Ask Slashdot: What Would Your TED Talk Be About? (ted.com)

Slashdot reader shanen poses the question: if you had to give a TED Talk, what would you talk about? They write: Mostly based on my experiences at TEDx events, though of course I've seen a lot of TED videos. Nick Hanauer's censored TED Talk is still my all-time favorite, though you couldn't see it on the TED website. Proximate trigger for this question was actually looking at the coming TEDx events in the neighborhood... In my own case, I think you'd need to put a gun to my head as motivation, but maybe my sig would be worth a laugh or two? What would your TED Talk be about? How does this idea resonate with you? Feel free to explain in as little as one sentence...

For example: "The inequality of opportunity and how the stereotypical success is a function of where one is born."

Comments

Dongs.

[nawcom]

Dongs. Just dongs.

A couple of ideas

[Major_Disorder]

1. Why having an office in the 21st center is a monstrous waste of money.
2. The telephone is dying, and how can we hasten it's death.

Re:A couple of ideas

[Major_Disorder]

Why people who should know better still can't tell it's from its.

3. The 25 best methods for killing grammar Nazis.

Re:A couple of ideas

[FFOMelchior]

2. The telephone is dying, and how can we hasten it's death.

We should also get rid of telephone sanitizers too.

Re:A couple of ideas

[TeknoHog]

Great points! This relates to something I started to notice in the last decade: with increased connectivity, people started to travel around more and more. I thought this was counterintuitive -- if you have better Internet access, you should have fewer reasons for business trips etc. But this was also about mobile connectivity; with cell networks, you could stay online while sitting in the train. So were people in the past stuck in the office due to non-mobile Internet, while they were waiting to get on the train all the time? And if so, shouldn't the office be obsolete by now? I guess there's something like the Jevons paradox lurking in here.

At the time, my job meant a long commute to an office where I would ssh into another city for my actual work. Naturally, this was idiotic. I guess the third point would be something like

3. Why paying workers for being present in the office hours is a monstrous waste of potential, if what you really want is the result of their work.

Re:A couple of ideas

[bronney]

It's insane but I also notice that not every one of us can accurately express ourselves with words i n the form of a concisely written email. While being in an office let those people directly interact face to face somehow, creating a more chaotic but ultimately satisfactory outcome. Those that could express themselves or disciplined enough to do work on their own is forced to put up with this distraction but that doesn't matter. Because in the end, it all "works"!

You have to remember, the majority of us are lazy and if asked to communicate in an efficient way while being efficient, actually takes a toll on their mental capacity to fabricate this efficiency because in real life they aren't efficient. And these people are usually also non-disciplined. Think of the chaos. I know an office environment is garbage but it's what the people with money believe, therefore we follow. Taking 5 mins smoke-break here and there, gossip about relationships, worrying about the espresso machine in the pantry. Times up, death. But they rich so.

Re:A couple of ideas

[rmdingler]

Try and remember, grammar and the associated troublesome punctuation, are the potential difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you're shit.

Re:A couple of ideas

[angel'o'sphere]

Mistakes like that are usually just typos, get over it.

Re:A couple of ideas

[Pfhorrest]

Not sure if this was the joke, but:

"Try to remember: grammar, and the associated troublesome punctuation, are the potential difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you're shit."

Re:A couple of ideas

[Hognoxious]

Bollocks, it's just ignorance.

A typo is a manual error. You don't fat-finger an extra key some distance away from the rest.

Re:A couple of ideas

[phantomfive]

2. The telephone is dying, and how can we hasten it's death.

If only someone could figure out a way to allow robocalling, then everyone would hate their phone.

Re: A couple of ideas

[chispito]

Typing is largely muscle memory. So you do.

Re:A couple of ideas

[Aighearach]

Bollocks, it's just ignorance.

A typo is a manual error. You don't fat-finger an extra key some distance away from the rest.

Wow, the depth of ignorance in this statement is incredible. I'm awestruck.

Re:A couple of ideas

[angel'o'sphere]

You really honestly want to tell me that people don't know the difference between there and their and they're ... and that you believe that? Sorry, they know. They simply make a writing mistake, and by rereading what they typed it does not catch their eye. As I said before: get over it. Not every mind ticks like yours. Not every eye works like yours. If you would speak another language, you most likely would know that. However it is funny to see native english speaking/writing grammar nazis :P

Re: A couple of ideas

[rmdingler]

It's grammatically incorrect to use a comma before the word "and".

At least , in The Queen's English , anyway , and that's all that matters. ;)

How can we trust you, clearly, a fanatical comma saver??

Re: A couple of ideas

[Pfhorrest]

It's grammatically incorrect to use a comma before the word "and".

If the "and" is separating the second-to-last and last items in a list (e.g. "Bread, butter and honey", not "bread, butter, and honey") that is a debatable stance to take. (Although the opposing position is named after Oxford, so is hardly an un-British thing).

But if the comma OP put after "punctuation" indicates that they intended "and the associated troublesome punctuation" to be a parenthetical clause, in which case it was missing the opening comma. Also acceptable, and perhaps better for clarity so people don't mis-parse it like you did, would be to de-parenthesize that clause, by omitting the the comma after "punctuation", instead. Or else to use actual parentheses to demarcate the parenthetical clause.

Re:A couple of ideas

[Hognoxious]

Says the man who thinks everyone in Ireland speaks Irish and that Thais always dive alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The term includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but excludes errors of ignorance, such as spelling errors, or the flip-flopping of words such as "than" and "then".

Re:A couple of ideas

[Hognoxious]

You really honestly want to tell me that people don't know the difference between there and their and they're

That wood a peer to bee the K's, wooden tit? They aren't typing the word wrong, they're typing the wrong word.

Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual type-setting (typography). The term includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger,[2] but excludes errors of ignorance, such as spelling errors, or the flip-flopping of words such as "than" and "then".

As I said before: get over it.

I'm right, you're wrong and I produced a citation to back it up. How about YOU get over it?

If you would speak another language, you most likely would know that.

Another? Just the one? Do you think I'm an American or something? Fail.

Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[JaredOfEuropa]

Here's one: "Why diversity of opinion is vital". Or a more sensationalist variant: "How the decline in tolerance of opposing viewpoints is killing us and our kittens"

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[dgatwood]

Here's one: "Why diversity of opinion is vital". Or a more sensationalist variant: "How the decline in tolerance of opposing viewpoints is killing us and our kittens"

I'd go the opposite direction. Rethinking the purpose of Government would start out by explaining that the sole purpose of government is to protect the powerless from the powerful, and how all legitimate government power stems from that singular purpose.

