
We Need to Talk About TED - TimSAstro
http://www.bratton.info/projects/talks/we-need-to-talk-about-ted/
======
andr
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.

~~~
room271
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.

~~~
pathy
To strengthen your point: INSEAD's "The World’s Most Innovative Countries: The
Global Innovation Index 2013":

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...](http://knowledge.insead.edu/innovation/the-worlds-most-innovative-
countries-the-global-innovation-index-2013-2525)

I always take these types of rating with a pinch of salt but it does give an
indication.

Edit: I cannot English.

~~~
snogglethorpe
> _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.

~~~
pathy
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?

Report:
[http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/eco...](http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/economics/gii/gii_2013.pdf)

------
JonnieCache
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...

~~~
josu
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.

~~~
JonnieCache
The difference being, we can travel back in time and see what TED was really
like 5 years ago:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_full_on_animal_movement.html](http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_full_on_animal_movement.html)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEZrAGdZ1i8](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.

~~~
rootbear
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.

------
simonsarris
If you haven't seen The Onion's[1] _Onion Talks_ and want a good satirical
criticism of TED, I highly recommend them:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q](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.

~~~
chaghalibaghali
Sam Hyde's 2070 Paradigm Shift is also a great parody (delivered at an actual
TEDx event) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0)

~~~
AndrewBissell
We looked at the data. WE LOOKED AT THE DATA.

------
freyr
When I watch a TED talk, I feel good for a moment. If I watch a few more, I
begin to feel a little uneasy, and eventually nauseous. It's like eating
sugar.

There's a repetition, a shallowness, a formulaic manipulation to evoke an
emotional response, a smugness to the presenters, a greater smugness to the
privileged attendees sitting there in the audience, grinning vacantly.

They trot an African kid out on stage who built something out of recycled
parts, and everybody instantly connects to him, understands the plights of his
existence, and shares in the celebration of his achievement. Then they drive
back in their expensive cars to their expensive houses in the privileged
enclaves of Los Angeles or San Francisco or wherever. They did their part.

I'm glad somebody's discussing it, but this talk is in many ways yet another
TED talk. Identify a complex problem that can't possibly be tackled within the
confines of the TED format; say non-controversial things as if they were
controversial; name drop big issues (the negative aspects of drone warfare,
consumer capitalism, NSA spying); provide a rushed, hand-wavey solution
without an implementation; but leave the audience feeling like the veil has
finally been lifted on this issue, and _now_ they're on the precipice of
positive change.

~~~
noonespecial
_They trot an African kid out on stage who built something out of recycled
parts, and everybody instantly connects to him, understands the plights of his
existence, and shares in the celebration of his achievement._

That was the one that turned me off to TED for good. It just felt awful to
watch. Like watching Shamu chase the ball at SeaWorld. I could almost hear a
"majestic and magnificent creature" VoiceOver. I couldn't even watch it all
the way through.

------
tfgg
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.

~~~
spinchange
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.

------
DanielBMarkham
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).

~~~
unsui
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](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...](http://www.ted.com/talks/marvin_minsky_on_health_and_the_human_mind.html)

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_.

~~~
gsk
This is very well said. Thank you for posting.

------
po
_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"

[http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2014-breakthrough-
pr...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2014-breakthrough-prizes-
awarded-in-fundamental-physics-and-life-sciences-for-a-total-
of-21-million-235691341.html)

So... yeah we're already there in some sense for better or worse.

~~~
ama729
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.

~~~
tfgg
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.

~~~
ama729
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.

~~~
kaitai
OMG $3000 for a mathematician is a ray of light in a dark world... that's like
3 conferences/research trips! Amazing things can happen with that!

~~~
ama729
I'm detecting a hint of sarcasm... ;)

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.

~~~
kaitai
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.

~~~
ama729
> 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.

