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Comment by platz | Hacker News Reader

TED and TEDx had great content in the first few years, when profs were able to present their lifetime's work.

Once they burned through those folks, they turned to cranks/homeopaths/etc

It sucks what happened with them. TED/TEDx talks were awesome and I used to be able to recommended people watch any and all of them.

Until I started seeing stuff like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY

lol i skipped to the end and instantly felt bad for the audience even with my audio off

my god, that is terrible! I generally think there is good content in the TED talks, but I now won't even look at the TEDx talks because regionally they do have to turn to the cranks.

OMG. That's garbage.

another egregious example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJgZ4s2E3w

Haha, that's even worse than the TED rocks parody...

Even in the first years, they suffer from the simple fact that you can't present something correct and useful in a small popular talk with no pre-requisite shared knowledge. Its "empty calories" that makes it feel like you learned something but its really just entertainment. Neil Postman in "Amusing Ourselves to Death" regards these types of talks as more pernicious than things like reality TV that don't claim to provide any useful information.

Would you also apply that to say MinutePhysics on YouTube?

Recommend buddying-up with some friends and subscribe to Great Courses on ROKU if you want some additional intellectual stimulation. Runs around US$180/annum but app channel can be shared among (I believe) 5 other remote sites. I subscribe, use it on three separate ROKU boxes, and allowed registration from online acct to a relative living a couple of miles away and a retired neighbor who was pining for some mental stimulation - also got her away from the damned news channels :)

The style ended up being their signature, after burning through that content, leading up to this piece of satire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZBKX-6Gz6A

Though from a public speaking point of view, it's well worth studying (both actual TED talks and this satire) to help make legitimate talks more polished. There's an exchange of emotions that goes on during great talks, and that really helps drive home points.

Once these talks became more about the delivery style than actual substance, it kinda devalued the whole TED branding.

Ted-X is where it all went wrong. Anyone could give a Ted-X talk and that gives us garbage of the sort that you have linked.

TED talks were never the best source of information, but at least they weren't actively misleading.

ted-X on the other hand.....

The most impactful Ted talk I ever saw was on tying shoes, so I’d say I appreciated the range of presentations. I can’t really remember any other talks but that one changed my life.

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