
The Haves and Have-Nots: The True Story of a Reader Suddenly De-Invited from TED - ssclafani
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/27/the-haves-and-have-nots-the-true-story-of-a-reader-suddenly-de-invited-from-ted/
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kemiller
The whole affair is reminding me of how Ivy League colleges (and Oxbridge)
work. They used to be places where the privileged, moneyed elite could educate
themselves in relative privacy, save for a few exceptional commoners allowed
in on scholarship.

Nowadays, the proportion of talented commoners to moneyed elite is
considerably greater than it was even 100 years ago, but the basic principle
remains: foster connections among the elites, and give them first crack at any
emerging talent. This way anyone with a potentially destabilizing talent
becomes attached to the existing power structure at an impressionable age.
Better to invite them in and dilute the pool a bit than risk them draining it
later.

Any commoners who don't work out, they will drop without hesitation.

I'm not saying this is evil. If you were among the elite, you'd probably do
the same thing. And I also don't propose that this was all cooked in a room
full of cackling conspirators rubbing their hands together. It's just the way
a power structure works. From their point of view, I'm quite sure they see
this as noblesse oblige: they're just reaching out, "giving back" and trying
to help useful and interesting people succeed. But it nevertheless has
embedded in it the idea that the most important part of success is meeting
people who already have power.

And as the complainant in the letter writes, it sounds like all the hoi polloi
("Group B") at TED actually buy into this as well. Maybe he should be working
on something amazing instead of hoping Bill or Steve or Sergey notices him.

~~~
dlokshin
I'm the son of an immigrant, went to Harvard and have no idea what you're
talking about concerning the Ivy League. Would you (or anyone who upvoted)
care to explain?

~~~
mayank
Yes, the collective behavior of very complex game theoretic systems, where
individuals act to maximize their own benefit, can sometimes seem to be
controlled by a central decision structure, even where none exists.

Or-- people have a bias towards seeing massive, planned conspiracies.

~~~
forkandwait
I, for one, believe in conspiracies...

... but I also believe in class conflict, which I see as different things. Our
economic system is predicated on the existence of both a working class and an
owning class -- it's no fun to be a general if you don't have a bunch a bunch
of enlisted to boss around. And in the US, the myth is that the enlisted
commoners deserve their lot from lack of smarts and ambition.

The owning class, and their educated lackeys like me, intuit that if we don't
keep this division going, we lose our positions in the upper half of the
pyramid, and adjust our day-to-day behavior accordingly without ever
explicitly working it out in our minds. Also, we just plain feel more
comfortable around people who share experience and cultural background.

These dynamics, plus a HUGE difference in access to educational know-how, are
enough to sustain class divisions even while making it plausibly deniable that
any systematic class oppression exists.

Also, there is a rhetorical technique called the "straw man" which the
commenter is using: subtly re-characterize your opponents argument as
something easily attacked, and then attack it. The commenter explicitly said
there was no grand explicit conspiracy, but you attack him as if he did.

(One of the things I like about HN is that when issues like this come up there
are smart people here on both sides -- libertarians and Marxists, united by a
love of hacking!)

~~~
T-R
I have a little trouble conceiving of a completely classless society - at some
point you have to acknowledge that, for example, some programmers are better
than others, and that that's a positive thing. That acknowledgement alone
creates a class. The important thing is upward mobility - we shouldn't define
"better" as "knows the other people who are 'better'".

~~~
Dn_Ab
This cannot be argued. But many people conflate worth of skills and
accomplishments with worth as a person. They over reduce the dimensionality of
a superiority vector. And worse, assume transitivity of the elements composing
said vector.

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daimyoyo
Before I make this comment, please understand that I've never been to a TED
conference and am unlikely to go in the reasonably near future. Having said
that what rational being would pay $6,000 to attend an event where he's
treated like a second class citizen(I especially liked the "back of the bus"
reference) and then next year reregisters for the same event?

~~~
andybak
I read the article and was struck more by the difference between me and
someone who would pay $6,000 to go to a conference than about the difference
between Group A and Group B.

GIve me $6,000 and I'm off on a round-the-world trip. I might take a few TED
videos to watch on the way, though...

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rexf
Meatless TC post.

TL;DR

    
    
      Redacted person invited to TED by donor.
    
      Whining.
    
      Next year, redacted kicked out of TED due to falling out with said donor.
    
      More whining.

~~~
dkarl
If his story is true, he was sponsored by the donor the first time he
attended. He applied to come back and was accepted on his own merits, and then
he was blacklisted. I think it's newsworthy if TED, which is purportedly a
forum for sharing ideas, lets donors blacklist attendees. The TED talks are
just a highbrow facade for a get-together that is actually all about access.
Access (and money) is how they lure the presenters that give some substance to
the facade. Sarah Silverman showed that she did not understand the nature of
the event; she did not appreciate the privilege of having access to rich and
powerful people, and somebody took offense. Apparently this guy was also not
sufficiently deferential to some powerful person, so he is not an appropriate
attendee for an event that is all about being grateful for their presence.

 _Group A, (the people everyone would love to meet), and Group B (the people
who want to meet those people.) The people in Group B spend the entire TED
conference running around with business cards, hoping for, you know, five
seconds of face time with Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniack, Cameron
Diaz, or the like._

This part makes Group B sound like a bunch of insufferable assholes (which may
be partly true) but when you consider the nature of the event, Group A is
almost literally asking for it.

