TED Talk

Elon Musk: A Mission to Save the World
by Anna Crowley Redding
Published 1 Jul 2019

“I fell in love with the mechanical engineer that spoke,” Gwynne explained during a TED Talk. “She was doing really critical work, and I loved her suit!”103 Gwynne decided right then and there that she too would be a mechanical engineer. And she did it: Her first job out of college was working as a mechanical engineer for Chrysler Motors. Today Gwynne is the president of SpaceX. If you watch SpaceX’s launches, you can often spy Gwynne jumping out of her chair when there is a successful launch! TAKE AWAY THE ARMOR: What is it like to work for Elon for more than sixteen years? Gwynne spelled it out in her TED Talk. “He’s funny, and fundamentally, without him saying anything, he drives you to do your best work.

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When you don’t have a rocket to sell, what’s really important is selling your team, selling the business savvy of your CEO—that’s not really hard to sell these days—and basically, making sure that any technical issue that they have or any concern you can address right away,” Gwynne explained during a TED Talk interview with Chris Anderson.80 Elon’s efforts were no longer about drumming up support for NASA. This was now about getting to Mars his own way and bringing the public with him, first in spirit and ultimately in the flesh. And that required successful technology and successful sales. LOSS In 2002, as the PayPal sale was announced and Elon worked to solve the problems of making a rocket from scratch, Elon’s home life took a devastating turn.

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One year, Elon gave her a nineteenth-century copy of Pride and Prejudice. The Musks went on to have five more boys: twins Griffin and Xavier in 2004 and triplets Damian, Saxon, and Kai in 2006. The couple divorced in 2008. While sharing custody of their five boys, Justine continues writing, giving TED talks, and blogging about her work, life, and realizations along the way. CHAPTER 5 TWO COMPANIES and a FUNERAL On a sunny California summer day in 2002, the haunting sound of a bagpipe rose from the front of a funeral procession. A white hearse and a long line of cars crawled along behind the kilt-clad player in a slow somber journey.

How We'll Live on Mars (TED Books)
by Stephen Petranek
Published 6 Jul 2015

He has been editor in chief of the world’s largest science magazine, Discover; the editor of the Washington Post’s magazine; founding editor and editor in chief of This Old House magazine for Time Inc.; senior editor for science at LIFE magazine; and group editor in chief of Weider History Group’s ten history magazines. His first TED Talk, 10 Ways the World Could End, has been watched more than one million times. He is now the editor of Breakthrough Technology Alert, for which he finds the investment opportunities that create true value and move the human race forward. Read the book and watch the talk. Stephen Petranek’s TED Talk, available online: www.TED.com Meet the authors, watch videos and more: SimonandSchuster.com authors.simonandschuster.com/Stephen-Petranek IMAGE CREDITS IN ORDER NASA/Lewis Research Center Courtesy of Bonestell LLC Courtesy of Bonestell LLC NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Courtesy of SpaceX Courtesy of SpaceX Courtesy of SpaceX Courtesy of SpaceX Courtesy of SpaceX NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona NASA/JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona NASA/JPL/University of Arizona NASA/JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona © ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G.

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Stephen Petranek’s TED Talk, available online: www.TED.com Meet the authors, watch videos and more: SimonandSchuster.com authors.simonandschuster.com/Stephen-Petranek IMAGE CREDITS IN ORDER NASA/Lewis Research Center Courtesy of Bonestell LLC Courtesy of Bonestell LLC NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Courtesy of SpaceX Courtesy of SpaceX Courtesy of SpaceX Courtesy of SpaceX Courtesy of SpaceX NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona NASA/JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona NASA/JPL/University of Arizona NASA/JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona © ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum) NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS/MSSS NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA/JPL-Caltech/ University of Arizona NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/TAMU NASA/JPL/University of Arizona WATCH STEPHEN PETRANEK’S TED TALK Stephen Petranek’s TED Talk, available for free at TED.com, is the companion to How We’ll Live on Mars. Courtesy of TED RELATED TALKS Brian Cox Why We Need the Explorers In tough economic times, our exploratory science programs—from space probes to the LHC—are first to suffer budget cuts. Brian Cox explains how curiosity-driven science pays for itself, powering innovation and a profound appreciation of our existence.

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CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com CONTENTS EPIGRAPH INTRODUCTION The Dream CHAPTER 1 Das Marsprojekt CHAPTER 2 The Great Private Space Race CHAPTER 3 Rockets Are Tricky CHAPTER 4 Big Questions CHAPTER 5 The Economics of Mars CHAPTER 6 Living on Mars CHAPTER 7 Making Mars in Earth’s Image CHAPTER 8 The Next Gold Rush CHAPTER 9 The Final Frontier IMAGINING LIFE ON MARS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR IMAGE CREDITS WATCH STEPHEN PETRANEK’S TED TALK RELATED TALKS ABOUT TED BOOKS COMING SOON ABOUT TED I want Americans to win the race for the kinds of discoveries that unleash new jobs  . . . pushing out into the solar system not just to visit, but to stay. Last month, we launched a new spacecraft as part of a reenergized space program that will send American astronauts to Mars.

Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations
by Dan Ariely
Published 15 Nov 2016

His books include Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, and Irrationally Yours. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, Sumi, and their two adorable children, Amit and Neta. Read the book and watch the talks. Dan Ariely’s TED Talks, available online: www.TED.com Meet the authors, watch videos and more: SimonandSchuster.com authors.simonandschuster.com/Dan-Ariely WATCH DAN ARIELY’S TED TALKS Dan Ariely’s TED Talks, available for free at TED.com, are the companion to Payoff. PHOTO: BRET HARTMAN/TED RELATED TALKS ON TED.COM Barry Schwartz The way we think about work is broken What makes work satisfying?

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CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com CONTENTS INTRODUCTION From Tragedy to Meaning and Motivation On the complexity of motivation, and a personal story CHAPTER 1 How to Destroy Motivation, or: Work as a Prison Movie Why it’s astonishingly easy to demotivate someone CHAPTER 2 The Joy of (Even Thinking That We Are) Making Something On our deep attachment to our own ideas and creations CHAPTER 3 Money Is from Mars, Pizza Is from Venus, and Compliments Are from Jupiter Why money matters far less than we think CHAPTER 4 On Death, Relationships, and Meaning The crazy urge for symbolic immortality, and how love conquers all EPILOGUE The Answer to the Ultimate Question The mystery of motivation, in summary ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR WATCH DAN ARIELY’S TED TALKS RELATED TALKS ON TED.COM ALSO FROM TED BOOKS ABOUT TED BOOKS ABOUT TED NOTES To the wonderful people in my life who have moved me forward, backward, and sideways. I only wish I told you more clearly and frequently how much you mean to me. INTRODUCTION From Tragedy to Meaning and Motivation On the complexity of motivation, and a personal story We are the CEOs of our own lives.

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They’re short enough to read in a single sitting, but long enough to delve deep into a topic. The wide-ranging series covers everything from architecture to business, space travel to love, and is perfect for anyone with a curious mind and an expansive love of learning. Each TED Book is paired with a related TED Talk, available online at TED.com. The books pick up where the talks leave off An 18-minute speech can plant a seed or spark the imagination, but many talks create a need to go deeper, to learn more, to tell a longer story. TED Books fill this need. ABOUT TED TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (eighteen minutes or less) but also through books, animation, radio programs, and events.

The Laws of Medicine: Field Notes From an Uncertain Science
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Published 12 Oct 2015

Mukherjee’s scientific work concerns cancer and stem cells, and his laboratory is known for the discovery of novel aspects of stem cell biology, including the isolation of stem cells that form bone and cartilage. He lives in New York with his wife and two daughters. Read the book and watch the talk. Siddhartha Mukherjee’s TED Talk, available online: www.TED.com Meet the authors, watch videos and more at: SimonandSchuster.com authors.simonandschuster.com/Siddhartha-Mukherjee WATCH SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE’S TED TALK Siddhartha Mukherjee’s TED Talk, available for free at TED.com, is the companion to The Laws of Medicine. PHOTO: Bret Hartman/TED RELATED TALKS ON TED.COM Stefan Larsson What doctors can learn from each other Different hospitals produce different results on different procedures.

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They’re short enough to read in a single sitting, but long enough to delve deep into a topic. The wide-ranging series covers everything from architecture to business, space travel to love, and is perfect for anyone with a curious mind and an expansive love of learning. Each TED Book is paired with a related TED Talk, available online at TED.com. The books pick up where the talks leave off. An 18-minute speech can plant a seed or spark the imagination, but many talks create a need to go deeper, to learn more, to tell a longer story. TED Books fill this need. ABOUT TED TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less).

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We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives, and, ultimately, the world. On TED.com, we’re building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world’s most inspired thinkers—and a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other, both online and at TED and TEDx events around the world, all year long. In fact, everything we do—from our TED Talks videos to the projects sparked by the TED Prize, from the global TEDx community to the TED-Ed lesson series—is driven by this goal: How can we best spread great ideas? TED is owned by a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation. We hope you enjoyed reading this TED Books eBook. * * * Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from TED Books and Simon & Schuster.

If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?
by Raj Raghunathan
Published 25 Apr 2016

Optimism is important for resilience (the ability to bounce back after setbacks). To assess your resilience, see the resilience scale in B. W. Smith et al., “The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the Ability to Bounce Back,” International Journal of Behavioral Medicine 15(3) (2008): 194–200. popular TED talk: David Steindl-Rast’s TED talk can be accessed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtBsl3j0YRQ (or by Googling “Steindl-Rast TED talk”). “3 good things with a twist”: The exercise is adapted from the “Three good things” exercise devised by the “father of positive psychology,” Prof. Martin Seligman. For a description of the “three good things” exercise, which, by the way, had a powerful effect (as many as 94 percent of those who practiced it for a mere fifteen days showed a significant improvement in happiness levels), see M.

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Begley, The Mind and the Brain (New York: Regan Books/Harper Collins, 2002). mind-wandering versus not: M. A. Killingsworth and D. T. Gilbert, “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind,” Science 330(6006) (2010): 932. For an audiovisual summary of the paper, see Killingworth’s TED talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy5A8dVYU3k (the TED talk can be accessed by Googling “Killingsworth TED talk”). behavior affects attitude: This theoretical basis for this phenomenon is something called self-perception theory. The idea is that we infer our characteristics (attitudes, opinions, etc.) based on how we see ourselves behaving; see D. J. Bem, “Self-perception: An Alternative Interpretation of Cognitive Dissonance Phenomena,” Psychological Review 74(3) (1967): 183.

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the “abundance” route: Although the terms “scarcity” and “abundance” don’t have a history of use in academic research (for an exception, see Biberman and Whitty 1997), they have been used frequently in more informal contexts. For example, in his TED talk, Nipun Mehta, the founder of servicespace.org and Karma Kitchen, uses them in ways that evoke a set of concepts very similar to the ones I discuss here. Mehta’s TED talk can be accessed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpyc84kamhw (or by Googling “Nipun Mehta TED talk”). Biberman and Whitty, too, use the terms in a way that is compatible with my use of them; J. Biberman and M. Whitty, “A Postmodern Spiritual Future for Work,” Journal of Organizational Change Management 10(2) (1997): 130–38.

Win Every Argument: The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking
by Mehdi Hasan
Published 27 Feb 2023

“Starting with a question creates a knowledge gap: a gap between what the listeners know and what they don’t know,” adds Akash Karia in his book How to Deliver a Great TED Talk. “This gap creates curiosity because people are hardwired with a desire to fill knowledge gaps.” Former NASA scientist James Hansen knows he’s not the greatest of orators, but he managed to use that very quality to grab his audience’s attention in a 2012 TED Talk on climate change. How? With these opening questions: What do I know that would cause me, a reticent midwestern scientist, to get myself arrested in front of the White House protesting?

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Then tweak and retweak your remarks until they’re just right—properly timed but also natural to you, in a way that allows you to speak smoothly (bonus points if you can allow room for spontaneity). Practicing in front of friends means you can lean into a conversational style and tone. But remember: your goal is to be prepared but not sound prepared. Carmine Gallo, an expert on TED Talks, stresses the importance of rehearsal and feedback, and points to musician Amanda Palmer, who gave “The Art of Asking” TED Talk in 2013: Palmer would read the drafts out loud to a group of people. If they seemed bored, she’d go home to rewrite. She practiced in front of anyone who would listen. She told the story to a bartender and a passenger next to her in a plane.

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Start with a strong opening line Something unexpected, provocative, contrary even. To quote the legendary Dale Carnegie, “Begin with something interesting in your first sentence. Not the second. Not the third. The First! F-I-R-S-T! First!” Here’s how British celebrity chef and food campaigner Jamie Oliver kicked off his 2010 TED Talk. Sadly, in the next eighteen minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead from the food that they eat. My name’s Jamie Oliver. I’m thirty-four years old. I’m from Essex in England, and for the last seven years I’ve worked fairly tirelessly to save lives in my own way. I’m not a doctor; I’m a chef, I don’t have expensive equipment or medicine.

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
by Hans Rosling , Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Published 2 Apr 2018

Ola invented and developed Gapminder’s ignorance tests, its structured ignorance measuring project, and its certification process. He crunched the data and developed the materials for most of Hans’s TED talks and lectures. From 1999, Ola led the development of the famous animated bubble-chart tool called Trendalyzer, used by millions of students across the world to understand multidimensional time series. In 2007, the tool was acquired by Google, where Ola led the Google Public Data Team between 2007 and 2010. He then returned to Gapminder to develop new free teaching materials. Ola lectures widely and his joint TED talk with Hans has been viewed millions of times. Ola has received several awards for his work at Gapminder, including a Résumé Super-communicator Award and the Guldägget Titanpriset in 2017 and the Niras International Integrated Development Prize in 2016.

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Anna is a lecturer and the guardian of the end user at Gapminder, making sure that everything Gapminder does is easy to understand. Together with Ola, Anna directed Hans’s TED talks and other lectures, developed the Gapminder graphics and slides, and designed the user interface of the animated bubble-chart tool Trendalyzer. When the tool was acquired by Google in 2007, she went to work for Google as a senior usability designer. In 2010, Anna returned to Gapminder to develop new free teaching materials. Dollar Street, launched in 2016, is Anna’s brainchild and the subject of her 2017 TED talk. Anna has won several awards for her work at Gapminder, including a Résumé Super-communicator Award, the Guldägget Titanpriset, and the Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award in 2017.

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About the Author Hans Rosling was a medical doctor, professor of international health, and renowned public educator. He was an adviser to the World Health Organization and UNICEF, and he cofounded Médecins Sans Frontières in Sweden and the Gapminder Foundation. His TED talks have been viewed more than thirty-five million times, and he was listed as one of Time magazine’s one hundred most influential people in the world. Hans died in 2017, having devoted the last years of his life to writing this book. Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Hans’s son and daughter-in-law, are cofounders of the Gapminder Foundation, and Ola its director from 2005 to 2007 and from 2010 to the present day.

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
by Anand Giridharadas
Published 27 Aug 2018

And the danger isn’t only in what they say in this new language, but also in the possibility that they might somewhere down the line stop thinking in their native one. * * * — Five years after giving her TED talk, Cuddy continued to live in the beautiful new world it had built for her. She was now famous, among the top thought leaders of her time. Still, success, and the particular way in which it had come, had caused a dilemma for her. She had been studying prejudice and sexism for nearly twenty years, and even after her breakout continued to work on those topics with academic colleagues. She had often taken on such themes in harsh, perpetrator-blaming ways. But a viral TED talk all but drowned out every other thing she had ever said, and now she was fielding lucrative invitation after invitation to offer her ideas in that same safe way.

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It is an era in which capitalism has no ideological opponent of similar stature and influence, and in which it is hard to escape the market’s vocabulary, values, and assumptions, even when pondering a topic such as social change. Socialism clubs have given way to social enterprise clubs on American campuses. Students have also been influenced by the business world’s commandment, disseminated through advertisements and TED talks and books by so-called thought leaders, to do whatever you do “at scale,” which is where the “millions of people” thing came from. It is an era, moreover, that has relentlessly told young people that they can “do well by doing good.” Thus when Cohen and her friends sought to make a difference, their approaches were less about what they wanted to take down or challenge and more about the ventures they wanted to start up, she said.

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Thought leaders tend, Drezner says, to “know one big thing and believe that their important idea will change the world”; they are not skeptics but “true believers”; they are optimists, telling uplifting stories; they reason inductively from their own experiences more than deductively from authority. They go easy on the powerful. Susan Sontag, William F. Buckley Jr., and Gore Vidal were public intellectuals; Thomas L. Friedman, Niall Ferguson, and Parag Khanna are thought leaders. Public intellectuals argue with each other in the pages of books and magazines; thought leaders give TED talks that leave little space for criticism or rebuttal, and emphasize hopeful solutions over systemic change. Public intellectuals pose a genuine threat to winners; thought leaders promote the winners’ values, talking up “disruption, self-empowerment, and entrepreneurial ability.” Three factors explain the decline of the public intellectual and the rise of the thought leader, according to Drezner.

Stretch
by Roger Frampton

Alternatively, if you don’t want to spend any money, you can of course use a book instead of a block, a couple of towels instead of a mat and a belt instead of a strap. MY TED TALK ‘WHY SITTING DOWN DESTROYS YOU’: https://bit.ly/3jYvFAB Perhaps you just grabbed this book from the shelf at your local bookstore or came across it online and don’t really know much about my backstory or why I’m all about stretching. My TED talk, aptly named ‘Why Sitting Down Destroys You’, has been viewed, at the time of writing, by over 3 million people. If you’d like to watch the 13-minute talk where I discuss my childhood idol, you can find this on YouTube.

