I saw this presentation live a couple of weeks ago at the Personal Democracy Forum and would suggest that it’s worth 25 minutes of your time to take a listen. I really like a lot of what Pesce is trying to say, even though the verbiage gets in the way at times. And it really pushes my thinking about cell phones in general. Have a look.
Here is the overview from the PDF presentation page, which has some great talks by Rushkoff, Shirky, Lessig, Zittrain and others:
In this keynote talk at Personal Democracy Forum 2008, Pesce situates the current moment of transformation in the context of 60,000 years of human civilization; argues that our innate tendencies to connect with each other, copy behaviors and share ideas are now on hyperdrive; and projects a near-future where “hyperempowered” individuals and networks transform politics. As he concludes: “Representative democracies are a poor fit to the challenges ahead, and ‘rebooting’ them is not enough. The future looks nothing like democracy, because democracy, which sought to empower the individual, is being obsolesced by a social order which hyperempowers him.” The text of his talk is available on his blog here. He has also posted his slides on Slideshare, here.
In light of the Obama campaigns use of social tools, Pesce pushes the thinking quite a bit…
This is like watching someone who doesn’t drive driving a 10 ton truck with very loose power steering. After 20 minutes of over-steering, you finally realize what he really wanted to say.
But the fact of the matter remain that when we are in a cave, no matter how loud the echo is or how many echoes we got, we are still in a cave. 3.5 million of us being connected is still irrelevant because we are in caves. We have in place a perpetually self-supporting system that ignores what happens in caves. All we ended up doing is conveniently providing a place for the candidates to focus their campaigning. After the election, the caves revert back to irrelevancy, not unlike campaign headquarters.
Certainly a worthy use of 25 minutes. I wish his slides has been working a little better. It was a bit of a distraction. This made me question to what extent will this hyperempowerment translate into the classroom? When students have access to more information through the human network than conceivably contained within a curriculum framework or standards (let alone a textbook) to what extent is subject oriented teaching becoming irrelevant. Will subject teachers become obsolete? Will teachers transform from masters of content into masters of content accessibility?
I see myself shifting in that direction more and more. I am not the greatest historian, but I know some history and like it enough to help others access it. I believe the cliche is still relevant: Are you a sage on the stage or guide on the side?