~~~
kenjackson
_Apparently this guy was also not sufficiently deferential to some powerful
person, so he is not an appropriate attendee for an event that is all about
being grateful for their presence._

You don't know what his relationship is. Maybe this donor thinks this person
molested his daughter, but doesn't have enough proof to get a conviction. At
the end of the day a donor has just as much right to pull or use any influence
they have as this _applicant_ has to attend a private conference.

I've quite possibly never seen a more worthless piece of writing or topic.
Although I'd have to go through the TC archives to be sure.

~~~
dkarl
And we have every right to draw conclusions about TED based on how they react
to such pressure.

(On a meta note, rights are a pathetic red herring pulled out when people
don't want to defend something on other grounds. Should we refrain from
criticizing anything unless we want to ban it? Should we refrain from praising
anything unless we want to make it compulsory? If you condemn all criticism as
a slippery slope towards taking away people's rights, we don't have much left
to talk about.)

~~~
kenjackson
There's a reason why people tend to discount anonymous sources, especially
when there is no additional content or evidence.

In this case we have an anonymous source, giving one side of a story (this
"reporter" doesn't even appear to attempt to validate this story with the
"curator" or anyone else), and already comes from a publication that is
generally known for sloppy work and biased reporting.

IOW, you have every right to draw conclusions even on the basis of zero
information -- and that would be slightly better than what you've done here.

~~~
dkarl
I acknowledged in my first post, which you replied to and therefore presumably
read, that the story reported in the link may not be true. What's with the
bitter tone?

~~~
kenjackson
The bitter tone? My apologies. It's just the writing from TC strikes a nerve
in my at how bad and perverse it is. In any case I let that leak through in my
response to you and others. Again, sorry about that.

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pedalpete
This article is completely based on hearsay. I'd like to have seen the actual
emails from TED, rather than just the authors translation/understanding of the
responses.

At the same time, I think the authors comments about Group A and Group B is a
huge opportunity for another conference.

He seems to think that all these 'group B' people are people who don't have
anything interesting to say. How many people get up on stage at TED and make
amazing presentations, and all of a sudden are then part of group A.

The Group B's should be searching for other Group B's who have amazing stories
and knowledge to share. That is why everybody is supposed to be at the
conference.

I've got a few friends who have an incredible nack for meeting ANYBODY and
finding out something amazing about that person which adds to their
understanding and appreciation about life.

The Group A's are just Group B's that you already have some knowledge about.

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cdibona
So I have no clue about being uninvited from TED, but if you want to sit up
front, there's plenty of opportunity to do so. I'm hardly an 'A' lister and I
had no problem joining the scrum (which is everyone) at the rope to trot to
the front rows for those sessions that I wanted to see closer.

Mind you, I've only been to the one ted (2010) so maybe I'm not the big
authority here, but I found 'A' people approachable and friendly and I'd say
it was pretty great.

~~~
wrs
I've been to many TEDs and can confirm: To sit in the first very few (3?) rows
you have to be a Patron or whatever, but if you want to be in row 5 or so, you
simply have to get in line 20 minutes early. (Kind of like the old Southwest
Airlines system.) So I don't know what all that back-of-the-bus stuff was
about.

Oh wait...people who insist on typing on their computers during the talks
_are_ relegated to the "blogger zone" in the balcony. Maybe that's it.

~~~
cdibona
Was it like that last year ? I remember there were some speaker/reserved seats
at stage right, but I wasn't actually aiming for the front row because that
might introduce a crick in my neck :-) So I guess 'patron' rows would be
possible.

The shunting of those who want to blog/surf to the balconies was pretty nice
for those who don't want the typey typey glowing screen distraction.

------
xiaoma
That's definitely a bit creepy. It also goes a ways towards explaining the
overall trend of the conference. When I found it in 2006, I absolutely _loved_
TED. Nearly every talk was eye-opening and fascinating, from Ray Kurzweil to
Juan Enriquez to Robert Wright to Hans Rosling, it was all awesome. Over time,
I started seeing fewer eye-opening talks and more politically focused ones.
Now, while I still regularly check TED, it's a very mixed bag.