I would then touch briefly on how contrary political viewpoints are mainly caused by arguments over which powerless group to protect from which powerful group, would talk about how to tell the difference between situations where those disagreements are actually reasonable and where they are pure idiocy.

Finally, I would deep-dive into a couple of hot-button issues, and explain why the solution to disagreements is almost never "compromise", and almost always "throw out both viewpoints and start over".

For example, the issue of abortion is contentious solely because the two sides disagree about which powerless group to protect. One side wants to protect the fetus, which is powerless to protect itself against being aborted. The other side wants to protect the 11-year-old who got raped by a family member and will probably die giving birth. Any argument that either of those children shouldn't be protected should, in any sane universe, cause the politician to be defenestrated from a tenth-floor window, yet here we are, with politicians on both sides arguing exactly that.

So the solution, of course, is to throw away the entire framework for thinking about the problem. Start instead from the assumption that you can protect both, and then figure out how to design a system of laws that makes this possible.

The solution, of course, in case it isn't obvious, is to put our money where our mouths are. If we really care about stopping abortion, we should be spending more government research dollars on artificial womb research, with a goal of eliminating the false dichotomy between the right to life and the right to choose, and thus ending this useless, divisive, and generally hurtful debate once and for all.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[shanen]

Here's one: "Why diversity of opinion is vital". Or a more sensationalist variant: "How the decline in tolerance of opposing viewpoints is killing us and our kittens"

I think the Paradox of Tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... covers your topic statements. No previous topic in this discussion? Or at least you didn't reply to it.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[shanen]

Reversible abortion. Sample problem solved.

However, the abortion "problem" is actually caused by raging ignorance. It's based on the delusion that a set of genes is somehow equivalent to a unique human being. This actually goes back to the ancient idea of a tiny homunculus contained within the sperm. In the more recent form of this delusion, they think the DNA of a fertilized egg is like a blueprint that completely describes a unique human being.

WRONG. It's a heck of a lot more complicated than that, but a much closer approximation (since everyone wants a relatively simple metaphor) is a book of recipes. Lots of components and instructions, but also contingency plans and conditional mechanisms and substitute ingredients and repair instructions and even various triggers for spontaneous abortion (AKA miscarriage). Many of the results are just random and indeterminate, as when the general parameters are defined but the actual routes of the neurons are basically random. Details and activities TBD later. If everything goes well, the recipes may produce a human being (with all the associated inalienable rights), but not for a long time after fertilization produces the completed book of recipes. (Actually, about half of the recipe books aren't even sufficiently complete and 'good enough' to produce a human being.)

MUCH more could be said, but for now I'll just cite The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee and various books from Richard Dawkins.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[AmiMoJo]

I'd do "why you don't want Twitter to be a public utility".

Actually this video about PewDiePie and terrorism would make a good Ted talk: https://youtu.be/pnmRYRRDbuw

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[rtb61]

I like "Ted Talks, Mental Masturbation for The Anal Retentive, With Too Much Money and Ego", probably more of a Tedx (the poor people's TED) topic though ;D.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[epine]

I'd go the opposite direction. Rethinking the purpose of Government would start out by explaining that the sole purpose of government is to protect the powerless from the powerful, and how all legitimate government power stems from that singular purpose.

Do you imagine that this principle shrinks or enlarges government as we presently know it?

* if smaller, you're using the definition of "protect" endorsed by the powerful
* if larger, you're using the definition of "protect" endorsed by the powerless

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[dgatwood]

Do you imagine that this principle shrinks or enlarges government as we presently know it?

Both, actually. Both sides are correct. The purpose of government is to serve the people by serving as a voice for those who have no power, protecting them from those who do, including protecting their rights when that second group happens to be the government itself. And that is a delicate balance at times.

On the one hand, there are entirely too many useless regulations in a lot of areas. And too many regulations are poorly thought out, resulting in unforeseen side effects, but never properly revisited and revised or rolled back. On the other hand, there are too many important things that the government should protect against, but doesn't. Of course, one reason government often fails to protect the powerless is that they are so busy chasing down minor things that shouldn't even be violations (e.g. the war on drugs), distracting their focus from things that actually do matter.

Large-scale deregulation is almost always harmful, in my experience. However, carefully eliminating regulations that no longer make sense can often create opportunities for new companies and services to come into existence that would not be practical under existing regulations. The main problem is not that deregulation is inherently bad, but rather that bad people tend to push for deregulation that is in their best interest. Government, therefore, needs to approach any discussion of deregulation carefully, objectively identifying who will benefit from the removal of each regulation, and ensuring that the public as a whole will actually benefit on the whole, eliminating only regulations that are impeding useful progress, and not regulations that are impeding progress towards harming the public.

The best way to ensure that deregulation happens in ways that are net-positive, in my opinion, is to change the way Congress operates entirely. I think that members of Congress should be required to live in their districts for a minimum of ten months out of the year while in office. They should meet to figure out committee assignments in person, and then go back to their district offices except on special occasions. All communication, all floor votes, all discussion of issues, etc. should be done electronically from within their districts. This has the benefit of making it easy for their constituents to lobby them and making it 535 times harder for people and companies who are not their constituents to lobby them in bulk. This approach also has the advantage of making it significantly harder for terrorists or foreign governments to significantly disrupt the government with a single attack.

As for the size of government, I think it needs to both shrink AND expand. I think government needs to be massively streamlined over the course of a couple of decades, using bonuses to push towards increased automation, and a combination of attrition and early retirement payouts to reduce unnecessary staffing — not in any specific areas, but rather globally, throughout the entire government, at literally every level.

By doing that, the government will have more resources to spend on more important things than B.S. administrative tasks, such as engaging in enforcement actions against individuals and businesses that violate the law egregiously, developing proposals for new laws that would prevent abuses that they become aware of, etc. Basically, we need fewer paper pushers and more public advocates (and I mean that in the loosest, most general use of the term, not in the sense of needing more government lawyers or ombudsmen, though perhaps we need more of those, too).

Regarding cleaning up our legal code, I think that new regulations should have sunset clauses, forcing every law to be revisited and updated based on current understanding of the nation's problems on an ongoing basis, possibly with a more lightweight means of making minor tweaks and re-passing the law without the

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[dgatwood]

However, the abortion "problem" is actually caused by raging ignorance. It's based on the delusion that a set of genes is somehow equivalent to a unique human being. This actually goes back to the ancient idea of a tiny homunculus contained within the sperm. In the more recent form of this delusion, they think the DNA of a fertilized egg is like a blueprint that completely describes a unique human being.

