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TED Wants To Remind Us That Ideas -- Not Politicians -- Shape the Future (qz.com)

An anonymous reader shares a Quartz report: Amid global political upheavals, TED curator Chris Anderson argues that ideas have never mattered more. "Ideas changes how people act and [shape] their long term perspective," he said in during a April 17 press briefing. "Politicians come and go and ideas are forever." He said TED -- two segments of which will be broadcast live in movie theaters this year -- wants to re-introduce civility into political discourse. "We want to avoid the zero sum game we see on cable television every day," said Anderson, noting that TED is a non-partisan organization and has historically featured controversial and intriguing thinkers from both sides of the political divide. In place of the shrill, headline-bait tenor of political spectacles, TED wants to take viewers to a place of "reasoned discourse" where big ideas can act as a bridge between opposing views. By creating an eclectic program -- including an entire session delivered in Spanish and another on artificial intelligence -- Anderson said he wants to steer the conversation away from government and politics. "With so much focus in politics, the world is in danger of forgetting that so much of what really changes the future happens outside completely of politics. It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs," he said.

19 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. Look, its the Rainbow Connection! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs," and meee.

    TED is fucking overrated. Pablum.

  2. If only... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "With so much focus in politics, the world is in danger of forgetting that so much of what really changes the future happens outside completely of politics. It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs," he said.

    Until the politicians ban, mandate or regulate the science, technology or business.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  3. Re:Wow! by Jhon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Do you mean that dialogue and not violence is a better way to solve problems? Most intelligent people know this."

    Actually, dialogue is the ideal way to solve problems. However, you need to have two parties willing to talk and compromise. When one or both parties are unwilling to compromise violence is likely inevitable. Most intelligent people understand this.

  4. Re:TED ideas = super obvious ideas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You should try TEDx, it's a bold new direction for their brand.

    The format is a bit different. Instead of curating the speakers, they just rent a room with a microphone and send a guy with a gopro there. Said guy then records every homeless person who thinks they have something intelligent to speak about getting up on stage for their 15 minutes of fame.

    Gopro guy then emails the raw video to someone at TEDhq who edits "Why farts are oppressing my gender" into Youtube gold.

  5. Re:Wow! by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, dialogue is the ideal way to solve problems.

    Well, that's true.

    However, for the most part, the party/ideology from the left in the US that promotes itself as the party of diversity and tolerance, is ONLY tolerant of viewpoints they hold and not only will put you down for what you think (overusing terms like racist, etc) but will try to actively prevent you espousing your viewpoints at all in public (see recent colleges shutting down speakers coming to campus).

    How can you have a dialog, when one side tries to actually prevent any opposing views from being presented at all?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  6. Re:Most people are done with political correctness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, the people on the right protest responsibly. By taking over the Mlheur Wildlife Refuge. Or shooting Dee Gifford and a bunch of other people. Or bombing abortion clinics

    But of course, you're going to play the no true Scotsman card on shit like that, I'm sure. Just like those on the left are going to do the same about the about the things you're pissed off about.

    Face it. You're just as much of a problem as the "leftists" because you are busy pigeonholing everyone else to support whatever personal beliefs you have.

  7. Re:Wow! by neocraft · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would really like to see someone reply to this with a realistic solution. I don't have an answer to that problem and the only response I seem to be hearing is "Their (read: republicans) viewpoints aren't reasonable or worthy of consideration", which shuts down any kind of dialogue before it starts.

  8. He means like as Salafi/Deobandi Islam? by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 3, Insightful

    An idea which is reshaping the entire Muslim world for the worse and the Muslim communities in Europe with it. Of course not, he thinks social progressiveness is the only way forward as long as white politicians just get out of the way and open the borders.

    TED, where PC morons spew pseudo-intellectual bullshit at other PC morons and where they present mundane, pie in the sky and just plain ridiculous technology as revolutionary.

  9. Re:Wow! by ranton · · Score: 4, Insightful

    However, for the most part, the party/ideology from the left in the US that promotes itself as the party of diversity and tolerance, is ONLY tolerant of viewpoints they hold and not only will put you down for what you think

    Ah, the old intolerance of intolerance argument. The paradox of tolerance is that if society is tolerant of intolerance, you ultimately allow that intolerance to destroy tolerance in that society. Ultimately tolerance is useless without the right to not tolerate the intolerant. (you might need more than two hands to count the double negatives there)

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    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  10. More Propagandists Claiming to Be Non-Partisan by Kunedog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Those links expose TED as censor-happy authoritarians, who (despite their "Ideas Worth Spreading" slogan) abuse the DMCA to prevent fair use of their content for criticism. The claims in the summary of TED being a "non-partisan organization" and wanting to "steer the conversation away from government and politics" are laughable, given TED's repeated attempts to suppress dissent.

    They do not want to start a "civil" conversation or "reasoned discourse" or a "bridge between opposing views" or any of the sounds-good buzzword BS rattled off in the summary; they want start a monologue of approved ideas while everyone else (especially wrongthinkers) has to shut up and unquestionably accept what they're hearing.