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)

~~~
kaitai
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.

------
my3681
We can say what we will about TED Talks, but it is a hell of a lot better for
humanity than Jersey Shore or much of the useless crap on television. Like
anything, given enough time, TED will have to fight off self promotion and the
recycling of ideas to remain pure and relevant, but I am confident that the
fight is worth fighting.

I have a friend who teaches middle school Biology, and his students (in his
words) "light up" whenever they watch a great TED talk about the similarities
between chickens and dinosaurs or the way a gecko can swim through the air
while falling based on something way up it's evolutionary tree. I think
science-driven TED talks fill a great purpose in inspiring people that may not
(yet) be scientifically minded.

Perhaps it isn't as bad as Bratton believes it is, because I can still show a
good TED talk to my non-techy mother or father and blow their minds. My father
is a deep thinker, but just doesn't come across deep or novel ideas very often
in daily life. He is a football coach, so he just doesn't get a lot of that
between dealing with kid problems and trying to win. TED has been wonderful
for delivering him a nice, distilled idea to think about.

If nothing else, TED gives the general populace a starting point for the state
of high-level research and a chance to think about something other than their
mortgage or drama on twitter. And it does so in a manner that can be highly
entertaining. It is sadly surprising how many people live a whole day, a whole
month or a whole year without being inspired by anything at all. Anything that
can inspire the public positively should be protected, refined and celebrated.

~~~
Crito
> _" We can say what we will about TED Talks, but it is a hell of a lot better
> for humanity than Jersey Shore or much of the useless crap on television."_

I do not believe this is clear when you consider the phenomenon of
pseudoscience being presented under the TED brand as "TEDx".

~~~
Crito
Thinking about this more, I think I would say that TED _actually is_ worse
than the Jersey Shore, even ignoring the TEDx angle:

Blatantly mindless entertainment like the Jersey Shore does not sell itself as
mentally nutritious, and as such, it does not satiate any sort of intellectual
curiosity. Watching it only burns time, which is not intrinsically
problematic.

TED on the other hand sells itself as educational, or at least edutainment. It
satiates intellectual curiosity without providing any real mental nutrition.
It leaves you feeling as though you have just learned something, as though you
have just gained some sort of profound insight, but that sensation is empty.

~~~
MAGZine
"It satiates intellectual curiosity without providing any real mental
nutrition."

i take issue with that. You're saying that it's better to do /absolutely
nothing/ with your time then stimulate intellectual thought, even if it's just
surface? If you're not getting people interested in the pursuit of solving
problems, then you're never going to have any problem solvers.

------
stdbrouw
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.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
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.

~~~
mark_integerdsv
There are many ways of seeing a thing.

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.

------
stiff
If TED isn't successful, how then would success look like for a conference of
this kind? I don't think any conference at all is by itself a serious engine
of innovation, and the more academic ones are much worse than TED talks, in my
experience during academic conferences everyone pretty much expects up front
to not understand anything at all from 90% of the talks, at least a half of
the people will actively do something else than listening to the speaker,
playing with their laptops and stuff, and pretty much the core motivation for
everyone is A) the points for getting published in the conference proceedings
and B) the party in the evening where one can finally get drunk and have some
fun. The only chance of really learning something is if you know some work a
bit upfront, or you know the people involved, and then researching it
afterwards, so at best you get a little spark and you have to put in a ton of
work to make something out of it. If you aren't consistently interested in
some small range of topics you get nothing at all from it.

In other words, it seems we don't really know how to make innovation happen at
wish. It works better in the universities in the undergraduate studies, where
over months people genuinely interested in same intellectual pursuits have a
chance to meet and get to know each other thanks to the wide range of classes
and activities and people involved. They also get to share a common
background, so they can understand each others work and their potential
relations, a lot of important scientific work happened in "schools" which
started with some figure great either at science and/or at organizing science,
and which spanned several generations. So it's a slow process, it happens over
years and takes sustained dedication of a large group of people, how would
someone expect to contribute to this significantly via a one day event?
Conferences are mainly social events in my view, and there is nothing wrong
with that.

And then there is the general question how much influence do so-called
"intellectuals" have in the world, as compared to the Napoleons and
Alexanders.

------
ignostic
Okay, so basically TED should be another dry facts-only scientific conference?
Guess what, we already have plenty of those. The speakers will present facts
and be judged based on the facts rather than on their presentation skills or
ability to inspire. We have a lot of them and they work well - but the general
public isn't interested.

There's a place in our culture for real science that is easy to understand,
presented by people who know how to present. We need something non-scholarly
to keep people interested in science and technology.

That said, we've had a lot of TED talks (especially at TEDx) that are simply
sales pitches, fantasy, or completely false. There's a problem here that needs
to be fixed. Keep the accessibility and the inspiration, but lose the factual
errors and lack of fact by mandating vetting by qualified actual experts.

