Mark Pesce is an expert in social media, best known for his work blending VR with the web to create VRML, the distant ancestor of Second Life. He is an author, teacher, inventor and well-known media personality in Australia. For the last four years he has practiced "digital ethnology," studying the behavioral, cultural and politics changes wrought by the new technologies of sharing and communication.

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.