  11. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Center-left classical liberals have been drowned out by Progressives and that's a shame. Media and universities will have to be purged of loud-mouthed, government worshiping, intolerant Progressives before things get better. I'm afraid for that to happen a world-wide calamity brought on by progressive policies will have to occur.

  12. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Just for fun, let's go a couple levels deeper. Liberals are intolerant of people who are intolerant of Islam which is a religion that is intolerant towards liberals!

  13. The problem with "good" ideas... by ErikTheRed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...is that the first thing people want to do with them - especially in the TED crowd - is use politics to force them on everyone.

    And some of the ideas actually are good - for certain people in certain situations. The problem with using politics is that you're applying these ideas to everyone, by force. This usually results in an overall net negative impact.

    We live in a world of incredibly diverse values, beliefs, and practices. Much of the goodness or badness in these areas is fairly subjective. For example, some people prefer more leisurely lifestyles and others value high productivity. Some people want to work and function in highly communal environments, and others are more individualistic. None of these things are wrong, but when you start building strict sets of societal rules around them then you create strong and completely unnecessary conflict.

    There are less subjective areas that involve hard science and scientific experimentation, but these are relatively rare and usually uncontroversial. There are also plenty of ideas labeled as "science" that do not involve the scientific method; these tend to be extremely controversial and because the "science" label is misapplied their proponents tend to be very quick to pull out the political guns.

    In any case, we also live in a world where far too many people want to force their beliefs and lifestyles on everyone else. The political left and right are fairly equally guilty of this - the left from an economic standpoint, and the right from a religious standpoint, and both from an overall values standpoint. It's deeply sad that virtually none of these people are capable of saying "Hey, it's OK that you're different - go be your crazy-ass self over there and as long as you're not in my face about it then we'll ignore each other and everything is fine." But instead, they demand strict enforcement. These days the left demands that we memorize sixty new gender pronouns a week, and the right loses their shit if you don't say "Merry Christmas."

    We don't need 50 new TEDxasfaz talks a week. We need a planet full of people to chill the fuck out.

    --

    Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
  14. Re:TED ideas = super obvious ideas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Article is wrong. The news media shapes the future, that is why we must shut down fuex news now!

  15. There is a part that is forever - bureaucracy by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Politicians come and go and ideas are forever.

    The problem is that while politicians may go, the bureaucracy they create does not. That essentially lasts forever, and has a great impact on what ideas are possible, if for no other reason than it drains funds form making some other idea possible.

    Rather than term limits we need the concept of department limits, where each arm of a large bureaucracy must be voted to continue every ten years or so after justifying what it has done.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  16. Ya, kinda? But not really... by eepok · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's nice to think that simply spreading good ideas is good enough... but it's not and it never has been. You know how many Black slaves in America had the "idea" of freedom? What about the number of women who surely liked the "idea" of universal suffrage? And how many workers had the "idea" of working less per week for a guaranteed wage?

    Ideas are great, but in a representative system ("government") CHANGE only comes when people imbued with sufficient power make the effort to evolve an idea into policy. Even if today's politicians/leaders don't like an idea and get removed from office, someone is going to have to take a leadership position to make changes to the official way things are done.

    "With so much focus in politics, the world is in danger of forgetting that so much of what really changes the future happens outside completely of politics. It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs,"

    No. Your personal interpretation and your world view change *internally* with ideas. How you and others are physically affected relies on what "ideas" politicians have and put forth as policy. Politics, however fatiguing, is not unimportant.

  17. Re:None so blind as those who WILL NOT see by penandpaper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm all for protest but you are missing the context and what some of those bills are outlawing. Namely BLOCKING A HIGHWAY. Is your pet protest more important than the people that lose their job because they couldn't get to work? Or the emergency response team that was delayed because muh protest? Should you be liable because some protestor walked out in front of your car AT NIGHT on a highway when you going high way speeds? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    All of those are in repose to the violence and extreme actions of "protestors" lately. I don't like limiting protest but holy shit do I understand why States are doing it.

  18. Re:Wow! by penandpaper · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sorry, but my parents do not like or support gay marriage because of their religious beliefs. They are not bigots. They are not homophobic. They have their religious beliefs. They treat lgbt just like every other person. They believe marriage is sacred; a belief informed by religion. They are not bad people for having that belief.

    This is the point of States rights and the limits of the federal government. You will never get people to agree. Forcing people to accept things they do not want by the government is tyrannical. There are plenty of gays that think this. Dave Rubin who is gay and married understands that it shouldn't be forced on the nation by the courts.

    It isn't just one issue. It's every issue that is pushed to the federal government because some other state does things differently or believes something differently. Eventually, one straw breaks the camels back.

  19. Re:Wow! by meta-monkey · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Unless perhaps they're interested in getting the rest of society's crime rates down to those of illegal immigrants.

    This is one of those cases in which the left is lying with statistics. They compare the crime rates of illegal immigrants to the crime rate of the "native population," as if they're talking about the crime rate of you, the listener, a likely white guy in the suburbs. However the "native population" includes the American black underclass in Detroit, Chicago, etc, which has extremely high crime rates that skew the numbers. So, "illegals have crime rates lower than the native population" might be technically true, but "illegals are less criminal than blacks" is hardly a selling point for mass immigration.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.