Awesome TED Talks (and similar enlightening lectures)

[MrHoatzin]

Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

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[Sleepdance]

I've been to a TEDx talk not two weeks ago. As soon as they are translated I'll post them here.

Anyway, video games related one:

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[Patters]

What is a TED talk?

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Patters said:

What is a TED talk?

An awesome talk that's done as part of the TED conference.

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[Patters]

TED conference?

[Roderick]

About the Sam Harris video:

That's really great (and I love TED), but this idea of a universal standard would in practice be impossible to achieve. How would you ever get to this standard? Would it be a purely scientific endeavor with scientists and historians looking at all the societies in the world to see what works? And wouldn't that very quickly lead you into a utilitarian state where the greatest boon is the happiness of the majority, even if it comes at the cost of the happiness of the individual or minority?

I love what Sam Harris is saying there, I'm just concerned about the application of this fantastic notion. You can't force (or enforce) culture, that sort of thing grows and mutates with a will of its own. Really, at times it's more like the roll of a dice where you end up, and not so much the will of some individual (a rather Tolstoy-esque notion, I am aware).

[OssK]

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[MrHoatzin]

It is not about scientists and historians, per se, finding prescriptive solutions and delivering them top-down to the plebeians. All he's saying is that we should endeavor to develop a method to figure out what that universal flourishing thing is. It is about an attitude towards discovering an equilibrium that is not mired in oppressive baggage, such as dogmas, traditions and the fiat of the powerful. Taking care of minority interests has been the hallmark of all successful democracies for the entirety of modernity btw, why do you imagine they would throw this out the window in order to satisfy some monolithic, uniform (imaginary) majority in this new paradigm?

Now, the point at which this seems utopian in scope is when you compare it to where we are now, especially in the US. Just last week, the US has fired the contractors it had hired to rebuild its house for failing to rebuild it overnight, and brought in the arsonists to finish the job. All due to sublime and awe-inspiring propaganda*effort from the right. Free-market utopianism and unqualified loathing for what little still remains of the welfare state—in addition to shameless racism/sexism/miscellaneous bigotry—is all that unites the right right now. How is this possible? Why do poor people insist on voting against their interests?

The best we can hope is that this is a slow messy process. But this kind of thing is NOT about enforcing culture in the least. It is about striving to establish a method of interpreting what in the culture needs to be kept and what needs to be refined and what needs to be thrown out. Saying, WELP, I GUESS THERE WILL ALWAYS BE BIGOTRY/RAPE/INEQUALITY IN OUR CULTURE, SO BE IT.

—that this will always be so, so it couldn't be tampered with is patently, provably false. Shit can change in a less oppressive, more accepting direction. And it can happen without uprooting and flushing a whole culture.

[Orv]

I've been really into following the TED conference since that magic bloke a couple years back. They're all, at the very least, interesting. Some are genuinely intriguing and thought provoking.

[MrHoatzin]

Patters, I seriously doubt that you do not posses the talents and skills to look up what a TED conference is.

[Patters]

  Kingzjester said:

Patters, I seriously doubt that you do not posses the talents and skills to look up what a TED conference is.

Maybe, but a little explanation goes a long way.

[Sleepdance]

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

[Armchair General]

Man, I love those RSA Animated talks too Ossk. I know it's 'only cartoons' but they bring the talk alive for me.

[Jayel]

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I might have found this video on this very forum.

[Roderick]

Kingz, I'm so psyched for this idea. I'm trying to figure out what the practical application of it would look like. It's obvious that a trickle-down governmental approach might be really difficult. But any such research must be backed by some organisation with influence. So what might be best is to establish an independent scientific institute charged with finding exactly these sort of universal properties regarding successful states and failed states, and then giving free, no strings attached, advice to all the countries in the world specified to their respective cultures and/or problems.

This is a highly idyllic idea of course, as any such attempt would be met -especially and ironically by the failed states- with extreme suspicion. Imagine an American institute telling Iran that niqaabs aren't the best way to treat ladies. Virtually impossible to establish, but could be worthwhile nonetheless.

The validity of Harris' argument is something I do not dispute in the slightest, but its practicality is fraught with troubles. Perhaps there's another way?

[MrHoatzin]

From what I have read about success stories involving crime fighting in close-knit ethnic neighborhoods and fighting terrorist organizations like the IRA, these things have to be instigated and enacted from within. The best you can do from without is to support people within who want to make these changes. You can't forcefeed people democracy, if Iraq has taught us anything, etc.

Also, you can look around you and do small things in your neighborhood. Small things add up.

[MrHoatzin]

Dan, I was playing Minecraft and listening to the Fat Fucks Ain't To Blame lecture, when the sad donnydarkoesque music kicked in and made his talk sound like a tragic montage of some sort. :tup:

[Nachimir]

Kingz, John Robb is worth reading on resilient communities (Parallel currencies are an interesting form of local strength and economic insulation). I think he can cherry pick things to match his ideas sometimes, but has a lot of insight into how cultures and institutions work when set against each other.

He started out with a very compelling theory about warfare in Iraq (How loosely aligned militias were producing, refining and deploying new hardware in a matter of months when U.S. armed forces run 15 year procurement cycles), which was basically that they operate in an open-source, grass roots way.

He's fairly technology and business focussed, but is now trying to apply those insights to the ideas of resilient communities and virtual (i.e. globally distributed) economies.

I'm very interested in these things; I always found it inspiring that, when everyone was getting paranoid about the Y2K bug, and survivalists were stocking up on bullets, barbed wire and tinned food, one woman went around knocking on doors, telling people about it and starting a discussion on how they could survive it as a town rather than struggling, isolated units rubbing up against each other and likely to fight over diminishing resources.

Starting this kind of thing up seems to require a very strange mix of practical skills, business skills and social skills. There are a lot of hippies out there setting up talking shops instead.

Benefiting from global structures is fine, but when they go wrong it pays to know how to generate wealth* locally.

* By "wealth" I do not mean "personal fortune".

[circadianwolf]

John Robb seems a bit egotistical at times, but he's indeed a very smart guy, and his work on resilient communities is a great organizing trope for the various sustainability/alter-globalism/open source governance/green/anti-corporate oligarchy movements.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Your pants are about to get ruined.

[Thompson]

  angelababy said:

They're all, at the very least, interesting. Some are genuinely intriguing and thought provoking.

That's some well done spam.

Also, these Harvard lectures are excellent.

[Roderick]

Oh hell yes. I've been watching most of the Justice series, only a few more to go. They're a fantastic primer to (state) philosophy. Terrific.

[Sleepdance]

Since it was a part of a Tedx I guess it fits in here:

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ahh, so good.

[MrHoatzin]

  Rodi said:

Oh hell yes. I've been watching most of the Justice series, only a few more to go. They're a fantastic primer to (state) philosophy. Terrific.

Most of those students speaking up sound kindof airheaded. How did they get into Harvard?

[Roderick]

With their coats lined with money?

I don't know what you expect Harvard students to sound like? They sound pretty normal to me. Of course, I wasn't expecting supermutant brainiacs. Like, a room full of floating brains in jars? I'd imagine it would sound squishy.