliberate, help them move through their their conflicts, that this fight, even though it starts as an argument, is actually going to turn into, you know, people are going to come for the boxing match and they're going to stay for the you know, I never thought about it that way type of moments that we, we our, our dialog deliberation world of professionals, we know we can reliably generate those topics. Yeah.
And by seeing by seeing it, the regular viewer will have their eyes open to a whole different world and a whole different way of relating. [00:33:53:10] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. And I think that's fantastic. I mean, any time that we can provide examples of what can come out of good, good deliberation, good conflict, you know, these, these things because we are not going to ever live in a world without conflict.
But what we do with that conflict, how we react to how we act in a in accordance with those that, that that disagree with us on a particular thing. These things are all hugely important. And providing good examples of that. Roshan, is I think is is of the ultimate importance.
So I think so people need those good examples. They need they need to realize that, that it's not we don't have to live in a constant stalemate based on disdain and contempt for those that we disagree with. That's right. I think this is going to be a good example of this.
And this isn't just a pie in the sky idea either. I want to make sure that people understand that this thing is getting legs. Now talk. Just just take this last.
We're nearing the end of our time here. Take this last minute or so to talk about some of the great things that are happening in terms of moving this thing from concept to reality. and then we'll round out our time by just telling everybody where they can find out more about it. [00:35:12:16] Roshan Bliss: Sure.
So we have recently gotten enough funding raised to actually film what's called a sizzle reel. It's basically a trailer for a TV show without making the whole TV show. And we are. Yeah.
Depending on when this is released, we either are just about to film this weekend or we just ended filming last weekend and we we are on track to have the final sizzle reel available by Labor Day. And in addition to that, we have we are being vetted by one. And maybe at the point of this recording or two social impact incubator funds who see the value of this type of thing and want to make sure it happens. We have initiated a few different conversations with deliberative with folks in the deliberative tech world.
There's a whole range of tools that support people having many to processes digitally, and some of those are AI powered, and it's kind of AI for good instead of for profits. And that's going to be that type of deliberative tech is going to be the core of what's going to be essentially a platform that we'll use to invite audience participation from the screen so that viewers can weigh in on the arguments they're having, on the questions they are and aren't addressing, on what this character did in a sort of social way that you're inputting to the forum, but you're also reacting to other people's takes and ideas. And we're hoping that that tool is also going to be able to get plugged into social media platforms. Very nice.
And we are we're getting a we're putting together an increasingly impressive coalition of folks who work in the civic and bridging organizations, who work in the civic and bridging spaces to support that. By the end of the back half of the first season, we would like to be convening in-person watch parties so that you can have a conversation with people who you disagree with in your community about the thing that just happened on TV, and that's where we talk about it as a reimagining of the public square, because we actually the goal is to make a successful and engaging reality TV show. But behind that, the strategy is to leverage that TV show to change the way that we all are having conversations and help them be more productive and get into the sort of area where actually getting enough input from the community, where we can start to see something like public public opinion turning into public judgment, where we actually know and we've worked through these problems. There's a whole bunch of science behind the show that we haven't had time to get into, but people can learn more about it.
[00:38:03:21] Wilk Wilkinson: And that's that's deeper than we need to get into here. But no, this is this is exactly you know, this is exactly what we need as a country right now. We need, like I said, more examples of people coming together, collaborative action across differences, making real things happen that have tangible results from that action. It's it's and it's awesome.
[00:38:25:12] Roshan Bliss: One more thing about what we also need is. [00:38:28:20] Wilk Wilkinson: That please do. [00:38:30:04] Roshan Bliss: We need to we need more examples of ways that we, on whatever side of whatever divide we sit on, can see people on the other sides of those divides as real and full humans. And that's a core part of this show, is that we're going to bring people.
[00:38:46:17] Wilk Wilkinson: Together. [00:38:47:12] Roshan Bliss: And we're going to every every character is going to be treated with dignity and respect and like, there's nobody know. Like, you know, we edited it so that the one person looks like the villain because we want. And science shows that, you know, when we see people as just just people, as full people, that they're no longer boogeyman over there who we have to fight and maybe, you know, kill to, to be safe, right?
[00:39:12:11] Wilk Wilkinson: Yeah. I mean, when we turn people into I've said this in so many interviews, you and I've talked about this, Roshan is is when we turn people into caricatures built based on the worst, the worst things that we believe about the other side. We begin to justify all the ugly things that we can imagine doing to those caricatures, those monsters, those villains. And yes, we do need to see more examples of the good in those human beings that sit on the other side of a particular issue than we do.
Very good. [00:39:46:13] Roshan Bliss: We're we're. [00:39:48:13] Wilk Wilkinson: At the end of our time. But where can people find out more about you, Roshan?
Where can they find out more about this project? And, yeah, I'm just happy to have you here, man. Thank you so much. [00:39:58:21] Roshan Bliss: Of course.
And people can find out more about the TV show at HouseDividedTV.com There's a there's going to be lots more to come. This is all, you know, being done out of, you know, essentially the very limited resources that nonprofit worlds can offer us. And my free time. So the website is going to continue to grow, but that's the best place to kind of tune in.
You can sign up for our newsletter there. Folks can of course find out more about it on NCDD.org – Which is the National Coalition for Dialog Deliberations website. And there's tons of resources that folks will be interested in there. And if they want to know about me personally, I they can check out my consulting website, Bliss collaborations.
[00:40:50:19] Wilk Wilkinson: Thank you so much. And yeah, we will have we will have all those links in the show notes and people can check it out. And hopefully a day in the very near future you will see a house divided as a reality TV show that is all about collaboration, deliberation and and real action across difference. So thank you so much for Roshan, I appreciate you, man.
[00:41:14:18] Roshan Bliss: Thank you. Appreciate you, and good luck with the rest of the continued growth of the podcast and all the great work you guys are doing over there at BraverAngels.org. [00:41:24:05] Wilk Wilkinson: Friends, I want to thank you so much for tuning in. And if there's anything in this episode that provided exceptional value to you, please make sure to hit that share button.
If you haven't done so already, please be sure to subscribe to get the Derate The Hate podcast sent to your email inbox every week. We really are better together. So please take a moment to visit BraverAngels.org and consider joining the movement towards civic renewal and bridging our political divide. This is Wilk wrapping up for the week saying get out there.
Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything you've got. And remember, it's up to you to make every day the day that you want it to be. With that, my friend.
I'm going to back on out of here and we will catch you next week. Take care.
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