The Church of TED
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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.
This reminds me of the comment I recall from 'patio11's podcast, someone was talking about how their sales pitch uses a lot of spam-associated techniques like suggestive rhetorical questions ("Are you happy with...", etc.), and was asked (in order to give structure to the guest's pitch) something to the effect of, "What separates you from the spammers?" and his answer was, essentially, nothing except I deliver the goods.
I think in general this is the only sane answer to this style of question. Can't you frame every organization as a cult? Probably, if you word it carefully. Not the right question on either end, really.
Does TED deliver the goods... I don't think so. If these people truly have deep knowledge of their fields, <20 minutes is not long enough to really communicate that in general, and from the talks I've seen, while engaging and enjoyable, are not really informative. On a higher level, it's 2015 -- if I really want to change someone's brain so that it _gets_ my field, there will be e.g. interactive elements, which are largely missing from TED talks.
TED seemed interesting from a lightning-talk perspective, but it's clear the goal isn't to whet your appetite, the goal is to deliver the promise of enlightenment before dinner time.
Do you think that if 'a given organization' figures out a way to actually offer enlightenment, or the illusion of, and people pay for this, that it is guaranteed successful?
I guess I see social organizations as 'structures that produce things because they are the things that are the easiest or most likely to structure/build'. I do not see this as any different than what the rest of humanity does. It's just a being in that place at that time and doing what humans naturally seem to do to survive, sort of thing.
There's a lot of emotions and hype that conflate the actual mechanics of social production. But most of those labels are ephemeral, some get discarded and others remain. That's just life in general though, I suppose.
I suppose the question I would ask is "why has humanity in general created and supported such cultural machines that prosper from the continual promise of enlightenment?"
Churches are a lot of things. Like most institutions, they have some strengths and failure modes. There are some of both which are arguably peculiar or more common to religious/mythical/magical approaches, but a lot of them come from the general humanity rather than the religion.
For those who aren't aware of this plague of bad quality TEDx talks, Sam Hyde's "2070 Paradigm Shift"[0] is a very entertaining, self-conscious deconstruction of such poor TEDx talks.
But if the Billion+ people in China believe in their system, then it is important for us to hear their perspective.
Its like all those damn libertarians. I hate their perspective, but damn it, I'm gonna listen to them. Libertarians are central to the changing Republican Party (especially in younger Republicans), so I must understand their viewpoint moving forward.
I may disagree, but its important enough that I need to listen.
Here's a universal truth. Outside of sociopaths, a person must believe in his work in order to excel in his (or her) job.
Eric X. Li was a Legislative Councilmember in Hong Kong... a rather finely run district (probably one of the best run districts) in that country. And based on the talk, it sounds like he believed in himself, in the system of his culture, and believed in his work most of all.
It is alien, and definitely wrong to our perspective. But do remember, he lived this stuff for nearly 10 years of his life. He is one of the few English speakers I have ever seen describe the Chinese political system to me.
To call him just an "opportunist" is an insult to his work, and his bravery. He came to America to stand up in front of a crowd and then bash Democracy. And he wasn't ignorant to our culture either. So I'd have to give him an A+ on public speaking for sure.
Locally, I can't even debate the pros and cons of the system here; there are no true believers to be found. But we hear stories about outsiders who buy the propaganda and are quite disappointed about the realities.
But most Chinese I talk to seem to have your opinion. Li's opinion was interesting _because_ it deviated from the norm. :-)
While you may be cynical about the system, I personally have been waiting to hear the perspective from someone who actually does believe in it. I've never heard this train of argument before.
Li is like Kaifu or any of the other VCs and/or tech leaders here: they have to be optimistic about China, their entire lively hood depends on it. A company cannot succeed in China without a very good relationship with the government.
I don't believe for 1 second that 1E+9 people in China believe in their system. In any case it's not an assumption to throw around lightly much less take it for granted.
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.
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)
It turns out that my first speeches weren't very good. I didn't understand that writing and speaking are different. When it clicked, I wrote: "I have deciphered the master key to public speaking: use Vanity (idolz) or Pride (topic translatable to lowest common denominator), but not Envy (my endeavors)."
So in my opinion, TED by nature of being oral presentations would skew away from the dry wit, and piercing insight of writing.
Also, James Mickens in the systems community (and also a colleague at MSR) is really good. He tends to go off the wall a bit more, but that is just part of his rhythm.
