I criticized TED years ago on Twitter, and someone responded to me (who had gone) about how life changing it was and how she was motivated and now was going to really make a difference the world. I challenged her on this and said "honestly, what are the odds that you're going to do anything?" She was certain that TED was significant and she was empowered and she was going to make a difference.
Now, I use Twitter so rarely (in part because of that kind of exchange-- I wasn't rude to her at all, I was just trying to make my case) -- that going back it was easy to see years later if she'd actually done anything. I checked, googled her name, nothing.
TED made her feel a certain way. Important for sure. She was very full of herself and she felt that TED was a place of rate "doers" who "will make a dent on the universe" (this was before TEDx, before TED videos when you had to pay boucoup bucks and be part of the special group of invitees in order to go, IIRC)....
She paid 5 figures to TED for a weekend seminar, at the end of which her self esteem was boosted (don't think it needed it) into the range of smugness and she felt it was important.
I disagree. I think it was an ego stroker and she accomplished nothing (and based on what she said I can conclude this from google searches because she didn't do any of the things she said she would do.)
I didn't write back to her to point this out... but this was my little ad hoc experiment.
I remember when I first heard of an acquaintance who got invited to TED and how supremely smug he was when he got back, and how he'd share little stories of rubbing elbows with celebrities and references to events.... I've never been a fan of exclusivity and so that sorta made me jealous and not really like it. But over the years it became more and more irritating.
TED is propaganda. Propaganda of high form.
I think americans are so saturated in propaganda that like a fish who can't recognize water as a thing, Americans don't realize how much of their beliefs and perspectives are shaped by propaganda. When they see propaganda that disagrees with the propaganda they've internalized they react really negatively, and not in a critical thinking here's how it's wrong from a logical basis-- but from a tribal get-rid-of-the-alien perspective.
It's important to stay out of dogma. Something that makes you feel good about yourself and important should be considered critically. IT might be healthy, and it might not be.
I think TED is unhealthy and actually corrosive and anti-intellectual.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It strikes a chord based on my own professional and academic background, in that I've attended conferences. The nature of conferences are to, basically, advance learning and sharing in a collective format. TED is about consuming something being pitched. Very different. In a way, TED is like watching television, and actual intellectualism is like visiting the library for a couple hours and browsing and reading. Or, as a famous movie character once said..."See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life: one, don't do that, and two, you dropped 150 grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!"
Now, I use Twitter so rarely (in part because of that kind of exchange-- I wasn't rude to her at all, I was just trying to make my case) -- that going back it was easy to see years later if she'd actually done anything. I checked, googled her name, nothing.
TED made her feel a certain way. Important for sure. She was very full of herself and she felt that TED was a place of rate "doers" who "will make a dent on the universe" (this was before TEDx, before TED videos when you had to pay boucoup bucks and be part of the special group of invitees in order to go, IIRC)....
She paid 5 figures to TED for a weekend seminar, at the end of which her self esteem was boosted (don't think it needed it) into the range of smugness and she felt it was important.
I disagree. I think it was an ego stroker and she accomplished nothing (and based on what she said I can conclude this from google searches because she didn't do any of the things she said she would do.)
I didn't write back to her to point this out... but this was my little ad hoc experiment.
I remember when I first heard of an acquaintance who got invited to TED and how supremely smug he was when he got back, and how he'd share little stories of rubbing elbows with celebrities and references to events.... I've never been a fan of exclusivity and so that sorta made me jealous and not really like it. But over the years it became more and more irritating.
TED is propaganda. Propaganda of high form.
I think americans are so saturated in propaganda that like a fish who can't recognize water as a thing, Americans don't realize how much of their beliefs and perspectives are shaped by propaganda. When they see propaganda that disagrees with the propaganda they've internalized they react really negatively, and not in a critical thinking here's how it's wrong from a logical basis-- but from a tribal get-rid-of-the-alien perspective.
It's important to stay out of dogma. Something that makes you feel good about yourself and important should be considered critically. IT might be healthy, and it might not be.
I think TED is unhealthy and actually corrosive and anti-intellectual.