Actually, by your own argument, being able to "reverse" the abortion (presumably by recreating the DNA) would then not be a solution, because that would produce a different person than the aborted fetus would have. So I'm not entirely sure where you're going with that logic, but if it is an attempt at justifying abortion, it doesn't work very well. Or are you arguing that abortion should not be allowed, because even people whose genes are likely to create non-viable fetuses might turn out okay?

If everything goes well, the recipes may produce a human being (with all the associated inalienable rights), but not for a long time after fertilization produces the completed book of recipes. (Actually, about half of the recipe books aren't even sufficiently complete and 'good enough' to produce a human being.)

One part you're leaving out is that we aren't ever entirely sure which half. But either way, you're still killing something that has a 50/50 shot of eventually becoming a person, barring intervention, which is why a lot of people object to abortion. And either way, belittling people who disagree with abortion using phrases like "raging ignorance" does no one any good.

At this point, it is worth noting that significantly more Americans think abortion is morally wrong than think that it is morally acceptable. For most, arguments in favor of the right to choose are not based on moral acceptance of abortion, but rather stem predominantly from a strong desire to not force one's own morals and religious beliefs onto others, perhaps coupled with a recognition that in some cases, such as rape, incest, extreme fetal defects, etc., abortion is not morally cut-and-dried. And each of those arguments can, in turn, become a slippery slope in either direction. So you should be careful not to assume that a "right to choose" position reflects a belief in the morality of abortion, nor that a "right to life" position reflects a lack of understanding of science.

As I said earlier, IMO, at least among people who are aware of the relatively advanced state of artificial womb research, the only truly moral approach to the abortion debate is to focus on eliminating the false dichotomy between the right to choose and the right to live. Few would object to a ban on abortion if it were possible to trivially separate the fetus from the mother in a safe way that resulted in the mother no longer being in any way responsible for that fetus's well-being, because it would be almost inarguably morally wrong to abort a fetus, given such an alternative (with the possibility of debate about severe fetal defects, but even those problems can potentially be solved through careful gene splicing, making even that argument an entirely temporary one). And every bit of energy spent arguing over the current false dichotomy, every campaign dollar spent on it, etc. is time, energy, and money that could be spent towards an actual alternative to abortion that would make the entire argument moot.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[Hognoxious]

Managing diversity of opinion is hard. Just go for diversity of appearance and hope nobody notices the difference.
--
every HR department ever

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[shanen]

Thanks for asking about the parts you couldn't understand. NOT.

Hint. When I wrote "reversible", I meant "reversible".

You'll just have to forgive me for not apologizing for my miserable inability to express myself clearly.

However, there is a funny punchline here. It's actually possible you agree with me. However by the time I scraped that much of your possible meaning out of your comment, I had already wasted more time on you than your attitude justified.

But I probably started it, so that makes it my fault. I was somehow "asking for it" in my original comment, and then I just always tend to give a bit too much tit for tat. Or maybe it's just a "Today's Internet" thing?

Seems to me I can safely regard this "discussion" as terminated. Good day, sir.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[JaredOfEuropa]

It would make for an interesting part in a talk on diversity of opinion. I'd say that the paradox of tolerance has been misused a lot lately, in fact "don't tolerate intolerance" has become a rallying cry for those who aim to censor not just intolerant speech, but any opposing viewpoint as well simply by labeling it as "intolerant", and the progenitor as well, in order to forever brand him as unworthy of any public platform.

That doesn't mean that the paradox isn't real. But inviting a diversity of opinion does not necessarily mean inviting all opinions including the truly intolerant ones; it is mostly an invitation to get out of your own echo chamber and try to break open the echo chambers of others: there is no clash between the paradox of tolerance and diversity of opinion. There might be a line of tolerance we have to draw somewhere, but that's more interesting to address in a debate than a TED talk.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[shanen]

The complexity of the analysis is what makes it a tough paradox to wrestle with. It's really hard to draw the lines.

However I think there are clearly cases where intolerant people are being intellectually dishonest. They are using the theory of tolerance to claim that they deserve to be tolerated, which is only true until they reveal their real intentions to be intolerant. They would not need to play the jujitsu games if they actually had intellectual integrity.

Extreme examples abound these days. I think the projection is what annoys me the most.

By the way, I am not sure that I can really claim to be tolerant. I'm simply indifferent to most viewpoints, sometimes including my own. It may sort of look like too much tolerance, but in actuality I just don't much care about opinions without evidence and I have rather strict guidelines for what constitutes valid evidence.

Having said that, I do agree with the old saying about opinions as art (and I'm merely trying to ignore the fools with fake facts).

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[dgatwood]

You can safely assume that anything I say publicly on the subject is mainly intended to encourage discussion, rather than to indicate any actual opinion on my part. I often argue positions that I don't hold, just to try to get people to explain *why* they feel a particular way, because I think that's the only way we can gain mutual understanding and appreciation between two political sides that seem to grow farther apart with every passing day.

It's actually possible you agree with me.

*shrugs* I don't really have a dog in the fight, so I don't have a strong opinion either way. Both sides have valid points (both morally and legally), which is why I think we need to take a step back and look for another option that would overcome both sides' objections.

Whether you support stricter abortion laws or oppose them, I think we can all agree that no matter which way the laws shift, everybody loses but the lawyers. There will always be people pushing for more interference and there will always be people pushing for less, and the matter will never be settled unless we can find a third option. Artificial wombs are already in animal testing, so that's not only possible, but likely to happen within our lifetimes. That's why I proposed that as a possible third option.

Contrary opinions are, of course welcome, as every new piece of information helps inform my worldview. If you know of a way to actually have a reversible abortion, I'd be curious to hear it, as at least in theory, the concept is fascinating.

Either way, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the ethical implications of artificial incubation for non-viable fetuses, whether/when removal from that incubation is considered to be birth, abortion, or removal of end-of-life support, when/whether insurance should consider such intervention to be medically necessary, whether women should have the right to refuse such a transfer (on religious grounds, privacy grounds, or something else I haven't even thought of) if a doctor deems it medically necessary, or any of the myriad other complex ethical and moral issues involved.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[shanen]

Okay, I'm not going to write you off. Yet.

I'm still offended. I'm NOT going to invest more time in this thread, except to not that I already included a couple of references, if more data is what you wanted.

