While I have much sympathy for Rich (way more than for Clojure), I find his talks to be extremely simple. He can talk hours about very basic and obvious things. Overall, at the end, I'm not getting much new from it.
The trick here is to pretend for a bit that you're not yet as amazingly well educated and developed as you no doubt are and then to realize that there are a large number of people like that. As one of those I'm really happy he takes the time out to do these. To you it would obviously be a waste of time so no need to watch them, but I definitely get some value from them. I like that 'much' in there.
Your comment is terrible. You shit on Rich, you shit on Clojure, and say nothing other than you're so superior that you get nothing from anything Rich says. Fuck you (yes, that's not subtle, but your comment is passive-aggressive bullshit or perhaps you lack the ability to clearly state WHY you do not think a talk is useful).
While I completely disagree with the grandparent comment, I understand that that's his/her opinion, nothing more. What Hickey talks about may seem obvious, but only in hindsight, at least to me. It seems that most of the commenters in this thread feel the same way. However, I can accept that there are people, like Zerr, who would find Hickey's talks to be rather boring stuff, since they are already well aware of everything he talks about. So there's really no need to reply to these people with hateful comments like this one.
Personally I like Rich talks very much, they were eye opening for me, although I agree that they focus on simple things. That's why they are so interesting. On the other hand I'm not a fan of Clojure - I'm trying to be, but my love for certain other Lisps gets in the way.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off because I said, in effect, that in my opinion there are better Lisps than Clojure?
In your "clever" attempt at irony, you ask your parent about his own, presumably better talks. Please take a moment to reflect on how utterly stupid this line of attack is!
Give up? OK, here's the explanation, by analogy: I'm completely incapable of building an automobile. Yet, having driven both, I'm qualified to comment that a Geo Prizm is an underpowered, shoddily constructed car - at least when compared to my Lexus. A talk is a product created for the benefit of an audience, and as the consumers of such a service, the audience - including the GP - is probably best qualified to judge it. To imply that only a producer of talks may have an opinion on a talk is shockingly stupid.
Before you attempt another such put-down, please consider how it will reflect on you, and whether it might not be more sensible to keep your mouth shut!
Oh, and, the world is not that big, so I'll keep in mind that beer ;)
'We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.'
I often return to basics and understand them in a new way after some time away, and Rich's talks evoke that phenomenon for me more than most.
All the smartest people I know (far smarter than me) are constantly impressed by his talks - and discussing with them often makes me realise I've missed some bigger-picture concepts.
So my conclusion (in lieu of a chat over a beer with the person to dig deeper) is to assume that superficial dismissal of his talks mostly demonstrate a superficial understanding of the content.