~~~
mcguire
Why? Sales pitches and fantasy fill seats and sell tickets. They're
interesting, understandable, and inspiring. They do what TED, TEDx, and all
infotainment are supposed to do, right?

"Real science that is easy to understand" tends to be shallow and hard to
distinguish from sales pitches, fantasy, and lies.

~~~
ignostic
> "Real science that is easy to understand" tends to be shallow and hard to
> distinguish from sales pitches, fantasy, and lies.

Not to another scientific expert. This is why I mentioned proper vetting.

------
kaiwen1
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.

~~~
makomk
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."

------
gilgoomesh
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.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_(conference)#TEDx](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_\(conference\)#TEDx)

~~~
davidgerard
Nobody cares. If TED want to rent out the brand name, they get to keep both
pieces of the resulting reputation.

~~~
Goladus
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.

~~~
MAGZine
Or by the big red 'x' on the TED logo.

~~~
Goladus
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.

------
melling
This is exactly how I feel about HN:

"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?

~~~
npsimons
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).

------
binocarlos
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'.

~~~
wavefunction
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.

------
brown9-2
The New Yorker did a great profile on TED last year and it was hard to come
away from the article without feeling like they were making a similar
critique:
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/09/120709fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/09/120709fa_fact_heller)

------
api
This guy hit the ball into _orbit_ , and he's not just talking about TED. He's
talking about the entire "scene."

\-- From the article:

T and Technology

T - E - D. I’ll go through them each quickly.

So first Technology...

We hear that not only is change accelerating but that the pace of change is
accelerating as well. While this is true of computational carrying-capacity at
a planetary level, at the same time --and in fact the two are connected-- we
are also in a moment of cultural de-acceleration.

We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including our
cars, but drive them home to kitsch architecture copied from the 18th century.
The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as everything
stays the same. We'll have Google Glass, but still also business casual.

This timidity is our path to the future? No, this is incredibly conservative,
and there is no reason to think that more Gigaflops will inoculate us.

Because, if a problem is in fact endemic to a system, then the exponential
effects of Moore’s Law also serve to amplify what’s broken. It is more
computation along the wrong curve, and I don't it is necessarily a triumph of
reason.

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.

So our machines get smarter and we get stupider. But it doesn’t have to be
like that. Both can be much more intelligent. Another futurism is possible.

------
cjoh
It's easy to look at this as a critique of TED, and it is, but what's
interesting here is that this _is_ a TED Talk. He was invited by TedxSD to
talk about the problems of Ted. And he delivered those problems in the
language and culture of TED. And whether you agree with him or not, I think
it's commendable that he was invited by the TED organizers to give this talk,
and that he gave it.

------
sethbannon
I've always consumed TED talks much in the same way I might a movie trailer.
The talks are normally just enough to give me an idea of whether I want to dig
in deeper, but never really satisfying in themselves. If you look at TED this
way, I see nothing abhorrent about it.

