There was a time when TED talks were mostly academics squeezing their usual hour long presentation into 20 minutes by simply talking really really fast. Those were fun.
After the first couple of ones that were public and on the internet, the usual self-promoting psychobabble-spouting androids moved in and now it's entirely worthless. Someone spins 30 seconds worth of insight out for half an hour, and you still somehow feel stupider when you've finished watching it.
In one of the recent Gladwell threads, someone on here coined the phrase "insight porn". TED is basically insight dogging.
EDIT: to be fair, if TED is insight dogging, this place is a sticky floored insight dungeon in some godforsaken soho basement...
There is still the occasional gem where an actual scientist shares actual new insights (for those outside of his/her field) that are exciting and fascinating, and for a moment you feel like you're watching the old TED, but even that's not what made TED stand out for me at first. When I first watched the talk by Clay Shirky[1] giving really good arguments for why the internet already has changed and will change everything, it wasn't inspiring or just "insight porn", it was educational, and it ended with an open question for us to solve.
Oh, that's how you read what I wrote. What my comment actually was meant to convey (and what I still think it actually says) was "there's still the occasional good talk now, but back then we regularly had truly excellent stuff like this talk by Clay Shirky (which admittedly is one of the best TED talks ever)."
Back in the day when TED's internet presence was pretty new and Google Reader still was alive and kicking and had a social sharing aspect (remember those golden years?), almost all of the TED talks were shared and debated heavily among my friends. Then we started sharing less and less of them, to the point were one friend shared a talk saying "finally, a good one again" and we all chimed in on how it got too popular and big for it's own good.
That's not the question. The question should be: what did you learn? I don't think I learned anything new in Robinson's talk. I enjoyed the talk in the same way as I can enjoy a good Holywood movie, but I didn't learn anything new.
A sunny and very cold Friday morning, while waiting for the bus, I overheard this conversation between two elderly women. They were talking about how the sky used to be bluer when they were younger and the cold used to feel better. They were arguing that the cold nowadays is too cold, and how the old cold used to be more forgiving.
Notice that I still picked a heartwarming personal story for the second one. See how different it is in delivery and intent to the heartwarming personal stories you get on there today.
Let me reiterate: I don't care about the audience - they don't affect me. It's the type of speaker which is attracted by the new, larger demographic that I don't like. The talks aren't written for the room any more, they're written for youtube, and by extension, the speaker's resume and lifetime earning potential. Compare the speakers' eyelines in those talks vs the new ones.
Thanks for pointing out the Robert Full talk. He gave a talk at Pixar during production of "A Bug's Life" and it was fascinating. And, yes, these older TED talks were better.
Couldn't it be that early Teds harvested low hanging fruit? By that I mean a backlog of 20 years worth of under exposed idea people? Once you've done Frans de Waal (etc.) you can't just go find another.
Exactly. It's a near perfect example of brand dilution; the quality controls started slipping pretty fast, and TEDx just dropped the floor. You cannot maximize both content production and quality at the same time -- 99.9% of ideas out there are not really worth spreading.
The OP itself is as good example of a "self-promoting psychobabble-spouting android" as it gets.
I submit that Astrophysics run on the model of American Idol is a recipe for civilizational disaster.
In other news, Zuckerberg and others launch a new $3 million Breakthrough Prize stating, "The Breakthrough Prize is our effort to put the spotlight on these amazing heroes. Their work in physics and genetics, cosmology, neurology and mathematics will change lives for generations and we are excited to celebrate them"
Prizes are also essentially worthless to promote science, people need money from the beginning to do science, if they don't, then there isn't going to be anything to receive the prize for.
I think if they were serious about supporting science, they'd be giving out medium-sized early researcher grants (maybe £/$10k-100k), but then they'd actually have to think about who to fund and take on the high risk involved in science. This way they get to take credit by osmosis for important developments after the fact.
Yes, that would be great too. I think it's purely marketing and it has nothing to do with promoting science.
Actually, on the same model, they also could give 1000 $3000 prizes, that wouldn't make a very exciting press release, but I would posit it would do much more good, because it's much more likely to target someone that really needed a bit of positive reinforcement, rather than the guy that already received lots of award for an important discovery. And this is especially important in field were prizes are rare.
But now it feel like the equivalent of 7 guy/gals winning the lottery. I highly doubt it will change much in their research (if not negatively if they decide to retire) and they wont be able to invest it in other people's work, except with great difficulty or lack of agency. I fail to see where science is gaining much.
Well, it's my understanding that most prize money won by scientists are not reinvested in their research, meaning that it act more as a regular enterprise bonus than a kind of research grant. Is it false?
In that case, I think it was proven than passing a certain mark, the amount of money in a prize get diminishing returns quickly, thus the proposal that it's more interesting to give to a lots of scientists a small sum (not necessarily $3000, that was derived from the $3 million) than for a few a big one.
All the money I win for anything goes back into my research, for what it's worth. Perhaps because I'm on the poor end for an academic mathematician.
However, it's grant money, not prize money, that I get. I have no idea how on earth I could ever win a prize for math since I'm not in line for the Fields, Abel, or Alfried Krupp prize.
I was and am at the same time not sarcastic. I would be genuinely thrilled to get $3000 and am aware that it is a stupid small amount :) There are not many smaller prizes in math that award money.
I think you have accurately summarized the existing academic world in one paragraph. If only 10% of grads get a professorship, someone much higher paid will be taking credit for most of your work, etc.
They made a policy decision to work in the existing structure, not try something new. They seem fairly honest and serious about it. May not agree with their plan, but thats a different issue.
It would seem the X Prizes made it easier for research and development teams to raise money. Having a tangible $x million prize at the end broadens the field of potential sponsors.
maybe. But cash prizes can be anti-motivational, and can negatively affect reasoning (this is a known phenomenon). It's probably a huge part of the reason why the federal scientific granting landscape is broken, btw, so the status quo is not much better. Moreover, only one person gets the prize, so a lot of people will make an upfront investment and get burnt out by their loss. Finally you have to consider, who is the best equipped to make those sorts of upfront investments and are they the people you want deciding the course of science? The really smart grad student whose intellectual prowess is being exploited by the professors is not going to be in that position.
a lot of people will make an upfront investment and get burnt out by their loss
This is not a bug, this is an essential feature. This effectively generates matching funding, and thus multiplies the amount of money and effort spent on a problem.
It is hard to figure out which idea works best; some inevitably won't work out and result in a loss -- but in this case much of the loss is covered by outside investors (including those investing their own time), competing with each other for the prize.
Also, I would trust people putting their own money down more than a grant committee, and people in general tend to be far more efficient when trying to beat competition, not when working on a set project.
Also, a smart graduate student is likely to be better at producing research, not at writing grant applications. Let the results speak for themselves.
See also science crowdfunding like Microryza https://www.microryza.com/ current headline of the first research proposal shown: "How does a parasite create zombie-like behavior?" I guess it's a good time to be a researcher who is working on something where you can fit trendy internet words like "zombie" in the title.
