Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, January 05, 2014

Tweeting TED

I had an affable twitter exchange with my friend Alex Knapp on the subject of TED. By all mean comment in the Moot, I would imagine Amor Mundi readers would have differing opinions on the topic.

4 comments:

Athena Andreadis said...

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.

Dale Carrico said...

Endorse!

Chad Lott said...

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".

jollyspaniard said...

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.