Too Political for TED

[jcivil]

Nice and spirited yet containing counter revolutionary presupositions.

Money is real.

Hierarchy is real.

Taxes are real.

Etc... incl. these words...

Otherwise it is swell. Here here lad, tax the rich and chop the forest.

Right?

[JackRiddler]

Nice and spirited yet containing counter revolutionary presupositions.

Money is real.

Hierarchy is real.

Taxes are real.

Etc... incl. these words...

Otherwise it is swell. Here here lad, tax the rich and chop the forest.

Right?

Oh absolutely. It's just that extra inch. No deviations allowed any more from "Worship the rich and chop the forest faster."

[crikkett]

"Worship the rich and chop the forest faster."

Drill, baby, Drill.

[Project Willow]

http://www.alternet.org/media/155527/why_ted_is_a_massive,_money-soaked_orgy_of_self-congratulatory_futurism/

Why TED Is a Massive, Money-Soaked Orgy of Self-Congratulatory Futurism
It has become an exclusive, expensive elite networking experience. Strip away the hype and you're left with a reasonably good video podcast with delusions of grandeur.
...

Except TED thinks it’s changing the world, like if “This American Life” suddenly mistook itself for Doctors Without Borders.

...

What’s most important is a sort of genial feel-good sense that everything will be OK, thanks in large part to the brilliance and beneficence of TED conference attendees. (Well, that and a bit of Vegas magician-with-PowerPoint stagecraft.)

Look at Jonathan Haidt’s talk on morality and its relation to political preference, which Dave Weigel linked to as an example of a political TED talk.



It’s a very good TED talk, and a good précis on Haidt’s interesting work. It’s also full of dubious assertions that Haidt doesn’t really have time to support with relevant arguments or data (morality is an evolutionary adaption — that is, biological?), gross flattery of the audience (“This is an amazing group of people who are doing so much, using so much of their talent, their brilliance, their energy, their money, to make the world a better place, to fight — to fight wrongs, to solve problems”), and some decidedly flaky material on the superiority of Eastern religions. (There is, at least, no techno-utopianism to be found.)

And Haidt is talking about politics, or liberalism, in the way it’s commonly defined by the sort of liberal rich people who make up the majority of the media elite and the Hollywood elite and even the (more libertarian) Silicon Valley elite: “social liberalism.” He is talking about moral issues, and while economic issues are also moral, he does not mention social justice or economic redistributionism.

Because TED is for, and by, unbelievably rich people, they tiptoe around questions of the justness of a society that rewards TED attendees so much for what usually amounts to a series of lucky breaks.

...

[Wombaticus Rex]

On the plus side, this has got me re-watching and exploring the TED archives, because for technocratic fabian socialist transhumanist trojan horse objectivists, they sure do cultivate some great fucking brainfood.

Especially this: http://www.ted.com/talks/loretta_napole ... orism.html

Some great insights about how terrorist organizations are primarily engaged in fundraising, not terrorism. This system selects for a certain type of competent moron, people who are "good at following orders" -- scale that insight to cults and the OTO gets either less or more frightening, depending on your stance re: human nature.

[crikkett]

It's not a conceit for TED to say that it's changing the world. Why would TED need to be a social justice outfit to change the world?

I think it's a refreshing break from politics.

[JackRiddler]

Bumping to cross-post the latest TED embarrassment.

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