Has it ever been different? As long as science depends on funding, and funding always has (and always will) come from people who know and understand little of science, so persuading them to part with their money, and to give it to your particular project, is quite an essential requirement -- although of course scientists are usually better off delegating that persuading to professionals.
I can think of a range of models for getting funding for research:
- convince a single person or small group knowledgeable in your field of study to invest in your research or fund it yourself
- convince a non-profit that your research will have social impact
- convince a corporation that your research will pay off
- convince a government body knowledgeable in your field of study that then invests tax money on behalf of the general public
- convince the general public to vote directly for your research with dollars
You can be sure that the type of research that gets done is going to be different with each of these. Certainly the last two are going to be widely different even though they are both pulling funding from people who generally understand little about the science they are funding.
Sure -- but I think (2), (4) and (5) are all forms of American Idol; all of these require persuasion of non-scientists, in case of (4) the persuasion simply happens at the point when the government body gets established and funded.
And I'm not sure there is really such a big difference between (4) and (5) -- most of the time when we actually see general public funding science directly in any appreciable amount, it's done through some form of a private foundation that is not very different from a "government body knowledgeable in your field" in how it operates.
You should clarify that this is a TEDx conference (the 'x' is the important part). It's not really "TED" in the truest sense and is just a TED-like conference hosted by a third-party.
Additionally, I haven't noticed a substantial difference in the marketing or publishing of TEDx videos on the web. While obviously anything can go viral, one can usually only distinguish between TEDx talks and TED talks by reading the fine print.
One that sometimes shows up on the main TED site anyway. Regardless, people don't know what it means.
I've lost count of how many times someone has complained about an overly political, low quality talk and seen someone else come along and try to explain that it wasn't a real TED talk because it was a TEDx talk. Except on Hacker News, that person is usually just ignored. TEDx is substantially diluting the TED brand. Growth of TEDx has been far too fast and reckless.
It wasn't a gross exaggeration. "Nobody cares" is a common English idiom meant to be understood as a casual generalization. The phrase is intended to be semantically analogous to more precise but tedious phrases such as: "a substantial and relevant, probably majority population do not care about the distinction you are making."
Yes, it is, in a casual conversation. Not on HN. By the way your verbose definition of "nobody cares" would still be a gross exaggeration as OP didn't provide any proof that a substantial, probably majority of population do not differentiate between TED and TEDx.
3. Every TEDx video has this disclaimer:
This video was filmed at an independently organized TEDx event and uploaded by the organizer. To flag a video (good or bad!), use this form.
> 1. People who watch TED and TEDx are quite intelligent.
That's what they like to think, yes.
If you're talking about acolytes who watch large numbers of TED talks then yes, most of them very likely know the difference. Many have probably even attended TEDx events. But TED talks have spread to far more casual audiences-- people who share merely share the links on twitter and facebook and have probably watched less than 10 talks in their life.
When I visit that link, I see the large TED logo in the upper left corner (with no 'x' by it). While it doesn't have the flashy video cloud thing that the main page does, the theme is identical. Additionally, I do not need to visit the site to watch the talk, TEDx talks are mostly on YouTube. This talk does not even have the splash page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDpuJXgD7Rs
Sure it says "TEDx" but how is a casual viewer supposed to know what that means? How much effort am I really going to devote to the implications of the phrase "independently organized TED event" if I'm inclined to care at all?
> 3. Every TEDx video has this disclaimer: This video was filmed at an independently organized TEDx event and uploaded by the organizer. To flag a video (good or bad!), use this form.
I'll admit, I did not notice that disclaimer without you pointing it out. I'm not sure why, the font is large enough. Maybe it's the light gray text.
I agreed with a lot of what the article said , but then the author seems to go full-TED-bullshit-buzzword towards the end with little evidence or citation and falls into the pseudo-intellectual knowledge-lite trap that he's criticising:
> Part of my work explores deep technocultural shifts, from post-humanism to the post-anthropocene, but TED’s version has too much faith in technology, and not nearly enough commitment to technology. It is placebo technoradicalism, toying with risk so as to re-affirm the comfortable.
> The most recent centuries have seen extraordinary accomplishments in improving quality of life. The paradox is that the system we have now --whatever you want to call it-- is in the short term what makes the amazing new technologies possible, but in the long run it is also what suppresses their full flowering. Another economic architecture is prerequisite.
> The potential for these technologies are both wonderful and horrifying at the same time, and to make them serve good futures, design as "innovation” just isn’t a strong enough idea by itself. We need to talk more about design as “immunization,” actively preventing certain potential “innovations” that we do not want from happening.
It strikes me that a TED talk about TED talks being 'all talk' isn't incredibly substantive either. It's like the random comment or tweet referencing something only because the author says it isn't worth your time.
I do think his assessment of "placebo technoradicalism, toying with risk so as to re-affirm the comfortable" was accurate and insightful, but only at TED's worst. To talk about how all this is so "harmful," etc., seems like an insight into the speaker's own self importance and 'thought leadership.' That being said, it comes with the territory for any TED talk. Really, what's the harm, is kind of my thinking.
Yeah, the word that comes to mind is masturbation.
>It strikes me that a TED talk about TED talks being 'all talk' isn't incredibly substantive either.
The very fact that it's called TED talks and not TED action or TED works is testament to its nature. What else would we get but people pontificating about the world, future, etc.? The audience is essentially encouraged to be sort of passively "talked to" and await the heralding of the new world, to be ushered in by the big thinkers who are, of course, busy talking.
There's some good points in the piece, but I can't help but think it's funny how everyone used to love TED... until "everyone" became a really big group and overnight TED became uncool and passé and insight porn. There's a fair bit of posturing and snobbishness going on here, too.
Not everyone loved TED. I've seen people pointing out that they're essentially selling the wealthy a way to feel good about themselves and spinning it as something world-changing for years.
I'm pretty sure I was talking about how much I liked TED last month on HN. Now, suddenly, I'm re-evaluating whether or not I actually enjoyed those talks or if I just thought I enjoyed them.
As someone who has never liked TED (take my word for it, for a moment) I think there is an "emperor has no clothes" moment going on. As a critical bystander, it is my impression that the talks have been getting worse, and (as a result of TEDx) the brand has been getting more dilute. As it becomes more and more plain to see, people begin to realize.
(I mention my continuing personal dislike because it means I have been a third-party observer of the TED phenomenon for many years now- my vantage point has been distant and generally not changed)
TED is the OMNI magazine of the 2010s: light, fluffy, shiny, sexy. Smile and nod; there's nothing of major important entering your mind today, except perhaps groupthink.
It's a social event. Look at all the cool people! I want to be one too!
Nothing wrong with that. Just important to recognize it for what it is. I love watching some of those talks.
And yes, for a lot of folks that confuse tools and research with presentation skills, they're going to walk away with heads full of buzzword technobabble. But guess what? These folks weren't hitting on much to begin with. They've always just wanted to skim the surface and hang out with the smart kids. That's why these things have always been so popular.