Okay, just one more item of a slightly complicated sort. The natural approach of ol' Mother Nature. Random mixing of genes, but seeking equilibrium. Half the random combinations are worse than average. Therefore nature's equilibrium is four kids with two dying before reproducing. Just the averages to sustain equilibrium, but people don't like that idea. Therefore I support passive eugenics to reduce the dying. It can be reworded as a right to reproduce while pushing the odds in favor of better combinations of genes for each person. Reversible abortion is one implementation approach on the edge of today's medical technology, though it can also be implemented with old techniques such as amniocentesis.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[shanen]

s/except to not/except to note/

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[dgatwood]

Therefore I support passive eugenics to reduce the dying.

You're saying you want to prevent kids who won't make it much past birth from being created? A better approach is to work towards gene therapy to correct those sorts of genetic defects — ideally, in one or both parents, to fix the recessive traits before they can combine to cause problems. Any strategy involving limiting reproduction is likely to inevitably degrade to the point where one group of people declares another group unfit to have kids, which I'm assuming is not your intent.

Re:Taking a cue from a previous topic.

[shanen]

No, that is NOT what I am saying. NOT EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE. Only a willful desire to prevent dialogue can explain such a lie. Well, I suppose there are other possibilities. For example certain pharmaceuticals.

I am no longer able to believe you have any intention of nor capability for sincere intellectual activity. Therefore I regard this "conversation" as terminated.

standing ovation!

[tommeke100]

Every Ted Talk ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Snarky

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Censorship and integrity in regard to TED owners who chose to ban the talk which is mentioned in this /. submission.

Re:Snarky

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

Censorship and integrity in regard to TED owners who chose to ban the talk which is mentioned in this /. submission.

Except it wasn't banned, this is the same link as in the article which tells the full story. https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch...

Re: Snarky

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Hilarious this talk is not available on.

Re: Snarky

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

Hilarious this talk is not available on.

Truely hilarious is that the talk in question was posted by TED on youtube https://youtube.com/watch?v=bB...
TED does not host every talk on their home page.

Re: Snarky

[shanen]

That YouTube account has no relationship to TED. I'm not sure how the video was distributed, but TED was NOT involved. On the TED website, they initially pretended the talk never existed. Then there was a discussion, but it was quickly aborted.

Re: Snarky

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

That YouTube account has no relationship to TED. I'm not sure how the video was distributed, but TED was NOT involved. On the TED website, they initially pretended the talk never existed. Then there was a discussion, but it was quickly aborted.

TED claims to own that account, if you know otherwise please post a link. https://blog.ted.com/how-did-n...
The youtube link I provided is the same as in the blog.

Stop and appreciate life once in awhile

[rmdingler]

It could be as simple as "I live in a first world nation!" and my worst day never includes "Find food to feed my family for today" on the to-do list.

It could be as complex as "I have enough food to get two of my three kids through the winter". Imagine having to bright-side that bit of luck.

The Intellectual Yet Idiot

[js290]

"The modern IYI has attended more than one TEDx talks in person or watched more than two TED talks on Youtube."

Doom

[duke_cheetah2003]

My talk about be about how we're all pretty much screwed and humanity is on the path of extinction, so may as well go full anarchy now.

Re:Doom

[shanen]

I think we're in a race condition. Will we create our AI successors before we exterminate ourselves? And if so, will they keep any of us in their zoos?

However, I'm pretty sure there are a number of TED talks along these lines.

Re:Doom

[duke_cheetah2003]

However, I'm pretty sure there are a number of TED talks along these lines.

Naw. TED talks can sometimes be alarmist, but they always got some message of hope in there. Mine would have no such thing.

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Betteridge's law: is it actually true?

Re:Ob

[shanen]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

For context. But is your comment supposed to be a recursive joke?

If not, then obviously the question wasn't directed to you.

Great talk by Hanauer

[gweihir]

Of course that capitalism critically needs to get money to the masses in order for it to work is obvious (if apparently too difficult in its simplicity for a lot of people to understand). As long as the mechanism for the distribution of capital is "jobs", that means that in a working capitalism there must be lots of jobs and they must be well-paid (again something too difficult, apparently, for many people to understand). What is however really impressive is that somebody with a lot of money realistically recognizes this and talks about it publicly.

Getting old sucks

[Snotnose]

I never had an offer for any job I interviewed for before I turned 50. At 53 I decided to join a startup. Which went sneakers up in 2 years.

Guess what? I can't even get an interview now. I even shaved the first 10 years of my career off my resume. I've been living off savings for my highest earning years, and I'm not happy about it.

Re:Getting old sucks

[angel'o'sphere]

Then come to Europe.

Re:Getting old sucks

[shanen]

The line to give that talk is long. I'm in it, too.

I predict TED is not interested, though you might try to give it at a TEDx and see what happens.

However, I can explain why it's an issue that needs a solution in terms of ekronomics.

Re:Getting old sucks

[phantomfive]

Check out Triplebyte (or similar), they hide your age from potential companies.

Some companies discriminate based on age, but some don't. And some value the experience that comes with age. The key is to find companies in the last two categories and ignore the first.

Math vs art

[TeknoHog]

Mathematics and programming as art and culture: The false dichotomy of being either numerate or creative. This may seem like "duh" for many a /.er, but think back at the high school cliques, and the way they influence career choices. Also, think about the ways math was taught.

Re:Math vs art

[shanen]

Pretty sure I've seen several TED talks along those lines, but I don't have any links close to hand.

Re:Math vs art

[Hognoxious]

It's not exactly a new idea. I'm pretty sure there were actual paper books on the subject.

And a song by Rush.

Title: The vast majority of ideas suck

[ceoyoyo]

I'd talk about how the vast majority of ideas are wrong, silly, impractical, or outright damaging. I'd give some examples of charismatic ideas that fall into this category. Then I'd discuss how we invented a great idea sieve, to sort out the few worthwhile ideas from the rest. I'd mention that the sieve is not called "a TED curator."

Re:Title: The vast majority of ideas suck

[fermion]

But one good idea is building a con so people pay $10,000 just so they can say that they might be able to attend a talk.

A con of this magnitude deserves its own TED talk.

Politics and self-righteousness

[Oloryn]

How self-righteousness dominates=4 modern politics and public discourse (on both sides), and how self-righteousness will turn you into a monster, even if you're right.

How easy it is to meet Paris Accords by 2025

[WillAffleckUW]

My TED Talk would be about literally how easy it would be for the US and Canada to meet and exceed the Paris Accords, achieving 100 percent Renewable Power for electricity by 2025, removing all fossil fuel infrastructure depreciation, deductions, and exclusions, and literally MAKE MONEY and save US and Canadian taxpayers money by doing it.

