There is no small irony that a conference focused on participation, democracy, grassroots, and bottom-up, should pull together one of the most powerful lineups of "smart white guys delivering excellent presentations" I've ever witnessed. Moreover, the series of independent talks shined serious light on the question of "what will 21st century democracy look like."

Douglas Rushkoff kicked off the morning attacking the very name of the event, using biblical references to argue that "Personal Democracy" was an oxymoron. Rushkoff, who released "Open Source Democracy" way back in 2003, preached (ED: can a Rebbe preach?) that democracy is inherently collaborative, not individualistic.

Lawrence Lessig then delivered a highly choreographed and carefully timed slide show explaining, though today's corruption isn't as egregious as in the 1800's (who knew Daniel Webster was such a dog?), since government is so much larger it matters even more. Make sure you watch the video when it comes out.

Jonathan Zittrain from Harvard cautioned us utopians with a brainy stand-up comedy routine about the potential for collapse of the generative internet. In particular, he warned about laws that don't have public support and called for "civic technologies" where we get to decide how the technology is to be used. This time I'm convinced to read his new book.

Gilberto Gil, on the non-white guy panel, gave a more bureaucratic sounding talk (considering he was playing the Nokia Theatre that night). Gil talked about how technology is enabling a peaceful revolution and how Brazil has blurred the boundaries between civil society and government by including alternative voices.

The pièce de résistance came from Mark Pesce who, reaching even farther into history than Rushkoff, started with the beginning of man. He pointed out that for almost 2700 generations "humanity remained a static presence" and argues that "fifty thousand years of cultural development will collapse in about twenty" adding "this is coming as a bit of a shock." (I'm quoting from his write-up of the talk.)

Pesce argues ominously that we are in a hyperconnected world that creates "hypermimesis" (ED: does he mean "rapid learning"?) and individual power creating "a hyperconnected polity." The down side is this polity is demanding and unconstrained which will lead to a "war of all against all." He says, "The future looks nothing like democracy, because democracy, which sought to empower the individual, is being obsolesced by a social order which hyperempowers him."

PdF Founder Andrew Rasiej, reacting to Rushkoff's critique, ended the day suggesting that PdF be rebranded the "Participatory Democracy Forum" causing a flurry of activity as people checked to see what domains were available. Nancy Scola is holding the domain hostage with terms to be announced but likely to include an increase in vacation days.

But the thing is, what if Pesce is right? Then Rasiej is fighting the last war. We don't need participatory democracy (instead of an oxymoron that's just redundant), what we need is "hyperdemocracy". In the word of Andy Carvin's tweet, the day was "hyperawesome".

[Photo of Lawrence Lessig in front of his Daniel Webster slide by Phil Hawksworth. Thanks Phil!]