[ExI] Critics view of TED lectures

[Tomaz Kristan]

To a degree, I can agree with The Guardian. Only that The Guardian is much
worse than TED.


On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 11:54 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> We need to talk about TED
>
> Science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol –
> as embodied by TED talks – is a recipe for civilisational disaster
>
> <
> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/30/we-need-to-talk-about-ted
> >
>
> Quotes:
> Have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED
> talks actually happens? So much potential and enthusiasm, and so
> little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what
> ideas can do all by themselves wrong?
> ----------
> The key rhetorical device for TED talks is a combination of epiphany
> and personal testimony (an "epiphimony" if you like ) through which
> the speaker shares a personal journey of insight and realisation, its
> triumphs and tribulations.
>
> What is it that the TED audience hopes to get from this? A vicarious
> insight, a fleeting moment of wonder, an inkling that maybe it's all
> going to work out after all? A spiritual buzz?
>
> I'm sorry but this fails to meet the challenges that we are supposedly
> here to confront. These are complicated and difficult and are not
> given to tidy just-so solutions. They don't care about anyone's
> experience of optimism. Given the stakes, making our best and
> brightest waste their time – and the audience's time – dancing like
> infomercial hosts is too high a price. It is cynical.
>
> Also, it just doesn't work.
> ----------
> We hear that not only is change accelerating but that the pace of
> change is accelerating as well. While this is true of computational
> carrying-capacity at a planetary level, at the same time – and in fact
> the two are connected – we are also in a moment of cultural
> de-acceleration.
>
> Because, if a problem is in fact endemic to a system, then the
> exponential effects of Moore's law also serve to amplify what's
> broken. It is more computation along the wrong curve, and I don't it
> is necessarily a triumph of reason.
> -----------
> Problems are not "puzzles" to be solved. That metaphor assumes that
> all the necessary pieces are already on the table, they just need to
> be rearranged and reprogrammed. It's not true.
>
> "Innovation" defined as moving the pieces around and adding more
> processing power is not some Big Idea that will disrupt a broken
> status quo: that precisely is the broken status quo.
> ----------
>
>
> BillK
>
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