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Kids copy what they see, rather than what we tell them to do. They are much more likely to move intuitively and respect their bodies’ natural movement if they see the adults around them doing the same. This is why, when parents come to me and ask: ‘What can I do to make sure my kid moves the best?’, I say, ‘lead by example’. In fact, my TED talk ended with this statement: ‘We should lead by example and move like them’. And where should we start with that? Right where we began. By integrating the essential stretches into our lives and regaining full access to our bodies. Whatever we practise, we get better at. If we run all the time, we become better at running, if we swim or cycle consistently, our bodies adapt to help us become better at those activities.

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As far as I was concerned, or could remember, I’d never been able to touch my toes, sit in a squat or even to sit comfortably on the floor without my knees hurting, or my back rounding. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d just had a pivotal conversation. It marked the beginning of something not only special and life-changing for me personally, but that literally millions of people around the world would eventually hear me speak about in my TED talk. I was a fit but very stiff guy (who aspired to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger) who realized in a gym class that he’d unwittingly sacrificed the primal movements he had started life with. From that day on my life changed. I started to understand what Alex meant by getting it ‘back’. I suddenly began to notice little kids in the park, on the street and in cafés, sitting and playing happily in a squat position.

The New Prophets of Capital
by Nicole Aschoff
Published 10 Mar 2015

Sandberg’s manifesto is a New York Times bestseller and has sold over a million and a half copies. Sandberg has been pushing women to be more ambitious for a number of years, through female networking events in Silicon Valley, Women’s Leadership Day at Facebook, and monthly dinners for women at her home. In 2010 she extended her message through a TED Talk that went viral, and followed up with an equally popular 2011 commencement speech at Barnard College. Lean In revisits and expands the themes in these speeches and argues that women need to stop being afraid and start “disrupting the status quo.” “Staying quiet and fitting in … aren’t paying off.”

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Mol, “Greening Global Consumption: Redefining Politics and Authority,” Global Environmental Change 18, 2008, 350–9. 15John Boli and George Thomas, “World Culture in the World Polity: A Century of International Non-Governmental Organization,” American Sociological Review 62: 2, April 1997, 171–90. 16Josée Johnston, “The Citizen-Consumer Hybrid: Ideological Tensions and the Case of Whole Foods Market,” Theory and Society 37, 2007, 229–70; see also Josée Johnston, Andrew Biro, and Norah MacKendrick. “Lost in the Supermarket: The Corporate-Organic Foodscape and the Struggle for Food Democracy,” Antipode 41: 3, 2009, 509–32. 17Graham Hill, TED Talk, 2013; Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi have written a book challenging the veracity of American overspending. See The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke, New York: Basic Books, 2004. 18Mackey and Sisodia, Conscious Capitalism, p. 14. 19Ibid., p. 31. 20Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008, p. 69; see also Erik Swyngdeouw, “Impossible Sustainability and the Post-Political Condition,” in David Gibbs and Rob Krueger, eds., The Sustainable Development Paradox: Urban Political Economy in the United States and Europe, New York: Guilford Press, 2007. 21Mackey and Sisodia, Conscious Capitalism, pp. 151, 31. 22Ibid., p. 31. 23Bernard E.

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We spend years acquiring social capital (connections, access to networks) and cultural capital (skills and education) so we can find a job we love and hopefully keep a roof over our heads. The “do what you love” message is at the heart of the work-identity fusion. It advises you to follow your passion. If you’re unhappy, it’s because you’re not following your passion. If your job sucks, you’re at the wrong job. Video blogger and social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk’s famous TED Talk is a “shot in the arm” for those pining for a more fulfilling life: There are way too many people in this room right now that are doing stuff they hate. Please stop doing that. There is no reason in 2008 to do shit you hate! None. Promise me you won’t … Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘What do I want to do every day for the rest of my life?’

Why We Work
by Barry Schwartz
Published 31 Aug 2015

In addition, Amy read an early version of the book and prevented me from committing a few serious errors of omission. I am deeply indebted to Chris Anderson, who has given me numerous opportunities to present my ideas at TED. When I gave my first TED talk in 2005 I would never have dreamed that millions of people, from all over the world, would eventually see it. I gave my most recent TED talk in 2013, and this book grew out of it. I thank June Cohen for giving me the opportunity, and Michelle Quint for providing insightful editorial suggestions. I also want to thank Allison Dworkin for reading the first draft of the book and sharing with me her critical insights along with the encouragement to respond to them.

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He spoke about it at the TED Conference in 2005, and has appeared on dozens of radio shows, and has appeared on dozens of radio shows, including NPR's Morning Edition, and Talk of the Nation, and has been interviewed on Anderson Cooper 360 (CNN), the Lehrer News Hour (PBS), The Colbert Report, and CBS Sunday Morning. In 2009, Schwartz spoke at TED about our loss of wisdom. He subsequently published a book on this topic, Practical Wisdom, with his colleague Kenneth Sharpe. Watch Barry Schwartz’s TED Talk Barry Schwartz’s TED Talk, available for free at TED.com, is the companion to Why We Work. Asa Mathat/TED related talks Shawn Achor The happy secret to better work We believe that we should work to be happy, but could that be backwards? In this fast-moving and entertaining talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that actually happiness inspires productivity.

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First TED Books hardcover edition September 2015 TED BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of TED Conferences, LLC SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com. For information on licensing the TED Talk that accompanies this book, or other content partnerships with TED, please contact TEDBooks@TED.com. Interior design by: MGMT Jacket design by: Chip Kidd Jacket art by [[TK]] Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Asteroid Hunters (TED Books)
by Carrie Nugent
Published 14 Mar 2017

On this weekly podcast, she invites astronomers, planetary scientists, and engineers to sit, share a drink, and tell the world about their corner of the cosmos. Read the book and watch the talk. Dr. Carrie Nugent’s TED Talk, available online: www.TED.com Meet the authors, watch videos and more: SimonandSchuster.com authors.simonandschuster.com/Carrie-Nugent WATCH CARRIE NUGENT’S TED TALK Carrie’s TED Talk, available for free at TED.com, is the companion to Asteroid Hunters. PHOTO: RYAN LASH / TED RELATED TALKS ON TED.COM Jedidah Isler How I Fell in Love with Quasars, Blazars, and Our Incredible Universe Jedidah Isler first fell in love with the night sky as a little girl.

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CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 A Wild Frontier CHAPTER 2 Things that Hit the Earth CHAPTER 3 Rules of Asteroid Hunting CHAPTER 4 The First Asteroid CHAPTER 5 Terrestrial Asteroid Hunting CHAPTER 6 My Favorite Telescope CHAPTER 7 The Giggle Factor CHAPTER 8 The Planetary Defense Coordination Office EPILOGUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FURTHER READING ABOUT CARRIE NUGENT WATCH CARRIE NUGENT’S TED TALK RELATED TALKS ON TED.COM MORE FROM TED BOOKS ABOUT TED BOOKS ABOUT TED NOTES To the next generation of scientists, who have so much to discover 1 A Wild Frontier I want you to imagine the solar system. I bet you’re trying to recall an image from a childhood textbook: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

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They’re short enough to read in a single sitting, but long enough to delve deep into a topic. The wide-ranging series covers everything from architecture to business, space travel to love, and is perfect for anyone with a curious mind and an expansive love of learning. Each TED Book is paired with a related TED Talk, available online at TED.com. The books pick up where the talks leave off. An eighteen-minute speech can plant a seed or spark the imagination, but many talks create a need to go deeper, to learn more, to tell a longer story. TED Books fill this need. ABOUT TED TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (eighteen minutes or less) but also through books, animation, radio programs, and events.

Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World
by Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche
Published 1 Oct 2012

“No matter how cool, useful, or popular a website may be, the products and services offered cannot be used or bought in a safe, effective, and meaningful way on an international scale without translation.” Ideas Worth Spreading Beyond English Eighteen minutes. That’s the maximum time available to deliver a TED talk. But it’s a talk that will likely be watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world. If you’ve never seen a TED talk before, be prepared to get addicted. Imagine a collection of some of the world’s most dynamic speakers, sharing their thoughts on their life’s work in less than twenty minutes. Steve Jobs was among them, and it’s exactly that sort of “brainiac charisma” that characterizes most of TED’s speakers.

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The requests were so persistent that TED knew it had to take them seriously. So the organization set about building a system that would allow volunteers to subtitle the talks in other languages. And the system works. More than a thousand talks have been translated, and 20 percent of all TED talk video views come from people watching with subtitles enabled. Volunteers translate TED talks into languages as diverse as Bislama, spoken natively by six thousand people in Vanuatu, and Hupa, a Native American language with less than two thousand speakers. On the other hand, you’ll also find plenty of translated talks that are available in languages with enormous populations, such as Malayalam, the mother tongue of thirty-six million people in India, and Khmer, with fifteen million speakers in Cambodia.

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Perhaps even more important, they are on offer in a whopping ninety-one languages, and rising fast.9 And that’s where translation comes in. Go to the TED website, and you can find talks that have been subtitled by an impressive seventy-five hundred registered volunteer translators.10 How did the project start? “Soon after we made TED talks available for the first time, people around the world began approaching us to see if they could subtitle the talks into other languages so they could be shared,” explains Kristin Windbigler, Open Translation Project manager at TED.11 She points out that these enthusiastic individuals were not requesting TED to provide the subtitles; instead, they were volunteering to do it.

The Mathematics of Love: Patterns, Proofs, and the Search for the Ultimate Equation
by Hannah Fry
Published 3 Feb 2015

She also co-presents the BBC Worldwide YouTube channel and regularly appears on TV and radio in the UK. Hannah lives in London with her husband Phil, who – luckily – came along at exactly 38 per cent. She has several leftover Python codes from her wedding planning, which can be distributed upon request. You can find her on twitter: @fryrsquared. WATCH HANNAH FRY’S TED TALK Hannah Fry’s TED Talk, available for free at TED.com, is the companion to The Mathematics of Love. RELATED TALKS ON TED.COM Helen Fisher Why we love, why we cheat Anthropologist Helen Fisher takes on a tricky topic – love – and explains its evolution, its biochemical foundations and its social importance.

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The right of Hannah Fry to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. First TED Books hardcover edition February 2015 TED, the TED logo, and TED Books are trademarks of TED Conferences, LLC. For information on licensing the TED talk that accompanies this book, or other content partnerships with TED, please contact TEDBooks@TED.com. Simon & Schuster UK Ltd 1st Floor 222 Gray’s Inn Road London WC1X 8HB www.simonandschuster.co.uk Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-47114-180-5 ISBN: 978-1-47114-179-9 (ebook) The author and publishers have made all reasonable efforts to contact copyright-holders for permission, and apologise for any omissions or errors in the form of credits given.

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They’re short enough to read in a single sitting, but long enough to delve deep into a topic. The wide-ranging series covers everything from architecture to business, space travel to love, and is perfect for anyone with a curious mind and an expansive love of learning. Each TED Book is paired with a related TED Talk, available online at TED.com. The books pick up where the talks leave off. An 18-minute speech can plant a seed or spark the imagination, but many talks create a need to go deeper, to learn more, to tell a longer story. TED Books fill this need.

How to Prevent the Next Pandemic
by Bill Gates
Published 2 May 2022

In 2015, I published a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine, pointing out how unprepared the world was and laying out what it would take to get ready. I adapted the warning for a TED talk called “The Next Epidemic? We’re Not Ready,” complete with an animation showing 30 million people dying from a flu as infectious as the 1918 one. I wanted to be alarming to make sure the world got ready—I pointed out that there would be trillions of dollars of economic losses and massive disruption. This TED talk has been viewed 43 million times, but 95 percent of those views have come since the COVID pandemic started. The Gates Foundation, in partnership with the governments of Germany, Japan, and Norway, and the Wellcome Trust, created an organization called CEPI—the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations—to accelerate work on vaccines against new infectious diseases and help those vaccines reach people in the poorest countries.

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Although CEPI and the Seattle Flu Study were good investments that helped when COVID came, not much else was accomplished. More than 110 countries analyzed their preparedness and the WHO outlined steps to close the gaps, but nobody acted on these assessments and plans. Improvements were called for but never made. Six years after I gave my TED talk and published that NEJM paper, as COVID-19 was spreading around the world, reporters and friends would ask me if I wished I had done more back in 2015. I don’t know how I could have gotten more attention on the need for better tools and practice scaling them up rapidly. Maybe I should have written this book in 2015, but I doubt many people would have read it

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Not only would it create a system for testing lots of volunteers and sequencing lots of viral genomes, but—subject to privacy safeguards—the sequencing data would be linked to information about the people it came from. And the near-real-time, citywide flu map that the project was going to create would be a game changer for detecting and stopping outbreaks. I thought the Seattle Flu Study was an ambitious and unique idea, and it had a chance to make progress on some of the problems I had called out in my TED talk years before. I agreed to fund it through the Brotman Baty Institute, a research partnership between Fred Hutch, the University of Washington, and Seattle Children’s. The team quickly got to work on the infrastructure they had envisioned. They created a system to develop and prove a new diagnostic test, process and share the results, and perform quality checks to make sure all the work was valid.

Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed
by Alexis Ohanian
Published 30 Sep 2013

He said how important it was to show up, to stand up—lauding my effort. I just thought it was fun to be that guy in a class of hungover undergrads. It wasn’t that I thought I might get better grades, but I figured I had two legs, so why the hell not get up and use them? I’d never expected to give a TED talk, let alone at twenty-six years old, but then again I’d never expected to be in Mysore, India, which is where I was in October of 2009 as an attendee of TEDIndia, one of the yearly TED presentations that the organizers host all around the world. A month or so before the conference I was included on a massive e-mail blast from Chris Anderson, curator of the TED Conference, that included this attention-grabbing nugget: It is commonly said that TED attendees are every bit as remarkable as those appearing on stage.

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That’s why at every conference we invite you to consider whether you have something to contribute to the program—and possibly later to the wider TED community, through the TED.com site. So there at my laptop I raised my virtual hand—so to speak—and submitted a pitch for a three-minute talk to TED. These are the palate cleansers in between the more heady and often very emotional eighteen-minute TED talks. I figured I’d better get right to the pitch. Here’s what I wrote: The tale of Mister Splashy Pants: a lesson for nonprofits on the Internet. How Greenpeace took itself a little less seriously and helped start an Internet meme that actually got the Japanese government to call off that year’s humpback whaling expedition.

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But in the right hands, this much-maligned communication tool can actually be incredibly entertaining (and even informative). The problem is, most people don’t understand how to use it, which sets the bar for PowerPoint presentations really low. Here’s my philosophy: lots of big pictures, text, and tons of slides. For my TED talk, I had room for no more than a few words on each slide—and they had to be in 86-point type, minimum. Forty-two slides—a good sign,3 even though it meant I had only a little more than four seconds for each slide. There was going to be a giant TED sign on the stage behind me. This could make or break my public speaking career.

New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World--And How to Make It Work for You
by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms
Published 2 Apr 2018

It uses blended power in a big, messy, multi-player space. The next story shows how TED blended power to build something more self-contained. OPEN AND CLOSED: HOW TED CHANGED THE WAY IDEAS SPREAD What TED has in common with Tiffany’s Every second of every day, seventeen people start watching a TED Talk. But for more than fifteen years even the biggest TED Talks had an audience of just a few hundred. TED was a small group of fancy people gathering in Long Beach, California, once in a while to hear enchanting lectures about technology, entertainment, and design (hence “TED”). TED, which became an annual conference in 1990, was always a Cheerleader and incubator of new power ideas.

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Think here of the Airbnb super-hosts who set norms for others on the platform, the significant but informal role played by the Black Lives Matter founders, or the most influential volunteer moderators on Reddit, whom we will learn more about in the following chapter. TED, the conference community, is adept at moving its users up the participation scale. To get people in the door, TED asks us to view (consume) its most compelling TED Talks, drawn from its official conferences and TEDx, its locally organized conferences. It then encourages us to share those talks, and even offers viewers a tracker to help them see how many people they’ve reached by sharing—a clever way to increase our sense of agency. Moving up the scale, we are asked to join the TED community and affiliate in a variety of ways, for example by nominating someone for the TED Prize.

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Beautifully shot, effortlessly sharable, and strictly timed to last no longer than eighteen minutes, they are tailor-made, in Anderson’s phrase, “to illuminate, clarify, engage and delight.” (A familiar critique is that TED “dumbs down” important content, though increasingly an eighteen-minute format feels like a pretty generous allocation of attention.) The promise of the TED talk is that you become more interesting by watching them, and you appear smarter to your friends by sharing them. What works so well for TED is that these two user experiences—the ultra-VIP attending the Vancouver conference and the ordinary person sharing one of the talks—rely on a similar set of incentives, just on very different levels.

Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley From Building a New Global Underclass
by Mary L. Gray and Siddharth Suri
Published 6 May 2019

All they needed was a lot of video content and an even larger international network of volunteers interested in using their tools. And then a group of volunteer translators who were using other tools to translate TED Talks asked for a chance to use Amara instead. [back] 30. According to the nonprofit organization’s website, the first six TED Talks—highly produced presentations that converge around technology, entertainment, and design—were posted online on June 27, 2006. By September they had reached more than one million views. TED Talks proved so popular that in 2007, TED’s website was relaunched around them, giving a global audience free access to some of the world’s greatest thinkers, leaders, and teachers.

