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Ask HN: What's your favorite TED Talk?

195 points by biggitybones ↗ HN
I've been going through the thread from about a year and a half ago that has a myriad of great TED talks, watching one or two of them every few nights. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=442022)

I'm starting to run out on that thread, and I'd love to get a good compilation going that includes some from the past 2 conferences.

So, HN - what are you favorite TED talks? I'll get it started with these: Sir Ken's Robinson's talk on nurturing creativity in education (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html) and Inspiring Action through leadership (http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html)

92 comments

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[dead] dreadlabs
I'm note sure if its my favourite but its one i find really interesting. Daniel Pink's talk on Drive, what makes people motivated to perform in the workplace. Really good for employers.

There is a TED talk on it and i've seen it but i actually like the RSA animate one better which is essentially the same talk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

samdk
I don't know if they're my favorite, but Rory Sutherland's two are excellent, and I think well worth watching especially if you ever think you might be trying to sell something to someone.

Life lessons from an ad man: (http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_a...)

Sweat the small stuff: (http://www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_sweat_the_small_stu...)

RyanMcGreal
It seems to me that the word for the fourth quadrant in his latter talk is: "hacking".
cmelbye
Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke...

A neuroscientist that suffered from a stroke talked about the experience and the interesting conclusion that came from it.

biggitybones
I just watched this one a few days ago... probably one of the best TED talks I've seen. It's amazing the way she could remember and understand what she was going through and explain it as she does in this talk.
barmstrong
This is one of those talks you either love or hate. I was surprised to see it was one of the highest rated TED talks (on another site) because for some reason I found it rather irritating.
hegemonicon
What I find irritating is that a neuroscientist would be so easily drawn into mysterious, magical thinking about what was going on in her head.

Of course, I suppose I might see things differently if a blood clot turned half of my brain off for a while.

andrewl
It seems likely that most people would see things differently were they to have her experience. I like the talk, but I understand why some people do not. But I would not say she was "so easily" drawn into mysterious or magical thinking. She was drawn into it by a massive, life-changing medical event that attacked and damaged the organ which creates her mind. I think she's using the only words, metaphors, and ideas she has available to describe what is probably indescribable at base.
Oxryly
She's actually describing the archetypal enlightenment experience that many world religions (Buddhism in particular) attempt to convey.

As such trying to put the experience into words is going to be unsatisfying and even absurd. It's vaguely akin to describing the taste of a hamburger to someone who's never eaten beef or bread (or pickles, cheese, etc...). Words cannot suffice.

adriand
The only TED talk that has ever brought tears to my eyes - Jamie Oliver's: http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html
Radix
Wow, that's a very good talk. He's a bit of a bleeding heart, but in such a way, that it's clear to me he couldn't be as effective as he is if he wasn't. There is also a lot of implication on what makes a good talk here. Thanks.
RevRal
Paul Stamets on 6 ways mushrooms can save the world: http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_ca...

This talk is not about hallucinogenic mushrooms. It really opened my eyes to the awesome potential of fungi, and how this potential is largely ignored because of the connotation to "hippy" and "drugs." Fungi is just generally misunderstood. I was absolutely amazed at how thorough these clean-up jobs were, at how well the fungi consumed, not only the waste, but the toxins in the waste.

Stamets recently wrote his fungi take to cleaning oil spills: http://www.fungi.com/mycotech/petroleum_problem.html

itistoday
It's too bad he didn't discuss as well the potentials of hallucinogenic mushrooms, but thank you for this fascinating link! I suppose that would have taken an entire talk of its own though.
marknutter
I have to concur in a comment here because this TED talk was so mind blowing for me I feel I need to write down my opinions about it somewhere. The way this guy talks about mushrooms is extremely earnest and its clear he's both incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about his field. It's almost as though he can't get the information out of his mouth and into the crowd fast enough, and what's more is that he speaks like he has discovered and is revealing for the first time the world's most incredible secrets - which in a way he is. It's not over dramatic, just genuine and awesome. Watch this video!
jerf
Mike Rowe celebrates dirty jobs: http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

A surprisingly powerful ode to people who just do the work. Our jobs may not be dirty but the lessons are still interesting and applicable; connecting to startups isn't that hard.