EDIT: There is one thing that is very interesting that has developed: the elimination of the middle-man between science and populist bullshit. Used to be scientists were just concerned what what is, not what could be or what we should do about stuff. Not any more. Now scientists, as this author points out, are supposed to be entertainers. Everybody's their own little self-promotion machine. Extra points to figure out if this is good for science or not (it isn't).
Let's play Devil's Advocate here, and possibly suggest that this may be a good thing. Bear with me on this...
The key difference between a traditional academic lecture and a TED talk is the audience. Here, the TED audience functions as a cultural sieve. Yes, a "dumbing down," relatively speaking, but then again, lay audiences are so by definition; academic lectures are attended by self-selected experts in a given field. TED audiences, on the other hand, are usually a collection of diverse specialists and semi-specialists from different fields, and thus may be considered a lay audience for all intents and purposes. Moreover, the internet audience is almost entirely a lay audience.
The benefit of TED is, as others have stated, the "cross-pollination" of ideas that one would likely not have exposure to in other ways. And, unfortunately, that implies a lay audience, with all that it entails.
So, yes, that implies showmanship. It implies humor. It implies oratory skills. Because that's how you reach a lay audience.
Good presentation has much in common with good leadership skills. Per Howard Gardner, there are 3 key points that many good public speakers and leaders possess (http://ecglink.com/library/ps/stories.html):
1. Having a central story
2. Fitting the story to the audience
3. Data is not enough.
This is something that speakers like Gladwell get.
It also means that academic lecturers need to up their game. And this gives them a model for what a lay audience wants.
I once had a lecturer who was very proud to tell his postgrads "real science is boring". Yes, it often is. And for those of us who can stomach boring, it's a paradise of intellectual nourishment.
But most people aren't like that. Most people need shiny things to guide them.
Is this fundamentally a good thing? Probably not. But we don't have the luxury of pre-screening an audience through self-selection, as is the case with most academic audiences. An academic may be absolutely brilliant, but if he/she can't connect with the lay audience, it does no good for the ideas he/she espouses.
Take home point: yes, this is a dumbing down. Take it for what it is. Instead of complaining that audiences don't react to dry academic lectures, academics need to study people like Malcolm Gladwell to emulate his delivery and rhetorical style, without sacrificing their academic integrity. Easier said than done, but there are plenty of substantive talks on TED to suggest it is possible. If indeed the medium is the message, then academics lecturing to lay audiences need to get the message.
P.S. For those worried about TED's influence on academia, methinks it will be minimal. Academia is a very conservative endeavor, and whereas sales-pitch talks (like TED) may get sexed up, academic lectures to academic peers will continue in their wonderfully "boring" approach, for many years to come (and thank goodness for that). Why? Because academics will never cease to try to poke holes in others' ideas. Intellectual snark works in academia. It doesn't work with a lay audience. However, narrative does.
OMNI was a bit more adventurous than TED is today. It routinely delved into very weird topics like "psi" and such, but in a way that avoided being either fluffy-woo-woo or completely dismissive. I personally have a lot of respect for people who can talk intelligently about out-there possibilities. It's hard.
Hi, organizer of one of Europe's largest TEDx events here.
First of all, as others mentioned, TEDx events are independently organized. There are over 3000 of them in the world and obviously quality varies greatly. Getting a TEDx license is pretty trivial and there is no real oversight on quality. Yet, there are some great videos out there.
Second, nobody pretends TED is an academic conference. I see a TED talk as the blurb on the back cover of a book. The speaker's job is to pique your interest in a topic during that 18 minutes. Pique it enough that you'll go on and research the topic in greater detail. Nobody expects to be a master in anything after sitting in a chair for 18 minutes. But if you've never thought about a problem, 18 minutes may push you to do it. And it's true some talks are mostly inspirational, with little informative value - we usually put a couple in the lineup as a breather.
Third, TED is about cross-pollination of ideas. You hear an idea in neuroscience and it inspires you to do something in CS. Happens all the time. You will not act on 99% of the information you learn (be it in news, books, internet, HN) anyways, but it does expand your horizons.
Lastly, TED's biggest value is in developing countries. If you live in NYC or SF, there are dozens of conferences you can attend every week. So the marginal benefit of going to a TED event is little. However, TED as a brand is really well known in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe (like mine), inhabited by few, if any, world class innovators. In those countries, people do find TED really inspirational and often the local TEDx events are one of the very few decent conferences you can attend.
I'm surprised you describe Europe as lacking in world class innovators. There are loads of conferences in most of Europe and the scientific and academic output in general of European countries is incredibly high. The same is likely true for lots of Asia and Africa too, though I lack first hand knowledge.
> I always take these types of rating with a pinch of salt but it does give an indication.
More than pinch... a dump-truck full perhaps.
This sort of list, backed by impressive-sounding acronymonic international agencies or well-known publications (even fairly respected outfits like The Economist pull this sort of stunt way too often) pops up regularly on all sorts of righteous-sounding topics ("Most Green City," that kind of thing). Typically they claim some sort of quantitative legitimacy but the results have little apparent connection with the real world.
The fundamental problem seems to be that such things are extremely hard to define, much less measure, and so being not really willing to do the really hard work of trying to find a definition that really works, the writers fall back to just using whatever measures they can find that are easy to evaluate and have some sort of vaguely appropriate name. As you'd expect, the results are consequently barely better than random.
There's little real repercussion, the winners crow a bit, some pompous headlines are written, buzzwords are sprinkled liberally, and nobody else really cares.
Have you actually read the report or are you just commenting on most of these types of reports?
A quick glance suggests that their framework is quite detailed but I do not know how well it reflects reality. (p. 30 in the report)
Your comment would be much better if you actually had anything to back up your claims. What supports your statement that these reports are no better than random?
> I'm surprised you describe Europe as lacking in world class innovators. There are loads of conferences in most of Europe and the scientific and academic output in general of European countries is incredibly high.
I don't think the quantity of conferences and scientific / academic output are really good indicators of innovation.
As the number of conferences and speakers grows, are you concerned that the Law of Large Numbers will exact its toll and make the sample of speakers more typical of the population as a whole? Inviting the flashiest of SF and NYC to speak is quite a builtin selection bias, but there seems to be no apparent strategy for preserving the distinctiveness of speakers as TEDx scales.
I am a mathematician, and the Law of Large Numbers just says that if you roll a die many times, then the average of your rolls will converge to the expected value, in some strong way.
I think he is just applying Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap), and then and then the law of large numbers to conclude that the average video is crappy.
Yes, the average quality will probably fall, but the total amount of "good" talks will vastly increase. As with any popular content platform. A problem yet to be solved is how to highlight the better talks, because the current approach of featuring a talk a day on TED.com doesn't scale.
By the way, TED never expected TEDx to grow this big, so there is little strategy in what's been happening so far. There are I think 6 or 7 TED staff responsible for the whole TEDx program, with its 3000+ events.
Agreed, andr, that the number of new good talks can continue to increase. This is an interesting story and relates to a variety of other organizations seeking to scale quickly, whether from necessity or ambition. Is there an ongoing discussion of it as it pertains to TED & TEDx anywhere?