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See ratings or reputation score requesters API effect on, 171 bait-and-switch strategy, 83 collaboration of, 132 communication of tasks, 83–84 fluctuations in, 14 identity of, 31–32 inequality of power in, 91–93 information about, 223 n18, 233 n6, 236 n25 Microsoft employees as, 18 needs of, xvii–xviii origin of, 5–6 transaction costs, 70–75 vetting of, 76–77 Reuther, Walter, 47 rider-customers (Uber), 145–46 risk of entrepreneurship, 95 Industrial Revolution, 45–46 mitigation by requesters, 74 reputation score, 70–71, 81–82 scams, 104, 122, 125 workplace safety, xxiii–xxiv, 60, 86, 97, 190, 193–94 See also transaction costs Riyaz, 86–90 Roberts, Sarah T., 19 robots, xviii–xxiii Romney, Mitt, xii Rosie the Riveter, 47 S S&P Global Market Intelligence, 62 safety, workplace algorithmic cruelty, 86 Bangladesh Accord, 193–94 for full-time employment, 60, 97 Good Work Code, 157 industrial era, 45–46 unraveling of, xxiii–xxiv workspaces, 190 safety net, for workers, 189–92 Sanjay, 128–29 Sanjeev, 126 scaffolding technique, 149–50, 164, 240 n11 scams, 104, 122, 125 scheduling 80/20 rule, 103, 118 always-on workers, 104, 105, 126, 150–51, 158–59, 170, 190 control over, 96, 99–100, 108, 157 employer control over, xxvi, 48 experimentalists, 104, 126, 150–51 just-in-time scheduling, 100, 235 n11 MTurk, 5, 79 as priority, 147, 150, 155, 164 Treaty of Detroit, 48 Sears, Mark, 141, 143, 149 self-improvement, 100, 110–13 sentiment analysis, 19 Service Employees International Union, 158–59, 191 service jobs, growth of, 97 Shah, Palak, 157 shared workspaces, 180–81 Singh, Manmohan, 55 skilled work, 39, 51, 97 skills, learning, 100, 110–13 skills gap, 230 n26 Skype, 23, 132, 179 slavery, 40–41, 226 n2 Smart Glasses, 167–68 Smith, Aaron, 219 n2, 242 n2 Smith, Adam, 58 social consequences, algorithmic cruelty, 68–69 social entrepreneurship, 147–55 social environment forums as, 132–33, 164, 239 n8 job validation, 95 need for, 178–80, 233 n6 requesters on, 73–74 in workplaces, 121–23, 173–74 See also collaboration Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), 55 SpaceX, xviii Sparrow Cycling, 142 speech recognition, 30 spinning jenny, 43, 173 Star, Susan Leigh, 238 n2 Starbucks, 28, 100 Stern, Andy, 191 Strauss, Anselm, 238 n1 strikes, 47, 48 subcontracting, Industrial Revolution, 41–42 success, changing definition of, 97–98 Suchman, Lucy, 238 n3 support collaboration, 121–23, 133–37 for on-demand work, 105 as requirement, 162 of workers, 21, 140–43, 149, 240 n11 See also double bottom line; forums Suri, Siddharth, xxvii–xxix, 221 n23 surveys LeadGenius, 224 n27 market surveys, 3, 19 on payment, 90–91 as task, 87, 116, 219 n2, 242 n2 worker motivation, 100 T Taft, Robert A., 48 Taft-Hartley Act, 48–49, 54, 228 n20 Taste of the World, 14 Taylor, Frederick, 227 n6 Team Genius, 88–90 teamwork, 24, 28, 160–61, 164, 182–83 technology AI. see artificial intelligence (AI) APIs. see application programming interface (API) automation, xviii–xxiii, 173–77, 176–77, 243 n5 computers. see computers machinery, 42, 43–44, 58–59, 227 n5 paradox of automation, xxii, 36, 170, 173, 175 Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED). See TED Talks TED Talks, 27, 113, 152–53, 226 n30 temporary work. See contract (temporary) work terms of agreement, xxiv, 85–86, 88, 93 Tesla, xviii tools and software, 23, 73–74, 180–81 trade guilds, 41–45 tragedy of the commons, 164–65 training of AI, xxiii, 6–8, 16, 170, 222 n11 lack of, 71 on LeadGenius, 23 need for, 182–83, 230 n26 workers commitment to, 87–88 transaction costs, 69–75 defined, 69–70 hypervigilance, 76–80 inequality in, 91–93 isolation and training, 80–84 payment, lack of, 85–91 reduction of through collaboration, 121–28 of requesters, 70–75 up-front costs for workers, 108 of workers, 32, 75–76, 173 translation, 18–19, 153–55, 226 n30 transparency bait-and-switch strategy, 83 need for, 138–39, 180 requesters and, 71 worker misinformation, 134 Treaty of Detroit, 47–48 TripAdvisor, xiii, 14 Truman, Harry, 48 trust, 71–72, 74, 133 TurkerNation, 239 n8 Turkopticon, 223 n18 Twine Health, 167 Twitter, ix, x, xii, xiii, xxi, 17 U Uber Real-Time ID Check, xv–xvi, 35 as single bottom line company, 145–46 study of, xxv worker, view of, 75 worker status, 240 n5 UHRS content moderation, xi corporate firewalls, 16–21 equality in, 115–16 nondisclosure agreements, 224 n21 sharing work on, 128 See also Microsoft underemployment, 95 unions full-time employment and, 60 future of, 188–89 Industrial Revolution, 44 legal right to form, 38, 47, 228 n20 outsourcing and, 55 platforms and, 158–59 United Auto Workers (UAW), 47 United Garment Workers (UGW), 44–45, 47 U.S., the Amazon.com, 1–2 census of, 168 demographics, 169 discrimination, workplace, 113–17, 133 Fair Food Program, 193 map of MTurk participants, figure 1A reasons for ghost work, 96 slavery in, 40–41 underemployment, 95 women and, 106–10 U.S.

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In Spring 2011, not long after PCF released Amara online, activists turned to it to translate videos documenting human rights crises, most notably during the Arab Spring and the Fukushima reactor meltdown. This launched Amara into the limelight. Filmmakers and the nonprofit Technology, Entertainment, and Design, the creators behind TED Talks, approached PCF looking for ways to offer “rush captioning” to media creators and TED presenters who want to caption video for a global audience.30 By mid-2013, PCF Executive Director Nicholas Reville and seasoned technology strategist Aleli Alcala co-founded Amara On Demand (AOD) to fill this niche.

Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married
by Abby Ellin
Published 15 Jan 2019

In one experiment, Stanford communications professor Jeff Hancock and his research team paid people to write fake reviews of a hotel in New York. Some of the reviewers had really stayed there; others had never set foot in the place. The liars, he found, focused on narrative. “They make up a story: Who? And what happened? And that’s what happened here,” Hancock said in a 2012 Ted Talk. “Our fake reviewers talked about who they were with and what they were doing. They also used the first-person singular, ‘I,’ way more than the people that actually stayed there. They were inserting themselves into the hotel review, kind of trying to convince you they were there.”12 Those who really had been at the hotel were more concerned with “spatial information”: the size of the bathroom, or how close the hotel was from a shopping center.13 What Hancock deduced is that our language changes based on the type of lie we’re emitting, and our motivations for telling it.

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The financial crisis of 2008 certainly didn’t help; neither do daily headlines about beloved coaches/priests/rabbis/doctors/actors doing terrible things at odds with their public personas. So the best way to protect yourself? Learn how to find a liar. People crave this knowledge. Jeff Hancock’s Ted Talk “The Future of Lying” garnered over 1.2 million views; one by Pamela Meyer, “How to Spot a Liar,” received over 18 million.26 Australian ex-police officer Steve van Aperen (who was “trained by the FBI!” according to his website) sells a series of fifteen instructional videos for $97. Once you complete them, you receive a Master Certificate in Detecting Deception.

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Jennifer Senior, review of Labyrinths: Emma and Carl Jung’s Complex Marriage, New York Times, November 7, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/books/review-labryinths-emma-and-carl-jungs-complex-marriage.html. Five: A Life Divided 1. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Avalon Project, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/let31.asp. 2. Jeff Hancock, “The Future of Lying,” Ted Talk, September 2012, https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hancock_3_types_of_digital_lies. 3. Jeffrey T. Hancock, Catalina Toma, and Nicole Ellison, “The Truth About Lying in Online Dating Profiles,” in Proceedings of Computer/Human Interaction (2007): 449–452. 4. Boris Kachka, “Proust Wasn’t a Neuroscientist.

May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases—And What We Can Do About It
by Alex Edmans
Published 13 May 2024

.‡14 It seemed they’d found a ‘theory of everything’ – grit matters in all settings. Duckworth’s TED talk, ‘Grit: the power of passion and perseverance’, claims that ‘in all those very different contexts, one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success . . . grit’. Her book, Grit, makes similar assertions, and in a New York Times interview to promote it, she declared that grit ‘beats the pants off IQ, SAT scores, physical fitness and a bazillion other measures’.15 Such statements feed on our biases. Anyone can develop grit, whereas physical prowess is partly genetic, so Duckworth’s message is empowering. It’s no surprise that Duckworth’s TED talk has been viewed 30 million times and her book was a New York Times bestseller.

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And it’s not just the TED/TEDx stage: anyone with a newspaper column, social media platform, or YouTube channel can broadcast what they want and claim there’s data to support it. So I spoke about how discerning we must be with evidence – how our biases can lead us to fall for something false or reject something real, and how we should judge a study by its carefulness, not its claims. I was grateful when it was elevated to a mainstage TED talk, ‘What to trust in a post-truth world’, because I hoped it might move the needle, even slightly, from fiction to fact. Yet misinformation has arguably become worse. Public discourse is increasingly polarized, with opinions formed on ideology, not evidence. The most pressing issues of our time, such as climate change, inequality and global health, are steeped in falsehoods.

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This book is a practical guide to help you think smarter, sharper and more critically – on topics such as how to run a company and invest your money, how to improve your health and develop good habits, how to feed your child and educate a nation’s children, what drives global warming or the spread of coronavirus, and which policies lawmakers should pass and voters should support. We’ll overturn some widely accepted ideas, and in doing so learn simple ways to spot if a claim is supported by the evidence. We’ll uncover the problems with the case study method that pervades the world’s leading business schools, viral TED talks and bestselling books. We’ll see how we can be fooled even by large-scale data – even if hundreds of datapoints all tell the same story. But knowledge is only half the battle. Having knowledge isn’t enough: we need to know when to use it and how to use it. Why do we leave our learnings at the door and rush to accept a statement at face value?

Intertwingled: The Work and Influence of Ted Nelson (History of Computing)
by Douglas R. Dechow
Published 2 Jul 2015

It was about the hypermedia work we were doing at Southampton, but I’m also a social linker and I’ve always tried to link the different research communities, such as hypermedia, multimedia, the Web, the Semantic Web and others, to try to be a bit of glue in there that gets everybody talking together. Over my life I’ve found that everything really is deeply “intertwingled” and I’m very proud to say that this is my first Ted Talk. Well, it depends how you parse that. I first heard “TED Talk” in 1989, but I’m calling this my first Ted Talk. Now I’m going to tell you about me because I reckon if I do that Ted can’t say I’m wrong. He could of course challenge the references to how he has inspired my life but I’ll let him do that. This talk is based on a standard talk that I give, but intertwingled with how Ted has inspired my career and my work, and my life generally.

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So around 1986/1987, as I was beginning to find my feet as junior member of faculty, I started working in this new exciting area of multimedia. In 1987 when I read Vannevar Bush’s paper I also began to hear about this ‘new’ idea called hypertext. I began to hear about Ted and Doug Engelbart, both of whom equally inspired me: Ted talking about everything being deeply intertwingled, and Doug, talking about augmenting the human intellect. Again, I don’t need to tell this audience about these two men. When I give talks to a non-expert audience I always include reference to them because it was their ideas—I hadn’t met them at this point—that inspired me.

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And we could, maybe, have different links for different people, so that if school children wanted to find out about something that was in the archive they would get different links to historians who were looking for evidence of what had happened when and why. As I was mulling these ideas over, I was lucky enough to have a 6 month sabbatical at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1989, and this is when I first heard Ted talk at a Computers in the Humanities conference in Toronto. He was the keynote speaker. I was spellbound. I bought a copy of his book Literary Machines [5], and he signed it for me. We didn’t really get talking at that conference but the book became my hypertext bible. I taught from it. I learned about hypertext and Ted’s definition of the link and everything about Xanadu, tumblers, transclusions, micropayments and much, much more.

Do Improvise: Less push. More pause. Better results. A new approach to work (and life) (Do Books)
by Poynton, Robert
Published 14 May 2013

Their attention and engagement cuts off suddenly, just like the edge of the stage. Using the Audience Requirements Grid is a way to keep you away from that edge. I don’t mean to say that the role of content in a presentation is irrelevant. Good slides can lift things and great material can, occasionally, carry the day. For example, there is a magnificent TED talk (see www.ted.com) by statistician Hans Rosling whose animated visualisation of data is stunning. But these animations were the result of decades of work. And, realising that there is more to presentations than good data, at the end, Rosling strips off to reveal a spandex vest and goes on to swallow a sword (or to be more accurate, a 19th-century Swedish infantry bayonet).

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Have frequent breaks, move furniture, disturb the physical layout so that people can’t stay put, sit somewhere else yourself (to create a domino effect) or break them into groups or pairs for conversations. Variation and physical movement helps people stay alert as well as increasing the chances of them having a new idea. A beautiful example of the power of movement (and being playful) is a TED talk by John Bohannon called ‘Dance your PHD’. In a moment of playfulness a scientist invited some dancers to help him communicate his ideas physically. What starts off as an irreverent means of illustrating ideas turns, quite unexpectedly, into something far more powerful. In order to bring the ideas to life, the dancers, with their focus on the physical body, have a very different point of view to the scientists and started to ask questions that none of researchers would ever have thought of.

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48–9 your own baggage (shadow story) and 42 complexity theory 118 ‘connective tissue’ 99 control: changing attitudes towards 116–17 companies which give employees 121–3 exerting influence without 31 imposing in areas where it isn’t appropriate 9, 11 as neither sensible or desirable 30 new ideas and 79§ paying attention to what you can 12, 52, 113–14 creativity 65–88 all creativity is co-creativity 85–6 and solving future world problems 66 creative doing, not creative thinking 72–6 creative process 67 ‘creativity is the new literacy’ 85 embracing constraint and 80–6 Game: Object Taps 87–8 importance of 66, 85–6 importance of play 69–72 ‘last letter, first letter’ 80, 81 popular image of 66–8 putting flow first 77–80 sets humans apart 85 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly 66 ‘Dance Your Ph.D’ (TED talk) 76 discomfort, accepting 10, 94, 96 eatbigfish 20, 138 Edison, Thomas 102 education 30, 114 either/or, seeing things as 114 Everything’s An Offer (EAO) 17, 18 ‘Facebook effect, the’ 23 ‘fit and well’ 35, 102 Fleming, Alexander 70 flexibility 90–1, 107, 121 future-proof 30, 101 games, killer 12–13, 27–8, 32, 33–8, 59–64, 78, 79, 81–2, 87–8, 99, 108–11, 112, 117, 118, 120, 125–37, 138 see also under individual game name General Motors 103 Gore Associates 121 Heifetz, Professor Ronald 107 Hirsch, Gary 27, 38, 45–6, 49, 61, 71, 88, 111, 118 Hollywood 67, 89, 93–4 Honda 122–3 ideas, generating new 10, 12, 70, 87, 88, 113 acting first 72–6 constraint and 80–6 creating a flow of 31 finding in areas your competitors don’t notice 20, 21, 22–5 flow and 77–80 games and see games in spite of how things are organised, not because of them 116 leaders and see leadership new ideas as combinations of old ones, re-expressed 14 play and 69–72 practice and 94, 95, 96 re-designing organisations and 121 using other people’s 98–100 IDEO 75 IKEA 28, 102–3, 111 image bank 85 improv in action 112–24 analysis, nature of 113–15 building into the design of an organization 119–23 education and 114 either/or ‘yes, and...’ 114 enthusiasm for taking things to pieces and 115–16 journeys and 115 order without control 113, 116–17 planning and 114–15 improv theatre 31, 112, 119 improvisation, nature of 8–13 incorporations (game) 135–7 intuition/hunch 30, 100, 101, 115, 123 journeys, improv and 115 Kamprad, Ingvar 28, 102–3 Keating, David 42–3 Kelleher, Herb 85 knee-jerk conclusions/reaction, resisting 18, 23–4 Kranz, Gene 100 leadership 89–111 accepting discomfort and 94, 95 distributed 91–2 ‘fit and well’ 102 flexibility and 107 fluid approach to 90–1 focus on your own experience 93 Game: Swedish Story 108–11 intuition/hunch and 100, 101, 123 level of trust in 99 looking for offers 101–3 mistakes and 93–4, 95, 102–3 new ideas and 98–9 no single leader 89–92 paying attention to others and 97–8, 99–100 practice and 93, 94–6 presence and 96–7 status and 104–6 value ‘connective tissue’ 99 Let Go 15, 16, 17, 18, 22–5, 29, 34–5, 55, 56, 70, 84, 91, 96, 101, 117, 119, 122, 125, 127, 129 listening 20, 21, 29, 41, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 55–6, 60, 62, 81, 96–8, 107 Mandela, Nelson 97 Michelangelo 79 mistakes 26, 27, 54, 93–4, 95, 101, 102–3, 105, 113, 114–15, 123, 127 Morgan, Adam 20, 42, 51 Morning Star 121–2 Nike 48 ‘no’, saying 28, 42, 51, 54 Notice More 15, 16, 17, 18–22, 35, 81, 96–7, 119 Object Taps (game) 87–8 offer/offers: blocking 37, 40–2, 54, 56–7, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 76, 78–80, 103, 120 errors and mistakes as 26–8, 103 Everything’s An Offer (EAO) 16, 17, 18, 26, 102–3 failure and breakdowns as 28–9 seeing objections as 56–7, 101–3 On Your Feet 38, 49, 71, 82, 84, 119, 122 One to Twenty (game) 125, 131–4 Pascale, Richard 122–3 paying attention 19, 22, 24, 96–8, 99–100 Pert, Candace 22 planning 9, 51–2, 62, 63, 81, 113, 114–15 practice, improvisational 12, 13, 14–31 Let Go 15, 16, 17, 18, 22–5, 29, 34–5, 55, 56, 70, 84, 91, 96, 101, 117, 119, 122, 125, 127, 129 Notice More 15, 16, 17, 18–22, 35, 81, 96–7, 119 Presents (game) 33–8, 62, 63, 111, 129 Use Everything 15–16, 17, 18, 26–9, 96, 119 presentations 39, 44–58 Presents (game) 33–8, 62, 63, 111, 129 Robinson, Sir Ken 85, 86 Rodriguez, Robert 28 Roshi, Suzuki 27 Rosling, Hans 53 SCRUM 119 Semco 121 senses 18–21, 76, 96 shadow story 24–5, 42, 56 Sloan, Alfred 103 software engineers 119–20 Southwest Airlines 85 status 49, 104–6, 107 storyteller improv games 27–8, 99, 108–11 Swedish Story (game) 108–11 taking things to pieces, enthusiasm for 8, 18, 29, 30, 113, 115–16 TED talks 53, 76 3M 121 Toyota Production System 91 Twain, Mark 54 Use Everything 15–16, 17, 18, 26–9, 35, 96, 119 Wake Wood (film) 42–3 weak signals 99–100 ‘whites of the eyes’ 46 ‘Yes, and’ (game) 59–64, 78 ‘yes, and...’, seeing things as 11, 42, 98, 114, 120 Published by The Do Book Company 2013 Works in Progress Publishing Ltd www.thedobook.co Text copyright © Robert Poynton 2013 Illustrations copyright © Andy Smith 2012 The right of Robert Poynton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced to a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
by Brené Brown
Published 15 Mar 2017