I like many of the other linked talks too, but as of my writing this one was not posted.

masterj
That was fantastic, and I don't think I would have ever come across it otherwise.

Thank you.

ju2tin
I didn't like it. Rowe has a disingenuously self-deprecating speaking style, where he says again and again how much he "got wrong", but the subtext is how smart he is for realizing certain things that the rest of us supposedly haven't. And his big insight is that for every Steve Jobs, we need a bunch of workers to actually build the iPods? Wow, golly.

I also hate the verbal tic he demonstrates, which is becoming depressingly common, of saying "right" after every few sentences in a story. For example: "I was working on a crab boat, right? And this big wave comes over the side, right?" Etc. It's a lazy way of trying to psychologically condition the audience into agreeing with you without actually doing the hard rhetorical work of convincing them. Drives me nuts.

jamesbritt
Wow. I'm almost done watching iti right now, and didn't catch him saying 'right?' at all; maybe it happens in the earlier part, but in the last few minutes, none at all. If he's saying it, I hardly think it's meant as some subtle pysch trick.

Nor did I get the feeling that his claims of being wrong was in any way disingenuous. At worst it's a ploy to structure his talk.

Every TED talk works off the assumption that the speaker has some insight worth sharing with the audience, presumably non-obvious or non-trivial realizations, so of course he's going to try say something worth thinking about. There's nothing subtext about it; it's the whole point of being on stage.

My takeaway was not simply "for every Steve Jobs, we need a bunch of workers to actually build the iPods", but that there are a lot of seemingly oddball jobs done by happy people who did not bother to "follow their bliss", that conventional wisdom on what work might make you happy or how work should be approached might very well be wrong, and that plain old labor should not be looked down on.

ju2tin
I thought the notion that plain old labor can be a more fulfilling path than following your dreams was a tacked-on message designed to help him wrap up his talk. But in fact, it's a naive, perhaps even willfully misleading suggestion.

The examples Rowe used to back up this idea were unlikely mavericks who managed to turn undesirable or unremarkable jobs into fantastically successful businesses. Those people are just as rare, if not more so, as those who find success by "following their dreams".

Ordinary workers aren't millionaire entrepreneurs; they're janitors, or sewer workers, or Foxconn assembly line drones. Yet that's what "real work" looks like. And I notice Rowe isn't quitting his job as a TV show personality in favor of joining the road crews who "whistle while they work."

The best thing I can say about Rowe is that he ranks up there with Malcolm Gladwell in his ability to throw around a bunch of unrelated contentions and anecdotes and pretend to tie them all together with a facile and unsubstantiated thesis.

decode
In his video interview for Reddit, I thought Rowe came across as exceedingly genuine and self-aware of his position as actor and television personality, rather than worker. He also expounds on the things he has to say in the TED talk in a way that made me think the "lesson" was not just tacked on, but rather something he has spent a lot of time thinking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxudGb4VYL0

alex_c
>The best thing I can say about Rowe is that he ranks up there with Malcolm Gladwell in his ability to throw around a bunch of unrelated contentions and anecdotes and pretend to tie them all together with a facile and unsubstantiated thesis.

I think that's unfair to Rowe. He seems quite genuinely to believe two things:

1) The manual and/or menial labor required to keep society working is unfairly maligned, and this can become a problem if no one is willing to do it because it's not respected,

and

2) During his show he has met people who are perfectly happy doing these jobs, so it IS entirely possible to be happy doing them.

I agree that the message felt a bit tacked on in that talk, but it is genuine. He seems to be dedicating himself to spreading that message (see http://www.mikeroweworks.com/) - I think he tried to pick the most interesting examples he could find for this talk, which turned out to be atypical, but most of the people he meets on his show are far from millionaire entrepreneurs.

I say it's unfair to Rowe because Malcolm Gladwell's theses are more pop science for entertainment. I don't think Rowe ever claims any kind of scientific method or results - he is more campaigning for his beliefs and trying to cause what he sees as necessary change in society.

symptic
What Rowe is saying is that without those people, you wouldn't have the freedom to "follow your passion." I don't see why you're so critical of what he's saying.