It depends entirely on the content; if there's no meaningful content, the entire point is, as you've pointed out, a waste.
Worse, if TED inspires people to get involved with pseudoscience causes, then it's actively harmful to it's own purpose.
The stark reality is that you cannot possibly continue to generate new amazing videos about the latest breakthroughs year after year, conference after conference. There just isn't enough content.
There just aren't enough breakthroughs, aren't enough new amazing things. Sooner or later you'll run out ...and then you turn into google-X; tech startups pitching their ideas, and the odd art/performance piece thrown in.
"Everything has already been invented."
Less than 1500 people have spoken at TED over the last 28 years, so I think it's a bit early to say we've ran out of people with stuff to say. Plus, TEDx events give stage to topics of local importance, too.
To go with your point & change the numbers a bit, at 1500 talks over 28 years, that's 50 talks/year. Are we really turning out 50 ground-breaking, layman-accessible, presentation-suitable inspirational discoveries every year?
No one claimed 100% of every TED talks are about groundbreaking stuff and all of them are things that have happened in that particular year. Not to mention, more specifically TEDx is more about local issues, not necessarily global.
>The stark reality is that you cannot possibly continue to generate new amazing videos about the latest breakthroughs year after year, conference after conference. There just isn't enough content.
This is not necessarily true. Some like Ray Kurzweil argue the rate of innovation is increasing. Others like Peter Thiel believe the rate of true innovation is decreasing. But hardly a settled question.
He is referring to TED talks innovative things. Many innovations are impossible to wrap up in a nice way, since doing so would delude why it is an innovation. Check out what happens when the maintstream talks about the latest cancer cure for instance.
Great defense of TED. It's not a MOOC, and it's not a book, and it's not a documentary.
The one caveat is that by extending their brand, they are giving fuel to their detractors. If you say, "Well anyone can get a TEDx license," then you are admitting to brand dilution. (The same way high end car companies dilute their brands with low end models)
I think that dilution is magnified because the lower quality TEDx conferences attract local high noise/low signal speakers, and gives them a veneer of credibility to new/uncritical eyes.
TED is brilliant - I've sat there many times and said 'wow' after the talk. I've also worked for a lot of councils and education authorities in the UK and sat in on some evangelical 'how to improve kids education' meetings.
Both exhibit the same moment of 'insight' that people crave. It's like the 'idea' alone is the objective and now everyone can go home.
We lack a mobilizing 'do' component in this flow of peoples attention - what that is I dunno - a TedDone conference? In councils it was 'right - so, everyone back to work'.
The "doers" are already "doing," they don't need any encouragement. In fact, they're so busy "doing" they don't have time to waste on TED talks. They're not going to gain anything by going to a TED talk.
Now the people that do have time and resources to be able to afford the ticket to TED, they're not doers. Otherwise they'd be busy "doing." I know this is contrary to how TED presents itself, but when was the last time something meaningful resulted from a TED conference?
TED is a zoo of ideas for the great unwashed masses to filter by, to gawk at, then to go home and forget at the end of the day.
I think he (and others here) are being too hard on TED. TED is not a forum for research or a focused campaign for change. It's a forum for 15 min talks. It's an educated sort of entertainment where some interesting ideas get shared. The author claims to have something better in mind. I hope he builds it. I'll sign up. Until then, when I want to unwind, I'll watch a little TED instead of Breaking Bad.
Here's what TED have to say about themselves on their website: "We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. So we're building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other."
> I'll watch a little TED instead of Breaking Bad.
I think that's the entire point: TED is entertainment, not some serious forum for change. It's bad when it pretends to be that forum, but as a substitute for TV it is fantastic!
Ideas, potential and enthusiasm are easy; sticking with something, especially something untested/untried, especially something that may fail, now that's hard.
Most people don't have the stamina, and there's so many possibilities (how do you pick the "right" one?) and never enough time (between family, day job, etc, etc).
"I submit that Astrophysics run on the model of American Idol is a recipe for civilizational disaster."
Well, OK then, there exists one solution in the problem space the author doesn't like. How bout listing one that might actually work? Go look at astrobites and figure out a way to turn that into AV speeches.
Some rich dude should host a con of astrobites level presentations.
I'd go further than "middlebrow megachurch infotainment". I'd say, "high-IQ house-slaves".
I'm sure this isn't the intention of TED, but the purpose of this upper-middle-class boosterism seems to be deeply conservative in nature. It re-emerges every time there's enough wealth to let the 4.9% (as opposed to the 95% doomed to stagnation and the 0.1% taking everything) gain a little make-believe ground (that's chewed up by rising house prices, increasing income insecurity especially late in one's career, and education costs). "You should be proud; you get to clean the upstairs bathroom instead of working in the fields."
It's not TED's fault. The format of an 18-minute talk is a good one for a large number of purposes. The problem is that any time rich people and smart people get together, the smart people are always very willing (as a group; there are exceptions) to become the proud little house slaves just to enjoy that fleeting sense of having arrived due to the phony proximity to the true owners of this world who are running it into the ground. So most of them soften up and start spouting "status-quo-plus-plus" as soon as a few people in the true upper class start tossing them small favors. You see a lot of this in the "tech" world, especially in the VC-funded incarnation of the Valley. It's sad. We were supposed to be different.
Thanks to PG's rankban (I say things he dislikes, so my comments get a personal penalty in placement) this comment will probably be in the middle-bottom (if not absolute bottom) of the page no matter how much you upvote it.
> Thanks to PG's rankban (I say things he dislikes, so my comments get a personal penalty in placement) this comment will probably be in the middle-bottom (if not absolute bottom) of the page no matter how much you upvote it.
do you have any evidence for this? because your whole post sounds a little paranoid - not just the last paragraph. In fact a lot of your recent posts seem to have taken this kind of tone. I don't mention this out of spite, but out of concern. I hope you're ok.
Yes. I didn't talk about it until I confirmed it. Someone who knows a lot of people in the YC-sphere also confirmed.
Karma scores of others' posts don't appear here, but they are available (on old posts) using https://www.hnsearch.com/ .
If you look at your placement of an old post (> 3 months) and find yourself at/near the bottom but have the highest-rated comment, then you're on rankban (rankban seems to apply to threads that originated before it was applied).
You can also check for slowban empirically by comparing latency while logged in to what you get in Incognito mode.
It is a pretty serious accusation. I wish you'd prepare a pdf or something where ou state your case. Most people don't have time to dig into that themselves.
At first I was furious about it, that I'd wasted so much time into comments that would almost always float to the bottom (when I used to have a ~50% top comment rate, that went to zero). Now I'm more flattered by it: it means that PG is trying to censor what I say-- that my comments are important enough to merit a personal rankban.
I also have good reasons to believe that PG is making the decision because he's been pressured by others in the VC world. I don't know that they specifically mentioned me (or even know who I am, for that matter) but he's definitely been told to "do something" about the formerly prominent anti-VC posts that tend to do well here (excluding rankban).
