
The Church of TED - dcre
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/the-church-of-ted.html
======
cs702
"TED, with its airy promises, sounds a lot like a secular religion ... The TED
style, with its promise of progress, is as manipulative as the orthodoxies it
is intended to upset."

Many (though not all!) TED presentations showcase individuals who think highly
of themselves explaining in digestible soundbites how they're going to make
the world a better place, in front of live audiences who have a high opinion
of themselves, for video distribution to online audiences who want to think
highly of themselves.

It may not be a religion, but TED definitely has a cult-ish feel to it.

~~~
nailer
Also TEDx has happily adopted a wide variety of nutters and pseudoscientists
that have wrecked their brand.

~~~
sylvinus
You talk about TEDx like if it is a single entity, but it is actually
thousands of individuals making independent decisions, with minimal oversight
from TED. So of course there are going to be a few mistakes and if anything we
should respect TED for opening up their brand and allowing experimentation.

The whole point is staying alert to see these mistakes, whether they come from
TEDx organizers or from TED itself because nobody is right 100% of the time.

~~~
jeffdavis
For most things, opening up is noble. But not for a brand -- can you imagine
Apple allowing other companies to use their brand for experimentation? Or
Coca-Cola?

~~~
sylvinus
Those brands are for-profit and opening up may indeed not make sense
financially.

TED is a non-profit, and their goal is to build an efficient platform for
sharing ideas (and not only theirs). In this regard, opening up makes total
sense, even if brand damage is a risk. (hence the respect)

------
seanmcdirmid
The onion has some good TED satires:

[http://gizmodo.com/5950924/the-onions-ted-talks-parodies-
way...](http://gizmodo.com/5950924/the-onions-ted-talks-parodies-way-smarter-
than-the-real-thing)

(Forgive the gizmodo link, but onion is blocked in China)

I think TED has to do with what I observe happens to corporate, startup, and
ya, religious cultures that tend to take themselves a bit too seriously and
live in an echo chamber too long.

I would totally pay for inspiring tech talks with sarcastic John Oliver style
deliveries. A bit of cynicism and sarcasm goes a long way in making something
seem real to me.

~~~
muyuu
IMO the best thing the people from Onion have done since this genius piece
[http://www.theonion.com/articles/al-gore-places-infant-
son-i...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/al-gore-places-infant-son-in-
rocket-to-escape-dyin,2495/)

------
delish
Alan Kay has an apropos quote[0]:

> This [The fact that science is a human-driven, human-invented process] is
> hard to explain to K-8 science teachers, _who think that science is a new
> religion with new truths to be learned. They think it 's their job to
> dispense these catechisms._ [emphasis added]

I think viewers of TED talks are looking to be told what to believe. I'm not
at all moralizing--I sometimes watch TED talks--but I do think science-as-
religion (a bunch of facts or truths to be memorized or internalized) is a
distortion that "opiates the people," so to speak.

[0] Is it really complex? Or did we just make it complicated?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubaX1Smg6pY)

~~~
bloaf
I think that in science there is an inherent tension between what scientists
know and what what the public knows.

Scientific knowledge is covered in asterisks. To read and understand science
typically requires an extensive amount of background knowledge; without that
it is very easy to misinterpret the strength, significance, or applicability
of a scientific finding. Many of the asterisks are themselves scientific
conclusions with their own set of asterisks.

The public, at least in areas which are not immediately relevant to daily
life, cannot be assumed to have that background knowledge. Therefore, the
tension is essentially this: How can scientists make people aware of (or
interested in) scientific knowledge if they have to strip out all the
asterisks when talking to them?

Making science into a _catechism_ is simply one solution to the above problem.
Ignore the asterisks and turn the fundamental findings of physics and
chemistry into dogma and dispense it as gospel truth. _I actually am somewhat
o.k. with this._ Sure, Joe Public might come away with an over-simplified and
over-confident knowledge about what science says, but I think that a clumsy
knowledge of scientific facts is better than the impression that scientific
knowledge is arcane and out of reach. After all, it is highly unlikely that
Joey P. will find himself in a situation where it is very important for him to
really understand all the subtleties behind his k-8 scientific knowledge, but
that knowledge is likely to come in handy.

The only _problems_ with the science-as-religion solution are a potential
"loss of faith" and the perception of arbitrarity with regards to scientific
findings. The first can easily happen when someone learns about a new finding
which contradicts the dogmatic version of science but is entirely consistent
with the heavily asterisked _actual_ scientific consensus. The second problem
is basically "rejectability;" if people think that science is a set of
arbitrary rules, then they are free to reject them the same way they would
reject other religions.

------
discardorama
FTA: "TED talks routinely present problems of huge scale and scope — we
imprison too many people; the rain forest is dying; look at all this garbage;
we’re unhappy; we have Big Data and aren’t sure what to do with it — then wrap
up tidily and tinily. Do this. Stop doing that. Buy an app that will help you
do this other thing."

... and at the bottom: Megan Hustad is the author of “How to Be Useful” ....
From it's blurb: "There's a lot of career advice out there. Much of it dumb.
But what if someone read all the advice books -- over a hundred years' worth
-- and put all the good ideas in one place? Could you finally escape the cube?
Stop mailing things? Be happier?"

I dunno, but Ms Hustad is doing exactly what the TED talks she derides are
doing. Maybe she's upset because she has never been invited to talk at TED?

