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Comment by MrMeker | Hacker News Reader

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."

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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.

Al Gore's talk was missing anything meaningful or new.

Crows that clean up trash

I swear "arrogant" is the catch-all term to use to describe smart people you don't like. It's lost all meaning and so I find it hard to take any critique seriously where arrogance is central to its thesis.

>having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

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.

>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 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.

I remember a similar theme way back in the 70's being used in the rear pages of auto magazines to sell some secret additive to getting high mileage in your car.

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.

> if something was a great idea, and could improve mileage, the oil companies with their power would kill it.

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.)

An urban legend for sure, this version also claimed the government was culpable:

(Towards bottom of page)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_saving_device

There are, basically, four things which will improve your gas costs, in rough order of decreasing effectiveness:

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)

"move closer to where you work"

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!)

That sounds more like a Buzzfeed headline than TED.

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