BY BRENÉ BROWN Braving the Wilderness Rising Strong Daring Greatly The Gifts of Imperfection I Thought It Was Just Me ABOUT THE AUTHOR ••• BRENÉ BROWN, PHD, LMSW, is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation–Brené Brown Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past sixteen years studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, and is the author of three #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, and Rising Strong. Her TED talk—“The Power of Vulnerability”—is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world, with more than thirty million views. Brown lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Steve, and their children, Ellen and Charlie. BreneBrown.com Facebook.com/BreneBrown Twitter: @BreneBrown What’s next on your reading list? Discover your next great read!

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He will eat his snack as he does every day, then we will play as we do every day, and all his life this little boy will defy you by being happy and free. Because you will not have his hate either. Courage is forged in pain, but not in all pain. Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate. Anger that is never transformed becomes resentment and bitterness. I love what Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi says in his 2015 TED talk: Anger is within each one of you, and I will share a secret for a few seconds: that if we are confined in the narrow shells of egos, and the circles of selfishness, then the anger will turn out to be hatred, violence, revenge, destruction. But if we are able to break the circles, then the same anger could turn into a great power.

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CHAPTER 4 “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates”: James A. Baldwin, “Me and My House,” Harper’s Magazine, November 1955, 54–61. “You will not have my hate”: Antoine Leiris, Facebook post, November 16, 2015 (translated from the French). facebook.com/antoine.leiris/posts/10154457849999947. “Anger is within each one of you”: Kailash Satyarthi, TED talk, March 2015. ted.com/talks/kailash_satyarthi_how_to_make_peace_get_angry?language=en The price is high. The reward is great: Bill Moyers, “A Conversation with Maya Angelou,” Bill Moyers Journal, original series, Public Broadcasting System, first aired November 21, 1973. “Dehumanization is a way of subverting those inhibitions”: David L.

The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing the Life You Want
by Diane Mulcahy
Published 8 Nov 2016

Robinson, Joe, “The Secret to Increased Productivity: Taking Time Off,” Entrepreneur, September 24, 2014. www.entrepreneur.com/article/237446 12. Sahadi, Jeanne, “These People Took Months Off . . . And it Paid Off Big Time,” CNN Money, September 12, 2014. money.cnn.com/2014/09/12/pf/time-off-sabbaticals/ 13. Chen, Winston, “Leave Work for a Year to Go Live on a Remote Island? How a TED Talk Inspired Me to Take a Mid-Career Sabbatical,” TED Blog, July 8, 2014. blog.ted.com/how-a-ted-talk-inspired-me-to-take-a-mid-career-sabbatical/ 14. Merchant, Nilofer, “In Between Space,” July 24, 2014. nilofermerchant.com/2014/07/24/in-between-space/ CHAPTER 7 1. Society for Human Resource Management, “SHRM Survey Findings 2014: Workplace Flexibility: Overview of Flexible Work Arrangements,” October 15, 2014. www.shrm.org/research/surveyfindings/articles/pages/2014-workplace-flexibility-survey.aspx 2.

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The Timeline of Success The time frame we set to realize our goals influences whether we achieve our vision of success. We might not be able to start our own small business and write our debut novel next year, but we can probably accomplish one, or even both, during the next five years. Nigel Marsh illustrated this concept best during his popular TED talk “How to Make Work-Life Balance Work.”15 He emphasized the importance of selecting the right time horizon for evaluating whether we achieve work/life balance. He noted that “a day is too short; ‘after I retire’ is too long. There’s got to be a middle way.” Marsh’s point is that the time frame we pick to accomplish our goals can impact whether we achieve them or not.

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You shift from being the person writing the comments to the person receiving them. Inbound Connect Through Speaking Susan Cain is an introvert. She is the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, and her “bliss” is writing, researching, and reading. Yet she is the speaker of one of the most popular TED talks, with over 13 million views. How did she do it? As she describes it, she overcame her lifelong fear of public speaking (which many of us share) by spending a year training and practicing.4 She calls it her “year of speaking dangerously,” and it involved Toastmasters, coaching, and practicing every chance she could.

Exponential Organizations: Why New Organizations Are Ten Times Better, Faster, and Cheaper Than Yours (And What to Do About It)
by Salim Ismail and Yuri van Geest
Published 17 Oct 2014

Along the way, TED has gone from an annual gathering of dilettantes to one of the world’s most popular and influential forums for the exchange of ideas. Now, let’s look at this program from an ExO perspective. From the beginning, as first elucidated by Wurman, TED had both an appealing and scalable MTP: “Ideas Worth Spreading.” When Anderson turned the TED talks into free online content, he created Engagement and quickly built the critical mass needed to turn Crowd into Community. The TED talks also leveraged the exponential nature of cloud services (Leveraged Assets). At the same time, the franchise format of TEDx, supported by the toolkit, created a scalable set of optimized processes that allowed this newly created Community to build the organization outside the traditional, formal boundaries of its reporting lines.

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Despite its rapid growth, however, TED never compromised on the excellence of content or the quality of the attendee experience that made it so great in the first place. Let’s look at how the ExO attributes were implemented: MTP: “Ideas Worth Spreading” Community & Crowd: Leverage the TED community for TEDx events. TED talks have turned millions of casual members into community. Algorithms: Used to gauge which TED talks to promote on main site. Interfaces: Fixed rules about how to create a TEDx event. Dashboards: Live statistics on TEDx events globally. Experimentation: Different formats tried and evaluated (e.g., within corporations). Example 2: GitHub Ever since Linus Torvalds created Linux in 1991 and first established the “open source” paradigm, a vast global community has been steadily creating new software for millions of applications.

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The table below shows some ExOs and their interfaces: Uber Interface: Driver selection Description: System to allow users to find and choose drivers Internal Usage: Algorithm matches best/closest driver to user location SCALE Attribute: Algorithm Kaggle Interface: Leaderboard rankings Description: Real-time scoreboard that shows the current rankings of a contest Internal Usage: Aggregate and compare results of all users in a contest SCALE Attribute: Engagement Interface: User scanning Description: System to scan for relevant users for private contests Internal Usage: Cherry-pick the best users for special projects SCALE Attribute: Community & Crowd Quirky Interface: Ratings/voting Description: System to vote on each aspect of the production cycle Internal Usage: Priorities in the features and benefits of new products SCALE Attribute: Engagement TED Interface: Video translation subtitles Description: Manage translations created by volunteers (via the vendor dotsub) Internal Usage: Integrate TED Talks translations seamlessly SCALE Attribute: Community & Crowd Local Motors Interface: Idea submitter Description: System to allow users to submit ideas Internal Usage: Algorithm to process only valid or feasible entries SCALE Attribute: Community & Crowd Interface: Competition creator Description: System to create new competitions for the community Internal Usage: Algorithms to streamline all steps in the competition SCALE Attribute: Community & Crowd Interface: Ratings/voting Description: System to vote on each aspect of the production cycle Internal Usage: Priorities in the features and benefits of new products SCALE Attribute: Engagement Google Ventures Interface: Employee search Description: Search relevant and targeted skills/people in Google’s employee database Internal Usage: Match GV startups with targeted Google skills/employees SCALE Attribute: Algorithms Interface: Resume search Description: System to search resumes to find relevant new hires Internal Usage: Match resumes with specific skill sets SCALE Attribute: Algorithms Waze Interface: GPS coordinates Description: Harvests GPS signal from every user Internal Usage: Traffic delays calculated in real time SCALE Attribute: Leveraged Assets Interface: User gestures while driving Description: Users spot accidents, police car sightings, etc.

The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics
by Tim Harford
Published 2 Feb 2021

The bigger display with a wider array of jams attracted more customers but very few of them actually bought jam. The display that offered fewer choices inspired more sales.1 The counterintuitive result went viral—it hit a sweet spot. People respond better to fewer choices! It became the stuff of pop-psychology articles, books, and TED Talks. It was unexpected yet seemed plausible. Few people would have predicted it, and yet somehow those who heard about it felt they’d known it all along. As an economist, I’ve always found this a little strange. Economic theory predicts that people should often value extra choices, and will never be discouraged by them—but economic theory can be wrong, so that’s not what was curious about the jam study.

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Alex Reinhart pieced together the manuscript and various documents pertaining to the project: Reinhart, “The History of ‘How to Lie with Smoking Statistics,’” October 4, 2014, https://www.refsmmat.com/articles/smoking-statistics.html. 20. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, “What Is So Special about the Human Brain?,” TED Talk, 2013: https://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_human_brain/transcript?ga_source=embed&ga_medium=embed&ga_campaign=embedT. 21. On Galileo’s telescope: “Refusing to Look,” The Renaissance Mathematicus (blog), August 23, 2012, https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/refusing-to-look/; and Ryan D.

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Author calculations, based on Natsal-3, the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles: http://timharford.com/2018/09/is-twitter-more-unequal-than-life-sex-or-happiness/. 10. Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot, The Tiger That Isn’t (London: Profile Books, 2008). 11. Andrew C. A. Elliott, Is That a Big Number? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 12. Tali Sharot, “The Optimism Bias,” TED Talk, 2012, https://www.ted.com/talks/tali_sharot_the_optimism_bias/transcript#t-18026. 13. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010). 14. Ross A. Miller and Karen Albert, “If It Leads, It Bleeds (and If It Bleeds, It Leads): Media Coverage and Fatalities in Militarized Interstate Disputes,” Political Communication 32, no. 1 (2015), 61–82, DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2014.880976; Barbara Combs and Paul Slovic, “Newspaper Coverage of Causes of Death,” Journalism Quarterly 56, no. 4 (1979), 837–43, 849. 15.

Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken in and What We Can Do About It
by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris
Published 10 Jul 2023

The study was published in Psychological Science and has been cited more than 1,400 times. A TED talk on power posing has been viewed more than sixty-seven million times. Subsequent studies found no evidence of hormonal changes or risk tolerance, the key findings of the study, and the first author of the original study has since disavowed the results.28 • A series of studies and scientific papers in the late 1980s and early 1990s touted the idea that “mastery orientation,” which is now known as “growth mindset,” helps people overcome adversity. A 2006 book and 2014 TED talk (viewed by more than fourteen million people) brought this work to the mainstream.

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Here are a few examples: • A 2003 study with only 17 participants reported that playing first-person shooter video games improved performance on laboratory cognitive tasks. It was published in Nature, has been cited more than 3,500 times, and was followed by extensive popular media coverage, including a TED talk that has been viewed more than eight million times. Independent replications by other labs generally find far smaller effects, and meta-analyses that correct for selective publication show little or no benefit.27 • A 2010 study of 42 participants reported that those who held their bodies in two separate “power poses” for one minute each subsequently had increased testosterone levels, decreased cortisol levels, greater risk tolerance, and stronger feelings of power than those in a control group.

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As the psychologist Stuart Ritchie notes, advocates have claimed vast implications of adopting a growth mindset: Possessing one constitutes a “basic human right” and might even help resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict. Yet a recent meta-analysis shows little evidence that brief interventions designed to instill a growth mindset have any real effect on academic performance, the main focus of the mindset movement.29 When an initial finding leads to news headlines, popular books, and TED talks, it will remain widely believed long after scientists know its limitations. That’s why a single incredible result (or even a series of them) from a single research team should rarely drive policy. THE YOUNGMAN TEST Henny Youngman, the comedian known as “the King of the One-Liners,” liked to say, “Someone asked me ‘How’s your wife?’

No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy
by Linsey McGoey
Published 14 Apr 2015

I’ve never seen poor people hire many people’.33 Wealthy individuals who disagree with Fries’s views on taxation often find themselves unwelcome at TED events. In 2012, a millionaire entrepreneur and tech investor named Nick Hanauer – he made a windfall as an early Amazon investor – gave a TED presentation that expressed a starkly different view from Fries. His TED talk called for more progressive tax measures. He also lambasted the notion that entrepreneurs are society’s primary ‘wealth creators’. In his words, ‘Anyone who’s ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a capitalist’s course of last resort, something we do only when increasing customer demand requires it.

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A 2015 article in Maclean’s suggested, for example, that Bill Gates’s ‘tight focus on concrete measures and defined results’ distinguishes his work from earlier, government-sponsored aid and welfare programmes.56 The most influential academic to emphasize this perception of the foundation is Peter Singer, a controversial Australian philosopher who has praised Gates and Warren Buffett for being the ‘most effective altruists in history’. During a TED talk in 2013, Singer pointed to a screenshot and said, ‘This is the website of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and if you look at the words on the top right-hand side, it says, “All lives have equal value”. That’s the understanding, the rational understanding of our situation in the world that has led to these people being the most effective altruists in history, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett’.57 When it comes to public education in the US, there’s little indication yet that many of the initiatives the foundation has spearheaded have in fact been positive for students.

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Chan praised their comments, provoking an attendee to stand up and ask whether the relationship presented a conflict of interest for the WHO. Chan, never a wallflower, responded by launching into song – a show tune from the musical The King and I, ‘Getting to Know You’.39 The Gates Foundation has championed the idea that Coca-Cola should be upheld as a key partner in global health policy-making. In 2010, Melinda Gates gave a TED talk titled ‘What Non-profits Can Learn from Coca-Cola,’ where she exhorted development experts to adopt the beverage giant’s distribution strategies. On its own, the suggestion seems fairly commonplace, even commendable. Gates pointed out that Coca-Cola is able to supply its beverages in highly remote areas where health practitioners often have difficulty transporting medicines.

Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice From the Best in the World
by Timothy Ferriss
Published 14 Jun 2017

Quiet was named the best book of the year by Fast Company magazine, which also named Susan one of its “Most Creative People in Business.” Susan is the co-founder of the Quiet Schools Network and the Quiet Leadership Institute, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. Her TED Talk has been viewed more than 17 million times and was named by Bill Gates as one of his all-time favorite talks. * * * How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours? Many, many moons ago, I used to be a corporate lawyer. I was an ambivalent corporate lawyer at best, and anyone could have told you that I was in the wrong profession, but still: I’d dedicated tons of time (three years of law school, one year of clerking for a federal judge, and six and a half years at a Wall Street firm, to be exact) and had lots of deep and treasured relationships with fellow attorneys.

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Matt Ridley TW: @mattwridley mattridley.co.uk MATT RIDLEY is a prominent author whose books have sold more than a million copies, been translated into 31 languages, and won several awards. They include The Red Queen, The Origins of Virtue, Genome, Nature via Nurture, Francis Crick, The Rational Optimist (one of the most recommended books by others in this book), and The Evolution of Everything. His TED Talk “When Ideas Have Sex” has been viewed more than two million times. He writes a weekly column in The Times (London) and writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal. As Viscount Ridley, he was elected to England’s House of Lords in February 2013. * * * What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why?