There's some truth to this... but even if true, things could be a lot worse than having the uber wealthy become patrons of smart people. I suppose the danger comes from the smart people realizing that it's a lot easier to gather kudos for putting together good talks than from doing actual quality R&D. Then again, it's been the case for a long time that PIs are really spokesmen for their groups, and are usually quite abstracted away and have less input into day to day research. I say as long as TED helps spread ideas across fields, and inspires rich people enough to fork over $$$, it's all OK.
You seem to frequently and loudly say a lot of things about Google that many current and past Googlers consider to be misguided and largely incorrect. For a very long while it seemed that you were posting these statements on pretty much every Google-related article that made it to the front page. I suspect that your comments would get massively up-voted because:
1) Your writing style is strident and self-assured. Someone who writes so confidently is highly likely to be correct!
2) You're speaking poorly of an SV darling. Contrary opinions must be heard!
Time and time again, your comments became the dominating thread of discussion, even if (as was very frequently the case) they had nothing to do with the issues raised in the article that they were attached to. This distressed me and others, and was made even more distressing by your tendency to speak about one of only a very few topics. The first time I saw your complaint about Google's promotion system attached to an article about the tech behind "Google's" self driving cars, I was sympathetic. The fifth time, however...
I argue that if the ability for your comments to become top-placed comments has been restricted, it's not because you've said things that PG doesn't like. It's because you've seriously derailed productive, on-topic conversation in numerous threads by repeating pretty much the same largely-off-topic complaints about a former employer that you had several bad experiences with.
I'm a strong proponent of free speech, but I also strongly support efforts to encourage meaningful, on-topic discussion.
You're wrong. People downvote the off-topic and obnoxious comments. I've been posting here for 3 years. Off-topic negativity (and I've made some boneheaded comments, I'll admit) gets exactly what it deserves: downvoted to shit.
You make what would be a strong case if there weren't data, but I have the data from 3 years of posts (with-- again, I'll admit to this-- a wide range in terms of quality). Downvoting works and is democratic. Rankban isn't needed.
Also, I've heard that I'm not the only one put on rankban for criticizing VC.
> People downvote the off-topic and obnoxious comments.
The folks who run MetaFilter, Reddit, Digg, Slashdot, and any number of other large public forums would likely disagree with you. It seems that globs of angsty folks who up-vote off-topic vitriol (and down-vote things that they just don't like!) tend to occur in any open-access forum that becomes sufficiently popular.
Democracy is a sub-optimal tool for promoting productive, on-topic discussion in popular public-access forums. Look at the pile of largely useless babble that is Slashdot or Youtube comments, or comments on articles attached to the Reddit frontpage for supporting evidence. Hell, even when it was small, MetaFilter understood the serious need for human moderators to help keep discussions civil and on track.
> ...I've heard that I'm not the only one put on rankban for criticizing VC.
I didn't and don't expect you to be swayed by my claims. You appear to be a person with very strongly held opinions. For the benefit of others, I'll summarize my previous post succinctly.
For a several month period at some point in the not-too-distant past, I could guarantee three things:
1) For any randomly selected story that had something to do with Google that was still on the front page in the afternoon, a comment of yours would be one of the top four comments.
2) Your comment would have little to nothing to say about the article it was attached to (unless that article was about some management technique), and lots to say about what you felt was wrong at Google during your (allegedly) brief tenure at the company.
3) The volume of heated discussion attached to your comment would dwarf the discussion (either off-topic or on) in any other thread.
Well, I liked your comment, and didn't get what you were talking about with the rankban until I read your username. That "rankban" you mention, that's a pretty shitty thing to have in a forum that is supposed to be about ideas.
TED sometimes seems to me like a collection of sales pitches for books that take four to ten scientific papers about a topic and go on and on ... and on about it. I liked this kind of book but now I give up on them after one or two chapters and read about the main ideas on Wikipedia.
But ... there is a lot of good stuff on TED too like Bruce Schneier's talks.
A TED talk that complains about TED talks and even uses the tidy acronym TED within the talk? Thou hypocrite! First cast out the beam from thine own eye; and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote from thy brother's eye.
(There are more if you want to find them, I didn't want to pollute commentspace with too many links)
[1] The Onion is a satire newspaper, one of the first newspapers to heavily adopt an online format. They just killed their print edition for good last year.
>They just killed their print edition for good last year.
Minor nit - only because it's so recent. They just killed their print edition for good last week. Thursday, to be exact. I know they dropped a bunch of cities last year though so maybe you're thinking of that.
> [1] The Onion is a satire newspaper, one of the first newspapers to heavily adopt an online format. They just killed their print edition for good last year.
The Onion originated online actually. The print edition was mostly an experiment.
There are definitely still great talks being produced. There are a lot of not so great ones, but maybe the solution to that would be better website that sorts and allows for ratings of TED videos. Kind of like a porn website but with only TED videos.
189 comments
[ 8.6 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] threadAfter the first couple of ones that were public and on the internet, the usual self-promoting psychobabble-spouting androids moved in and now it's entirely worthless. Someone spins 30 seconds worth of insight out for half an hour, and you still somehow feel stupider when you've finished watching it.
In one of the recent Gladwell threads, someone on here coined the phrase "insight porn". TED is basically insight dogging.
EDIT: to be fair, if TED is insight dogging, this place is a sticky floored insight dungeon in some godforsaken soho basement...
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_...
"Filmed Jul 2005"
Back in the day when TED's internet presence was pretty new and Google Reader still was alive and kicking and had a social sharing aspect (remember those golden years?), almost all of the TED talks were shared and debated heavily among my friends. Then we started sharing less and less of them, to the point were one friend shared a talk saying "finally, a good one again" and we all chimed in on how it got too popular and big for it's own good.
Shirky was one of the original thought leaders of the social Internet. The value of his talk isn't that it's on TED. It's that it's Clay Shirky.
The added value of TED was that I got introduced to all kinds of thought leaders that I never heard of before.
http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_full_on_animal_movement.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEZrAGdZ1i8
Notice that I still picked a heartwarming personal story for the second one. See how different it is in delivery and intent to the heartwarming personal stories you get on there today.
Let me reiterate: I don't care about the audience - they don't affect me. It's the type of speaker which is attracted by the new, larger demographic that I don't like. The talks aren't written for the room any more, they're written for youtube, and by extension, the speaker's resume and lifetime earning potential. Compare the speakers' eyelines in those talks vs the new ones.
The OP itself is as good example of a "self-promoting psychobabble-spouting android" as it gets.
In other news, Zuckerberg and others launch a new $3 million Breakthrough Prize stating, "The Breakthrough Prize is our effort to put the spotlight on these amazing heroes. Their work in physics and genetics, cosmology, neurology and mathematics will change lives for generations and we are excited to celebrate them"
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2014-breakthrough-pr...
So... yeah we're already there in some sense for better or worse.
Actually, on the same model, they also could give 1000 $3000 prizes, that wouldn't make a very exciting press release, but I would posit it would do much more good, because it's much more likely to target someone that really needed a bit of positive reinforcement, rather than the guy that already received lots of award for an important discovery. And this is especially important in field were prizes are rare.
