[ExI] Critics view of TED lectures

[Kelly Anderson]

Propaganda is the water we live in. It is so pervasive that we don't even
recognize it as such.

I like TED. I like Fox News. I like NPR. I reallly like Exl. I like
information from diverse origins, because by balancing all those
informational sources together, we can perhaps formulate a position that is
somewhat tangenitally related to reality.

The answer is to spend as much time DOING as LISTENING. If we listen more
than we do, then we are all doomed.

-Kelly


On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 7:26 AM, Tomaz Kristan <protokol2020 at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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>
>
>
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