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Tim has gained a number of prominent readers as well, like authors Sam Harris and Susan Cain, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, TED curator Chris Anderson, and Brain Pickings’ Maria Popova. Tim’s series of posts after interviewing Elon Musk have been called by Vox’s David Roberts “the meatiest, most fascinating, most satisfying posts I’ve read in ages.” You can start with the first one, “Elon Musk: The World’s Raddest Man.” Tim’s TED Talk, “Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator,” has received more than 21 million views. * * * What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, because of the two main characters in the book—Howard Roark and Peter Keating.

The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream Is Moving
by Leigh Gallagher
Published 26 Jun 2013

Take, for example, LifeEdited, a Web site and product design and real estate development firm anchored by a philosophy that advocates for reducing clutter, extra space, and extra material goods (its slogan: “Design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy”). The company’s founder, Graham Hill, previously founded Treehugger.com, one of the earliest Web sites to focus on what would become the “green” movement, and for the past few years has turned his focus on this new venture. In a TED talk introducing the LifeEdited philosophy, Hill explains our obsession with stuff (while sitting on a box of stuff) and asks the audience to “consider the benefits of an edited life.” We have triple the amount of space per person we did fifty years ago, he points out, and a $22 billion, 2.2-billion-square-foot storage industry for all our stuff—and it’s time to pare it back.

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Louis, Missouri; big commercial builders are now replicating their concepts. ©2010 Minnesota Historical Society Anti-sprawl activists point to street design at the turn of the century as the ideal. Chuck Marohn, founder of StrongTowns.org, uses this picture of Brainerd, Minnesota, in 1905 in his TED talk to demonstrate a street “that rocks.” ©Michelle Wolfe Photography Morristown, New Jersey, has given its downtown a dose of urban chic, adding penthouse loft apartments, boutiques, restaurants, and a walkable promenade. Nancy McLinden/ Pink Olive Photography In Libertyville, Illinois, John McLinden developed School Street, a neighborhood of twenty-six houses in dense arrangement just off the town’s Main Street.

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In addition to his books, which also include The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (Grove Press, 2006), and Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012), Kunstler weighs in weekly on his blog, Clusterfuck Nation, at Kunstler.com/blog/. A TED talk he gave in 2004 is viewable at ted.com and well worth the nineteen minutes. CHAPTER TWO: THE MASTER-PLANNED AMERICAN DREAM “Some rich men came and raped the land”: Words and music by Don Henley and Glenn Frey © 1976 Cass County Music and Red Cloud Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Music Publishing Co., Inc.

Trees on Mars: Our Obsession With the Future
by Hal Niedzviecki
Published 15 Mar 2015

,” The New York Times, October 13, 2013, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/what-do-we-owe-the-future/. 32. Sarah Gray, “Walter Isaacson: ‘Innovation’ Doesn’t Mean Anything Anymore,” Salon.com, August 5, 2014, http://www.salon.com/2014/08/05/walter_isaacson_innovation_doesnt_mean_anything_anymore/. 33. Thomas Frank, “TED Talks Are Lying to You,” Salon.com, October 13, 2013, http://www.salon.com/2013/10/13/ted_talks_are_lying_to_you/. 34. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2011). 35. “Time Person of the Year,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, April 13, 2015, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Time_Person_of_the_Year&oldid=656202490. 36.

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“Whereas Friedrich Nietzsche bemoaned the surplus of historical sense, crushing old Europe under the weight of its past, we are now suffering from an obsession with what lies ahead.”31 “The word ‘innovation’ has become a buzzword and it’s been drained of much of its meaning,” notes bestselling Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson.32 All around us, writes critic Thomas Frank, there are “TED talks on how to be a creative person.” There are “‘Innovation Jams’ at which IBM employees brainstorm collectively over a global hookup,” and “‘Thinking Out of the Box’ desktop sculptures for sale at Sam’s Club.”33 Language matters. Language shapes how we see things. A famous psychology experiment provides insight into the way words and ideas on the surface enter our collective mental infrastructure.

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The message of the XPrize Foundation is as unambiguous as its crowdsourcing marketing exercises: this is how you get to the future. Ten years ago, we might have dismissed the XPrize as an outsized personal obsession, an outlier that doesn’t actually represent any kind of systemic change in how we think about future collectively and individually. After all, XPrize founder Diamandis is a pundit, speaker, TED Talk regular, and author of iconic Silicon Valley text Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think. In other words, he’s a professional future-first prophet—someone who has made a career out of preaching that creativity leashed to science and technology will solve our problems. (I get his mass e-mails for “abundance-minded thinkers” complete with pithy zingers like “Women, we’re entering your age of abundance.

Makers at Work: Folks Reinventing the World One Object or Idea at a Time
by Steven Osborn
Published 17 Sep 2013

And we were so fascinated by this idea that maybe there’s a way to interact with computers in a manner that’s a lot more physical than what we have now. This was 2006. Multitouch was just becoming known. Jeff Han from NYU had just shown his great multitouch demo at TED1 at that time. Osborn: I remember watching that TED talk. I was blown away by it. Merrill: Yeah, it was amazing. The iPhone wasn’t even out yet. He did a great job demonstrating this new core interaction paradigm, which was so exciting to me, because I have this interest in making things that are useful—making tools for people is one of the things that I really love.

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We hadn’t focused it yet on a particular domain, a particular application. I think that’s exactly right for research, to just play around with different ideas—and see what works and find out what doesn’t. We got to incubate this idea for a couple years at the Media Lab. Osborn: And some time in there you did the TED talk, right? Merrill: In the fall of 2008, I’d just defended my PhD based around this project, and I’d been trying to finish up the writing. My advisor Pattie Maes came to me and said, “Hey, I got invited to give a talk at the TED conference and Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, wants to know what my talk is going to be about.

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And so I asked, “Why don’t we see if Chris will let me give a talk about Siftables, and that will free you up to talk about everything else the group is doing.” At first, she didn’t go for it. She said, “Well, I don’t think that’s going to work because they’re very selective about who gets to give a TED talk. Just the fact that I’ve been offered one talk is already pretty special, and so I doubt that we’re going to get two.” I kept pushing. I’m an optimist. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.” I said, “When you talk to him later this week, why don’t you pitch that and see what he says?” So after the phone call later in the week, Pattie came back and said, “Okay.

Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work
by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal
Published 21 Feb 2017

If someone gives you a cup of icy cold water8 to hold, then introduces you to a stranger, as researchers at Yale did, you’ll treat this newcomer with suspicion and rate them as colder and more distant on personality scales. But if they give you a cup of hot coffee and make the same introduction, trust comes more easily. The act of feeling physical warmth is enough to trigger a cognitive change: you literally warm up to people, no thinking required. Or consider Harvard psychologist Amy9 Cuddy’s popular TED talk about the power of body language. Cuddy discovered that spending two minutes in a “power pose”—meaning a posture of dominance (like “Wonder Woman”: hands on hips, elbows cocked wide, legs firmly planted)—changed both psychology and physiology. In her research, subjects who adopted the Wonder Woman posture took greater risks and took them more frequently.

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Typically, what gets bypassed on an ecstatic path are the mundane dissatisfactions of regular life. If those dissatisfactions are too intense, non-ordinary states can offer a tempting escape. But rather than bypassing these challenges, we can accept them and even draw power from them. This response has a paradoxical name: vulnerable strength. Brené Brown, whose books and TED talks on the subject have resonated with massive audiences, explains it this way: “Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving27 up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

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During the states we’re describing: There’s obviously a ton of information on this one, but especially relevant are Arne Dietrich, “Functional Neuroanatomy of Altered States of Consciousness,” Conscious Cognition, June 12, 2003, pp. 231–56; Matthieu Ricard and Richard Davidson, “Neuroscience Reveals the Secret of Meditation’s Benefit,” Scientific American, November 1, 2014; J. Allan Hobson, The Dream Drugstore (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001); Kotler, The Rise of Superman; and C. Robert Cloninger, Feeling Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Also see Arne Dietrich’s excellent TED talk, “Surfing the Stream of Consciousness,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syfalikXBLA. 24. The knobs and levers being tweaked in the brain: See www.flowgenomeproject.com/stealingfiretools. 25. “We’re a very high-performing club”: Author interview with Rich Davis and other team leaders (who have likewise needed to remain anonymous), 2013. 26. researcher and neuroscientist John Lilly: Float tank histories are everywhere, but to hear John Lilly tell it, see John Lilly, The Scientist (Berkeley, CA: Ronin, 1996), pp. 98–108. 27.

A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas
by Warren Berger
Published 4 Mar 2014

I came across this quote in Maria Popova, “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thoughts on Learning,” Atlantic, June 8, 2012; excerpted from Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, Nature, and the Human Spirit: A Collection of Quotations (Portland, OR: Pomegranate, 2011). 3 Mark Noonan, who once, after suffering . . . From my 2009 interview with Noonan, originally for the book Glimmer. 4 “We think someone else—someone smarter . . .” From Regina Dugan’s March 2012 TED talk, “From Mach 20 Glider to Humming-bird Drone,” http://www.ted.com/talks/regina_dugan_from_mach_20_glider_to_humming_bird_drone.html. 5 “are the engines of intellect . . .” David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). Thank you to Bill Welter for bringing this to my attention. 6 “shine a light on where you need . . .”

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Drawn from the website Massmoments.org, which drew from “Percy Spencer and His Itch to Know,” by Don Murray in Readers’ Digest (August 1958); “Raytheon: A History of Global Technology Leadership” (Early Days link); and “Who Invented Microwaves?” from Gallawa.com. 35 Sugata Mitra, made just this point . . . Mitra’s TED talk was “Build a School in the Cloud,” February 27, 2013, http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html. Also, see the article “Is Education Obsolete? Sugata Mitra at the MIT Media Lab,” posted on the blog MIT Center for Civic Media, May 16, 2012; as this post shows, the idea of “knowing” being obsolete was suggested by MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte, in a class discussion following Mitra’s lecture at MIT. 36 “when someone looks at the way things . . .”

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Jessica Salter, “Airbnb: The Story behind the $1.3bn Room-letting Website,” Telegraph, September 7, 2012. 25 “it creates dissonance,” notes Paul Bottino . . . From my interview with Bottino. 26 Why can’t India have 911 emergency service? . . . From my interview with Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund; plus, Shaffi Mather’s November 2009 TED Talk, “A New Way to Fight Corruption.” http://www.ted.com/talks/shaffi_mather_a_new_way_to_fight_corruption.html 27 The five whys methodology originated . . . Taiichi Ohno, Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production (Portland, OR: Productivity Press, 1988). Also, Eric Ries, The Lean Startup (New York: Crown Business, 2011). 28 IDEO example of five whys . . .

What's Yours Is Mine: Against the Sharing Economy
by Tom Slee
Published 18 Nov 2015

California and New York are the most common origins, but there are partners from several European countries (PiggyBee is Belgian, Blablacar is French, Carpooling is German, Swapsee is Spanish, ParkAtMyHouse is British), from Australasia (Zookal, Airtasker), as well as from Israel (EatWith, CasaVersa), South Africa, and Turkey. This diversity, this range of small and neighborhood-focused organizations, is why the Sharing Economy has appealed to the ecologically minded and to those who identify with artisans. It’s why author Rachel Botsman can describe the Sharing Economy this way in a TED talk: At its core, it’s about empowerment. It’s about empowering people to make meaningful connections, connections that are enabling us to rediscover a humanness that we’ve lost somewhere along the way, by engaging in marketplaces like Airbnb, like Kickstarter, like Etsy, that are built on personal relationships versus empty transaction.1 It’s also why stories in the mainstream press tended to start off with the quirky and personal.

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As we have already seen, it was involved in founding Peers through its executive Douglas Atkin. Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers’ What’s Mine Is Yours1 was an important book for the Sharing Economy, setting out a vision that has helped to define the movement. The book opens with the story of Airbnb’s beginnings, and Botsman also looks to Airbnb to set the tone for her TED talk on sharing. When leading public commentators like New York Times columnists David Brooks and Thomas Friedman write about the Sharing Economy, they look to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. And Chesky speaks out about the values of sharing; in March 2014 he wrote a photo-heavy manifesto-like short essay called “Shared City,” which started like this: Imagine if you could build a city that is shared.

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Reputation is effective only if the testimonies are impartial and free from the taint of collusion or retaliation. Testimony from John’s brother does not carry the same weight as that of someone who has no stake in John’s success or failure. John may not want my neighbor to tell me about his failure to fix their sing, but there’s not a lot he can do about private conversations over a garden fence. In her TED talk, influential author Rachel Botsman says that in the new economy “reputation will be your most valuable asset,” but thinking of reputation as an asset is a dangerous path to take. Markets grow around assets, and these markets undermine the impartiality on which reputation relies. Intermediaries such as reputation.com will help you boost your reputation, for a fee, but why would you trust a reputation that has been paid for?

The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey Into the Dark Side of the Brain
by James Fallon
Published 30 Oct 2013

Within a couple of days, in late August, I received two e-mails, and then two calls. These were from head science correspondent Gautam Naik of the Wall Street Journal, and Simon Mirren, executive producer and writer of the TV crime series Criminal Minds on CBS. They both wanted to pursue aspects of what they had seen in the TED talk. After several conversations by phone and e-mail, it was abundantly clear these two gents were quick studies and at least as bright as my academic colleagues. But unlike academics I knew, these two gentlemen moved fast. Gautam Naik arranged to fly from New York to Southern California in late October, and hang out for several days with my family and me, at my home, the lab, and an Angels baseball game.

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Within a week he had already worked out a story line for the ninety-ninth episode of Criminal Minds (“Outfoxed”). I couldn’t believe what he said to me in our second conversation. He had already merged the story line of the serial killer of the episode, basically at high risk to become a psychopathic murderer even as a young child, with the scientific hypothesis I had discussed in my TED talk. He had managed to understand my concept of how the decades and centuries of violence in the Balkans and high-risk genetics would give rise to transgenerational violence and produce a serial killer. And he added the twist that the serial killer turned out to be a woman who beat the odds and had the high-risk MAOA gene variant on both X chromosomes, and had experienced severe violence in her youth.

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So my idea that I should have been a very violent person if genes and organic brain state dictate function, combined with the fact that I wasn’t, meant I would have to eat a lot of crow in front of my neuroscience colleagues who were fifty-fifty types in the nature-nurture metric. This was not going to be fun. The ribbing and eye-rolling and teasing from my colleagues didn’t materialize, to my face at any rate. What happened was worse. Colleagues contacted me, but it was out of concern. “Jim,” my friend Samantha said, “I saw your TED talk video, and did you notice that your orbital cortex and ventral temporal lobe are turned completely off?” On a PET scan, lack of activity can look like lack of brain matter, so my neuroscientist colleague Jeffrey said, “Man, you’ve got a lot of empty space there. Do you have large ventricles?” referring to the brain’s fluid-filled pockets.

Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction
by Chris Bailey
Published 31 Jul 2018

At the same time, it’s worth auditing and increasing the quality of dots you consume regularly. The most creative and productive people defend their attentional space religiously, allowing only the most valuable dots to be encoded. So how do you measure the value of a dot? First, the most valuable dots are both useful and entertaining—like a TED talk. Useful dots stay relevant for a long time and are also practical. Their entertainment value makes you more engaged as you consume them. While it’s fairly easy to tell if something’s entertaining, there are several ways to measure how useful it is. Useful information is typically actionable and helps you reach your goals.

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However powerful our brains are as dot-connecting machines, consuming exclusively nonentertaining material can quickly become a chore. That’s why it’s also important to seek out balanced dots—information that is both useful and entertaining. Countless things fit into this category, including novels, podcasts, documentaries, and TED talks. The entertainment value of this information makes it easier to become engrossed in it, and as a result, we’re more likely to continue consuming it and become actively involved with the information it provides. Finally, there’s the bottom third of what we consume: information that’s entertaining or, at worst, trashy.

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Or you love listening to audiobooks about productivity (I plead guilty). Double down on developing the skills and knowledge that you find entertaining. Also opt for the medium you prefer—if you learn best by listening, try consuming audiobooks instead of physical books; if you prefer visuals, try watching TED talks instead of listening to an audiobook. 2. Eliminate some trash. Passively consuming pointless trash adds nothing to your life. Choose two items that don’t bring you genuine enjoyment, and eliminate them entirely. Look out for material that, while stimulating in the moment, doesn’t leave you satisfied afterward.

You Are What You Read
by Jodie Jackson
Published 3 Apr 2019

The prevalence and pursuit of extraordinarily negative stories in the press can give the appearance that we are going backwards, and most of us are left believing that the world is getting worse. Hans Rosling, a Swedish statistician and renowned public speaker, founded an organisation called Gapminder with his son Ola Rosling and Ola’s wife Anna, which addresses the negative news bias. In Hans’ inspiring and insightful TED Talk ‘The best stats you’ve ever seen’, he shares the results of an original study he conducted among Swedish university students called ‘the chimpanzee test’.10 In this experiment, he offered the students five pairs of countries, consisting of one Asian country and one European country, and asked them to select which performed better on a number of health measures, such as child mortality rates.

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It has been well evidenced throughout history that moments of great social progress and peace-building initiatives have been born from anger. Kailash Satyarthi, a children’s rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, makes a compelling case for anger and outrage to be considered necessary components of the peace-making process. In his 2015 TED Talk, he spoke about moments of injustice that he witnessed, like poverty, child prostitution and violence, and recognised that his reaction to these events was anger. He goes on to reflect how society teaches us to deal with anger; it is categorised as inherently bad and must be either controlled or suppressed.

