The TED Talks: Silicon Valley Corporatism? | Hacker News Reader

The TED Talks: Silicon Valley Corporatism?

thenewinquiry.com

56 pointstgrass35 comments

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.

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.

The ironic thing was most of the people he cited as agreeing with him basically didn't, or agreed that TEDx was crap (which is a separate argument from TED).

I for one agree that articles like this need a lot more support to be influential. I wish that Hacker News would focus more on technical things, but who am I to judge? I read the post and now I'm even commenting on it. :)

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?

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.

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.

I don't believe his concern is with how interesting the talks are.

The corporatism of TED as seen by the writer is that TED's epistemology, the very style of the lectures, serves the interests of the Silicon Valley establishment, in part by excluding other ways of knowing and presentation.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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)

It is as legitimate as the repurposing the term objectivism for Ayn Rand's puerile rants.

In other words something one might well expect from a position of ignorance but disappointing from someone who at least ought to know better. English is ambigious enough already without intentional misuse, particularly from would be scholars!

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_...

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.

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

Great quote, that says it all

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...

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

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

I believe the collective noun for a group of self-proclaimed gurus is "a douche of gurus".

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

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

I'd be quite happy to see Sarah Parcak (satellite imaging applied to archaeology), Atul Gawande (checklists for medicine), Peter Diamandis (X Prize/Singularity University), Wade Davis (ethnobotanist), Regina Dugan (DARPA director), maybe Edward Glaeser (city growth), Steven Pinker et al, Bill Nye, , T Boone Pickens, Prof Sadoway (materials science), Tali Sharot (neuroscientist), Frank Warren (PostSecret). Maybe not worth $6k for the speakers themselves, but worth it for the other people at the event.

I think part of the reason for having ~50% of the speakers being "entertainment" is to give people at the event a break intellectually, and to get to socialize with other attendees. It doesn't produce great video for home viewers, though.

I think I might go to the BIL conference (free, and run in parallel) and shoot video/live stream it.

Is it really notably lower than TED 2011 lineup? That is an honest question, I don't feel qualified to say who the most qualified deep sea explorers are.

http://conferences.ted.com/TED2011/program/schedule.php

Wow, I hadn't realized how bad the 2011 lineup was! Seriously, McChrystal, the general that "retired" because he bad-mouthed the VP in front of a reporter? Amazing.

David Brooks, Jason Mraz, someone from Pepsi, puppeteers??? Mindblowing.

I actually listened to the Ford Motor dude's presentation and it was awful. It seems like TEDTalks now are just a way for business people to feel like they changing the world for the better (when in actuality they usually aren't). Instant gravitas.

I'd listen to GEN McChrystal about 1) "how to not talk to reporters or 2) JSOC secret squirrel stuff. His role running Afghanistan operations was comparatively minor compared to what he did in Iraq. Of course, there's no way he could talk about what he did in Iraq.

This blog post is knowledge hipsterism.

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

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

"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?

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

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.

Corporatism is not corporate.

Corporatism just means special interest groups leveraging power.

Corporate means relating to a company.

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

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.

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