Step by step.

I'd like to thank Capilano University and the University of Washington for the scientific, business, and economic education that made that possible, of course. And another alumnus for getting me started on this path when she made me realize why paper recycling programs weren't doing well - by bringing it back to supply and demand, and allowing me to see a lot of what drives this is literally capital formation and assumptions of risk by the public for actions that cause damage to us.

Re:How easy it is to meet Paris Accords by 2025

[Anonymous Coward]

removing all fossil fuel infrastructure depreciation, deductions, and exclusions

Any single goal is easy with a centrally managed economy. Maintaining a society with a central economy is not.

Renewables as a whole are not economically competitive or we would already have 100% renewables. One of the primary baffles to that end is the army of people spreading lies. Speak the truth and face reality in order to change it.

Re:How easy it is to meet Paris Accords by 2025

[sfcat]

My TED Talk would be about literally how easy it would be for the US and Canada to meet and exceed the Paris Accords, achieving 100 percent Renewable Power for electricity by 2025, removing all fossil fuel infrastructure depreciation, deductions, and exclusions, and literally MAKE MONEY and save US and Canadian taxpayers money by doing it.

Step by step.

I'd like to thank Capilano University and the University of Washington for the scientific, business, and economic education that made that possible, of course. And another alumnus for getting me started on this path when she made me realize why paper recycling programs weren't doing well - by bringing it back to supply and demand, and allowing me to see a lot of what drives this is literally capital formation and assumptions of risk by the public for actions that cause damage to us.

Sooooooooooooo, nuclear power then?

Re:How easy it is to meet Paris Accords by 2025

[WillAffleckUW]

It's 2019, not 1979. Renewables are much cheaper than fossil fuels.

"Have TED Talks jumped the Shark?"

[93 Escort Wagon]

Have TED Talks Jumped the Shark? The growing irrelevancy of TED Talks.

Main points:
1) Andy Warhol was more right than he knew - "15 minutes of fame" isn't just for individuals, it's for everything
2) How a good idea can be driven into the ground by mediocre people jumping onto the bandwagon
3) There is no Point 3, please move on with your lives

I'd like to thank you all for attending - be sure to buy my book!

Re:"Have TED Talks jumped the Shark?"

[leonbev]

I think that most people know that the TED talk fad jumped the shark about 4 years ago, so you wouldn't really be doing more than stating the obvious there.

Re:"Have TED Talks jumped the Shark?"

[93 Escort Wagon]

I think that most people know that the TED talk fad jumped the shark about 4 years ago, so you wouldn't really be doing more than stating the obvious there.

So... that makes it a perfect topic for a TED talk, right? :-D

Re:"Have TED Talks jumped the Shark?"

[Hognoxious]

GP reminds me of Cream's first gig which was in a small Manchester club. 650,000 people were there.

Re:"Have TED Talks jumped the Shark?"

[Daralantan]

My supervisor and team lead at work often have us watch TED Talks. Our supervisor had us watch the one she said was her absolute favorite one ever.... and it was basically "You'll never get anywhere without a friend in a high place so do that."

The most popular TED talks

[Beeftopia]

So I'd heard a lot about TED talks, had seen a few on video, and in considering this question, I wondered, what can the subjects be about? Here are the 25 most popular TED talks. They're supposed to 18 minutes or less. The acronym stands for "Technology, Entertainment, Design". So, some ideas I'd like to see:

Technology:
* "Avoiding "Guru Syndrome": Start with the Tenerife crash, where two 747s collided on the runway. The copilots knew something was f-cky but wouldn't tell/challenge the captain, and ended with 583 dead in a fireball as the 747s collided at takeoff speed. In programming, in business, in the workplace, one guy sometimes can be though of as knowing everything. He doesn't.

* "Listening With Humility": No matter how smart you are, and no matter how dumb your client, user or patient is, listen with humility, listen like you're trying to learn, and you can get better results.

Business:
* "Stopping Control Fraud": How to create organizational structures which are resistant to control fraud.

* "How to persuade people to give you money?": I am definitely no expert at this, but I'd like to see a discussion. I see panhandler and charities making money - what desire are they fulfilling in people? I see squeegee boys getting money - what desire are they fulfilling in their "patrons"? I see patent trolls, landlords, pharmaceutical companies, prostitutes, government contractors, lawyers: Why do people give each other money?

Finance:
* "What is money?": How do we get people to pick up the trash at zero dark thirty in freezing weather, slaughter cattle, lay pavement, build skyscrapers, go to war, with slips of paper?

* "What is MMT?": Funding the government via seignorage is an old idea that typically doesn't end well. Why is it becoming popular again?

* "What drives the economy?": I'd say it's human desire. Can it be reduced to equations? Or do you need a coherent theory of human behavior first?
 

Re:The most popular TED talks

[Alypius]

The Tenerife crash is a case study at the Naval School of Aviation Safety for crew resource management. It's basically summed up as "no one is too junior to say something and no one is too senior to listen."

Re:The most popular TED talks

[shanen]

Several interesting ideas, but only a couple of concrete reactions:

* "How to persuade people to give you money?": I am definitely no expert at this, but I'd like to see a discussion. I see panhandler and charities making money - what desire are they fulfilling in people? I see squeegee boys getting money - what desire are they fulfilling in their "patrons"? I see patent trolls, landlords, pharmaceutical companies, prostitutes, government contractors, lawyers: Why do people give each other money?

I'd like to persuade people to let me give them money for solutions. Tag is CSB (Charity Share Brokerage) for crowd funding with project management and accountability.

* "What is money?": How do we get people to pick up the trash at zero dark thirty in freezing weather, slaughter cattle, lay pavement, build skyscrapers, go to war, with slips of paper?

I think economics is worthless because money is, too. It's the time that really matters. In ekronomics, everything starts with the time. Cleaning up the garbage is in the category of essential work and it deserves to be prioritized and even honored on that basis.

Guaranteeing Life with a Transatmospheric Railroad

[dreamer.redeemer]

It is a survival imperative that monetary value be reimagined to significantly include the relative sustainability of the evaluated; that the objective of obtaining wealth become not just itself--which by definition guarantees nothing but obtaining wealth--but to prolong the survivability of Life, however indirectly. Such a transition would put the highest priorities on food, water, and energy security, construction of a space elevator (or etc.) + the colonization of space, and balancing ecological and geological systems. Major progress in these objectives would usher in a new era of commerce, technology, biology, science, exploration, and practically everything else. But there isn't a big window in which this more readily achievable; major suppressions on the horizon are life-like VR coupled with mastery of neural hacks taking soft control of wide swaths of the population (there's already quite a bit of success with far from life-like simulations), and the depletion of our freebie super dense energy supplies AKA fossil fuel. Until there are independently sustainable pockets of life separated by large amounts of space, our billions of years of toil and reproduction is at a very high risk of amounting to nothing, the inconceivable cumulative effort of countless organisms could be undone with a single unfortunate event.

