The Elitist Dominate TED
The elephants in the room at TED
11–20 of 70 posts
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#12summary: celebrity worship.
If by celebrities you mean some of the most insightful and inspiring people from many countries all over the world, then you are quite right. It reads like worshipping the effort these people have put into achieving progress, which sounds great to me. Otherwise, I guess you're just being cynical or snarky.
Some of the talks are genuinely good, but many have a sort of weird vibe to them that I find offputting, that seems to value flashiness and trends over intellectual content. Sort of like if all of academia were the MIT Media Lab. Some, especially the management/motivation/life-philosophy ones, even border on the new-agey psuedo-psych sort of stuff you find on the corporate speaking circuit.
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#13What makes TED TED? Well, for one, it’s TED because Sarah wasn’t there (and I won’t be there next year because I didn’t pay the $6,000 in time). Its elitism and expense IS part of why TED is magical (...) This sounds really weird to me. I think what makes TED TED are some amazing talks by interesting people. We can watch it on the net. Who cares how rich the audience is? If anything, I suppose the audience is partly…
"the almost stereotypical Stuff White People Like content"
Maybe, but then where is the "stuff non-white people like" conference that everybody is watching? Everybody is free to organize a conference, so why do only the stereotypical white people seem to bother doing it?
To be clear, I don't want to imply that "white people" are better somehow, I just have troubles grasping the "stuff white people like" complaint.
Also, maybe there really is a non-white TED out there, which right now has 200 votes on non-white Hacker News. If so, it would be very interesting to hear about it (both the conference and non-white hacker news).
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
If by celebrities you mean some of the most insightful and inspiring people from many countries all over the world, then you are quite right. It reads like worshipping the effort these people have put into achieving progress, which sounds great to me. Otherwise, I guess you're just being cynical or snarky.
Some of the talks are genuinely good, but many have a sort of weird vibe to them that I find offputting, that seems to value flashiness and trends over intellectual content. Sort of like if all of academia were the MIT Media Lab. Some, especially the management/motivation/life-philosophy ones, even border on the new-agey psuedo-psych sort of stuff you find on the corporate speaking circuit.
...the talks are 18 minutes or less. If any of the talks seemed lacking in intellectual content to you it's most likely because of time constraints. For example Ken Robinson's talk on education was 100% motivation/life-philosophy, simply because he doesn't have time to present the proof he's based his opinions on. The proof does exist though; all the speakers have the credentials to back up their presentations.
I'd be interesting in a few of the "many" examples you have of this type of talk you object you. If you wouldn't mind, please link to a few here. I haven't seen a single TED talk that fits the "corporate speaking circuit" test.
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of the talks are genuinely good, but many have a sort of weird vibe to them that I find offputting, that seems to value flashiness and trends over intellectual content. Sort of like if all of academia were the MIT Media Lab. Some, especially the management/motivation/life-philosophy ones, even border on the new-agey psuedo-psych sort of stuff you find on the corporate speaking circuit.
...the talks are 18 minutes or less. If any of the talks seemed lacking in intellectual content to you it's most likely because of time constraints. For example Ken Robinson's talk on education was 100% motivation/life-philosophy, simply because he doesn't have time to present the proof he's based his opinions on. The proof does exist though; all the speakers have the credentials to back up their presentations. I'd b…
Daniel Pink came to mind when I was writing that part. I agree in an 18-minute talk you can only sort of speak in generalities, but in his case, his books are similarly unscientific.
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#16What makes TED TED? Well, for one, it’s TED because Sarah wasn’t there (and I won’t be there next year because I didn’t pay the $6,000 in time). Its elitism and expense IS part of why TED is magical (...) This sounds really weird to me. I think what makes TED TED are some amazing talks by interesting people. We can watch it on the net. Who cares how rich the audience is? If anything, I suppose the audience is partly…
the almost stereotypical Stuff White People Like content and tone of some talks.
I'll take a wild guess, East Asian or South American? Yes, there is a cultural difference in a conference like TED and the rest of the world. But it is an amazing and inspiring conference that hosts some of the most accomplished people in the world as speakers. The fact that you dislike it because culturally it is different than you says more about your openness than it does about the quality of TED. Why is a cultural difference cause for dislike?
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#17Upon learning about the $6,000 cost to get in, I shall think of TED Talks as a tax on rich people to provide free, online quality content to the rest of the world.
I think this is a fantastic model and would love to see it more widely used. For example, a small portion of the tuition of Stanford and MIT students (among others) finance the creation and publication of free quality education material to the rest of the world.
How much faster would our world develop if all education was made available this way, financed by people who have the money to spend to be the first to learn something/have the benefit of real-life interaction with the original professor?
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#18Upon learning about the $6,000 cost to get in, I shall think of TED Talks as a tax on rich people to provide free, online quality content to the rest of the world.
I'm actually surprised by the public spat over $6000; I figured it was much more or invite only. I mean, heck, a lot of the web conferences are $2000-3000.
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#19My only wish is that TED would release all the talks on the website. I think the talks are secondary to the networking that happens there, and that gives the conference its value and keeps people coming. The videos they've posted are awesome, but I always wonder on what isn't up there.
Chris Anderson said that it's mostly the second-rate stuff that doesn't get published, even over time. There must have been a handful of talks that were really disappointing and they don't seem to want them making the rounds.
Is there a list of ones they plan on posting? I was under the impression they were only posting 1 every weekday, and so far the only 2 up (at least on the official site) are Blaise Aguera y Arcas on Augmented Reality and Jamie Oliver's wish for food for every child.
While I found both of those interesting, I'm really looking forward to a few of the others and only 1/day being posted is brutal.
Re: The elephants in the room at TED
#20What makes TED TED? Well, for one, it’s TED because Sarah wasn’t there (and I won’t be there next year because I didn’t pay the $6,000 in time). Its elitism and expense IS part of why TED is magical (...) This sounds really weird to me. I think what makes TED TED are some amazing talks by interesting people. We can watch it on the net. Who cares how rich the audience is? If anything, I suppose the audience is partly…
"the almost stereotypical Stuff White People Like content" Maybe, but then where is the "stuff non-white people like" conference that everybody is watching? Everybody is free to organize a conference, so why do only the stereotypical white people seem to bother doing it? To be clear, I don't want to imply that "white people" are better somehow, I just have troubles grasping the "stuff white people like" complaint. Al…
Please don't take it literally. I meant SWPL as in this:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/
and thought it would be understood.
What I mean is stuff that is too "liberal", too bland, too politically correct for my taste. A bit hypocritical at times. It's just my opinion; perhaps I should have phrased it differently.
This is only tangentially related to race, by the way. People all over the world (including me) love classical music etc, but by using a derogatory term I'm implying only the stuff I dislike. ;-)