But now it feel like the equivalent of 7 guy/gals winning the lottery. I highly doubt it will change much in their research (if not negatively if they decide to retire) and they wont be able to invest it in other people's work, except with great difficulty or lack of agency. I fail to see where science is gaining much.
Well, it's my understanding that most prize money won by scientists are not reinvested in their research, meaning that it act more as a regular enterprise bonus than a kind of research grant. Is it false?
In that case, I think it was proven than passing a certain mark, the amount of money in a prize get diminishing returns quickly, thus the proposal that it's more interesting to give to a lots of scientists a small sum (not necessarily $3000, that was derived from the $3 million) than for a few a big one.
However, it's grant money, not prize money, that I get. I have no idea how on earth I could ever win a prize for math since I'm not in line for the Fields, Abel, or Alfried Krupp prize.
Wait ... you were not sarcastic? (Inverse poe law, here I come!)
> I have no idea how on earth I could ever win a prize for math since I'm not in line for the Fields, Abel, or Alfried Krupp prize.
There are no smaller prizes in mathematics? (I don't have any knowledge in that area)
They made a policy decision to work in the existing structure, not try something new. They seem fairly honest and serious about it. May not agree with their plan, but thats a different issue.
This is not a bug, this is an essential feature. This effectively generates matching funding, and thus multiplies the amount of money and effort spent on a problem.
It is hard to figure out which idea works best; some inevitably won't work out and result in a loss -- but in this case much of the loss is covered by outside investors (including those investing their own time), competing with each other for the prize.
Also, I would trust people putting their own money down more than a grant committee, and people in general tend to be far more efficient when trying to beat competition, not when working on a set project.
Also, a smart graduate student is likely to be better at producing research, not at writing grant applications. Let the results speak for themselves.
- convince a single person or small group knowledgeable in your field of study to invest in your research or fund it yourself
- convince a non-profit that your research will have social impact
- convince a corporation that your research will pay off
- convince a government body knowledgeable in your field of study that then invests tax money on behalf of the general public
- convince the general public to vote directly for your research with dollars
You can be sure that the type of research that gets done is going to be different with each of these. Certainly the last two are going to be widely different even though they are both pulling funding from people who generally understand little about the science they are funding.
And I'm not sure there is really such a big difference between (4) and (5) -- most of the time when we actually see general public funding science directly in any appreciable amount, it's done through some form of a private foundation that is not very different from a "government body knowledgeable in your field" in how it operates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_(conference)#TEDx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbtl0Q81igc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oRnhrOf0r0#t=121
I've lost count of how many times someone has complained about an overly political, low quality talk and seen someone else come along and try to explain that it wasn't a real TED talk because it was a TEDx talk. Except on Hacker News, that person is usually just ignored. TEDx is substantially diluting the TED brand. Growth of TEDx has been far too fast and reckless.
1. People who watch TED and TEDx are quite intelligent.
2. There are no TEDx videos on ted.com, only on subdomain http://tedxtalks.ted.com.
3. Every TEDx video has this disclaimer: This video was filmed at an independently organized TEDx event and uploaded by the organizer. To flag a video (good or bad!), use this form.
So yeah, this was a gross exaggeration.
That's what they like to think, yes.
If you're talking about acolytes who watch large numbers of TED talks then yes, most of them very likely know the difference. Many have probably even attended TEDx events. But TED talks have spread to far more casual audiences-- people who share merely share the links on twitter and facebook and have probably watched less than 10 talks in their life.
> 2. There are no TEDx videos on ted.com, only on subdomain http://tedxtalks.ted.com.
When I visit that link, I see the large TED logo in the upper left corner (with no 'x' by it). While it doesn't have the flashy video cloud thing that the main page does, the theme is identical. Additionally, I do not need to visit the site to watch the talk, TEDx talks are mostly on YouTube. This talk does not even have the splash page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDpuJXgD7Rs
Sure it says "TEDx" but how is a casual viewer supposed to know what that means? How much effort am I really going to devote to the implications of the phrase "independently organized TED event" if I'm inclined to care at all?
> 3. Every TEDx video has this disclaimer: This video was filmed at an independently organized TEDx event and uploaded by the organizer. To flag a video (good or bad!), use this form.
I'll admit, I did not notice that disclaimer without you pointing it out. I'm not sure why, the font is large enough. Maybe it's the light gray text.
> So yeah, this was a gross exaggeration.
Nobody cares.
Also, hard science isn't all that comes out of TED (see the "E" and "D" in "TED")
> Part of my work explores deep technocultural shifts, from post-humanism to the post-anthropocene, but TED’s version has too much faith in technology, and not nearly enough commitment to technology. It is placebo technoradicalism, toying with risk so as to re-affirm the comfortable.
> The most recent centuries have seen extraordinary accomplishments in improving quality of life. The paradox is that the system we have now --whatever you want to call it-- is in the short term what makes the amazing new technologies possible, but in the long run it is also what suppresses their full flowering. Another economic architecture is prerequisite.
> The potential for these technologies are both wonderful and horrifying at the same time, and to make them serve good futures, design as "innovation” just isn’t a strong enough idea by itself. We need to talk more about design as “immunization,” actively preventing certain potential “innovations” that we do not want from happening.
I do think his assessment of "placebo technoradicalism, toying with risk so as to re-affirm the comfortable" was accurate and insightful, but only at TED's worst. To talk about how all this is so "harmful," etc., seems like an insight into the speaker's own self importance and 'thought leadership.' That being said, it comes with the territory for any TED talk. Really, what's the harm, is kind of my thinking.
Yeah, the word that comes to mind is masturbation.
>It strikes me that a TED talk about TED talks being 'all talk' isn't incredibly substantive either.
The very fact that it's called TED talks and not TED action or TED works is testament to its nature. What else would we get but people pontificating about the world, future, etc.? The audience is essentially encouraged to be sort of passively "talked to" and await the heralding of the new world, to be ushered in by the big thinkers who are, of course, busy talking.
Contrarians are seldom wrong because in essence, lots of shit kind of sucks.
It is easy to find the ways in which a thing sucks, specifically after a good deal of exposure.
That's seldom all there is to it though.
Often there are very good and enjoyable aspects to things that also happen to suck in other ways.
So I figure you did enjoy those talks and your also seeing a side to them that could be considered as sucking in some aspects.
(I mention my continuing personal dislike because it means I have been a third-party observer of the TED phenomenon for many years now- my vantage point has been distant and generally not changed)
It's a social event. Look at all the cool people! I want to be one too!
Nothing wrong with that. Just important to recognize it for what it is. I love watching some of those talks.
And yes, for a lot of folks that confuse tools and research with presentation skills, they're going to walk away with heads full of buzzword technobabble. But guess what? These folks weren't hitting on much to begin with. They've always just wanted to skim the surface and hang out with the smart kids. That's why these things have always been so popular.
EDIT: There is one thing that is very interesting that has developed: the elimination of the middle-man between science and populist bullshit. Used to be scientists were just concerned what what is, not what could be or what we should do about stuff. Not any more. Now scientists, as this author points out, are supposed to be entertainers. Everybody's their own little self-promotion machine. Extra points to figure out if this is good for science or not (it isn't).