Not sure about Ted talks

[Kohath]

Here’s a topic I’d go with:

"Stories are not reality and you don't know the future"

Recite extremely ordinary examples of people making up stories based on very common stereotypes of individuals, things they're worried about, etc. People use these made up stories to make decisions, even though they know they just made them up. Then show how the reality is different and the decisions don't make sense.

Death to video presentations. or from.

[clovis]

My topic? One of these
This
"Which is better: An hour of a talking head, or an hour of someone reading an all-text Powerpoint?"
Or
"The rise of lengthy video presentations for simple concepts, and why tens of thousands of Americans kill themselves with opiates each year."

The joys of fart sniffing...

[steak]

and navel gazing.

"Solving for the meta-problem in politics"

[sigmabody]

Politics in the US is a mess; divisiveness is up, discourse is down, and partisan fighting takes priority over any improvement. Swapping one side for the other won't fix this, and people are too focused on the symptoms to address the underlying problem. There are plenty of people in the country with plenty of reasonable ideas for improvement in government, but no practical way to affect any actual improvement.

If we want to fix the underlying problem, we have to solve for the meta-problem: how to get better quality people in office, preferably not politicians, and certainly not just people on "the other side". This is a solvable problem, and possibly the most important problem for modern society, yet we're making minimal progress on it. Hopefully sometime soon we can start trying to solve the actual problem.

Re: American Healthcare is Fscked

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite is how if you have a doctorate of nursing and work in an actual medical practice, you can insist people use the title "Doctor" in reference to you.

Screw medical school and residency- that's for suckers.

Public Schools & Online News are Killing Ameri

[mattmarlowe]

Public schools were supposed to be value neutral environments that encouraged equal opportunity for all.
They failed. Thy aren't value neutral and they don't give equal opportunity. At the same time, they've promoted group think, discouraged curiosity, and allowed politicians to more easily rewrite history and tailor the views of future voters who are less informed and more easy to please.

Online news is very similar - people were actually more curious and wiser when they had to read the newspaper everyday and hunt information. Newspapers were much more effective at providing balanced coverage than modern media. Much of the internet is an intellectual wasteland.

Department of redundancy department

[Hognoxious]

defenestrated from a tenth-floor window

As opposed to a tenth-floor door?

Re:US politics = personal freedom vs economic free

[shanen]

Almost invisible as AC comment. If you can't put your name on it, you aren't going to get any substantive reply.

About my sig and freedom

[shanen]

I should have included my sig with my submission, eh? Or more likely there's no interest? (I finally did find one reference to "freedom" hidden in an AC comment.)

So here's a more accurate version (also working around the bad fonts and lack of "not equal" in Slashdot):

Freedom #1 = (Meaningful + Truthful - Coerced) Choice{~5} <> (Beer^4 | Speech | Trade)

Having said that, while I could in theory talk about it for some minutes, I'd hate that form of presentation. I'd prefer to ask people what they think it means. If I actually have to explain anything, I'd prefer to use questions...

Re:About my sig and freedom

[phantomfive]

Where does the {~5} come from?

Re:About my sig and freedom

[shanen]

The {~5} is the number of choices in play at one time. It's based on the human working memory. For most people that's from 3 to 7, though experts in a particular area may be able to handle more. Handling more options at a time can even be regarded as one of the definitions of expertise.

If the number is too small, say 0 choices or 1 choice, then there is no real freedom, but you get more freedom as the choices increase--for a while. I remember reading at least one book about it. What happens when the choices become too numerous (somewhere above 5?) is that you (1) start losing your freedom, because it's too hard to make the best choices and too easy for your options to be manipulated and (2) you tend to become less and less satisfied with any choice you make because you keep thinking about all the choices you didn't pick.

So do you want me to dig around for the reference? Maybe I can find more than one.

Re:About my sig and freedom

[Aighearach]

~5 is visual working memory, not the constraints of working memory generally. That is not at all a limit on choices. Even something simple like remembering a phone number takes remembering more than 5 things.

For example, in food selection at a supermarket, humans limit themselves to about 50 different products that they sometimes buy. Whereas orangutans have better working memory and select from around 250 different food items.

Re:About my sig and freedom

[shanen]

I think you need to read some more about how memory works. Or observe your own thinking more carefully? Also I'd suggest some of the books about mnemonic tricks.

For your specific example of phone numbers, researchers have actually done quite a bit of research, starting back when phone numbers were 7 digits. They discovered that short-term memory was generally strained at 7 digits, though many people used natural mnemonic tricks, such as remembering the digits in pairs. For example, if there's a 4 and a 3 in the phone number, then a person may tag it as 43 and temporarily link it to some personal reference to that number, thus using only one memory slot.

I've actually remembered one specific reference for the manipulation problem at the high end. If I remember correctly, the book Nudge included some material about arranging grocery shelves to manipulate the choices made. Insofar as the authors are supposed to be linked to the Libertarians, I found it rather amusing that they argued in favor of manipulating people for their own good. Vaguer memories of controlling the shopping experience in other books.

My personal examples of being daunted into submission involve electronics or smartphone stores. When the of options becomes too numerous, even overwhelming, my first strategy is to find some concrete criteria that I can use to eliminate as many options as possible. Okay, "daunted into submission" is an exaggeration, but I generally don't even try to figure out if any of the eliminated models has other features making them worthy of consideration. At the end I wind up trying to do close comparisons among the 3 to 5 remaining candidates--and I actually find it reassuring if they are similar. It's evidence that there is real competition and some degree of convergence on that balance point for good value. (It's called a satisfier approach, but if applied carefully it should approach the best decision while requiring much less time and effort.)

Re:About my sig and freedom

[Aighearach]

Once you say "observe your own thinking" I already know you're not following the subject, even the basic stuff they publish in New Scientist.

The way memory works is not the way remembering feels like it works. It is as simple as that.

Quantization of attention doesn't even happen the way it feels like it does! And that's the most focused part of your subjective awareness.