For quite a while I had thought it was an issue of the low-hanging fruit
already having been plucked, but recently I've become less sure. This piece
only adds to those doubts. If donors are calling all the shots, no wonder it's
become driven by populist political causes and steeped in PC overtones.

~~~
bdhe
> Over time, I started seeing fewer eye-opening talks and more politically
> focused ones. Now, while I still regularly check TED, it's a very mixed bag.

Is that because eye-opening ideas and correspondingly talks don't come out as
often as TED conferences are scheduled? Also, a lot of amazing insights only
become insights years after the ideas are proposed and collectively understood
by society.

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rdtsc
I think rich and powerful will always find subtle and less subtle ways to
signal their status and power. Creating special clubs, with invite-only lists,
and then exercise their power and influence in applying modifications to that
list is one way to do it.

\- "Say John, how many people have you uninvited today?"

\- "Well, only 10. What about you?"

\- "Ha! I just booted 20 attendees whose haircuts I found deplorable. Then
invited this one cousin of a friend who is a blogger and maybe he'll say
something nice about me and TED to his online audience."

------
bdhe
Can someone explain how TED conferences work. Who decides the locations,
dates, and the speakers?

~~~
rdtsc
Apparently anyone who can spare $100K+/year ...

~~~
bdhe
I was looking for something more specific. What is Chris Anderson's role as
the 'curator'?

------
PonyGumbo
I produced for-profit conferences for years, including executive-level events.
It's an invitation-only event. They have every right to do this.

~~~
steveklabnik
> If TED would just own up to being about making the wealthy, famous and
> powerful feel comfortable–like other high level affairs like Sun Valley or
> the World Economic Forum– I wouldn’t have an issue with it. Business
> conferences have good reasons to be elitist; deals are getting done and
> high-level conversations need to be private sometimes.

> But when credentials are revoked at the last minute based purely on the whim
> of a more important member of the TED community, the inner workings are just
> too much like a country club for an organization whose stellar content is
> all about pluralism and uplift.

~~~
PonyGumbo
I read this too, but I don't understand how anyone could mistake a $6,000
invitation-only event for anything other than incredibly exclusive. To me, the
letter just reads like sour grapes.

------
protomyth
I would really like to know what happened in the intervening year, but money
does talk. It seems every group with any power has some perceptions that seem
mean spirited or strange to the people they affect (ex. I got rejected from a
summer internship because the high school I graduated from is in the same
phone area code as the college I attended - like the rest of the state). Maybe
the guy/girl did something wrong, or the patron thought they were acting out
of their station by going without the patron's support.

Scoble had an article not too long back on how SXSW was too big and needed to
be cut down. I presume to the point that he started showing up. I remember in
my early days thinking Gen-Con was cool up until the damn card people started
showing up :).

I think the really interesting thing is how to build a conference with better
talks than TED, but not keep all the "commoners" out. Remember, Bill Gates
wasn't "cool" many years ago. In a cynical moment, I wonder if it is possible
to hold a conference that might inspire the next, unknown individuals or is it
always going to slip into an "old boys" club patting themselves on the back.

------
StavrosK
I don't get it. The post seems to imply that donor X banned person Y from TED,
but didn't donor X put person Y in TED _in the first place_? He just withdrew
his invitation, no?

~~~
xiaoma
I don't get why people are upvoting this. Didn't anybody read the article? It
clearly says that the donor made a call and requested that person Y be
uninvited. It's also very clear that the donor was not involved in inviting
the person to the 2011 conference.

 _I sent a personal email to Chris Anderson, TED’s ‘curator,’ asking for an
explanation. I got it. Here it is: I was uninvited to this year’s TED
conference because the major TED donor I’ve referenced above and with whom,
for reasons unknown, I have now not spoken to for more than two years (TED’s
leadership tells me that this is because this person and I have had a ‘falling
out’ of some kind) had seen my picture in the TED 2011 ‘Facebook.’ This person
had called the conference organizers to express that my presence at the
conference might result in this person feeling some ‘stress’ and – perhaps –
not enjoying the conference as much as this person otherwise might.._

Edit: No, it clearly wasn't just a matter of withdrawing sponsorship. It's
right there two paragraphs further down the article. Please, just RTFA!

 _The point is that TED’s leadership was unwilling to run the risk of one of
their biggest donors feeling ‘stressed’ at TED_

~~~
StavrosK
Yes, but the author is making it into an issue about censorship, i.e. any TED
donor can ban anyone they like. As I understand it, the donor _sent_ the
author to TED in his place, and now he withdrew that offer, so it's a non-
issue.

It's as if the TC author didn't even read the letter (or, gasp, has an
agenda).

~~~
jmillikin
The email's author was sponsored the first time; the second time, it was
accepted without a sponsorship (before being banned).

~~~
StavrosK
Ah, now it makes sense, thanks.

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stefanve
do we know this story is true?, seems to be just a letter with no proof. or
are there more people with similar experience?

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ScottWhigham
Just a rant, nothing more.

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greattypo
tl;dr TED donor doesn't like man; man has his registration to TED conference
cancelled.

Meh..

~~~
petercooper
Skipping over the part about the segregation, priority seating, etc.

~~~
joshu
Iirc only the front row or two are reserved, and it's for speakers and the
major contributors. Everything else is random seating.

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kenjackson
The fact that TED uninvited Sarah Lacey gives them a tad more credibility in
my eyes.

~~~
jmillikin
Sarah Lacey wrote the article. The person who was uninvited is unknown, as its
name was redacted.

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mquander
I am so happy that I have helped make this post leave the front page.

