TED, not always sucky.
That last post was probably unfair to TED, which I think is generally awesome. There are some great talks I’ve looked at recently, and I want to let you know about a few of them here.
The first is by Simon Sinek, who has a really clever concept about how to think about life and meaningfulness in general:
Saul Griffith and his kites:
And Richard Dawkins, always a favorite to listen to amongst men of the book:
See! Not so bad…
Emily Oster, you idiot.
So I’m taking a break, eating my Waitrose pesto pasta salad, feet up on the table, and decide to watch something on TED.com. Emily Oster’s talk, about “flipping” our thinking on AIDS in Africa catches my eye and, I have to say, it was hard to keep myself from gnawing at my keyboard.
She’s wrong. Oster sounds like someone who has never been to Africa, yet conducts epic analyses with data presumed to be accurate, then claims to know much more about the continent than Africans themselves. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.
A huge problem here is that she’s making lots of assumptions about the data. AND SHE’S TAKING CORRELATIONS TO MEAN CAUSATION. Just because one data set looks like another when you plot them on a graph DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE RELATED. It only means they’re correlated. Correlations might suggest predictive ability, but they DO NOT PROVE predictive ability.
This is science at its worst.
This is economics at its worst.
Emily Oster, if you want insight into African crises, move to Africa. Live there. Not forever, if you’re not inclined, but at least a couple of years. Long enough to learn things, like how people don’t die when they get malaria (there’s an immunity developed amongst most locals, which is actually the reason for its prevalence), and how disparate beliefs and contexts play a massive role in HIV infection rates — a role that easily confounds your assumption that Egyptians and other Africans differ only in that Egyptians don’t die early from AIDS.
The Strings That Bind Us.
I spend most weekends listening to Chrissi rant about String Theory and the horrors of advanced particle physics. Sometimes, when I catch myself paying attention, I learn something. One thing he’s turned me onto recently is Columbia physicist (and fellow Stuyvesant alum) Brian Greene. Greene is one of individuals who are very obviously good at what they do.
String Theory is one of those things only a handful of minds in the world can grasp with depth and Greene, in the following clip, hints at just how massive his must be:
And, if there’s any remaining doubt about Greene’s awesomeness, let it be known that he did Letterman.
Intelligence: some people still have it.
Intelligence isn’t about doing well in school or making lots of money; it’s about looking at the world around you and figuring out better ways of doing things(1) — and not just for you, but for humanity. Juan Enriquez gets it; listening to him is like someone switching on a flashlight, pushing back the darkness, so you can find a way through the forest.
Notes:
1. One compelling difference between humans and animals is our ability to impose our will upon the environment. Animals adapt and evolve to the environment; we do the opposite: we force the environment to adapt to us. The problem is, most of us don’t actually impose anything; instead, we become reactive, accepting the will of others. The importance of people like Enriquez is that they think about HOW will is imposed upon the environment (our reactive directionality), then, they offer better ideas about the situation — without trying to sell you some kind of product. Bravo.
Robbins Conquers
Being an NLP trainer (under Richard Bandler) means I have to hear lots of crap about Tony Robbins. I disagree with most of it, not because I like Tony’s work (not my thing, really), but because I think he does his work extraordinarily well, and I have a fetish for things done extraordinarily well.
Proof: below is a talk Tony did at TED, where he is in front of a room of people that are better-educated and (probably) more accomplished than he will ever be. And he kills. Mercilessly.
(Note to NLPers: notice the self-reference when he says “resourcefulness.” Also, pay attention to how Robbins asserts his dominance over the room by calling Al Gore a son of a bitch. Lastly, listen to the change in energy during his compliance testing — that’s a master at work, folks.)