Being credulous of how shit feels is the path to nonsensical blahblah, not understanding of the human brain. It is embarrassing to see somebody recommend it, right next to trying to paraphrase research results.

You're conflating a different type of memory than is involved in choosing between various items. You don't have to have all the choices in that part of your memory to choose between them. Like in what you talked about; you don't need to hold the 10 digits of a phone number in your short term memory in order to choose between calling that number or calling a different one. And you can choose between calling many more phone numbers than you can easily memorize if they have labels, descriptions, or other meta-data to index them.

Re:About my sig and freedom

[shanen]

Great attempt to motivate me to provide the citations. NOT.

I actually keep the books in a little database I wrote, but the way the subject indexes work it takes a bit of effort to find stuff at that level. I have concluded you aren't worth that much effort.

I suppose everything comes back to time? I also used to keep track of the magazines I'd read.

Another "discussion" that can safely be regarded as terminated.

Re:About my sig and freedom

[Aighearach]

I don't want your citations. You're not doing research with a slashdot post, so they would be substantially out of context and it would be weird.

You can't "terminate" slashdot discuss. Don't be such a dill weed. You said some random stupid shit. No problem. I corrected parts of it that you had spewed that didn't match the state of the art, instead of listening to the ideas presented and evaluating them, you're going all "citation" and posturing. Because you're unable to understand and discuss the very specific details I mentioned.

It is OK not to understand everything. And it is OK that you included something you didn't really remember in your attempt at a joke. But that doesn't mean you control what other people say, or that they won't get to correct you. I did get to correct you. And I don't give a rats ass if you understand it or not. I didn't correct you for your benefit. I corrected you for whoever might read it. You didn't even imagine that, eh?

Connectomes:How to create a back-up of one's mind.

[virtualXTC]

I'd begin with an introductory example of how a human makes a decision and how artificial neural nets were designed to mimic that sort of weighted decision tree.

I'd then go on to explain what inhibitory and excitatory nodes are and how changing the weights in a weighted tree can produce what we consider a stored memory.

I'd follow with some examples about how our conscious mind is really only designed to process the difference between the expected and the actual outcomes in our environment, and why this would make sense evolutionarily.

I'd convey the dogma in neuroscience around memories being encoded in our brains synapses, then introduce the concept of a connectome as a graph of the entire set of those connections.

I'd talk about the interfaces being developed in DARPA's NESD project. I would then talk about the current destructive mapping technologies being used in the Lichtman lab and in the Blue Brain Project. And then I'd discuss that while DARPA is on a good path for brain restoration, none of these read technologies will help you in the event of a head injury or Alzheimer's.

I'll talk about the macro multi-network approaches to reading using MRI. I'd demonstrate their power by showing a short clip of auditory decodings of people listing to spoken works in an fMRI and discuss why there's an echo. I'd follow with a similar published example for visual data.

I'd finish the lecture discussing how I envision solving the high-resolution read problem. How the connectome backup will likely be sold with various levels of resolution (like VHS, DVD, and BlueRay). Then discuss my current projects to create synaptic level non-destructive imaging technologies and how once fully proven we could get an even more nuanced map.

I would talk about paradigm shifts

[poity]

...and what to expect in the year 2070

Re:I would talk about paradigm shifts

[shanen]

Something beyond Kuhn? Or just a review?

I was actually surprised that The Gene didn't seem to be aware of the notion of paradigm shift.

PC Watercooling (design and installation)

[war4peace]

It's my passion, not my job.

Something I really know about ...

[Qbertino]

... and have interesting and counter intuitive insights to provide with. Like, you know, the typical Ted talk prerequisite.

Re:Something I really know about ...

[Daralantan]

I remember some TED Talk where this guy talked about balance or whatever and was doing a bunch of tricks like juggling, carrying tables, riding unicycles, turning off all the lights. So I guess the other option is to just distract people with entertainment and spout out random ideas at them.

i would talk about politicis and religion

[FudRucker]

and how there is no shortage of stupid people to be cheerleaders for either one, try to wake people up to not being controlled and manipulated by politics and religion so they can independently think for themselves for a change

Re:i would talk about politicis and religion

[shanen]

Minor problem... Many, probably most, people don't want to be bothered with freedom. Too much effort.

Probably best covered in one of the senses of "free beer" in my sig.

Duning, Kruger & cryptography

[Anonymous Coward]

There are so many relevant examples that you'd think this talk would write itself.
Sadly, it hasn't.

From recent memory on memory speculations

[shanen]

Now for the complicated new question. It involves memory and epistemology and neuroscience. I haven't read anything like this, but I'm hoping you can point me at the right research to read. It's even possible that it's a new idea, and in that case I hope you are amused, but mostly the question is about what I should read next...

I need to provide context with one of my old theories about language. I believe that our linguistic capacity is highly over-engineered. It is one thing to use language, but we have much greater capabilities than that. One relatively minor example is the ability to learn several languages. We humans not only have the ability to use language, but the much greater capability to generate language. I think this was required simply because there was no one to create our language for us. If we had only evolved the mental capacity to use language, we'd still be waiting for it. (It also helps explain the wide range of capabilities: Only a few creators were strictly required.)

It's also important to realize that we have subverted the capabilities of our mental hardware. Whatever was driving the evolution of the capabilities to use language, it was a conversion of general purpose mental hardware from other purposes. There must have been a major cascade effect at some point, or maybe a series of cascades, but if we want to know more, we can only hope that "the aliens" were recording our progress. (I should apologize to Professor Harari for the appeal to science fiction?)

The extension into memory, especially visual memory, in relation to reading is hard to describe. (This time I'm pointing at Umberto Eco and Jorge Luis Borges.) Our visual memory is dealing with patterns and higher levels of patterns. For example, at a lower level the hardware is picking up various kinds of stripes, while at a higher level we might store notions like "zebra" or "tiger" and associate the ideas with food or danger. Each simple pattern of stripes and loops on the paper links directly and (relatively) unambiguously to an easily remembered node for the appropriate word.

With language and especially with reading we can store the higher level concepts much more effectively. Rather than remembering complicated images, the ideas can be condensed to convenient word-level (and even phrase-level or higher) modules. Though books seem to have lots of information, we can remember and access that information unexpectedly well because we are subverting parts of the memory system that were originally used for storing much more complicated visual data. As we learn to read well we are compressing the information that needs to be stored and eventually bypassing the auditory hardware completely, with the condensed (and simpler) memories of visual words in the visual cortex linking directly to the cognitive and semantic areas of the brain. Or perhaps it is the cognitive areas that expand into the visual storage areas? Those are the kinds of research questions that I'm now interested in and hoping you might be able to point me at...