The key difference between a traditional academic lecture and a TED talk is the audience. Here, the TED audience functions as a cultural sieve. Yes, a "dumbing down," relatively speaking, but then again, lay audiences are so by definition; academic lectures are attended by self-selected experts in a given field. TED audiences, on the other hand, are usually a collection of diverse specialists and semi-specialists from different fields, and thus may be considered a lay audience for all intents and purposes. Moreover, the internet audience is almost entirely a lay audience.
The benefit of TED is, as others have stated, the "cross-pollination" of ideas that one would likely not have exposure to in other ways. And, unfortunately, that implies a lay audience, with all that it entails.
So, yes, that implies showmanship. It implies humor. It implies oratory skills. Because that's how you reach a lay audience.
Good presentation has much in common with good leadership skills. Per Howard Gardner, there are 3 key points that many good public speakers and leaders possess (http://ecglink.com/library/ps/stories.html):
1. Having a central story 2. Fitting the story to the audience 3. Data is not enough.
This is something that speakers like Gladwell get.
It also means that academic lecturers need to up their game. And this gives them a model for what a lay audience wants.
I once had a lecturer who was very proud to tell his postgrads "real science is boring". Yes, it often is. And for those of us who can stomach boring, it's a paradise of intellectual nourishment.
But most people aren't like that. Most people need shiny things to guide them.
Is this fundamentally a good thing? Probably not. But we don't have the luxury of pre-screening an audience through self-selection, as is the case with most academic audiences. An academic may be absolutely brilliant, but if he/she can't connect with the lay audience, it does no good for the ideas he/she espouses.
Just view the TED talk by Marvin Minsky to see a good academic flounder in front of a lay audience. http://www.ted.com/talks/marvin_minsky_on_health_and_the_hum...
Take home point: yes, this is a dumbing down. Take it for what it is. Instead of complaining that audiences don't react to dry academic lectures, academics need to study people like Malcolm Gladwell to emulate his delivery and rhetorical style, without sacrificing their academic integrity. Easier said than done, but there are plenty of substantive talks on TED to suggest it is possible. If indeed the medium is the message, then academics lecturing to lay audiences need to get the message.
P.S. For those worried about TED's influence on academia, methinks it will be minimal. Academia is a very conservative endeavor, and whereas sales-pitch talks (like TED) may get sexed up, academic lectures to academic peers will continue in their wonderfully "boring" approach, for many years to come (and thank goodness for that). Why? Because academics will never cease to try to poke holes in others' ideas. Intellectual snark works in academia. It doesn't work with a lay audience. However, narrative does.
First of all, as others mentioned, TEDx events are independently organized. There are over 3000 of them in the world and obviously quality varies greatly. Getting a TEDx license is pretty trivial and there is no real oversight on quality. Yet, there are some great videos out there.
Second, nobody pretends TED is an academic conference. I see a TED talk as the blurb on the back cover of a book. The speaker's job is to pique your interest in a topic during that 18 minutes. Pique it enough that you'll go on and research the topic in greater detail. Nobody expects to be a master in anything after sitting in a chair for 18 minutes. But if you've never thought about a problem, 18 minutes may push you to do it. And it's true some talks are mostly inspirational, with little informative value - we usually put a couple in the lineup as a breather.
Third, TED is about cross-pollination of ideas. You hear an idea in neuroscience and it inspires you to do something in CS. Happens all the time. You will not act on 99% of the information you learn (be it in news, books, internet, HN) anyways, but it does expand your horizons.
Lastly, TED's biggest value is in developing countries. If you live in NYC or SF, there are dozens of conferences you can attend every week. So the marginal benefit of going to a TED event is little. However, TED as a brand is really well known in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe (like mine), inhabited by few, if any, world class innovators. In those countries, people do find TED really inspirational and often the local TEDx events are one of the very few decent conferences you can attend.
1: Switzerland
2: Sweden
3: United Kingdoms
4: Netherlands
5: USA
6: Finland
7: Hong Kong
8: Singapore
9: Denmark
10: Ireland
Source: http://knowledge.insead.edu/innovation/the-worlds-most-innov...
I always take these types of rating with a pinch of salt but it does give an indication.
Edit: I cannot English.
More than pinch... a dump-truck full perhaps.
This sort of list, backed by impressive-sounding acronymonic international agencies or well-known publications (even fairly respected outfits like The Economist pull this sort of stunt way too often) pops up regularly on all sorts of righteous-sounding topics ("Most Green City," that kind of thing). Typically they claim some sort of quantitative legitimacy but the results have little apparent connection with the real world.
The fundamental problem seems to be that such things are extremely hard to define, much less measure, and so being not really willing to do the really hard work of trying to find a definition that really works, the writers fall back to just using whatever measures they can find that are easy to evaluate and have some sort of vaguely appropriate name. As you'd expect, the results are consequently barely better than random.
There's little real repercussion, the winners crow a bit, some pompous headlines are written, buzzwords are sprinkled liberally, and nobody else really cares.
A quick glance suggests that their framework is quite detailed but I do not know how well it reflects reality. (p. 30 in the report)
Your comment would be much better if you actually had anything to back up your claims. What supports your statement that these reports are no better than random?
Report: http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/eco...
I don't think the quantity of conferences and scientific / academic output are really good indicators of innovation.
I think he is just applying Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap), and then and then the law of large numbers to conclude that the average video is crappy.
By the way, TED never expected TEDx to grow this big, so there is little strategy in what's been happening so far. There are I think 6 or 7 TED staff responsible for the whole TEDx program, with its 3000+ events.
Worse, if TED inspires people to get involved with pseudoscience causes, then it's actively harmful to it's own purpose.
The stark reality is that you cannot possibly continue to generate new amazing videos about the latest breakthroughs year after year, conference after conference. There just isn't enough content.
There just aren't enough breakthroughs, aren't enough new amazing things. Sooner or later you'll run out ...and then you turn into google-X; tech startups pitching their ideas, and the odd art/performance piece thrown in.
This is not necessarily true. Some like Ray Kurzweil argue the rate of innovation is increasing. Others like Peter Thiel believe the rate of true innovation is decreasing. But hardly a settled question.
The one caveat is that by extending their brand, they are giving fuel to their detractors. If you say, "Well anyone can get a TEDx license," then you are admitting to brand dilution. (The same way high end car companies dilute their brands with low end models)
It's YouTube for conferences.
TED Global 2014 will be hosted in Rio, Brazil, at US$6,000 per person. This is 4 months of a local mid-level web developer salary before taxes [1]
Locals cannot afford to attend TED. TED is made by the elite, for the elite, with the occasional feel-good-save-the-planet token NGO from Africa.
And so much for their "scientific" approach, given that they hate when a contrarian challenges them. Case in point: Sarah Silverman. [2]
Here is a true grassroots and inclusive event for the developing world: Campus Party [3]
[1] http://www.profissionaisti.com.br/2011/02/qual-o-salario-med...
