

The TED Talks: Silicon Valley Corporatism? - tgrass
http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/against-ted/

======
defilade
The article is full of bold assertions with no (or inadquate) evidence:

"TED is not simply “engaging” and “entertaining” but a specific type of
entertainment that is increasingly out of touch and exclusionary."

How do you measure "out of touch and exclusionary"?

"At first, I thought I was laughing alone; however, it turns out that lots of
other people are equally unimpressed by the current state of TED. From the
feedback I’ve received, I’m not the only one who does not take TED very
seriously or worse, views the whole project as suspect."

Wow so people who follow you agree with you. Shocker.

"So many of the TED talks take on the form of those famous patent medicine
tonic cure-all pitches of previous centuries, as though they must convince you
not through the content of what’s being said but through the hyper-engaging
style of the delivery."

Really? Which ones?

"TED attempts to present itself as fresh, cutting edge, and outside the box
but often fails to deliver. It’s become the Urban Outfitters of the ideas
world, finding “cool” concepts suitable for being packaged and sold to the
masses, thereby extinguishing the “cool” in the process. Cutting-edge ideas
not carrying the Apple-esque branding are difficult to find."

As measured by ???

"At TED, “everyone is Steve Jobs” and every idea is treated like an iPad."

I've learned over time that when people start making universal assertions like
this, they're usually lacking in data but full of shit.

~~~
ekianjo
The article is clearly not substantiated. Personnally, I avoid treating TED as
a whole, because the quality can vary from one speaker to another, from one
topic to the next. It's not always consistent, it's not always cutting-edge,
it's not always new. TED's promise is to deliver "ideas worth sharing", but
not all of them can fit that description. This being said, they still do a
pretty good job to keep the quality high.

------
rdl
Wow. I agree the TED brand has been cheapened a lot by the various TEDx
affiliated events (which mainly seem to be B and C list celebrities or
wannabes trying to self-promote), but to call it "silicon valley corporatism"
is way off the mark.

I guess I don't even understand what "corporatism" is in this context. Is he
saying that people who develop and deploy technologies are less interesting
when speaking about those technologies and their effects than an academic who
studies the social implications of technology?

~~~
ippisl
Interesting is not so important. The article says that it's more important to
understand the meaning and influence of new things on society.

I'm not sure that the guy who invented something is the one we should ask
about how it would affect society. He's probably biased towards his new tech,
and doesn't have the historical, political, social and other types of
knowledge needed to try to understand the impacts.

And the corporatism is that TED created a false sense of technological
optimism within the viewer, a sense that technology could solve all. But at
their core, most of our big problems are social and psychological, and many
are tied directly to current business structures.

~~~
y3di
Don't neglect the fact that advancements in our technology do have an impact
on the socio-economical and cultural elements of our society. The way twitter
played a huge role in the revolutions around the world show that. The internet
has given each person with access an unparalleled source of information right
at our finger tips, and has helped push forward globalization.

I agree that there are many problems that are cultural and psychological,
however technology can be part of the solution.

------
_delirium
I see the main problem not being the corporatism so much as the emphasis on
rather messianic speakers, who stake out stark, very strong claims with few
caveats, and claim a giant revolution is happening or imminent.

There's something interesting about that, so perhaps the argument should be
against people who watch only TED talks, not about TED existing; it's one way
to get one style of information. But it definitely is one style of
information; it's a world in which AI researchers are represented by Ray
Kurzweil, technology theorists by Clay Shirky, videogames by Gabe Zichermann,
etc.

~~~
ChuckMcM
"Only grandiose solutions are credible for grandiose problems." I'm not sure
who said that but its the feeling I get when I listen to some TED talks.

That being said, thinking 'big' can help break out of ruts you don't know you
are in. I've seen it happen with engineers when confronted with a huge
unimplementable grandiose architecture say "Well that is great astro
architectures but maybe we could ... and fix this other problem." where the
... was something previously not considered. Sometimes listening to an
irrationally optimistic person can free your mind from self imposed
constraints.

------
bradleyjg
The author of this piece apparently isn't familiar with the correct usage of
the term corporatism. It has very little do with with promoting business
interests. Rather it is a political philosophy that spawned, among other
movements, Italian fascism.

Such ignorance is particularly appalling given that the author couches his
analysis in a sociological framework.