Manual labor is rewarding. It may not scale, but my guess is you'll feel a lot better internally when you finish building that shed than when you create a feature for your web app. He is celebrating our capacity to more or less 'suck it up' in order to get a task accomplished, and the sort of character that builds in oneself.

How does this translate to something you may be working on? There are tasks with running a business that you may not particularly enjoy, but it's your job to just get it done.

Respect hose who do the work that you don't want to. Embrace then, because they have a bigger impact in your life than you seen to acknowledge.

targz
While I find Rowe perfectly charming and don't agree that he's disingenuous about anything in the talk I do agree in general about people being indulgent with the "right" question appended at the end of every statement. I've noticed this in many forms ("right", "yeah", "eh", "okay", etc...) for years and have basically the same analysis of it, that it conditions for agreement and is a cheap tactic, even if the speaker is relatively unconscious of it. There must be a term for it in linguistics. Going to look it up.
ajtaylor
That was a fabulous talk! Today there are far too many people (myself sometimes included) who think that some jobs are "beneath" them. Maybe the are, but someone still has to do them.

Hats off to all the folks out there who do dirty jobs!

malbiniak
This talk can't be watched enough. I introduced it to a number of my past professors who are still using it in their undergrad and grad classes.
clayrab
There are a couple the deal with choice and happiness that I found very enlightening. Matthieu Ricard's may be one of them, and was already mentioned. There is at least one other and maybe more on that general subject though.
mgrouchy
My Favorite Ted Talk is Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
jbellis
It's a good talk, but if you go read the research he's citing, he took a great deal of liberties. :-|
[dead] mattmcegg
do you have any examples?
Maven911
Where can I find the research and the liberties he used?

I really liked the RSA drawed-up version of the talk, and I thought it was based on real hard science..

jbellis
scholar.google, search for the authors names he cites
rje
I've always found the talk "Adam Savage's Obsessions" to be inspiring. His eye for detail and relentless obsession for getting things right are contagious.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/adam_savage_s_obsessions....

trafficlight
For me, it's a toss up between Adam's talk and Mike Rowe's talk.

The best part about Adam is his amazing energy and enthusiasm for everything he does.

plinkplonk
http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind... ("Vilayanur Ramachandran tells us what brain damage can reveal about the connection between celebral tissue and the mind, using three startling delusions as examples. .. Dr Ramachandran is the author of the author of Phantoms in the Brain (the basis for a Nova special), A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness and The Man with the Phantom Twin: Adventures in the Neuroscience of the Human Brain")

Very hacker like, brilliant, work.

chroma
This is also my favorite TED talk. Ramachandran has come up with some clever ways to study and heal the brain. His mirror box therapy is not only simple and effective, but his prerequisite theory was accurate yet initially based on a tiny amount of evidence.

Here's a short talk by Ramachandran on mirror neurons: http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_sh...

tunaslut
The mirror neurons talk is awesome - I saw it several months ago - thanks for reminding me about it!
avinashv
I highly recommend reading his book Phantoms in the Brain. Fascinating and approachable introduction to the kind of neuroscience--some of the talk's examples come from this book--that he talks about.
mikeleeorg
Great question. It's tough for me to single out just one favorite, though this one has had a large impact on me. It's from Dan Buettner on his study of Blue Zones and why inhabitants regularly live long lives:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100....

This talk from Robert Full also had an impact, because it reminded me to look at unrelated fields for inspiration & solutions, like as the field of biology:

http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_full_learning_from_the_gecko...

On a side note, an exercise I've had fun doing with friends lately is to ask them who among our own social circles we would like to see speak, if we held our own TED talk. And what topics we would like to speak about ourselves. It has spurned a lot of interesting discussions amongst ourselves.

ojbyrne
Clifford Stoll is mine.
Dav3xor
"And then there's this thing! ... but I don't want to talk about that today..."
ojbyrne
"Those of you who are physicists, I hear you rolling your eyes..."