
Lists of must see TED-talks  - TheAlan
http://www.quora.com/TED-Talks/What-are-some-must-see-TED-talks
======
lionhearted
"The Paradox of Choice" has a couple good insights, especially for
entrepreneurs selling, but I think it misses one very important thing.

Yes, the unknowledgeable shopper will feel overwhelmed if you ask them what
spice you want to buy out of 40 different spices, but the world would be much
worse if there was a mandate that you could only buy pepper and garlic.

It would be easier for the unskilled cook, but serious chefs would have their
ability severely curtailed.

Likewise, I think a lot of the "paradox of choice" applications evolve into
tyranny - force simpliciy, because hey, that's great for people! All these
choices confuse people! It's true, yes, that 80% to 90% of people don't want
more choice and the choice is a hardship for them. But removing choice from
that last 10 to 20% that are educated on the tradeoffs is really, really,
really bad.

There's a fundamental flaw with the whole premise of paradox of choice - it
ignores that there are people for whom a wide variety of choices is
_incredibly_ valuable and important. Encouraging restricting choices
(especially by force! yuck!) makes things easier for most people, but destroys
a lot of potential for amazing creations as well.

~~~
gmac
Spices are a hopeless example of the paradox of choice, since they're all
genuinely different things.

The kinds of choices I hate are the ones that have been deliberately and often
artificially cooked up between things that are in essence the same -- or that
I'd benefit from really being the same.

Two examples:

(1) Washing powder. My local supermarket has a whole aisle filled with
essentially identical products in different packaging (many from the same
manufacturer/conglomerate). Ironically, this proliferation of meaningless
branding seems to push out genuine choice: despite the acres of shelf space
devoted to washing powders, I can't buy an ecologically sound washing powder
here.

(2) Travel insurance. The choices faced for insurance (and other financial
products) are genuinely overwhelming: to sensibly choose between the hundreds
of available policies I'd need to read and compare the T&Cs for each one. I'd
enormously prefer there to be some central body mandating a minimum standard
for travel insurance (or maybe 2 or 3 levels of minimum standards) and then
just pick the cheapest policy adhering to my standard of choice.

In the absence of this, companies often appear to go out of their way to make
it difficult to compare their products with others' -- mobile/cell-phone plans
are a case in point here.

In short, the 'paradox of choice' should really be 'the paradox of pointless
artificial choices'... but then it becomes more obvious that it's only a
paradox if you were previously a sucker for economic theory at its purest and
most crazy.

~~~
mhb
Why anyone would buy travel insurance is a mystery to me, but maybe you'd like
<http://www.insuremytrip.com/> which has a pretty nice comparison feature.

~~~
petercooper
_Why anyone would buy travel insurance is a mystery to me_

Medical expenses, repatriation, accommodation in case of particular delays,
emergency cash in case of theft.. I can't see why you _wouldn't_ have it for
any trip overseas given how unpredictable medical costs can be (unless you
have a great existing policy that would cover all of these).

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marknutter
I've been seeing more and more of these "best _____" questions on Quora and I
can't help thinking it doesn't really fit the Quora mold very well. I emailed
them asking that they implement a feature making it easier for people to
create lists. The problem right now is that if I post 5 suggestions, and
someone votes up my answer because they agree with one of those 5, that
information is blurred. It should split those suggestions into 5 separately
votable answers.

That said, I think that one of the biggest entrepreneurial opportunities on
the web is recommendation of content. I sometimes think about how much stuff
there is to experience, from books to movies to music, and it depresses me
that I'll only ever be able to enjoy a tiny, tiny fraction of it all before I
die. With that in mind, I'd like to know I'm experiencing the best this world
has to offer. It's a complicated problem, but I have my wallet ready for the
person who solves it.

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vibragiel
FYI, I made this convenient scrape of ted.com, providing direct download links
and SRT subtitles for every talk.

<http://www.the-geek.org/ted/>

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D3lt4
I am not sure if I can watch TED again, after reading the article on HN about
how TED seems to run, its appeal is lost.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2268336>

~~~
pepsi_can
I feel the same way. I'm disappointed that social status and elitism permeates
throughout a forum that is supposed to be about advancing human knowledge and
the human condition.

~~~
Gogmagog
You must have missed the last 10,000 years of human development, because the
elite have always been at the forefront of human development. It is part of
what makes them elite. Humankind does not advance because of the efforts of
the average person, it simply continues.

Having said that... Why Julia Sweeney is always at TED is still a mystery to
me. When one of her videos come up, I can't find the skip button fast enough.

~~~
D3lt4
Not necessarily, as a counter argument consider some of the giants such as
Michael Faraday (physics and chemistry) and Bernhard Riemann (Mathematician),
who were born into poverty and later in life had many conflicts with the
people that would be considered elitist. (Especially when the elitist believe
that they were better and that people such as the son of a black smith should
stay away (a crude summary of some conflicts in Faraday's life). Riemann died
of TB, a common infliction of poor people (not elitists).

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elliottcarlson
Here are two that stick out in my mind almost immediately when I think of
inspiring overall TED talks:

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

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

William Kamkwamba on building a windmill

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

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ntoshev
What is the use of this question without context? You could check the
ratings/stats on TED.com and pick what is most popular. Quora is slightly
different demographics than general TED audience, but is this minor difference
worth asking such a question? I don't think so.

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orionlogic
Everyone has an opinion and everyone wants to differentiate his answer which
in turn, given enough answers (700 roughly) all the talks turn to be 'must-
see'. Quora become boring with these subjective questions.

anyway here is my answer a year ago :
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=443008>

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danac
List of talks for entrepreneurs:
[http://theeducatedentrepreneur.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/10-t...](http://theeducatedentrepreneur.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/10-ted-
talks-for-entrepreneurs/)

------
quan
Here's a similar HN discussion awhile back:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=442022>

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yatsyk
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1324937> \- sorted list of TED talks by
@igrigorik

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moblivu
How can a source on knowledge like TED, thriving conferences that are
entertaining and full of knowledge, be unknown by so many people. I mean they
have access on TV to so many brain melting content, but a source of knowledge
and idea like TED, is burried on the internet.... What a world !

------
retrogradeorbit
Elizabeth Gilbert's talk is on that list and it's TRULY AWEFUL.

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franze
"must see"? what happens if i don't?

~~~
Zev
In that case, you win at being a pedant and miss out on some cool talks by
smart people.