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci5p1OdVLAc
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campus_Party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0#t=30
Both exhibit the same moment of 'insight' that people crave. It's like the 'idea' alone is the objective and now everyone can go home.
We lack a mobilizing 'do' component in this flow of peoples attention - what that is I dunno - a TedDone conference? In councils it was 'right - so, everyone back to work'.
Now the people that do have time and resources to be able to afford the ticket to TED, they're not doers. Otherwise they'd be busy "doing." I know this is contrary to how TED presents itself, but when was the last time something meaningful resulted from a TED conference?
TED is a zoo of ideas for the great unwashed masses to filter by, to gawk at, then to go home and forget at the end of the day.
I think that's the entire point: TED is entertainment, not some serious forum for change. It's bad when it pretends to be that forum, but as a substitute for TV it is fantastic!
"So much potential and enthusiasm, and so little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what ideas can do all by themselves wrong?"
I believe that the world is better with both TED and HN, but they really could be so much better. How to take them to the next level?
Most people don't have the stamina, and there's so many possibilities (how do you pick the "right" one?) and never enough time (between family, day job, etc, etc).
Well, OK then, there exists one solution in the problem space the author doesn't like. How bout listing one that might actually work? Go look at astrobites and figure out a way to turn that into AV speeches.
Some rich dude should host a con of astrobites level presentations.
I'm sure this isn't the intention of TED, but the purpose of this upper-middle-class boosterism seems to be deeply conservative in nature. It re-emerges every time there's enough wealth to let the 4.9% (as opposed to the 95% doomed to stagnation and the 0.1% taking everything) gain a little make-believe ground (that's chewed up by rising house prices, increasing income insecurity especially late in one's career, and education costs). "You should be proud; you get to clean the upstairs bathroom instead of working in the fields."
It's not TED's fault. The format of an 18-minute talk is a good one for a large number of purposes. The problem is that any time rich people and smart people get together, the smart people are always very willing (as a group; there are exceptions) to become the proud little house slaves just to enjoy that fleeting sense of having arrived due to the phony proximity to the true owners of this world who are running it into the ground. So most of them soften up and start spouting "status-quo-plus-plus" as soon as a few people in the true upper class start tossing them small favors. You see a lot of this in the "tech" world, especially in the VC-funded incarnation of the Valley. It's sad. We were supposed to be different.
Thanks to PG's rankban (I say things he dislikes, so my comments get a personal penalty in placement) this comment will probably be in the middle-bottom (if not absolute bottom) of the page no matter how much you upvote it.
Anyway, there it is.
do you have any evidence for this? because your whole post sounds a little paranoid - not just the last paragraph. In fact a lot of your recent posts seem to have taken this kind of tone. I don't mention this out of spite, but out of concern. I hope you're ok.
Yes. I didn't talk about it until I confirmed it. Someone who knows a lot of people in the YC-sphere also confirmed.
Karma scores of others' posts don't appear here, but they are available (on old posts) using https://www.hnsearch.com/ .
If you look at your placement of an old post (> 3 months) and find yourself at/near the bottom but have the highest-rated comment, then you're on rankban (rankban seems to apply to threads that originated before it was applied).
You can also check for slowban empirically by comparing latency while logged in to what you get in Incognito mode.
At first I was furious about it, that I'd wasted so much time into comments that would almost always float to the bottom (when I used to have a ~50% top comment rate, that went to zero). Now I'm more flattered by it: it means that PG is trying to censor what I say-- that my comments are important enough to merit a personal rankban.
I also have good reasons to believe that PG is making the decision because he's been pressured by others in the VC world. I don't know that they specifically mentioned me (or even know who I am, for that matter) but he's definitely been told to "do something" about the formerly prominent anti-VC posts that tend to do well here (excluding rankban).
> I say things [PG] dislikes...
You seem to frequently and loudly say a lot of things about Google that many current and past Googlers consider to be misguided and largely incorrect. For a very long while it seemed that you were posting these statements on pretty much every Google-related article that made it to the front page. I suspect that your comments would get massively up-voted because:
1) Your writing style is strident and self-assured. Someone who writes so confidently is highly likely to be correct!
2) You're speaking poorly of an SV darling. Contrary opinions must be heard!
Time and time again, your comments became the dominating thread of discussion, even if (as was very frequently the case) they had nothing to do with the issues raised in the article that they were attached to. This distressed me and others, and was made even more distressing by your tendency to speak about one of only a very few topics. The first time I saw your complaint about Google's promotion system attached to an article about the tech behind "Google's" self driving cars, I was sympathetic. The fifth time, however...
I argue that if the ability for your comments to become top-placed comments has been restricted, it's not because you've said things that PG doesn't like. It's because you've seriously derailed productive, on-topic conversation in numerous threads by repeating pretty much the same largely-off-topic complaints about a former employer that you had several bad experiences with.
I'm a strong proponent of free speech, but I also strongly support efforts to encourage meaningful, on-topic discussion.
You make what would be a strong case if there weren't data, but I have the data from 3 years of posts (with-- again, I'll admit to this-- a wide range in terms of quality). Downvoting works and is democratic. Rankban isn't needed.
Also, I've heard that I'm not the only one put on rankban for criticizing VC.
The folks who run MetaFilter, Reddit, Digg, Slashdot, and any number of other large public forums would likely disagree with you. It seems that globs of angsty folks who up-vote off-topic vitriol (and down-vote things that they just don't like!) tend to occur in any open-access forum that becomes sufficiently popular.
Democracy is a sub-optimal tool for promoting productive, on-topic discussion in popular public-access forums. Look at the pile of largely useless babble that is Slashdot or Youtube comments, or comments on articles attached to the Reddit frontpage for supporting evidence. Hell, even when it was small, MetaFilter understood the serious need for human moderators to help keep discussions civil and on track.
> ...I've heard that I'm not the only one put on rankban for criticizing VC.
I didn't and don't expect you to be swayed by my claims. You appear to be a person with very strongly held opinions. For the benefit of others, I'll summarize my previous post succinctly.
For a several month period at some point in the not-too-distant past, I could guarantee three things:
1) For any randomly selected story that had something to do with Google that was still on the front page in the afternoon, a comment of yours would be one of the top four comments.
2) Your comment would have little to nothing to say about the article it was attached to (unless that article was about some management technique), and lots to say about what you felt was wrong at Google during your (allegedly) brief tenure at the company.
3) The volume of heated discussion attached to your comment would dwarf the discussion (either off-topic or on) in any other thread.
But ... there is a lot of good stuff on TED too like Bruce Schneier's talks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q
(There are more if you want to find them, I didn't want to pollute commentspace with too many links)
[1] The Onion is a satire newspaper, one of the first newspapers to heavily adopt an online format. They just killed their print edition for good last year.
Minor nit - only because it's so recent. They just killed their print edition for good last week. Thursday, to be exact. I know they dropped a bunch of cities last year though so maybe you're thinking of that.
The Onion originated online actually. The print edition was mostly an experiment.
[1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11...
TED is 80 % masturbation, 20 % inspiration.
One that inspired me recently: "How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries - Adam Savage" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8UFGu2M2gM