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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.
"It happens inside the mind of dreamers, designers, inventors, technologists, entrepreneurs," and meee.
TED is fucking overrated. Pablum.
TED's been posting some hopelessly feminist content lately, and they know it, too, because they've disabled ratings and comments on those vids. They're also abusing the DMCA to shut down criticism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The DMCA-censored vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And an update:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The staff at ted might like lofty ideals but they are to be consumed not discussed - Bearing an Australian youtuber and others have been dmca'ed and Ted lost the fair use test.
To call them communicators is a paradox when they censor too.
There has been an ongoing debate in history comparing the macroscopic idea of history and the "Great Man" idea of history.
From a macroscopic level, things like the industrial revolution (or more specifically, things like the invention of the Spinning Jenny) made societal changes inevitable. It was only a matter of time before the Monarchies feel in Europe. It could have been earlier or later by a few decades or centuries, but it was inevidible.
From the "Great Man" level... it's hard to imagine if Nepolian didn't exist that "meh, somebody else would have conquered Europe."
It's hard to accept the assertion that politicians have no impact and it is only ideas. Can anybody honestly say, "If George Washington had decided to become King of the fledgling United States, to the applause and approbation of all his contemporaries, the United States would absolutely still have become a republic?"
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.
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.........
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.
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)
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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
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.
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.