The anti-TED talk arguments strike me as confusing medium and message. That some TED talks are bad doesn't mean they all are.
— Alex Knapp (@TheAlexKnapp) January 5, 2014
@TheAlexKnapp Too much TED pretends to teach you something when it's selling you something, symptom of suffusion of public life with PR.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) January 5, 2014
@dalecarrico Sure, some of them. But a lot of the science and philosophy ones don't and they're often good.
— Alex Knapp (@TheAlexKnapp) January 5, 2014
@dalecarrico I mean yeah, you have to filter. But that's true with everything, no?
— Alex Knapp (@TheAlexKnapp) January 5, 2014
@TheAlexKnapp My point is critique of TED as symptom of infotainmentality isn't rendered confused just because of an occasionally good talk.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) January 5, 2014
@dalecarrico I don't have a problem with infotainment per se since our brains seem to process info better as narratives.
— Alex Knapp (@TheAlexKnapp) January 5, 2014
@dalecarrico But I don't think there's anything wrong with TED as a medium. (Especially some TEDx events, which can be quite good.)
— Alex Knapp (@TheAlexKnapp) January 5, 2014
@TheAlexKnapp As a medium? You mean, the general idea of public lectures or video of talks made available online? What's not to like?
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) January 5, 2014
@TheAlexKnapp I mean, I've enjoyed, benefited from some TED talks but still find the phenomenon generally awfully libertechbrotariantastic.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) January 5, 2014
@dalecarrico Yeah, or even a channel that promotes them. I also like the short format as an intro to particular topic.
— Alex Knapp (@TheAlexKnapp) January 5, 2014
@TheAlexKnapp Isn't the critique of TED directed more at TED qua organization, TED qua "tech" subcultural symptom?
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) January 5, 2014
@dalecarrico I'm mostly riffing off of Bratton's talk that making the rounds.
— Alex Knapp (@TheAlexKnapp) January 5, 2014
@dalecarrico The first TED talk I ever saw was this one: http://t.co/6F73SPMDiw Which perhaps makes me overly sympathetic.
— Alex Knapp (@TheAlexKnapp) January 5, 2014
@TheAlexKnapp TED's promotional packaging of infotaining sales pitches as educational in an era of MOOCification simply isn't innocent.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) January 5, 2014
@TheAlexKnapp But that is not at all to deny I've seen good TED talks or that some of my personal heroes have delivered them.
— Dale Carrico (@dalecarrico) January 5, 2014
4 comments:
TED speakers tilt heavily towards whiteAnglomale and there's a good deal of woo, extreme libertarianism and fashionable ephemera mixed in with the science. This is before we account for the fact that even some of the science talks are promotions (or the $6K tab for membership).
By the way, I don't think that science is best understood in stories. In fact, the invariably insipid "stories" that accompany intrinsically fascinating material ("If George has twelve apples and Suzie four...") may act as turnoffs for curious kids.
Endorse!
Sometimes I kind of think of TED as a record label, functioning the way record labels used to. 10% of the projects capture the imagination of the public, with 2% of that group enduring because they deserve to.
The other 90% is made up of train wrecks and subcultural specific offerings.
Another way I've thought about TED is a rebirth of the old Speech & Debate category "speech to entertain".
In the early days of their web presence the talks were much better. The best period seems to have been before the current head honcho, chris anderson I believe turned it into a Venture Capitalist circle jerk. Now most of the talks are sales pitches. You can't really educate yourself by listening to sales pitches as a general rule. Fora.tv is pretty good if you want an alternative.
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