It isn't just "TED". TED is a symptom (and not all of the talks are bad; the format must be shallow because it reflects the short attention span and quick-to-dismiss mentality of the upper class). It's this horseshit faux-liberal self-congratulatory corporate house-slave culture. That's where this speaking tone of "pitching" rather than teaching or exhorting or enlightening (when needed) condemning comes from. I can't fucking stand it. It glorifies saying nothing in a vacuously charismatic and uselessly intelligent, but extremely socially acceptable, way. It legitimizes the existing elite's sense of its own "meritocracy" and encourages the passive-aggressive behavior for which the California business culture is known.
This whole culture (and I can't blame TED for this; it would exist with just as much force regardless of whatever TED did or didn't do, because TED really isn't a big deal in any way) castrates the people who are supposed to be "intellectuals" and it often galvanizes the upper-middle-class against truly creative people, who are almost never socially acceptable because those two objectives are often diametrically opposed.
That said, I've been on the pro-distaste vector for years and look where it has got me such as... well, let's start here, on this TED-Junior forum we call Hacker News. Anything I say, 5 people I've never met who've only read the name and not the content come and downvote it to shit. None of that matters in the least (downvotes don't really mean anything when you get them for nothing) but it's worth pointing out. Yes, the world absolutely needs people to express distaste and disgust. We need to stop accepting the monstrous waste of resources and peoples' finite attention when something like Snapchat gets funded and some Joffrey gets to play boy-king. That said, it often leads to some pain for the courageous individual. You don't always make friends being right.
Or maybe your attitude is clouding any articulate argument that you may be presenting. The reason TED works is because how you present your message is a large part of how successful your message is. If you are receiving that many downvotes, it is probably due to a combination of your self-righteous message and the arrogant way you are presenting it.
I totally agree. Dissenters/malcontents don't have an easy life, and they have to be absolutely freaking amazing (genius, good communication skills) to have any impact at all (or they are just written off as cranky, crackpots, or worse). Much easier to just join the echo chamber and go with the flow.
Fair enough, but the ones that do have the ability to use language well (HL Mencken, David Simon, Carl Sandberg, Martin Luther King, et al) are some of the most valuable members of society, and I am certainly glad that such people exist.
Even that top 1% that manages to break through gets written off as cranks and "crackpots" by most, at least early on. It's the fact that an elite and discerning few, whose opinions are the only ones that matter to us, can recognize our talents that keeps us going.
Eh, to be fair, it is often very difficult to tell who is a crackpot or just being cranky, and who is a legit dissident/free thinker. We (ya, I include myself) can develop behind a wall of understanding and support, but eventually we want to change the world, which means...somehow appealing to the broader community.
There's definitely a "silent majority" (and not always that silent) of good people here. If you stick to the technical posts especially, there's a good crowd.
I got most of my karma before my account was "moderated", which is California Passive Aggressive for having your posts downplaced into obscurity (also called "rankban" by some) and guaranteeing that you never have the top post, no matter how many upvotes you get (and you won't get many, often, given that your posts are insta-buried). I also deal with a slowban (5-second load times when logged in) and will often get 4-5 downvotes within minutes of each other, for which I don't know who to blame, but it's annoying.
I've kept posting out of a sense of resistance more than anything else. I refuse to be run off the board. The passive-aggressive "moderation" to my account actually backfired and kept me on the board, even as my increasingly justified sense of indignation grew.
Great points, and fits my observations of this post-technology culture. Distaste and disgust are systematically being moderated out of this community, along with creativity and risk.
To the Church of YC congregation, Sam Altman worshippers, VC plantation hands, and michaelochurch haters... why didn't you kill yourself already when your parents slammed you for getting your first A-? The majority of you are only here because you want to fit in, so props to michaelochurch for always bringing the realness.
This whole culture (and I can't blame TED for this; it would exist with just as much force regardless of whatever TED did or didn't do, because TED really isn't a big deal in any way) castrates the people who are supposed to be "intellectuals" and it often galvanizes the upper-middle-class against truly creative people, who are almost never socially acceptable because those two objectives are often diametrically opposed.
That said, I've been on the pro-distaste vector for years and look where it has got me such as... well, let's start here, on this TED-Junior forum we call Hacker News. Anything I say, 5 people I've never met who've only read the name and not the content come and downvote it to shit. None of that matters in the least (downvotes don't really mean anything when you get them for nothing) but it's worth pointing out. Yes, the world absolutely needs people to express distaste and disgust. We need to stop accepting the monstrous waste of resources and peoples' finite attention when something like Snapchat gets funded and some Joffrey gets to play boy-king. That said, it often leads to some pain for the courageous individual. You don't always make friends being right.
Rant over. Fucking take it away.