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Lara Setrakian, a former journalist at ABC News, founded a website in 2012 called Syria Deeply as a result of her concern that in-depth reporting was in danger. This news platform was built to go in depth and provide clarity, understanding and context to the conflict in Syria. It was created because without this depth, stories become oversimplified and this can lead to the misunderstanding of an issue. In her captivating TED Talk, ‘Three Ways to Fix a Broken News Industry’,6 Lara uses coverage of the Ebola outbreak in 2014 to demonstrate how the public was flooded with information that was simplistic, hysterical, sensational, inaccurate and, in some cases, completely wrong. This is because the news can often replace contextual information that aids understanding with emotional or tragic frames which can distort the reality of the situation taking place.7 The news cycle focused on the thousands of deaths in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, with many news organisations citing government incompetence as the reason for the uncontrolled spread.

Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement
by Ashley Shew
Published 18 Sep 2023

Here I stay with mobility disability for a bit—the disability that I have the most experience with, and the one that first brought me into community with other disabled folks. This chapter is built around anecdotes from wheelchair users, arm amputees, and leg amputees to counter the unending media narratives that focus on physically disabled people. We see constant coverage of Paralympics and TED talks, and other public narratives of disability usually focus on young, white wheelchair users or amputees. Here I write about the pressure to be (or appear) normal—to walk, to have a five-fingered hand—and explain the real process of getting a new prosthetic limb. Chapter 5: The Neurodivergent Resistance.

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First, because the “overcoming” narrative pretends that structural problems of access can be overcome with the right plucky, can-do attitude on the part of individual disabled people; it lets abled people off the hook instead of calling on them to actually help make the world more accessible. As Stella Young puts it in her spectacular TED talk, “The only disability in life is a bad attitude,” the reason that that’s bullshit is because it’s just not true, because of the social model of disability. No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. Never. Smiling at a television screen isn’t going to make closed captions appear for people who are deaf.

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It seems easier just to say “you’re welcome”—you shouldn’t have to launch into a long personal history about your service and health to a stranger in order to pick up cabbage at the grocery store—but nobody wants to “steal valor” from those injured in the line of duty. It’s not that public images of amputees are never true—including the technologized images from Dancing with the Stars to TED talks on prosthetics. Many of us do seek to address some aspects of disability in technological ways, and techno-optimism is seductive. I adore my prosthetic leg (when it fits right); we go everywhere together. But I do not like being lumped into the “inspiration” category because I can walk with my prosthesis.

12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next
by Jeanette Winterson
Published 15 Mar 2021

Joy Buolamwini, a computer scientist based at the MIT Media Lab in the USA, founded the Algorithmic Justice League, because, as a graduate student, she realised that facial-recognition software hadn’t been trained on darker skin tones – and was especially bad at recognising darker female faces. She’s on a mission to fight bias in machine-learning; what she calls the ‘coded gaze’. And it’s not only ‘gaze’. In-car voice-recognition systems respond well to deeper, likely male voices, with standard accents. Speech scientists building voice-recognition data-sets often use TED talks. 70% of people giving TED talks are white men. This matters, because more and more of our daily lives use speech recognition – and it is estimated that voice-commerce will be an 80 billion dollar business by 2023. Does it need to be a gender binary business? Does it need to keep the world’s default as white men and the rest of us – every woman, and most people of colour – as atypical?

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Women who worked in computing should have been valued and encouraged; they were fired. Women’s neural hardwiring wasn’t the problem. The problem was that they were women. Biology is destiny if you work for the patriarchy. Freelance Programmers, though, was floated on the Stock Market in 1996, making millionaires of 70 of her female staff. (Author’s note: her TED talk is a delight.) * * * What about the USA? The way Silicon Valley tells its own story, it’s a story of guys in garages developing hardware (Steve Jobs), and guys in basements developing software (Bill Gates and Paul Allen). If we take the same starting point of World War Two, what do we find?

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Susan Sellers, 1994 The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, Shulamith Firestone, 1970 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari, 2011 Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado Perez, 2019 The I-Ching Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society, Cordelia Fine, 2017 (and everything she has written and will write) The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience That Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain, Gina Rippon, 2019 The Future Isn’t Female Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing, Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, 2002 Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing, Marie Hicks, 2017 Algorithims of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, Safiya Umoja Noble, 2018 The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars, Dava Sobel, 2016 Let it Go: My Extraordinary Story – from Refugee to Entrepreneur to Philanthropist, the memoir of Dame Stephanie Shirley, 2012 (If you don’t have time for this, just find her TED Talk.) Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener, 2020 The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, 1949 Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy, 1984 Psychology of Crowds, Gustave Le Bon, 1896 Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Sheryl Sandberg, 2013 Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights, Helen Lewis, 2020 A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf, 1929 Your Computer Is on Fire, various editors, 2021 (haven’t read this at time of going to press but looks great) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker, 2002 Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, Adrienne Rich, 1976 The Better Half: On the Genetic Superiority of Women, Sharon Moalem, 2020 Jurassic Car Park Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, 1949 The War of the Worlds, H.

The People vs Tech: How the Internet Is Killing Democracy (And How We Save It)
by Jamie Bartlett
Published 4 Apr 2018

If literate man was rational, said McLuhan, then electronic man would be more emotional, aural and tactile. McLuhan’s prescient 50-year-old ‘probes’ (he called his ideas probes) into how technology would change behaviour are still significantly more insightful than almost every ‘thought-provoking’ TED Talk. But McLuhan wasn’t a scientist. He didn’t conduct studies or test theories. Fortunately Daniel Kahneman, the academic most associated with examining bias in human decision-making, did. Through decades of empirical research with long-time collaborator Amos Tversky, he pioneered the study of how we take decisions – and especially irrational ones.

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Having something to protect and a stake in society, this group is repeatedly found in studies to value individual freedom, property rights and democratic accountability more than other groups.11 The emergence of middle-class societies, especially in Europe and America increased the legitimacy of liberal democracy as a political system in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.12 To see what happens when tech-fuelled inequality takes off, there’s no better place to start than the home of it all, Silicon Valley and its increasingly put-upon neighbour, San Francisco. There are two worlds in Silicon Valley, and they barely ever meet. There’s the exciting start-up open-plan offices, with beanbags, table football, TED Talks and flip-flops, where the region’s half a million tech workers can expect to earn on average well over a hundred thousand dollars a year. (For the biggest companies, the median salary is higher still.) Mostly under 40, they want to live in nearby bustling San Francisco, since Silicon Valley can resemble The Stepford Wives.

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And yet, later that year, Zuckerberg said that ‘our philosophy is that we care about people first’.17 The worse these companies behave and the richer they become, the more they spend on looking cool and talking about fairness and community. This cannot be a coincidence. Wealthy corporations cultivate the popular ideas of the day not just by direct pressure, but also by funnelling money – through think tanks, TED Talks, grants, sponsorships and consulting – towards individuals and ideas that see the world as they do.18 And through their funding of think tanks and increasingly academia, the broad public imagination about technology is rebalanced in a subtle-but-definite way.19 But it’s much more than that. The iPhone and web browsers we now all use have carried the Californian Ideology around the world, infecting us all with the alluring idea that disruption is liberation, total individualism is empowerment and gadgets equal progress.

Busy
by Tony Crabbe
Published 7 Jul 2015

Additionally, saying “no” to anyone, let alone someone more senior, is really hard. At some point though, you’ll need to use that two-letter word if you want to set boundaries and avoid the drudgery of the perpetual “yes.” The Power to Say “No” Before we look at what to say, let’s look at how you feel. In one of the most popular TED talks ever, Amy Cuddy described her research about the effect of our body posture on our confidence. She had students “stand powerfully” for just two minutes, which increased their levels of testosterone by 10 percent (associated with confidence) and decreased their cortisol (the stress hormone) by 25 percent.

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Karau, “Group Decision Making: The Effects of Initial Preferences and Time Pressure,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25 (1999): 1342–54. 11. John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006). 12. David Allen, Getting Things Done (New York: Penguin Books, 2003). 13. Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Knopf, 2006). 14. Ron Gutman, “The Hidden Power of Smiling,” (TED talk, March 2011), http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_gutman_the_hidden_power_of_smiling.html. 15. Ernest L. Abel and Michael L. Kruger, “Smile Intensity in Photographs Predicts Longevity,” Psychological Science 21, no. 4 (2010): 542–44. Chapter 1: Stop Managing Your Time! ( . . . and Go Surfing) 1.

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Young, “Increasing Voting Behavior by Asking People If They Expect to Vote,” Journal of Applied Psychology 72, no. 2 (1987): 315–18. 4. Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67, no. 4 (1963): 371–8. 5. Amy Cuddy, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” (TED talk, June 2012), http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are. 6. William Ury, The Power of a Positive No (London: Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., 2007). Chapter 5: Stop Being So Productive! (Become More Strategic) 1. David Garlan, Daniel P. Siewiorek, Asim Smailagic, and Peter Steenkiste, “Toward Distraction-free Pervasive Computing,” Pervasive Computing 1, issue 2 (April–June 2002): 22–31. 2.

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives
by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Published 28 Jan 2020

If they had their way, neurosurgeons would like to impact the brain at a single neuron level, but today’s deep brain stimulators are too big for this precision. Trying to target individual neurons with today’s implants is, as MIT professor of materials science and engineering Polina Anikeeva pointed out in her 2015 TED Talk, “akin to trying to play Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto with fingers the size of a pickup truck.” Making matters more complicated, these devices require surgery to install and, as the brain treats them like foreign invaders, serious medicine afterward. There’s also the issue of design. The body is a flexible 3-D environment, but most of today’s brain implants—be they deep brain stimulators or otherwise—are inflexible 2D devices that have more in common with traditional silicon chips than anything that exists naturally in the body.

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High Fidelity: “High Fidelity Raises $35m to Bring Virtual Reality to 1 Billion People,” High Fidelity, June 28, 2018. See: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/high-fidelity-raises-35m-to-bring-virtual-reality-to-1-billion-people-300673807.html. NeoSensory: “NeoSensory.” See: https://neosensory.com/?v=7516fd43adaa. See also: David Eagleman, “Can We Create New Senses for Humans?,” TED Talk, https://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans. Dreamscape: “Dreamscape.” See: https://dreamscapeimmersive.com/. See also: Bryan Bishop, “Dreamscape Immersive Wants to Bring Location-Based VR to the Masses, Starting with a Shopping Mall,” Verge, January 15, 2019. See: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/15/18156854/dreamscape-immersive-virtual-reality-los-angeles-walter-parkes-bruce-vaughn.

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One Billion Android Teachers Per Year In 2012, Nicholas Negroponte: David Talbot, “Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves,” MIT Technology Review, October 29, 2012. See: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/. One Laptop per Child: See: http://one.laptop.org/. Negroponte told the MIT Review: Ibid. Sugata Mitra: Watch Sugata Mitra’s full “Kids Can Teach Themselves” TED Talk here: https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves?language=en. Ed McNierney, the nonprofit’s CTO, told the MIT Review: Ibid. Global Learning XPRIZE: See: https://www.xprize.org/prizes/global-learning. over a billion Android handsets manufactured each year: According to Gartner, over 1.5 billion smartphones were sold in 2017.

City 2.0: The Habitat of the Future and How to Get There
by Ted Books
Published 20 Feb 2013

Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs, Calif., each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, each summer — TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize. The annual TED Conferences, in Long Beach/Palm Springs and Edinburgh, bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 1,000 TED Talks are available online, with more added each week. All are subtitled in English; many are subtitled in various other languages.

Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries
by Peter Sims
Published 18 Apr 2011

This documentary illustrates all of these elements beautifully, using a principal who many assume is a creative genius (Seinfeld), but who really has to work his tail off. TEDTalks: TED talks are presentations from the annual TED Conference, established to share “ideas worth spreading.” There are two TED talks about creativity that I would highly recommend. The first is Sir Ken Robinson’s 2006 talk, “Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity.” Robinson, a long-time creativity researcher, educator, and author, encapsulates a number of the central insights from his book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative in this twenty-minute talk, which is one of the most viewed TED talks, approaching 100 million views. http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html.

Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body
by Sara Pascoe
Published 18 Apr 2016

And then we left and he sent me a text about wanting to fuck me and I stared at it wishing it felt like a victory. All the chemicals that go crazy gluing us to someone by loving them, when they’re reabsorbed or redistributed or go wherever they go it’s like being left beached by the sea. The previous state makes no sense. There is a brilliant woman called Helen Fisher and I’d really recommend watching her TED talk about love if you haven’t already. She’s also written about theories of serial pair bonding; she studied divorce rates from countries across the world and found that the median duration for marriage was seven years. ‘Seven-year itch is proved real by science,’ cried crappy newspaper journalists who are never pictured with wry Labradors.

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Laws that forbid sex and marrying while forcing us to attend school create space for us to be children before the graduated slide into adulthood and its expectations. But in other countries there are different expectations; childhood ends earlier. Children may work and get married before they hit their teens, just like in the olden days in the U of K. Here is my pretend TED talk about the first consent laws. Imagine I am wearing what you recognise as my sexiest beret and on the big screen behind me emoticons are flashing up to signify how I feel about some of the information. SARA walks on stage. She seems nervous and is holding a pointy stick. SARA Hi guys, thanks for coming, thanks to Sweden for arranging this.

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SARA From 1275 up until the nineteenth century, creating doubt that a rape victim was a virgin would be sufficient to avoid a prosecution – a defence technique that echoes on in the raking-through of modern victims’ sexual history as a way of discrediting their testimony. Sombre clapping. SARA tries to cheer everyone up a little bit by doing a cartwheel but the mood is still pretty serious. I have to stop the TED talk now because I can’t think of any more emoticons. I don’t get them on my phone – they come up as little empty boxes. The story of how the age of consent was raised to sixteen is pretty incredible. In 1885 there was an investigative journalist called William Stead and he went undercover to interview procuresses and the girls they bought and sold.

I, Warbot: The Dawn of Artificially Intelligent Conflict
by Kenneth Payne
Published 16 Jun 2021

‘How swarming will change warfare’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 74, no. 6 (2018): 385–389 and Verbruggen, Maaike, ‘The question of swarms control: challenges to ensuring human control over military swarms’, SIPRI Non Proliferation and Disarmament Papers, no. 65, December 2019, https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2019–12/eunpdc_no_65_031219.pdf. The Perdix swarm is on the US Navy’s YouTube channel, at https://youtu.be/bsKbGc9TUHc. 20. Kumar, Vijay. ‘Robots that fly and cooperate’, TED Talk, 1 March 2012, https://youtu.be/4ErEBkj_3PY. 21. Future of Life Institute, ‘Slaughterbots’, YouTube, 13 November 2017, https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw. 22. Martin, David. ‘Russian hacking proves lethal after Ukranian military app hijacked’, CBS News, 22 December 2016, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-hacking-proves-lethal-after-ukrainian-military-app-compromised/. 23.

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Twilley, Nicola. ‘Seeing with your tongue,’ The New York Times, 8 May 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/seeing-with-your-tongue. 26. Nagel, Thomas. ‘What Is It Like to Be a Bat?’ The Philosophical Review 83, no.4 (1974): 435–50. 27. David Eagleman, ‘Can we create new senses for humans’, TED talks, March 2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare. 28. Pais-Vieira, Miguel, Mikhail Lebedev, Carolina Kunicki, Jing Wang, and Miguel A. L. Nicolelis. ‘A brain-to-brain interface for real-time sharing of sensorimotor information’, Scientific Reports 3 (2013): 1319.

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‘Neocortex size and group size in primates: a test of the hypothesis’, Journal of Human Evolution 28, no. 3 (1995): 287–296. Eady, Yarrow. ‘Tesla’s deep learning at scale: using billions of miles to train neural networks’, Towards Data Science, 7 May 2019, https://towardsdatascience.com/teslas-deep-learning-at-scale-7eed85b235d3. Eagleman, David. ‘Can we create new senses for humans’, TED talks, March 2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare. Elgammal, Ahmed, Bingchen Liu, Mohamed Elhoseiny, and Marian Mazzone. ‘Can: Creative adversarial networks, generating “art” by learning about styles and deviating from style norms’, arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.07068 (2017).

Sex Power Money
by Sara Pascoe
Published 26 Aug 2019

Whenever a woman does break through she’s referred to as a ‘female murderer’, which she finds very patronising. Makes her want to work even harder at killing people, until she gets some respect. If you want to passionately argue that this male-on-male killing is created by culture then I will watch your TED talk, but I’m unlikely to be convinced. Throughout our evolution males have competed brutally with each other for resources and mates, and only the successful shared the genes for physical dominance with their sons and grandsons. This (mostly) historical violence remains crucially relevant to modern parenting.

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Dirty Daubings Waw chica waw waw, please come in and fix the washing machine. Tens of thousands of years ago Homo sapiens began making images of bodies. We don’t know how erotic early people found the images, whether these figures were nude to inspire lust or purely because no one had any clothes on. We don’t know the intentions of the artists because they didn’t do TED talks and Q&As explaining ‘this piece represents the death of my mother. Although she lives on in my mind. And in Chelmsford.’ What I’m trying to say is that olden-days artists weren’t pretentious arseholes, they just did their little pictures and died. We can’t know what was considered aesthetically arousing by these ancient people.

