"TED, with its airy promises, sounds a lot like a secular religion ... The TED style, with its promise of progress, is as manipulative as the orthodoxies it is intended to upset."
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.
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.
This works for TED as well. I find some TED talks to be really useful. Others not so much. Just like every other group gathering whether it be a conference, educational institution, club, or whatever.
Can't you frame every social organization in this kind of light? Stuff that people spend their lives on - they make it sound simple so other people understand it - this forms a 'social group dynamic' through the action of communication or information transfer. If other people understand it, then they participate and contribute to the growth of 'stuff'.
> It may not be a religion, but TED definitely has a cult-ish feel to it.
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.
>TED presentations showcase individuals who think highly of themselves explaining in digestible soundbites how they're going to make the world a better place
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.
I am learning public speaking, now that school is all over.
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.
As much of cult as The Learning Annex, which is not much at all. I don't really accept the religious framing, preferring more to see TED as a curated series and TEDx much, much less so. Not without failings on the TED side, natch.
(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.
I think that in science there is an inherent tension between what scientists know and what what the public knows.
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.
FTA: "TED talks routinely present problems of huge scale and scope — we imprison too many people; the rain forest is dying; look at all this garbage; we’re unhappy; we have Big Data and aren’t sure what to do with it — then wrap up tidily and tinily. Do this. Stop doing that. Buy an app that will help you do this other thing."
... 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.
>>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.
Hey... wait a minute... something seems oddly off about that Ted Talk. I mean it's really deep and my life was irreversibly changed afterwards, sure, but something seemed off about that particular Ted Talk you linked.
Eddie Huang had an interview with Joe Rogan where he talked about the behind the scenes weirdness and cultish feeling he felt as a speaker when he tried to leave.
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."
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.
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.
I am surprised at the cost and the graduate-job-interview style questions just to attend a satellite event like TEDx Sydney.
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.
The one purported benefit of TED talks is democratizing knowledge and inspiring people. The latter, possibly it does. Some claim its benefit as giving access to knowledge for people without direct access to universities, etc. The former, TED talks fail at, spectacularly and dangerously. In the era of MOOCs, for someone without direct access to good learning resources, or for people who cannot learn stuff from books, TED talks are a dangerous distraction. I tend to some times view more 'academic' TED talks- like the U Penn professor on swarm robots, or the MIT prof's talk on childhood development. These talks are cripplingly inadequate for anyone serious about learning stuff. They present very little, if any discussion of existing literature or about other researchers work. TED talks are the antithesis of 'standing on the shoulder of giants'. Most academic TED talk speakers tend to present themselves as the lone giant in their field of expertise, and their work as being the final truth in their field.
TED talks are not edging out legitimate academic coursework. The dichotomy you speak of doesn't exist. There is a market and a need for talks that don't attempt to be rigorous in any sense, but are simply to show what is possible and what is coming. Why do many of you people seem to be against this? These critiques look more like territory-marking than anything substantive.
[+] [-] cs702|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] milesf|11 years ago|reply
Think critically about everything.
[+] [-] cheatsheet|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Alex3917|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hackinthebochs|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sheensleeves|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nailer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|11 years ago|reply
Well when the principle (you can only be invited) turns it into an elitist-hipster-network in the first place.
[+] [-] rhizome|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] muyuu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spodek|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boyaka|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_cat_kittles|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delish|11 years ago|reply
> 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
[+] [-] bloaf|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dbenhur|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] discardorama|11 years ago|reply
... 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.
[+] [-] frozenport|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] JetSpiegel|11 years ago|reply
Blatant lies.
[+] [-] carsongross|11 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s
[+] [-] delish|11 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdHK_r9RXTc
[+] [-] sb057|11 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cflCyyEA2I
[+] [-] ffn|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianstallings|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bramgg|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fadsasda432|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrMeker|11 years ago|reply
"Oil Companies hate her: One TED presenter's idea will eliminate the world's oil usage."
[+] [-] dscpls|11 years ago|reply
How about you make your point with a real example. I haven't seen anything as misrepresenting as this.
[+] [-] hackinthebochs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larrys|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] welly|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GigabyteCoin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bbcbasic|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpncrunch|11 years ago|reply
http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/college-park/2015/03...
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanplusplus|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saraid216|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bbcbasic|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] shas3|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackinthebochs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zf00002|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpncrunch|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanv|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiger10guy|11 years ago|reply
Dan Dennett has said similar things.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]