I guess it's subjective...
The point of TED talks isn't that they're supposed to have a stand-up comedian's level of presentation skill. It's about captains of industry talking about their slice of the world.
There's two giant components to public speaking: (1) not freezing up and (2) successfully communicating what you want to communicate. Well, really, those are the two components to any form of communication. For most people, this is circular: they freeze up because they don't think they can communicate, and they can't communicate because they freeze up: so learning public speaking is a matter of breaking that cycle on either end.
Your speeches are good if you got your message across. Sometimes that requires getting a laugh. Sometimes that requires a plot twist to make them reconsider. Sometimes that only requires reciting the facts without embellishment. It depends on your audience and your relation to them. A "master key" that doesn't recognize that you can't give the same speech to a group of 5 year olds that you gave to a group of Nobel laureates is useless.
I think the best way to describe it is as having elements of a religion, as Bob Jesse would say. It is worth keeping in mind though that the NYT is competing for the same sponsorship dollars as TED, and has most of the same issues. E.g. I'm sure we all know people who don't believe anything is true unless it makes the print edition.
You haven't articulated how any of this is bad. Somehow "arrogance" is all that needs to be said against someone to be considered a substantive critique.
TED seems to be a "futurology" organization in that it offers a glimpse into a future made possible by technology. They make no apologies for offering a positive outlook on the direction technology and society is moving, and I'm perfectly fine with that. There is a counter-movement to ramp down on positivity as if somehow we are better served by a sober analysis, and that anything more is naive or religious dogma in disguise. This not the case.
If, on appropriate occasions, the members tell, enjoy,
trade, and/or devise transgressively funny jokes about
their denomination, it’s a church.
If such jokes reliably meet with stifling social
disapproval, it’s a cult.
Think critically about everything.
Well when the principle (you can only be invited) turns it into an elitist-hipster-network in the first place.
http://gizmodo.com/5950924/the-onions-ted-talks-parodies-way...
(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.
> 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
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.
... 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.
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.
People for sure go for pithy sound bites and easily digestible (with no way to verify) information thrown at them. Typically with little skepticism.
Plus, there is a bit of the claque (esq.) effect in play I'm sure when you are in the audience. [1]
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.
Blatant lies.
And since we're talking about Reggie Watts, I have to share my fave of his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bLFO4ZV0i4
The fact they forced Eddie to have a roommate is weird, and creepy.
It seems like humans just can't live with out religion.
"Oil Companies hate her: One TED presenter's idea will eliminate the world's oil usage."
In a similar way, if something was a great idea, and could improve mileage, the oil companies with their power would kill it. (Or the entrepreneur had different variations). Or that they were in cahoots with the auto makers. Haven't researched it but wouldn't be surprised if history showed this existed literally back to when cars first appeared.
This is incorrect by inspection. As my father (Air Force) told me, if there was an invention that substantially improved mileage, the military would be all over it. They would not let anyone stand in their way.
(Fuel consumption is a severe limiting factor in military machines.)
(Towards bottom of page)
1. Move closer to where you work: (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-c...)
2. Use a bicycle more often, every time it’s possible. (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/06/13/bicycling-the-safe...)
3. Switch your car to a more sensible car, which also should have better mileage: (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/02/car-strategies-to-...), (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/09/04/its-never-too-late...)
4. Learn to drive better. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-efficient_driving)
My office is about a 3 minute drive from where I live. The biggest improvement isn't the gas cost it's the fact that I pickup an immediate 1.5 to 2 hours a day in time from not having to commute!)
How about you make your point with a real example. I haven't seen anything as misrepresenting as this.
Until they actually deliver, I'd say it holds true for most people. Myself included.
However, to achieve anything in life, you kind of have to be arrogant IMO. Because to believe in yourself without any tangible proof of your beliefs, is on its face arrogance (IMO).
I think self belief/confidence can be misconstrued as arrogance, but we're really splitting hairs IMO. It's mostly the delivery of said belief that we judge people on. And judging is pointless as well.
Some of us need to pump ourselves up in a world full of people that work to achieve little on their own to keep motivation going.
I completely agree with this, which is exactly why I find arrogance as the go-to criticism for smart people out there doing stuff to be extremely odd, and rather telling about the speaker.
http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/college-park/2015/03...
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.
Perhaps someone needs to come up with a social networking tool for people like HN readers.
Dan Dennett has said similar things.