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I mean his type of death overshadows, that’s the word I should have used. Testosterone It gets referred to as ‘the male hormone’ but all bodies have it. In the female body it’s made in the ovaries (indoor testicles) and the adrenal glands. In male bodies it’s produced by the adrenal glands and the testes. *TED talk voice* It’s a 19-carbon steroid hormone made from cholesterol and it’s largely responsible for the creation of what we consider ‘male’ attributes. During adolescence testosterone production ramps up to endow the male body with heightened sex characteristics. These include a deeper voice, facial hair, increased body hair, pubic hair, broadening of shoulders and face, and maturation of penis and testicles, becoming ready for reproduction.

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
Published 14 Jun 2018

But they are also categories that gain meaning from power relations of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and class exploitation.60 Intersectionality is a theory based on several insights that we believe are valid and useful: power matters, members of groups sometimes act cruelly or unjustly to preserve their power, and people who are members of multiple identity groups can face various forms of disadvantage in ways that are often invisible to others. The point of using the terminology of “intersectionalism,” as Crenshaw said in her 2016 TED Talk, is that “where there’s no name for a problem, you can’t see a problem, and when you can’t see a problem, you pretty much can’t solve it.”61 Our purpose here is not to critique the theory itself; it is, rather, to explore the effects that certain interpretations of intersectionality may now be having on college campuses.

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Of course, some individuals truly are racist, sexist, or homophobic, and some institutions are, too, even when the people who run them mean well, if they end up being less welcoming to members of some groups. We favor teaching students to recognize a variety of kinds of bigotry and bias as an essential step toward reducing them. Intersectionality can be taught skillfully, as Crenshaw does in her TED Talk.66 It can be used to promote compassion and reveal injustices not previously seen. Yet somehow, many college students today seem to be adopting a different version of intersectional thinking and are embracing the Untruth of Us Versus Them. Why Common-Enemy Identity Politics Is Bad for Students Imagine an entire entering class of college freshmen whose orientation program includes training in the kind of intersectional thinking described above, along with training in spotting microaggressions.

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Parents can model the principle of charity by using it in family discussions and arguments. Practice the virtue of “intellectual humility.” Intellectual humility is the recognition that our reasoning is so flawed, so prone to bias, that we can rarely be certain that we are right. For kids in middle or high school, find the TED Talk titled “On Being Wrong.”24 The speaker, Kathryn Schulz, begins with the question “What does it feel like to be wrong?” She collects answers from the audience: “dreadful,” “thumbs down,” “embarrassing.” Then she notes that her audience has actually described what it feels like the moment they realize they are wrong.

The Purpose Economy: How Your Desire for Impact, Personal Growth and Community Is Changing the World
by Aaron Hurst
Published 31 Aug 2013

He would be the first to say that he isn’t 100 percent there yet, but he has reached a tipping point. He has realized that his education and mentoring as a leader had left him without the most important asset he needed to try to be successful—consciousness. Learn, Earn & Return During a recent TED talk, moral philosopher Peter Singer argued that the best way to change the world is to go into finance. You can make a lot of money and then give it away. If you make enough, you can pay the salaries of dozens of aid workers, which has a better social return on investment than simply becoming an aid worker yourself.

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As this happens, it disrupts almost every industry and creates economic opportunity for those who are able to either build new organizations or retrofit existing businesses to accommodate these changes. In this chapter, I cover five industry trends that illustrate how value is created in the Purpose Economy, and how it will continue in the future. 1. Retail In her now-famous TED talk, musician Amanda Palmer points out that “throughout history, musicians and artists have been parts of the community—the connectors and openers.”2 They played a special role in the community, because their livelihood required connecting with their audience and asking for help. This deep connection to the community created vulnerability.

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Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. New York: Free, 2011. Print. Stern, Lewis Richard. Executive Coaching: Building and Managing Your Professional Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Print. “Silicon Valley Strategies.” Silicon Valley Strategies. N.p., n.d. Web. TED talk: Amanda Palmer Tennant, Kyle. Unfriend Yourself: Three Days to Detox, Discern, and Decide about Social Media. Chicago: Moody, 2012. Print. “The MBA—some history.” The Economist. N.p., 17 Oct. 2013. Web. Thomas, D. A. “The truth about mentoring minorities: Race matters.” Harvard Business Review. 2001.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
by Greg McKeown
Published 14 Apr 2014

“Young Firm Saves Babies’ Lives,” Stanford Graduate School of Business, June 7, 2011, www.stanford.edu/group/knowledgebase/cgi-bin/2011/06/07/young-firm-saves-babies-lives/. 7. PLAY 1. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, the Secret to Happiness, TED talk, February 2004, video, www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html. 2. Sir Ken Robinson, Bring on the Learning Revolution!, TED talk, February 2010, video, www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html. 3. Stuart Brown, Play Is More Than Just Fun, TED talk, May 2008, video, www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html. 4. Quoted in Stuart Brown, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (New York: Avery, 2009), 29. 5.

Fewer, Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects
by Glenn Adamson
Published 6 Aug 2018

He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.”3 Inspired to try it for himself, Thwaites set about months of research in order to make a toaster entirely by hand, in a completely self-taught and self-sufficient manner. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the result is sad-looking and nonfunctional, more an abject sculpture than a real appliance. Yet the object provides poignant testimony about the limits of personal capability. In a TED talk that has been viewed by more than one million people, Thwaites explained that he had not really been interested in achieving self-sufficiency, but rather in tracing the process by which “rocks and sludge buried in the ground in various places in the world” turn into our finished consumer products.4 It is sobering to consider that a cheap toaster of the type he tried (and failed) to make would cost only about four British pounds to purchase at a store.

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Smith, “Making as Knowing: Craft as Natural Philosophy,” in Smith, Amy Meyers, and Harold Cook, eds., Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), p. 20. I further discuss Smith’s work as a practicing historian in chapter 32. Chapter 18:  GOING DEEP   1   Sherry Turkle, “Connected, but Alone?” TED talk, February 2012. See also Turkle’s book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2012).   2   Art Buchwald, “Art and Museum Fail to Maintain Worthy Attention,” Daily News (September 18, 1990), p. 4.   3   Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009), p. 22.

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Like Crusoe, who relied on the supplies from his wrecked ship, they almost always require externally produced resources. Rossi, “The Crusoe Condition: Making Within Limits and the Critical Possibilities of Fiction,” Journal of Modern Craft 10, no. 1 (March 2017).   4   Quotes from Thomas Thwaites are taken from “How I Built a Toaster—from Scratch,” TED talk, November 2010. Chapter 32:  A BOOK OF SECRETS   1   From an interview with Pamela Smith, November 23, 2016.   2   Pamela H. Smith, “Making as Knowing: Craft as Natural Philosophy,” in Smith, Amy Meyers, and Harold Cook, eds., Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), p. 19.   3   Pamela Smith, “Snakes, Lizards, and Manuscripts: Humanists in the Laboratory,” unpublished lecture, Columbia University, December 2, 2013.   4   Bernard Palissy, Admirable Discourses (1580).

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 7 Sep 2022

The wealthy technologists jumping on the humane technology bandwagon today may be less concerned about the impact of their platforms on people than the potential impact of those people on their own privilege and safety—especially if they figure out what has been going on all this time. As Peter Thiel’s philosophical guide René Girard would put it, the angry mob, whipped up into a mimetic frenzy, will eventually look for a scapegoat. If only there were a button one could push to make them go away. 9 Visions from Burning Man WE ARE AS GODS Y ou’re watching a TED Talk. It doesn’t matter which one. Really, with few exceptions, it doesn’t. There’s some guy standing in the trademark circular patch of red carpet, telling you that everything you know about the world is wrong. He used to think that way, too, until he had an epiphany that turned it all around. He had the ultimate counterintuitive insight, and realized it’s not this way at all, it’s that way.

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It obligates us to catalyze an evolutionary leap, to orchestrate the equivalent of a Big Bang in order to get the whole universe to conform to the exponential intentions of our species and its most influential investors. It’s a sensibility that—by virtue of its ubiquity in venture philanthropy—informs even less hubristic efforts at addressing hunger, inequality, and the environment, as if one needs a totalizing, end-to-end, universal solution capable of being summarized in a TED Talk in order to be considered worthy at all. It’s what we now, disparagingly, call technosolutionism. ReGen Villages, for example, is the brainchild of former game designer James Ehrlich, an entrepreneur-in-residence at Stanford and a teacher of “disaster resilience” for Singularity University. ReGen is a total solution for the creation of regenerative and resilient communities that are capable of producing their own organic food, sourcing clean water, and educating their young, all with renewable energy and in a circular economy.

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Yes, nature is in trouble, but The Mindset’s approach to addressing this collective crisis is always to do something. Fix it. Hack it. Reboot it. Develop it. Scale it. Automate it. As if doing less, or even doing nothing, were not an option. Repairing what we have, scaling back, or even seeking incremental progress doesn’t make for an exciting podcast, online panel, or TED Talk. But neither does it require massive capital investment, sales speeches, or “buy-in.” ReGen Villages are themselves just one possible component of an even bigger initiative conceived by Ehrlich’s friend and supporter Jim Rutt. The former chairman of leading systems theory thinktank the Santa Fe Institute, Rutt has been working on his own reboot of the world from the bottom up, called Game B.

Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth
by Stuart Ritchie
Published 20 Jul 2020

This is the idea, promoted by the psychologist Angela Duckworth, that the ability to stick to a task you’re passionate about, and not give up even when life puts obstacles in your path, is key to life success, and far more important than innate talent. The appetite for her message was immense: at the time of this writing, her TED talk on the subject has received 25.5 million views (19.5m on the TED website and a further 6m on YouTube; Angela Lee Duckworth, ‘Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance’, presented at TED Talks Education, April 2013; https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duck-worth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance), and her subsequent book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, became a New York Times bestseller and continues to sell steadily.

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‘This was simply an error: I knew all I needed to know to moderate my enthusiasm … but I did not think it through.’14 But the damage had already been done: millions of people had been informed by a Nobel Laureate that they had ‘no choice’ but to believe in those studies. Priming isn’t the only psychological effect to have been given an audience in the millions. Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy rocketed to fame in 2012 with a TED talk advocating ‘power posing’. She recommended that just before you enter a stressful situation, such as an interview, you should find two minutes in a private place (such as a bathroom stall) to stand in an open, expansive posture: for example, with your legs apart and your hands on your hips. This powerful posture would give you a psychological – and hormonal – boost.

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An experiment by Cuddy and her colleagues in 2010 had found that, compared to those who were asked to sit with arms folded or slouched forward, people who were made to power-pose not only felt more powerful, but had higher risk tolerance in a betting game and had increased levels of testosterone and decreased levels of the stress hormone cortisol.15 Cuddy’s message that people who used the two-minute power pose could ‘significantly change the outcomes of their life’ struck a chord: hers became the second-most-watched TED talk ever, with over 73.5 million views in total.16 It was followed in 2015 by Cuddy’s New York Times-bestselling self-help book, Presence, whose publisher informed us that it presented ‘enthralling science’ that could ‘liberate [us] from fear in high-pressure moments’.17 Provoking quite some degree of mockery, the UK’s Conservative Party seemed to take Cuddy’s message to heart, with a spate of photos appearing that same year of their politicians adopting the wide-legged stance at various conferences and speeches.18 Alas, also in 2015, when another team of scientists tried to replicate the power-posing effects, they found that while power-posers did report feeling more powerful, the study ‘failed to confirm an effect of power posing on testosterone, cortisol, and financial risk’.19 The critical spotlight that was activated in the replication crisis has also been aimed at older pieces of psychology research, with similarly worrying results.

Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal
by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Published 6 Jul 2015

Gooze, et al., “Adverse Childhood Experiences, Dispositional Mindfulness, and Adult Health,” Preventive Medicine 67 (October 2014), 47–53. In Conclusion Indeed, it is “our misfortunes that drive”: These quotes emerge from writer Andrew Solomon’s TED Talk “How the Worst Moments in Our Lives Make Us Who We Are” (filmed March 2014) and were honed through email exchanges with Solomon. The TED talk can be found at http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_how_the_worst_moments_in_our_lives_make_us_who_we_are?language=en (accessed February 24, 2015). Researchers have found that in the last decades: Chioun Lee, “Childhood Abuse and Elevated Markers of Inflammation in Adulthood: Do the Effects Differ Across Life Course Stages?

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Not surprisingly, those who had experienced a lot: A. Keller, K. Litzelman, L. E. Wisk, et al., “Does the Perception that Stress Affects Health Matter? The Association with Health and Mortality,” Health Psychology 31, no. 5 (2012), 677–84. In fact, she points out, this latter group: Kelly McGonigal’s TED Talk on the upside of stress can be found here: Kelly McGonigal, PhD, “How to Make Stress Your Friend,” TEDGlobal 2013 (June 2013), http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend (accessed April 7, 2014). When something traumatic occurs, the hormone noradrenaline: E. S. Faber, A.

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Researcher John Gottman, MD, PhD: John Gottman, MD, PhD, talks about this 5-to-1 ratio of positive to negative interactions in this talk, available on YouTube: “The Magic Relationship Ratio,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw9SE315GtA (accessed February 25, 2015). Which means we “have to build stop signs”: Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, talks about “the gentle power” of gratefulness in this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_steindl_rast_want_to_be_happy_be_grateful (accessed August 19, 2014). Matthew Lieberman, PhD, professor of psychology: J. D. Creswell, B. M. Way, M. D. Lieberman, et al., “Neural Correlates of Dispositional Mindfulness During Affect Labeling,” Psychosomatic Medicine 69, no. 6 (July–August 2007), 560–65; L.

Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone
by Satya Nadella , Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols
Published 25 Sep 2017

Similarly, public officials must trust that we can be counted on to help them protect public safety, so long as the rules protecting individual freedom are clear and followed consistently. But building and maintaining both kinds of trust—finding the balance between individual and public obligations—has always defined the progress of institutions. But it may be more art than science. In an engaging TED talk, the British conductor Charles Hazelwood describes the critical importance of trust in leading an orchestra. A conductor’s instrument, of course, is the orchestra itself, and so when he raises the wand, he has to trust that the musicians will respond, and the musicians have to trust that he will create a collective environment within which each can do his or her best work.

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“The Terrorism Fight Needs Silicon Valley; Tech Executives Are Dangerously Wrong in Resisting the Government’s Requests for Their Help.” Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2016. Accessed December 8, 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-terrorism-fight-needs-silicon-valley-1467239710. Hazelwood, Charles. “Trusting the Ensemble.” TED Talk, 19:36, filmed July 2011. http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_hazlewood. Gates, Bill. “Memo from Bill Gates.” The Official Microsoft Blog, January 11, 2012. http://news.microsoft.com/2012/01/11/memo-from-bill-gates/#sm.00000196kro2y0ndaxxlau37xidty. Delgado, Rick. “A Timeline of Big Data Analytics.”

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See also specific products Tait, Richard, 7, 29 talent development, 117–18 TCI company, 28 teachers, 104, 106, 198, 226 teams and team building, 1, 39, 56, 107, 117–18 technology boom of 1990s, 24 democratizing and personalizing, 69 diffusion of, 216–17, 219 disruption and, 12 empathy and, 42–43 future of, 140–44 human performance augmented by, 142–43, 201 intensity of use, 217, 219, 221, 224–26 soul and, 68–69 transformation and, 11–12 TED talks, 180 telecommunications, 225 teleconferencing, shared-screen, 142 telegraph, 186 telepresence, 236 telerobotics, 236 tensor-processing unit (TPU), 161 Teper, Jeff, 29 terrorism, 172, 177–79 TextIt, 216 theoretical physicists, 162–64 think weeks, 64 32-bit operating systems, 29 Thiruvengadam, Arun, 187 Thompson, John, 14–15 3D printing, 228 three C s, 122–23, 141 Three Laws of Robotics, 202 ThyssenKrupp, 59–60 Tiger Server project, 30 time management model, 138 Tirupati, India, 19 topological quantum computing (TQC), 166 Toyota, 127 Tractica, 198 trade, 229–31, 236 training, 92, 227 transfer learning, 151, 153, 155 transformation, 11–12, 57, 67, 90 cloud and, 42, 55–56, 71 cultural (see culture, transforming) Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 230–31 transparency, 135, 174–75, 191–92, 202, 204–6 Trump, Donald, 212, 230 trust, 56, 88, 107, 135, 169–94, 205, 236 Turing, Alan, 26 Turner, Kevin, 3 TV white space, 99, 225 Twilight Zone, The (TV show), 159 Twitter, 174 2001 (film), 201 two-in-one computers, 129 two-sided markets, 50 Uber, 44, 126, 153 uncertainty, 38, 111, 157 United Kingdom, 215, 236 United Nations, 44 U.S.

The Best Interface Is No Interface: The Simple Path to Brilliant Technology (Voices That Matter)
by Golden Krishna
Published 10 Feb 2015

Like the study in which people were offered 30 randomly selected chocolates and ended up being less satisfied and more regretful than when they were offered only six randomly selected chocolates.20 Or the discovery that the more retirement mutual funds employers offered to their employees through the investment firm Vanguard, the less and less those employees participated. This has been explained by Barry Schwartz, the author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, in his 2006 TED talk: Why? Because with 50 funds to choose from, it’s so damn hard to decide which fund to choose that you’ll just put it off until tomorrow. And then tomorrow, and then tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and of course tomorrow never comes. Understand that not only does this mean that people are going to have to eat dog food when they retire because they don’t have enough money put away, it also means that making the decision is so hard that they pass up significant matching money from the employer.21 For appliances, is there anything simpler than buttons?

