HASS Great Debate 2025: The Tech Bros Killed Democracy

HASS Great Debate 2025: The Tech Bros Killed Democracy

Mon 8 Sep 2025 2:00pm4:00pm

Venue

Global Change Institute (20), St Lucia Campus, QLD
Room: 
Room 273

Presented by the UQ Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Research Team as part of UQ Research and Innovation Week.

They disrupted taxis, dating, and dinner reservations—why not democracy too? Have the Tech Bros gone too far? The affirmatives may argue that democracy didn’t stand a chance once it met the algorithm; the negatives might suggest that blaming billionaires in hoodies is just a convenient distraction from deeper issues.

It’s a showcase of humanities, arts, and social science expertise: expect sharp takes, big laughs, and a few metaphors that definitely weren’t written by ChatGPT. There’s no app for fixing democracy—but there is a winner’s certificate, and it’s not going to be decided by an algorithm.

Please be advised, this debate will run from 2-3pm, with afternoon team provided 3-4pm.

Please contact us (research@hass.uq.edu.au) if you would like to discuss this further.

The Teams:
Affirmative:

Negative:

Contacts

HASS Research Team