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Empowering youth to engage with politics
150 Plays4 years ago
In this episode, we talk to Jason Evlambios, a Model UN country delegate, nuclear committee president, and former podcaster. We discuss different ways for young people to engage with politics. We also learn more about the connection between politics and entrepreneurship along with the role of social media in today's society. Get ready to learn!
Jason Evlambios social media: https://lnkfi.re/jason-evlambios
ChangemakerZ Social Media: https://go.changemakerz.org/follow
Website: https://podcast.changemakerz.org
Produced by Vasilis Skarleas
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Transcript
Introduction to Changemakers Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello everyone, I'm Saloni. And I'm Vassilis.
Empowering Young Leaders through Interviews
00:00:05
Speaker
We run Changemakers team, a student-run initiative that aims to empower, educate, and connect gender leaders interested in entrepreneurship. We interview teenagers with impactful projects and create resources to help you change the world. If they can't do it, so can you.
00:00:23
Speaker
On this podcast, we discuss logistics of creating different types of projects with Jen Ziers. We've already done it. We will leave her social media and website information in the description.
Meet Jason Lempius: Teen Political Enthusiast
00:00:41
Speaker
We are so excited to be here today with Jason Lempius, a teenager who is involved in political analysis. He has participated in a great variety of United Nations models as a country delegate and has been elected as the president of the Nuclear Power Committee. He also created a podcast series that discusses different political events. So please welcome Jason.
How did Jason's interest in politics begin?
00:01:03
Speaker
Hello, thank you very much for having me first of all. This is a great honor.
00:01:07
Speaker
We are so happy to have you here, so could you please describe yourself and your background? How did you get involved in politics?
00:01:14
Speaker
So my name is Jason Vlamios. I am 17 years old. I am from Greece. I actually started getting involved in politics from a relatively young age when I actually engaged in political conversations with my dad. And from then it was just a snowball effect and I continue to like politics even more, especially the ones of the United States of America. So yeah, that's pretty much how I got into politics. There wasn't any specific moment that made me love it. It was a gradual process.
Why is youth participation in politics important?
00:01:43
Speaker
Yes, this brings me to our next question. Why is it important for young people to participate in politics and what are some ways for us to get involved? Well, first of all, it's absolutely necessary that young people actually get involved into politics. I believe that the youth should be very active and if not active, at least very woke regarding the political realm of things. The government and in general politics determines the future of all of us, including the youth. So why exactly should they be excluded?
00:02:11
Speaker
It's very important for a young person to be able to express his or her opinion and evaluate the current political system, or on a larger perspective, his or her role in the society with that current government. He or she should be able to ask questions such as, is this policy or law really fair, or should we do something about that? Because only then will the next generation be able to better its future as a whole.
00:02:37
Speaker
by being conscious of what they want to improve in the government and what they want to get rid of. Eventually, that will have a large influence on their lives, and ignorance will have a negative one, and perhaps a dangerous one, of course.
What are credible news sources for youth?
00:02:49
Speaker
And apart from that, politics actually make a person more complete and mature. I, from a personal experience, have discovered that politics and my engagement in them have made my thoughts, views, and even ideas more mature and objective, rather than emotional and rational that they were before.
00:03:05
Speaker
Now, when it comes to different information that you can gain in politics, there are different news sources, but just make sure they are accurate. Personally, I use the New York Times and the Financial Times also for financial related stuff. I believe they both convey news very well and very objectively. Yeah. Yeah. That brings me to my follow-up question. How do you know if a source is credible?
00:03:30
Speaker
Well, you need to fact check sources first of all in order to see if they're credible. Also, it would be a large risk for large companies, large news sources such as the New York Times not to be credible. The only thing I can say about their credibility is the fact that some news sources might actually be biased.
00:03:49
Speaker
For example, Fox News traditionally has been Republican, and I'll admit that the New York Times is traditionally Democratic. However, that doesn't mean that they are false. They just portray different events with a different perception or a different idea and a different way of expression. Yeah, that's awesome. So how can we have healthy discussions with people who have different ideologies from us?
How to engage in respectful political discussions?
00:04:15
Speaker
Well, first of all, the most important thing if you ask me is to have respect for the other person's ideas. I think that's crucial to have a complete concrete and respectful conversation with a person who disagrees. The second step would be to try to use
00:04:31
Speaker
Arguments that don't actually make the person feel bad in any way or harm him verbally. I think that's a very important step while you're discussing or debating for an argument. Also, make sure your arguments are valid and fact-checked and proved by any news source or any research or analysis in general, and make sure to use valid points instead of trying to find different ways of altering the other person's arguments.
00:05:01
Speaker
I totally agree with you. Would you say that there is a connection between politics and entrepreneurship, mainly in the Western world?
The intersection of entrepreneurship and politics
00:05:10
Speaker
That's actually a great question and I can answer in two different ways. Now, the first one would be the actual, literal connection and relationship that entrepreneurship has with politics. We can safely assume that businesses rely on the government in order to gain profit.
00:05:25
Speaker
So there are a lot of financial systems in place that can alter the course of businesses in the country. Especially in the Western world, like in the USA for example, there are two main financial plans that benefit different types of businesses. There is of course the trickle-down system used by the Republicans traditionally, which in short benefits larger businesses and there is the sort of more social democratic, let's say, system by the side of the Democrats.
00:05:49
Speaker
which benefits smaller businesses and puts a few limits to larger ones. That's, of course, a very general analysis of what each one of those do to, I'm sorry, businesses. So what we can deduce from that is the fact that politics definitely determine the course and the profit margin of entrepreneurship in general.