Edit: Even worse, the author is listed as a graduate student in sociology. How
embarrassing for the University of Maryland.

~~~
_delirium
This is pointless pedantry imo; language drifts, and the term "corporatism" in
modern American political discourse refers to the influence of business
corporations. Etymologically it's perfectly supportable, since "corporatism"
is a system based on corporations, of which the 20th-century European
corporatist system is one possible one; a system based primarily on business
corporations is also quite literally a "corporatist" system, and a more
familiar modern meaning, since the term "corporation" in American English is
no longer commonly used to describe anything except for incorporated
businesses.

More importantly, modern linguistics generally takes a descriptivist approach,
and a quick scan of Google News will make it clear beyond any gray area what
the term "corporatism" means in 21st-century American English, at least if
we're talking about general usage, rather than in specialized journals.

~~~
akamaka
The original poster is right to point this out. Outside of the traditional
dictionary definition, the term "corporatism" is virtually meaningless. The
modern usage which floats around is used exclusively as a pejorative when
getting angry about some aspect about the role of corporations, but it's never
really defined. Sometimes it's used to mean corporate influence over
government. Sometimes it means being "too corporate". Sometimes it just refers
to the corporation being the dominant form of business today.

Sure, language drifts, and you are welcome to use the term as they please, but
if you expect people to understand you, it's wise to not misuse words.

In the case of this article, I have no idea what the title even means (except
that it certainly involves some type of complaining)

------
majma
When I first watched this Leonard Susskind talk about Richard Feynman (link
and transcript below), I assumed the sentence: _I actually don't think Feynman
would have liked this event._ was referring to that entire TED event.

I'm still not totally sure. :-)

But really Susskind was talking about the talk he had just given.. the general
pattern of _Paying Humble Deference To A Great Mind._

Of course, the Susskind talk is actually really really great. But there does
seem to be a lot of baloney in the TED proceedings lately.

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

 _So I think I'll just finish up by saying I actually don't think Feynman
would have liked this event. I think he would have said, "I don't need this."
But how should we honor Feynman? How should we really honor Feynman? I think
the answer is we should honor Feynman by getting as much baloney out of our
own sandwiches as we can._

------
danbmil99
> At TED, “everyone is Steve Jobs” and every idea is treated like an iPad.

Great quote, that says it all

------
yurylifshits
Check out TED 2012 lineup and make your own decision. Did the headline TED
event lower its bar? I feel, the answer is YES. The average level goes down,
while the program still has a few stars to watch.

[http://blog.ted.com/2012/01/11/ted2012-speaker-lineup-
reveal...](http://blog.ted.com/2012/01/11/ted2012-speaker-lineup-revealed/)

~~~
spitfire
TED was already beyond redemption several years ago when Tim Ferris and a
number of other self-help guru's took the stage.

~~~
lwat
The plural of guru is gurus. Don't use apostrophes for plurals.

~~~
rewind
On behalf of everyone who comes to HN for grammar lessons (and come on, that's
all of us, right?): thank you.

~~~
lwat
You forgot the endless sarcasm. What's HN without a sarcastic reply for
everything on the webbernets?

------
readymade
This blog post is knowledge hipsterism.

~~~
tgrass
That was my first reaction, that it was reactionary for reaction's sake. But
at the end, he makes a more humanist plea.

------
ImprovedSilence
Meh, some TED talks are good, some are bad, they got watered down as the years
went on. C'est la vie

------
wallawe
"TED’s ‘revolutionary ideas’ mask capitalism as usual, giving it a narrative
of progress and change.”

I feel like I am out of the loop on something here. Is this person insinuating
that capitalism is a sort of masked evil that's propped up as a good thing in
our blind western/democratic society? If so what is the recommended
alternative?

~~~
wallawe
This was a genuine question. If someone feels the need to downvote I would
really appreciate their point of view.

------
barmstrong
Agree with other posters, it's not that TED is corporate - it's been suffering
from dilution of the brand through TEDx, and (perhaps my biggest beef) is the
liberal slant on some talks asking for more public funding or making political
commentary. Not sure if others feel this way though, it could be my own bias.

~~~
tgrass
Corporatism is not corporate.

Corporatism just means special interest groups leveraging power.

Corporate means relating to a company.

------
mclin
He takes the time to link to "patent medicine" and "swamp root" but not to a
single TED talk illustrating his point? Lame.

~~~
rayiner
I got about halfway through the thing before I gave up trying to find such an
example and decided to read through the comments for insight.