I have never looked at TED talks as a solution to anything; to me, they're
just interesting people talking about what they do.

~~~
frozenport
>>they're just interesting people talking about what they do.

I thought this, but then there were a few TED talks on fields that touch my
work. I was furious that TED would provide a venue for charlatans. In some
ways the people who promise the most, and whose can be boiled down to sound
bites are rarely the folks who do the interesting work.

~~~
lazaroclapp
Honestly curious here, could you mention which TED talk in particular and what
you found to be inaccurate or misrepresented?

I just want to get a feeling for what level of distortion we are talking
about. As it is, I assume the talks are hardly accurate by specialist
standards, but I have no idea if we are talking "science news in mainstream
news (say, BBC) publication" distorted or "Reddit conspiracy theory"
distorted.

~~~
frozenport
Its `science news in mainstream news`, although `mainstream` news can
occasionally be stimulating as it often comes directly from university press
releases. Remember that TED sells itself as `ideas worth spreading` rather
than `shit worth smearing`.

------
carsongross
I will say, this TED talk improved my life immeasurably, if only for two
minutes and fifty eight seconds:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s)

~~~
delish
I watch this Reggie Watts talk when I need a pick-me-up:

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

~~~
adriand
Simply brilliant. I understand some of the criticism of TED but I've seen
stuff - like this clip - that is so damn good, I don't really see what all the
fuss is about.

And since we're talking about Reggie Watts, I have to share my fave of his:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bLFO4ZV0i4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bLFO4ZV0i4)

------
ianstallings
Eddie Huang had an interview with Joe Rogan where he talked about the behind
the scenes weirdness and cultish feeling he felt as a speaker when he tried to
leave.

~~~
bramgg
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hwLMBdnbXk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hwLMBdnbXk)

~~~
MollyR
This was very surprising to me. I'm glad you linked it. I have definitely
changed my mind about ted.

The fact they forced Eddie to have a roommate is weird, and creepy.

It seems like humans just can't live with out religion.

~~~
ianstallings
I know that story just gets weirder as he goes along. The part about them
telling him to pack a poncho because it was going to rain was too good.

------
MrMeker
I have a lot of the same feelings about TED. The presenters come across as
arrogant and usually misrepresent their project as ready to work, when in fact
all they have is one dubious artifact.

"Oil Companies hate her: One TED presenter's idea will eliminate the world's
oil usage."

~~~
dscpls
You write that as if it's an example of an actual TED talk title.

How about you make your point with a real example. I haven't seen anything as
misrepresenting as this.

~~~
cma
Crows that clean up trash

------
GigabyteCoin
It's incredibly they manage to fill the seats at those prices. Church is free
and they can barely manage to coax anybody through their doors anymore.

~~~
bbcbasic
Supply and demand. If they sold seats to witness a new pope starting his gig,
I am sure they'd sell for quite a lot!

------
seanplusplus
Irony: the author of this article gives a TED talk about her research.

~~~
saraid216
That's not irony. That's Birdman winning an Oscar.

------
bbcbasic
I am surprised at the cost and the graduate-job-interview style questions just
to attend a satellite event like TEDx Sydney.

I applied and was rejected. I am not interesting enough for them I guess,
maybe I will apply again once I have been to the moon. So freshly
discontented, I am more inclined to agree Ted is a religion, cult etc. :=)

I do find the talks unsatisfying. The first 3-4 I watched were great (but I
can't even remember what they are about) then they are same-ish after that.
(My reason to attend was meeting people rather than the talks.)

There is a lot of style over substance in TED talks. I rather have an OK
public speaker speaking about something very interesting to me than vice
versa.

------
shas3
The one purported benefit of TED talks is democratizing knowledge and
inspiring people. The latter, possibly it does. Some claim its benefit as
giving access to knowledge for people without direct access to universities,
etc. The former, TED talks fail at, spectacularly and dangerously. In the era
of MOOCs, for someone without direct access to good learning resources, or for
people who cannot learn stuff from books, TED talks are a dangerous
distraction. I tend to some times view more 'academic' TED talks- like the U
Penn professor on swarm robots, or the MIT prof's talk on childhood
development. These talks are cripplingly inadequate for anyone serious about
learning stuff. They present very little, if any discussion of existing
literature or about other researchers work. TED talks are the antithesis of
'standing on the shoulder of giants'. Most academic TED talk speakers tend to
present themselves as the lone giant in their field of expertise, and their
work as being the final truth in their field.

~~~
hackinthebochs
TED talks are not edging out legitimate academic coursework. The dichotomy you
speak of doesn't exist. There is a market and a need for talks that don't
attempt to be rigorous in any sense, but are simply to show what is possible
and what is coming. Why do many of you people seem to be against this? These
critiques look more like territory-marking than anything substantive.

------
zf00002
geez I had no idea it cost $8,500 to attend

~~~
cpncrunch
I'm struggling to understand why anyone would pay this. What is the perceived
value?

~~~
gr33nman
The value is in networking (meeting other like-minded people who can afford
the $8,500 price of admission).

~~~
cpncrunch
You're probably right, although I'm thinking that there must be more efficient
ways of networking. I was considering going to Google I/O this year for the
networking, but have decided that it's probably not worth the $3k it would
cost me.

Perhaps someone needs to come up with a social networking tool for people like
HN readers.

------
seanv
TED's reaction to the article
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlOSdRMSG_k&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlOSdRMSG_k&feature=youtu.be&t=40s)

------
tiger10guy
I'll just leave
[this]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5tGpMcFF7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5tGpMcFF7U))
here.

Dan Dennett has said similar things.