00:06:07
Speaker
The second way i can answer this question is with the meaning side of things and what i mean by that is what correlation exists between the two definitions of the words of politics and entrepreneurship i would say that first of all the entrepreneurship and politics of completely different purposes and i believe that's a very important highlight and people should know that
00:06:25
Speaker
They both fundamentally adopt the same functions and mechanics. We see that a business is a kind of a small replica of the government and that the government actually works metaphorically as a business. In both of them, we can see evaluations, some sort of hierarchy, obedience, and other elements that prove the similarities between the two. However, it is important to mention
00:06:48
Speaker
that the government is a much more limited instrument given that it's technically not free to, let's say, fire anyone at once immediately in the public sector or shut down public hospitals due to deficits. This is all because of voters, of course, and its absence from the market. However, the examples that I just mentioned are things that a business can easily do with a negative personnel evaluation or bankruptcy in a more extreme case. That's a great point of view. Do you think that politicians act like entrepreneurs?
00:07:17
Speaker
In a way, in a very metaphorical sense, we can safely say that, yeah, they definitely act like entrepreneurs. And we can see that on multiple different aspects and fronts. Just like a businessman would do, politicians need to retain a positive image for themselves, market their ideas and their policies, because without those elements, he would not succeed. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, have to have a positive stigma when it comes to their products and their product placement.
00:07:40
Speaker
and in general be open to communication and be able to solve matters in quick succession should something go wrong. An entrepreneur that is elitist, let's say badly dressed or disrespectful to its customers will do worse than a businessman that acts the opposite way.
00:07:57
Speaker
Same in politics, politicians should be able to avoid negative behavior and make people have a good perception of him as a human. Marketing, of course, is a very important element when it comes to both businessmen and politicians, along with other elements such as good relations, good people skills, and being able to work as a team. I'd say these are crucial for success on both sides.
00:08:18
Speaker
Definitely, marketing is a very important aspect for both parties.
Role of youth-led political organizations
00:08:23
Speaker
So, what's your opinion on political organizations? In general, political organizations created by teenagers like YPA aim to educate and empower youth to become politically motivated and involved in government for a better tomorrow.
00:08:40
Speaker
Well, personally, as long as they don't cause harm in any verbal or physical way, I believe that they are a very good thing. It really helps democracy work better. It enables people to express opinions and different ideas, which eventually sharpens the mind and makes people more open-minded. And that's very important for the youth to be able to achieve, actually, as I mentioned before, because as you mentioned, they are the people who will make a better tomorrow and they should have the fundamental knowledge and fundamental
00:09:10
Speaker
political positioning on the ideological spectrum in order to concretize their ideas and make an actual significant difference with knowledge acquired by these organizations, like you mentioned. If you guys are interested, you can check out our interview with Jay Karpuzi, the founder and president of the Youth Political Assembly on www.changemakersd.org.
00:09:36
Speaker
So, we've already talked about marketing.
Social media's impact on politics
00:09:40
Speaker
What's the role of social media and politics? Do you think that there is a connection between their tactics and their businesses ones?
00:09:47
Speaker
Well, social media could actually be a very determining force when it comes to politics. And I'll mention an example, a very recent example with the cancellation of Donald Trump's Twitter account. Now, one could say that this is, of course, this happened because it is not what he was doing, what he was saying might actually cause harm or whatever.
00:10:07
Speaker
And it might not be in accordance with the terms and services of Twitter as a company. And as we all know, he is also a human being. However, he is a large political force that has to be heard because of democratic rights and democratic fundamental elements that exist in the Constitution. So the question begs, is it really ethical and okay to cancel out the
00:10:33
Speaker
previous president of the United States Twitter account. And is that really democratic? And we can deduce from that the fact that social media might actually alter the truth in a way whether it wants it or not. So it has a large power, especially in our day and age, where technology is actually evolving all the more. It has a very strong influence on politics and a very strong influence on what people actually believe.
What global issues are pressing for today's youth?
00:10:56
Speaker
That's what I would say.
00:10:58
Speaker
What are the biggest problems faced by today's society and what steps can we take to solve them? Well, there are actually at this point in time, there are very many actually problems that society has to face. We can see many authoritarian regimes starting to form in both Europe and America. Also, the environment is a very important
00:11:22
Speaker
subject that we have to tackle immediately in the next at least eight years in order to better our future as a human race. Also, racial equality is a large problem in America, especially with the Black Lives Matter and a president who actually endorsed violence against them objectively. These are only a handful of the problems that the world is facing right now.
00:11:43
Speaker
And there are many more that we need to tackle. And the youth, actually, the Gen Z will be the ones to tackle the next political, let's say, cabinet of the world. And it's the one that has to resolve all these problems. And it's really important that everyone knows the problems themselves in order to actually do that.
Jason's political ambitions and future goals
00:12:03
Speaker
This is great. So how do you plan on engaging with politics in the future?
00:12:08
Speaker
Well, to be honest, I haven't really figured this out. However, it would be really nice if I became Prime Minister of Greece. I'd really like that. However, of course, that is a very ambitious dream of mine. And yeah, I need to start off from a lower step, maybe becoming Minister of Education to bringing more objective, more globalized education system in Greece, or maybe a journalist or political analysis. But ideally, I'd like to become the Prime Minister, even though it's very ambitious.
Closing and Call to Action
00:12:37
Speaker
We really enjoyed today's conversation. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to today's episode. As always, we will leave Jason's social media handles in the description. Get ready for our next episode.
00:12:53
Speaker
We hope you guys enjoyed our conversation. We had such a great time. Make sure you leave us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram at changemaker.c to keep up with all of our new content. We also have a Facebook page called changemakersc, but you'll need to look down because I honestly don't even know how Facebook works.