------
knowuh
Complaining that a 5 minute TED talk isn't "meaningful" is like complaining
that popcorn isn't nutritious. This isn't worth writing about; you just have
the wrong expectations.

As for " middlebrow megachurch infotainment." – just trolling for eyeballs.

------
waylandsmithers
A boss of mine used to talk about how organizations need both axe sharpeners
(people to think about and refine ideas) and wood choppers (people to bring
those ideas to life and "do the work"). Problem is, for things to get done,
the wood choppers need to far exceed the axe sharpeners, and everyone wants to
be an axe sharpener.

As we often discuss when it comes to (software and technology) patents, there
are oceans separating conceiving an idea and turning that idea into something
real.

~~~
jackgavigan
Also, most wannabe axe sharpeners are really, _really_ bad at sharpening axes.

------
DigitalJack
I don't watch very many Ted talks because the topics usually don't interest
me. But the ones I do watch are the show and tell kind. The "I did something
cool, check it out."

So I have no idea what the author is talking about.

------
nl
80% of everything is crap.

And yet the original 2007 Gapminder talk[1] still surprised and educates
people today

[1]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w)

------
mxfh
Reggie Watts pretty much said it all back in 2012.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdHK_r9RXTc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdHK_r9RXTc)

Hard to imagine how anyone could follow up after this.

~~~
adregan
It's an amazing speech.

------
pulmo
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.

------
new299
2070 Paradigm shift sums up Ted pretty well:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0#t=30](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFhR1fKWG0#t=30)

------
chris_wot
So if he inspires people to abandon TED talks because TED talks don't work,
all through a TED talk, then it appears that TED has worked.

------
mgr86
Eddie Huang went on about his bad experience with TED on the Joe Rogan podcast
earlier this year =>
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FNenJN4484](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FNenJN4484)

~~~
elsurudo
Thanks for the heads up... very interesting. I can't believe this is the first
I'm hearing of this strange behaviour!

------
xixi77
This looks like a perfect example of what is wrong with TED these days (mostly
TEDx, but it's really the original's fault for allowing TEDx's to dilute the
brand pretty much to zero) -- that is, a vacuous rant with zero substance.

What do we see? We see lot of words, a lot of conclusions with no logical
basis. Example: _" 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."_ \-- what does he mean by "full flowering"? How does the
current system suppress it? What does this have to do with economic
architecture? -- of course there are no answers. Such speeches are never
designed to produce anything of value, just to please people who already think
in vaguely similar ways.

------
deeteecee
i can't say i understood what he was talking about after the "What is TED?"
part but I understand that he thinks you can't take deep, complex analysis
into these subjects and easily break it down into simple solutions and explain
it to the world. But.. I don't see anything wrong with that. TED is just
spreading more insightful ideas out there. If it's not helping the audience,
then yeah, maybe there needs to be a better mechanism for organizing their
talks or something, I don't know.

The only thing that scared me about TED is Eddie Huang's experience in this
video about how enforcing they are in spreading their ideas:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hwLMBdnbXk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hwLMBdnbXk)
. Which does kind of make me see, oh obviously there's something manipulative
about their schemes in some way.

But anyways, I haven't looked into TED that much other than watching a few of
their videos and reading their about page.

------
legendben
Hello people, for those who bash TED, what have YOU produced for the
betterment of human understanding of ourselves and the world around us? At
least TED inspires people to think about things in new ways no matter how
popularist it has become. Maybe instead of bashing TED, talk about how you
would make it better if you were to run it AND MAKE IT HAPPEN!

------
memracom
TED talks are marketing. There is no real link between most of these talks so
the fact that it is a TED talk rather than just a presentation, is basically
meaningless. TED is just a brand that people licence in order to attract an
audience. Over time, with no quality control on the talks other than charisma,
it is not surprising that TED attracts all manner of charlatans, liars and
conmen.

It is a shame really, because some people who present at TED have really
useful and important things to say. Perhaps we will see a startup enter the
space to comp.ete with TED and as part of their business model they will
checkout the speakers and the content of their talks, only approving the ones
that are not charlatans. Seems to me that this is the key problem to be
solved, not just creating another brand umbrella for public lectures.

------
pistle
Thank goodness TED will now eat itself. They always struck me as the bad part
of the west coast ethos. Self-fellating bullshit that will go nowhere. If we
ever see the dystopian future of a detached gown-wearing overclass, it will
come from SoCal.

------
rwissmann
Now that is the kind of article I come to HN for.

------
sz4kerto
I can't comment below the video, so I do it here: Thank you, Benjamin Bratton.

------
mikkohypponen
I'm a TED Speaker. I'd like to think many of you would get a chuckle out of my
talk from 2011: [http://on.ted.com/Hypponen](http://on.ted.com/Hypponen)

------
misener
According to the Livestream embed, "This Event Has Been Deleted"

