| Grizlas | TED |
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| | Location: Denmark | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 26-03-2009 02:52 |
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I spent some time exploring ted today. What a wonderful site it is.
Here are some interesting lectures I found:
Jarred Diamon on why societies collapse
http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse.html
Bjørn Lomborg on problem priorities
http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html
I was pretty impressed with Lomborg. Is he wrong?
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| Norlander | RE: TED |
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Lomborg has, as always some good points, but glances over the problems.
The main stumble block he doesn't mention is the valuation of his problems.
What does Climate Change cost us if we do nothing? The math we did at the University, when we had his book as part of our curriculum, was that we divided the area of landmass that was lost with the GDP, then compounded interest on that. As I understood it it was the economist way of doing it, and as our lecturer pointed out : It's massively error prone way of doing it, but sadly it's one of the best we got.
To give scale on how error prone it can be: A 1 percent point mistake, compounded over 100 years gives x2,7 deviation in the result.
The other point is malnutrition: Do we solve it if we give everybody food and micro-nutrients? His view is yes. My view, shared with Malthus and many many others is NO. If we give everybody food, they'll have more babies, which in turn require more food. A good example of this is in the Green Revolution. Norman Borlaug saved 1 billion people with his crops, but the result is that the children of those 1 billion are now starving and need ever more food. Food and the land to grow it on is a finite resource, so at some point we will run out, and then all those "saved" people will die. Or to put it in another way: It is not a solution, just a delay on the problem.
Summa summarum: We cannot do real cost & benefit on several of his problems, because we, in most cases, don't know what the real cost is, nor the real benefit.
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The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
- John Kenneth Galbraith |
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Denmark | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 27-03-2009 15:29 |
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I suppose that makes some sense, that solutions to problems that will lead to more babies aren't really solutions. But that might not be the whole story. Maybe a solution can lead to more babies in the short term but fewer babies in the long term. The goal being to bring prosperity and knowledge to regions of the world where babies are either produced as a means for survival or through ignorance and lack of protection, so that they may in the future reproduce less.
Anyhow, now for something completely different:
this guy talks about happiness and it just blew my mind:
http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Denmark | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 29-03-2009 20:15 |
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Another mind-boggling moment:
http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments.html
watch the camuflauge towards the end. Simply amazing.
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| Yutani | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Faroe Islands | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 06-04-2009 23:43 |
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Cool phone tricks
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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and bacteria talk to eachother
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Denmark | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 08-05-2009 14:13 |
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dont miss this one...
http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Denmark | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 10-05-2009 18:12 |
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Intelligence is predicting behavior.
http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing.html
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| Norlander | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Copenhagen | | Joined: 09.06.06 | | Posted on 23-05-2009 05:11 |
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One for Grizlas and his determinism.
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The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
- John Kenneth Galbraith |
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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very nice one norl 
here's another that really struck a chord with me:
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Denmark | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 24-08-2009 16:50 |
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I watched some Ted while I was having dinner just now...it seems whenever I click anything on that site I'm intellectually stimulated enough to post about it!
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Icentives are crap for anything creative. Its an ignored fact.
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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This man pretty much sums up my views on a broad spectrum of issues.
Ian Goldin: Navigating our global future:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ian_goldin_navigating_our_global_future.html
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| Jogvanth | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Hoyvík | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 26-10-2009 23:11 |
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I like this segment of TED.
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No decision is so fine as to not bind us to its consequences.
No consequence is so unexpected as to absolve us of our decisions.
Not even death.
-R. Scott Bakker. 'The Prince of Nothing' |
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| Vuzman | RE: TED |
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How to live to be 100%2B
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When I kill her, I'll have her
Die white girls, die white girls |
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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Very interesting.
So if you become religious I'll become a vegetarian how's that?
Seriously though, this all seems very plausible - especially the lowest part of his pyramid. I'm pretty sure that you'll never live very long with a negative view of the world, and a sense of purpose is important as well.
My grandfather is somewhere around 85 now and blind. Yet he still finds great pleasures in life, such as listening to audio books and going on minor errands. Without a purpose you're fucked - long before 80 too.
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| Vuzman | RE: TED |
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I think it's the meditative part more than it's actual religion. He seems to say it as if religion is just the particular implementation of a meditative state (or what to call it) for the people in some of these 'blue zones'.
Dawkins and Harris (and other atheists probably too) often talk about the 'spiritual' side (for lack of a better word), and both claim to be quite 'spiritual', just not in a supernatural way. If you can remember that far back, I remember to have talked about the usefulness of prayer as meditation and self-affirmation way back in our bible-studying days, so I'll include myself in that list as well 
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When I kill her, I'll have her
Die white girls, die white girls |
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html
This one is pretty interesting. He seems to believe that there is some merit to acting irrationally. It's not every day you see atheists quoting Kirkegaard.
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| Vuzman | RE: TED |
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David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min
Cue Grizlas...
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When I kill her, I'll have her
Die white girls, die white girls |
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Denmark | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 22-01-2010 15:56 |
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What a fascinating man and interesting lecture.
You seem to refer to my misgivings about Derren Brown. In that spirit, here's how I feel about this lecture.
Either Blaine is lying, in the sense that he has not actually broken any world record, but only made it appear as if he did through the use of trickery, in which case I have no respect for the man at all, or he is telling the truth in which case I admire and respect him.
We generally cannot know for sure if either man is lying, but as far as I know, both claim that some of their tricks do not involve any trickery and some do.
The deciding difference between the two men becomes apparent only when we take into account, that Derren Browns proclaimed psychological/behavioral non-magical antics have repeatedly been shown to be nothing but simple magic tricks. David Blaine has, to my knowledge, never been caught lying like that, and so there is no reason to suspect he is lying now.
Being honest with your audience is a virtue in my book. I do not believe Derren Brown to be so, but Blaine seems to be, and I admire the passion he obviously holds for his craft. Yet it would very much disgust me were I to learn that all this lecture was nothing more than an elaborate lie or "magic trick". Would you not feel the same way?
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Edited by Grizlas on 22-01-2010 15:58 |
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| Grizlas | RE: TED |
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| | Location: Denmark | | Joined: 08.06.06 | | Posted on 22-01-2010 21:27 |
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http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_growing_organs_engineering_tissue.html]
How to regenerate organs. In another 50 years maybe we'll be there 
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You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing? |
Edited by Grizlas on 22-01-2010 21:27 |
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