Re:From recent memory on memory speculations

[virtualXTC]

It's unlikely our language processing is over-engineered as we certainly lost some other of neural processing due to the change (check out this episode of MindFeild which covers this in some depth https://www.youtube.com/watch?...). Most animals already have some language and tone interpreters built in, thus language interpretation need not evolve at exactly the same time as the ability to accidentally make sounds that can more uniquely communicate your intention. However, one can imagine the increased benefit in survival one might have by being able to quickly learn sound mannerism of the ruling family & neighboring tribes, and thus those already having superior interpretation skills we likely selected via evolution in much the way we selected for similar genes in border collies (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?...). Moreover, it seems that the ability for complex thought (and thus the ability to further extend language) just an artifact of having being taught to name more things during development (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMqZR3pqMjg). Similarly, our ability to perceive things can be limited by whether we were taught a name for them (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgxyfqHRPoE).

Most research I've read compels me to believe that everything in the brain seems to be stored by association, this is both efficient and allows for some redundancy at the same time. There is no single node responsible for the perception of a "zebra" or "tiger" (as the "Jennifer Aniston Neuron" paper would lead you to believe) but rather provocation of a single neuron can lead to recall of the major cords associated with neuron, much like playing a 'C' on a piano might make one think of the C major chord, unless one is feeling sad, in which you might first think of C minor. (Emotional processing is why there will likely be various resolutions of a brain back-up, the first one just being the map of default connectivity, and the others how the map changes with emotion.) This same redundancy exists at the lower level processing like retinal computation (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?... for a primer), this is likely because the interconnectivity allows for better denoising of the system. Thus, while a single neuronal node (like the Aniston Neron) might be able to stimulate the recall/perception of a 'stripe' or 'loop', in undamaged HUMAN circuits perception never really works this way.

Reading is not always the best way to convey higher level concepts. While reading does provide a more rapid way to convey information because your brain isn't distracted by the overhead of needing to interpret body langue, tone, ones ability to recall information is more directly correlated with having an actual or imaged experience (especially an emotional one), which is why we have lab classes in science and need to actually write some code in order to learn how to program.

Your final question seems to be based on the false premise that we don't use the audio cortex when reading, and thus I cannot address directly address it. Many of the same auditory processes are still involved in reading (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982213000055). Similarly, while the brain is very plastic, the brain tends to keep the processing of like things together in a similar way across humans, and our visual cortex and navigational processing seem to happen in the same areas, but if vision is removed, some of this area can be repurposed for storage (most likely about where something was, or what it felt like). Moreover, there seems to be much more evidence that perception and memory storage happens at the network group level rather than the individual node. Memories of perceptions are stored/experienced like cords played on a piano, only when we try to recall do we run into a scenario where a single neuron/note can be linked to what one might

Re:From recent memory on memory speculations

[shanen]

Your reply mostly makes me feel that I have failed to make myself clear, but perhaps that was the natural result of transplanting the material out of its original context. Then again, it didn't seem to be particularly clear there, either. I'm inclined to think that means I need to improve my understanding more so that I can present the ideas more clearly.

Due to the confusion, or perhaps related to your writing style, I'm not seeing your reply as particularly illuminating. Your reply might be worth more study, but right now it doesn't feel that way. Your attitude definitely cut into the motivation to spend much time on your comment. Maybe there's something buried in there?

Then when you drop a rude bomb about the audio cortex in relation to reading, it makes me think you might just be highly opinionated without much foundation. The most important thing you need to learn for faster reading is to stop verbalizing, even silently.

Yes, I'm still interested in the topics, but if you don't improve your politeness, attitude, and presentation, then I think I should regard this discussion as terminated.

Ontology of TED talks?

[shanen]

Trying to understand the range of topics in this discussion gave me the idea for a TED talk on an ontology of TED talks.

Having said that, it seems difficult to imagine what it would be. The only two categories I can think of so far would be self-help ("Do this an be a better person!") talks and tech-breakthrough ("This new idea may solve that problem!") talks.

I was initially thinking of the idea of a TED-talk ontology in terms of a possible poll for Slashdot--and coming up dry on the alternatives. However the Cowboy Neal option seems pretty obvious: "Whatever Cowboy Neal says!"

At long last

[Ol Olsoc]

My talk would be how I answered one of the biggest questions that mankind has ever had:

Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?

Inane Pap

[astrofurter]

My TED talk would be about what all TED talks are about: inane pap.

My TED talk:

[CaptainDork]

Tips on how to use the goddam fucking Internet to find shit and eliminate ad lib made up ignorance.

Oh, and share that there are no motherfucking goddam nude photos of Anna Kournikova.

WatchExtraVideo is unique?

[shanen]

I looked again, but I'm focusing on the YouTube side. Nothing there to support your claim. I am unable to find any evidence on the YouTube side that the account is associated with TED. If they do "own" that YouTube account, then the TED people do not appear to want that linkage to be known. Where should I look? But I think I looked carefully at everything on that page.

What I did find on YouTube was a reminder of the "official" excuse that the TED people claimed for NOT publishing it on the TED website. I remain utterly unconvinced that the talk is too boring.

As regards your link to the TED website, the problem is that the TED people blew their credibility. At this point I am not able to trust any of the meta-commentary on the TED website. Any of it might be so-called revisionist history or just salesmanship. At the time I first learned about the first Hanauer talk, I actually felt that the discussion of that talk had been edited and distilled to focus on the "boring" excuse as most plausible--to the people who had never seen the video. I also believe that is logically consistent with trying to avoid a Streisand effect.

Went back at it one more time and realized something obvious. The "WatchExtraVideo" account only has the one video on it. I have certainly seen plenty of videos on the TED website that were much more boring than Hanauer's, but they weren't moved to this YouTube account. If this YouTube account is associated with TED, then this video appears to have received extremely unusual treatment.

Department of Pedantry

[dgatwood]

If it is a glass door, you could arguably call it defenestration. :-)

Re:US politics = personal freedom vs economic free

[rickb928]

What? Really?

How did you get this misinformed? This takes a genuine effort.

Public masturbation of 97333

[shanen]

Z^-1

About how totally awesome I am

[Hognoxious]

I would do it about how totally awesome I am. But hasn't that topic been done before by basically all of them?

Nobody's mentioned goatse yet?

[pem]

Or Natalie Portman?

Or grits?

Where am I?

The Urban/Rural divide

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And how sacrificing your soul for the latest shiny isn't always the best option.