~~~
api
... which is the other problem with TED: it's not really an open platform.

------
Futurebot
Excellent post which has a few points I'd like to add to:

1) " _We invest our energy in futuristic information technologies, including
our cars, but drive them home to kitsch architecture copied from the 18th
century. The future on offer is one in which everything changes, so long as
everything stays the same. We 'll have Google Glass, but still also business
casual._"

I recently wrote a post about this phenomenon, which I'll share here:
[http://www.opir-music.com/blog/culture/is-everyone-naked-
in-...](http://www.opir-music.com/blog/culture/is-everyone-naked-in-a-dyson-
sphere/), but the basic idea is summed up by Fran Leibowitz: " _I have a
number of theories but one theory is that we live in the era of such
innovation in technology,” Lewbowitz said. “It’s almost like we can’t do two
things at once. If science or technology is going to be racing ahead, then the
society is stuck. Also, I think it’s a way for people of my age to stay in the
center of things._ " That itself, of course, is a just-so story. What's
important here is the observation. I'd also argue that we've enabled something
never before possible to happen, which keeps certain things "in the past"
(like music): _mass intergenerational cultural transfer_. What keeps the
Beatles on top of music lists of people of all ages? What causes old songs to
suddenly pop up as hits, decades after their release because of a YouTube
video? It's this effect which seems to cause a large chunk of popular culture
firmly set in past eras. We move things at the margin, yes, and yes, we have
_always_ borrowed from the past. However, it has never before been so easy for
so many to listen and look at the things past generations have created and at
such scale. Since "known cultural entities" often serve mainly as a kind of
touchpoint between different people, the utility of these well-known icons in
the social sphere is very valuable. You can "connect" with others across
generations very easily. This isn't good or bad, but I think aptly describes a
very different cultural landscape than ones in the past.

2) " _It’s easy to get enthusiastic about design because, like talking about
the future, it is more polite than referring to white elephants in the room.._
"

This is the sad realization that many (ex-)activists, technologists, and other
ardent idealists often come to. It's easier to deal in the uncontroversial,
the platitude-ridden, and the simplistic for a number of reasons. First,
exclusion - if you add in the depth, the complexity, the nuance, the
difficulty - you risk alienating those that are not knowledgeable enough to
contribute. Sure, some are eager to learn, and others are eager to teach, but
this means lots of time spent on getting people to a baseline rather than
progressing. The second thing is plain conflict - often by nominal (and
erstwhile) allies. The narcissism of small differences, loudmouths with a chip
on their shoulder, and plain old confused angry people serve to stoke the
fires of internecine warfare. I've seen it over and over in technology circles
(where it can be ugly), and also in social justice "communities" (which are
sometimes a nightmarescape of identity politics-based hatred) that I've been a
part of. The experienced and the jaded look at this and either exit, or stick
to the milquetoast. Neither helps progress anything.

