Are TED Talks Doing More Harm than Good? Jan08

Are TED Talks Doing More Harm than Good?

As you well know, I love TED Talks. I appreciate how they introduce me to new ideas and persons, and I value how they inspire me to think differently and to aspire to change…my ideas, my world, myself. All of this helps explain why I was so intrigued by this searing critique of TED Talks in a, well, TED Talk given by Benjamin Bratton, Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego. The core of his many concerns about TED Talks is their profound over-simplication of complex problems and potential solutions to those problems. He’s not against popularization, per se, but rather creating a false sense of...