Great article on how TED makes people hungry for innovations they’re not willing to follow through with making a reality, and how the ruling class, willingly or not, likes it this way. But TED is so cool…
Tag: ted
Three “censored” TED talks
Source: High Existence
Nobody can ignore TED, a powerhouse of fast, mind-blowing and paradigm breaking talks that last around 20 minutes. Experts in diverse fields such as anthropology, entrepreneurship, cosmology or brain science deliver a presentation all under the motto of ‘Ideas Worth Sharing’. But as TED has grown over the years and the TEDx events have spread to all the outskirts of our globe it seems it has shifted its focus from controversial ideas to the goal of preserving its own brand. Is it trying to defend science or is it trying to defend the ones who use science as a political tool?
Rich People Don’t Create Jobs
Around a year ago TED banned Nick Hanauer‘s talk named ‘Rich People Don’t Create Jobs‘. The talk was deemed too ‘political’ and was never put online. However, after word got out, a large number of people signed a petition and demanded the rights to view it. TED reluctantly published Nick’s talk which you are able to view right here:
The Science of Delusion
In this fascinating talk Rupert Sheldrake in ‘The Science of Delusion‘ questions current scientific dogmas and challenges us to reconsider them. According to TED, talks like Sheldrakes ‘strays well beyond the realms of reasonable science. Yet, ironically, this philosophical talk is exactly about such opinions of what science is and is not. Watch the controversial talk here:
The War on Consciousness
The third censored talk is by Graham Hancock and called ‘The War on Consciousness‘. Graham talks about the end of his 24 year Cannabis addiction and how another ecodelic drug named Ayahuasca helped to change his consciousness for the better. He argues that we live in a culture that wages war on certain states of mind and promotes others, exactly what TED tried to do.
“If this is how science operates, by silencing those who express opposing views rather than by debating with them, then science is dead and we are in a new era of the Inquisition.”
– Graham Hancock
Do you think any of these talks should be
CENSORED? Why or why not?
It’s hard to maintain the same level of radicality once you escape the grassroots. After that, the more you grow, the necessity to conform to the tastes of a forever greater number of people slowly arises as well. Since they still have the videos online they’re not really censoring them, just saying “we don’t believe these ideas are worth spreading, but if you’re seriously going to make such a fuss about it…” Come to think of it, maybe that’s the way “civilised” people censor things without looking too bad. Still an interesting development any way you look at it.
There is the relevant enlighting discussion on TED’s website itself.
Ken Robins
Κοιτάχτε, το ξέρω ότι δεν έχετε χρόνο για χάσιμο και ότι είστε πολύ απασχολημένοι με το να βλέπετε βιντεάκια με γάτες και να ελέγχετε το facebook σας κάθε τέσσερα λεπτά, όπως κι εγώ άλλωστε, αλλά θα τα βάλω εγώ εδώ αυτά και ό,τι θέλει ας γίνει. Πιστέψτε με, ο άνθρωπος έχει καταλάβει κάτι. Δείτε τα με τη σειρά:
Why do we hate seeing photos of ourselves?
Reposting from io9.com just because I thought it was such a simple answer to such a common issue. A little primer video:
Your Brain On Porn
Evolution has not prepared your brain for today’s Internet porn.
Basically, this site says that internet porn has hacked into our brain and is playing around with the hormonal centres that handle pleasure, reproduction, addiction and reward. Everytime we masturbate to internet porn our brains register the act as if we were fertilising tens or hundreds of different women. That’s much better than only having one partner, right? You can’t beat the novelty, the variety, the propagation of genes, the accessibility!
All this has lead to situations where people are subconsciously choosing porn instead of real socialising (and feeling OK and quasi-satisfied, if a little bleh, with being solitary and socially anxious) because the brain in a completely subconscious manner prefers the porn with all its addiction, reward and novelty factor, than real intimate partners. Such situations, I’m betting, are much more widespread than anyone’s willing to admit.
In the site you can find many testaments of men who abstained from masturbating for weeks or months and saw a dramatic, to say the least, increase of their libido, self-confidence and testosterone levels. They also rediscovered the beauty of looking into people of the opposite sex as more than just pieces of meat, there as a means for a potential orgasm and little else (and always comparing them, again subconsciously, with their virtual, pornographic counterparts of sexual satisfaction). Moreover, they found out they started focusing more on real women as the real people that they are.
Could it be that the sexuality of a whole generation of men (not to mention today’s teens) is being influenced, no, shaped by high-speed internet porn, making us proud addicts to the murderer of eroticism from a very young age, thousands of synapses at a time? Wilhelm Reich couldn’t havee meant this when he was talking about the Sexual Revolution! Absolutely not. This is serious.
I’m trying this out already, how could I not? All the way. See how long I can last and what happens. I’ll post the results soon.
Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys?
Some more links to articles on Your Brain On Porn:
Guys who gave up porn: on sex and romance
Was the cowardly lion just masturbating too much?
Wade Davis: Dreams from endangered cultures
Sometimes I dream of being an ethnographer, an anthropologist just so I could have the chance to experience a life that not only almost no-one else gets to see, no-one will get to see anymore in times to come. Enter monoculture.
I just LOVE TED. And I just love what this guy is saying. The 20th century, 300 years from now, will not be remembered for its wars and technological achievements but for the unprecedented destruction of bio- and ethno-diversity.
Africa
Τα στερεότυπα μάς ακολουθούν παντού. Όλοι έχουμε γνώμη και συχνά απόλυτη, χωρίς καν να γνωρίζουμε αυτό για το οποίο μιλάμε. Αλήθεια, σκεφτείτε το, πόσα στερεότυπα υπάρχουν για την Αφρική και πόσοι από όσους τα πιστεύουν έχουν επισκεφθεί ποτέ μια αφρικάνικη χώρα; Αν ρωτήσεις τον μέσο Έλληνα (όχι ότι οι Ευρωπαίοι δεν έχουν ανάλογες απόψεις, φυσικά) τη γνώμη του για τους Αφρικανούς θα έχει συγκεκριμένη άποψη, ακόμα και αν η μόνη του επαφή με τους ανθρώπους αυτούς είναι το CD ή η τσάντα που αγόρασε στο δρόμο. […]
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Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger Of A Single Story
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Και για επιδόρπιο:
Why don’t you visit Africa? (Matador)
Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?
Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.
I watched this and was dumbstruck. The human mind and its unfathomable mysteries… Must see, by all means, and if you’re like me at all, by the end of the 20 minutes you’ll probably be crying for MORE. This Dan Gilbert fella is cool, maybe I should get his book.