3) " _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._ "

Although usually applied to culture, I think the idea posited by Paul Treanor
applies here as well:

" _What already sells well, becomes more marketable. This is a general
characteristic of all liberal social structures, not just the market. Repeated
transactions and interactions, on the basis of the outcome of previous
transactions and interactions, have a centering effect. Deviations from the
norm are 'punished' by such regimes, and innovation is by definition a
deviation from the existing norm._"

That same "centering" effect on culture seems like it may also affect non-
cultural entities. What drives things forward may also drive them back - a
forced regression to the mean.

~~~
dredmorbius
And your response is also excellent. Many points I'd like to return to,
bookmarking.

------
dm2
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.

One that inspired me recently: "How simple ideas lead to scientific
discoveries - Adam Savage" \-
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8UFGu2M2gM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8UFGu2M2gM)

------
diydsp
This was online as of an hour ago, but I had to run an errand and it's now
down the memory hole! If anyone has a mirror, please post.

TED talks should be taken at face value. They don't necessarily represent the
greatest thing in the world. People attach that themselves and should be
blamed themselves. We ought to be grateful for the forum. Yes, it's not
perfect and 80% is crap, but it doesn't preclude anyone else from
communicating in other forums, either!

------
sandersaar
"Content has been removed"

~~~
jayklub
Yea I got this too. Happened in the middle of watching the stream.

------
runewell
People like TED. TED is sooooo OVER. \- Hipster Professor

[http://youtu.be/UOXsmNhvPEU](http://youtu.be/UOXsmNhvPEU)

------
tyang
A big problem with TEDx is lack of quality control.

I know one TEDx event that asked a top ten website cofounder to apply as a
speaker and then rejected him.

I attended the cofounder's talk at a top university renowned for innovation,
and it was awesome.

I also attended the TEDx event this cofounder was rejected from, and it was
horrible.

We left after a couple hours, uninspired and none the wiser.

Here's a time and money-saving tip: Go on Quora.

------
VLM
"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.

------
peterwwillis
TED conferences are basically an organized unconference of incredibly long
lightning talks. Of course they don't have any value, it's just a bunch of
random schmucks ranting about something they're passionate about in a way that
gets youtube views. But there's _nothing wrong with that_.

------
Benferhat
> This Event Has Been Deleted

mirror, please?

------
cafard
See [http://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/10/06/tedx-prank-
philadel...](http://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/10/06/tedx-prank-philadelphia-
drexel-sam-hyde/)

------
justncase80
I love TED. Not all of the talks are perfect but in general they are inspiring
and wonderful. Some people just like being negative, this author moves me not
at all.

------
robertjwebb
Thank you for making this talk.

------
simonebrunozzi
Sergey Brin's TED talk on Google Glass is the worst TED talk I've ever seen.
Wondering how much he paid to be there.
[http://www.ted.com/talks/sergey_brin_why_google_glass.html](http://www.ted.com/talks/sergey_brin_why_google_glass.html)

------
rogerthis
I'd rather watch christian tele-evangelism than most TED talks.

------
soitsmutiny
Looks like someone's launched a TED Offensive.

------
EGreg
I was kind of with him until he started detailing his own vision of T - E - D.

What an idiosynchratic point of view

------
michaelochurch
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.

Anyway, there it is.

~~~
phpnode
> 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.

~~~
michaelochurch
_do you have any evidence for this?_

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/](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.

~~~
lgieron
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.

~~~
michaelochurch
It's a huge accusation. Not one I'd make lightly.

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).

~~~
BlackDeath3
I notice that you avoided the implicit question in the above post: can you
provide proof of your accusation?

------
grimaceindex
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.

------
jimmytidey
Nothing as popular as TED could be any good.

------
ChristianMarks
The inspirational message of TURD Talks is that if you could only crack your
skull in just the right way, at the bottom of a pool after slipping at the
edge, or in an almost fatal car accident, or by falling out of your shower and
hitting your head on the sink before landing in the kitty litter underneath,
then you too could release your inner savant.