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Your own schedule. Your own style of working. And I wouldn’t have you any other way. You’re spécial. This reality, I’m sorry to say, isn’t what we typically embrace when we make most software today—despite the billion-dollar valuations, optimistic NASDAQ NDXT-like indices, and promises of grand TED talks shot from nine camera angles.3 We don’t make a separate digital interface for each and every unique person. Within the constraints of modern front-end software development, that would be an endless, gargantuan task. Sometimes, antithetically, graphical user interfaces are even despairingly based on a single person’s view of the world; in other words, not yours.

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To prevent that potential failure, many air bag systems now use several additional sensors—such as weight, seating position, and seat belt use—to determine whether the air bag should be deployed.1 I personally root for sensors and predictive systems to help solve failure in real time, such as those General Electric (GE) has mentioned in their move for an Industrial Internet. Marco Annunziata, chief economist at GE, explained in his TED talk: We’ve developed a preventive maintenance system which can be installed on any aircraft. It’s self-learning and able to predict issues that a human operator would miss. The aircraft, while in flight, will communicate with technicians on the ground. By the time it lands, they will already know if anything needs to be serviced.

Work in the Future The Automation Revolution-Palgrave MacMillan (2019)
by Robert Skidelsky Nan Craig
Published 15 Mar 2020

With Helen Hester, he is finishing his next book After Work: The Fight for Free Time (2020). Daniel Susskind explores the impact of technology, particularly artificial intelligence, on work and society. He is a fellow in Economics at Balliol College, University of Oxford, where he teaches and researches. He is the co-author of the best-selling book The Future of the Professions. His TED Talk, on the future of work, has been viewed more than 1.4 million times. Previously Susskind worked in the British Government—as a policy adviser in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, as a policy analyst in the Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street, and as a senior policy adviser in the Cabinet Office. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University.

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Then I want to use these ideas—and their limitations—to set out a few implications for the future of work. This talk draws explicitly on other work I have done: for instance two books, The Future of the Professions (2015/2017) and A World Without Work (2020), other pieces of research, and a recent TED Talk, ‘3 Myths about the Future of Work (and Why They’re Not True)’. I want to begin with the strange changes that took place in labour markets from the 1980s to the turn of the twenty-first century. During that period, if you had lined up workers in many countries from lowest-­ skilled to highest-skilled, you would have found that low-skilled and high-skilled employment shares at either end of the line grew, but employment shares for those in the middle shrunk (by ‘employment shares’, I mean the share of these roles in overall employment).

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Susskind As noted at the outset, this talk draws explicitly on existing writing and research, including material that I developed with my co-author, Richard Susskind. For example, see the following references. References Susskind, D. (2017, November). 3 Myths about the Future of Work (and Why They’re Not True), A TED Talk Delivered in London, November 2017. Susskind, D. (2019). Re-thinking the Capabilities of Technology in Economics. Economics Bulletin, 39(1), A30. Susskind, D. (2020). A World Without Work. London: Allen Lane. Susskind, D., & Susskind, R. (2015/2017). The Future of the Professions. Oxford: OUP. Susskind, D., & Susskind, R. (2018).

Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Published 12 Sep 2016

For an informative and interesting summary of these ideas go to Dan’s Social Intelligence Talks at Google at https://​www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=-hoo_​dIOP8k. 3. For more on Dan Gilbert’s ideas on “synthesizing happiness” watch his TED Talk, “The Surprising Science of Happiness,” http://​www.​ted.​com/​talks/​dan_​gilbert_​asks_why_​are_we_​happy and read Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Knopf, 2006). 4. For more on Barry Schwartz’s ideas on choice and choosing watch his TED Talk, “The Paradox of Choice?,” https://​www.​ted.​com/​talks/​barry_​schwartz_on_​the_paradox_​of_choice?​language=en. Chapter 10 Failure Immunity 1. Angela Duckworth’s studies on grit and self-control are summarized in a great article: Daniel J.

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The notion that “people who can make an explicit connection between their work and something socially meaningful to them are more likely to find satisfaction, and are better able to adapt to the inevitable stresses and compromises that come with working in the world” is one of the important ideas in Seligman’s book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being (New York: Atria Books, 2012). Chapter 3 Wayfinding 1. For more information on the concept of flow, see Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008). 2. See Suzana Herculano-Houzel’s TED Talk “What’s so special about the human brain?,” https://​www.​ted.​com/​talks/​suzana_​herculano_​houzel_​what_is_​so_special_​about_the_​human_brain; and Nikhil Swaminathan, “Why Does the Brain Need So Much Power?,” Scientific American, April 29, 2008, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-the-brain-need-s/. 3.

Working Hard, Hardly Working
by Grace Beverley

What I learned from my work-from-home struggles was how to know myself, my boundaries and shortcomings, and it changed my life and my productivity: my work was better in quality and quantity, and so was my time off. So when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, and many people began working from home for the first time, I posted an Instagram story in which I shared a ‘work-from-home’ tip. I recommended that people who struggle to concentrate after lunch watch a TED Talk during their break and give it their full attention. For me, this distracts enough from my work to give me a much-needed break, without the risk of falling into a full-on YouTube hole which ends up with me being so engrossed in an instruction video on how to make an Ikea elfstödt into a loo roll holder that I miss my 3pm call.

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Envisioning what I wanted the book to add to people’s lives and how I wanted them to talk about it is what allowed me to position everything in my mind and know what I was working towards. I’ll let you be the judge of whether it’s worked or not! Change your scenery. If you have the option, walk to a local café or sit in the park – a change of scenery always helps. Sitting at your desk isn’t always the most inspiring place to be, especially if you’ve been there all day. Watch a TED Talk. Concentrate and take notes on it – what do you and don’t you agree with? Warm up your critical thinking and your creativity will follow. Lifestyle Creativity Triggers These are for implementing more widely as part of your general lifestyle. Of course, you won’t be able to implement them last minute to get into your flow or deep work, but they’re definitely worth bearing in mind to optimise the amount of time, space and capacity you have for creativity in your day.

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Becoming, Michelle Obama (2018) Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton (2018) How To Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned from Things Going Wrong, Elizabeth Day (2019) Minor Feelings: A Reckoning on Race and the Asian Condition, Cathy Park Hong (2020) More than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are, Elaine Welteroth (2019) Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood (2017) What I Know for Sure, Oprah Winfrey (2014) Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, Maya Angelou (1993) Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person, Shonda Rhimes (2015) Podcasts Freakonomics Radio How I Built This How To Do Everything Power Hour Revisionist History TED Talks Daily The Debrief The Naked Scientists The Tim Ferriss Show Unlocking Us Where Should We Begin? You Are Not So Smart Online Resources Bitch Media Business Insider Bustle Dazed Digital Fast Company’s 30-Second MBA Forbes Magazine gal-dem Harvard Business Review Inc. Magazine Longform Longreads McKinsey New York Times TED-Ed The Cut ENDNOTES Introduction 1 ‘As I write …’, ‘UK unemployment rate continues to surge’, BBC News, 10 November 2020. 2 ‘In a 2016 …’, Bernard Salt, ‘Evils of the hipster café’, The Australian, 15 October 2016. 3 ‘In fact, the …’, ‘The avocado toast index: How many breakfasts to buy a house?’

For the Love of Autism: Stories of Love, Awareness and Acceptance on the Spectrum
by Tamika Lechee Morales
Published 23 Apr 2022

Navigating Autism: 9 Mindsets for Helping Kids on the Spectrum (co-authored with Debra Moore): a book with nine strength-focused strategies for anyone working with children and teens on the spectrum. Thinking in Pictures (My Life with Autism): Dr. Grandin’s autobiography, recommended for individuals experiencing anxiety. “The World Needs All Kinds of Minds, a TED Talk: www.​ted.​com​/talks​/temple_​grandin_​the_world_​needs_all​_kinds_of​_minds Website templegrandin.com Hashtag #SeeTheWholeChild My Love Letter to My Mother and My Mentors Dear Mother, Teachers, and Mentors, I want to thank my mother and all the teachers and mentors who helped me to live a full life and do lots of intellectually challenging work.

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In 2010, Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World and she also was featured in an HBO movie, Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes. Articles about Dr. Grandin have appeared in the New York Times, Discover Magazine, Forbes, and USA Today. She also has appeared on shows, such as Larry King Live, 20/20, 60 Minutes, Fox and Friends, and has given TED Talks. Her book, Animals in Translation, was a New York Times bestseller. Other popular books are: Thinking in Pictures, Emergence Labeled Autistic, Animals Make Us Human, The Way I See It, and The Autistic Brain. Dr. Temple has been inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Born and raised in Illinois, Kacie was never really sure where or how she fit in, mostly because she rarely does. Kacie is a rebel—she puts ketchup on her hotdog. She is contrary, loving murder shows and chick flicks equally. And she is known for pushing the limits—too far—at least three times, the number of times she’s run out of gas. Her favorite TED Talks is Andrew Solomon’s “Love No Matter What,” favorite philosopher is Sun Tzu, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is her hero. She is the founder of therapymom.co, a community for parents raising autistic kids. Kacie’s a contributor on The Mighty and Kveller and she serves as a pro-bono education advocate. Kacie also works at BreezoMeter as social media manager.

Smart Machines: IBM's Watson and the Era of Cognitive Computing (Columbia Business School Publishing)
by John E. Kelly Iii
Published 23 Sep 2013

This charged mixture, along with bold leadership and new technology, could lead to a global renaissance for cities, which could grow not just bigger but better. According to Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute, cities are the sources of our problems but also can be the sources of our solutions. In order to achieve that goal, however, “we desperately need a serious scientific theory of cities,” Geoffrey said at a Ted Talk in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2011.3 What would a scientific theory of cities look like? IBMers who study cities describe it as a large set of structures, patterns, and processes that provide a formal, quantitative approach to understanding the complex systems of cities of all sizes. In this way, people who are involved in running, planning, and building cities will be able to comprehend how the human and built systems interplay with one another.

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Jonathan Mahler, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005). 2. United Nations Department of Urban and Social Affairs, “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision,” executive summary, February 2008, http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wup2007/2007WUP_ExecSum_web.pdf. 3. Geoffrey West, TED Talk, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2011, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyCY6mjWOPc. 4. “Fighting Terrorism in New York City,” 60 Minutes, CBS television, September 25, 2011. 5. Paul Maglio, IBM Research, interview, July 6, 2012. 6. Arizona State University, “Study Maps Greenhouse Gas Emissions to Building, Street Level for U.S.

Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley
by Emily Chang
Published 6 Feb 2018

Under her direction, Facebook’s revenues multiplied nearly a hundred times between 2008, when Sandberg signed on, and 2016, when the company generated $10 billion in profit. She also immediately started counting the number of Facebook’s female engineers and started a speaker series for women at the company, inviting guests like Gloria Steinem—similar to the events she had organized at Google. In 2010, Sandberg gave a now-famous TED talk in which she called out the lack of women leaders in business and government and called on women in the workforce not to “lean back” prematurely in their careers. Two years later, the Atlantic published an article by the public policy expert Anne-Marie Slaughter titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” in which she attacked Sandberg directly.

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Slaughter had quit a high-profile, demanding job in the State Department (under Hillary Clinton) because her family needed her. Maybe, I thought, I would have to quit my job too. That night, I went to bed and cried myself to sleep, even though crying is the worst thing you can do when you’re going to be on television the next day. In the morning, I re-watched Sandberg’s TED talk and her commencement addresses at Barnard College and Harvard Business School. I took notes. Then I mustered up the courage to email her. Though I’d reported on Sandberg’s work at Facebook, we had never met in person and she might have had no idea who I was, but for some reason I felt compelled to thank her for putting herself out there on this sadly controversial subject.

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Under her direction, Facebook’s revenues: Matt Rosoff, “Look at How Much Sheryl Sandberg Has Done for Facebook,” Business Insider, Mar. 23, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-8-years-at-facebook-2016-3. not to “lean back”: Sheryl Sandberg, “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders,” TED talk, Dec. 21, 2010, video, 14:58, https://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders. “Although couched in terms”: Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” Atlantic, July/Aug. 2012, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020.

A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond
by Daniel Susskind
Published 14 Jan 2020

Imagine asking how she makes such perceptive medical diagnoses. She might be able to give you a few hints, but ultimately she would struggle to explain herself. As Polanyi himself put it, very often “we can know more than we can tell.” Economists called this constraint on automation “Polanyi’s Paradox.” 24.  This is the language I used in my TED talk entitled “Three Myths About the Future of Work (and Why They Are Wrong),” March 2018. See David Autor, Frank Levy, and Richard Murnane, “The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 4 (2003): 129–333. 25.  Autor, “Polanyi’s Paradox and the Shape of Employment Growth.”

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Most, ed. and trans., Loeb Classical Library 57 (London: Harvard University Press, 2006), lines 950–55 of “Theogony.” 44.  Daniel Dennett calls this “cosmic warehouse” the “design space.” See, for instance, Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 45.  This point was also made well by Sam Harris, the US neuroscientist, in his TED talk, “Can We Build AI Without Losing Control over It?,” 29 September 2016. 5. TASK ENCROACHMENT   1.  David Deming, “The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 132, no. 4 (2017): 1593–1640.   2.  Aaron Smith and Janna Anderson, “AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs: Key Findings,” Pew Research Center, 6 August 2014, available at http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs/ (accessed August 2018).   3.  

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Lecture to the Society of Business Economists, London, 9 September 2014. ________. “Labour’s Share.” Speech at the Trades Union Congress, London, 12 November 2015. Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. London: Harvill Secker, 2016. ________. Sapiens. London: Harvill Secker, 2011. Harris, Sam. “Can We Build AI Without Losing Control over It?” TED talk, 29 September 2016. Harrison, Mark. “Soviet Economic Growth Since 1928: The Alternative Statistics of G. I. Khanin.” Europe–Asia Studies 45, no. 1 (1993): 141–67. Hassabis, Demis. “Artificial Intelligence: Chess Match of the Century.” Nature 544 (2017): 413–14. Haugeland, John. Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea.

The Deepest Map
by Laura Trethewey
Published 15 May 2023

The ocean is the quintessential dark place, while space is the ultimate escape in movies and video games. Even when humans have to battle hostile aliens, outer space is still a mostly fun backdrop. The ocean, meanwhile, is more often featured as a sort of hellscape in horror movies and bleak documentaries about overfishing and pollution. At a TED Talk in 2008, Robert Ballard, the founder of the Ocean Exploration Trust and owner of Nautilus, homed in on these issues: “Why are we ignoring the oceans?” he asked. “Why are we looking up? Is it because it’s Heaven and Hell is down here? Is it a cultural issue? Why are people afraid of the ocean? Or do they assume the ocean is a dark, gloomy place that has nothing to offer?”

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This is the challenge that Cassie Bongiovanni faces today, more than a half century later, having to explain again and again that the ocean is not mapped, no matter what the maps might show. “This is a characterization of what [the seafloor] would look like if you could remove the water. It gives you the false impression that it’s a map,” said Robert Ballard, the founder of the Ocean Exploration Trust and the owner of E/V Nautilus, in his 2008 TED Talk, displaying the Tharp-Heezen world map. “It is not a map.”83 Maps occupy an authoritative position in society and hold a false allure. They trick us into thinking we know a place better than we do, particularly in remote territory. You can’t use the Tharp-Heezen maps to find a specific place on the seafloor, as you would an ordinary map.

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James Cameron Doesn’t,” New York Times, September 16, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/science/ocean-sea-challenger-exploration-james-cameron.html. 9.Taub, “Thirty-Six Thousand Feet Under the Sea.” 10.Young, Expedition Deep Ocean, xiv. 11.Kelsey Kennedy, “The Forgotten Documents of a 1918 Tsunami in Puerto Rico,” Atlas Obscura, July 5, 2017, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/puerto-rico-earthquake-tsunami-lost-records. 12.Expedition Deep Ocean (Discovery Channel, 2021), https://www.discoveryplus.com/show/expedition-deep-ocean. 13.Helen Scales, The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean, and the Looming Threat That Imperils It (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2021), 4. 14.Robert Ballard, “The Astonishing Hidden World of the Deep Ocean,” transcript, TED Talk, Monterey, California, May 2008, https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_ballard_the_astonishing_hidden_world_of_the_deep_ocean/transcript. 15.“Prince of Monaco Here on His Yacht,” New York Times, September 11, 1913. 16.Robert Kunzig, Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science (New York: W.

But What if We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present as if It Were the Past
by Chuck Klosterman
Published 6 Jun 2016

I think it’s extraordinarily likely that my colleagues who say the multiverse concept is crazy are right. But I’m not willing to say the multiverse idea is wrong, because there is no basis for that statement. I understand the discomfort with the idea, but I nevertheless allow it as a real possibility. Because it is a real possibility.” Greene delivered a TED talk about the multiverse in 2012, a twenty-two-minute lecture translated into more than thirty languages and watched by 2.5 million people. It is, for all practical purposes, the best place to start if you want to learn what the multiverse would be like. Greene has his critics, but the concept is taken seriously by most people who understand it (including Tyson, who has said, “We have excellent theoretical and philosophical reasons to think we live in a multiverse”).

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Greene has his critics, but the concept is taken seriously by most people who understand it (including Tyson, who has said, “We have excellent theoretical and philosophical reasons to think we live in a multiverse”). He is the recognized expert on this subject. Yet he’s still incredulous about his own ideas, as illustrated by the following exchange: Q: What is your level of confidence that—in three hundred years—someone will reexamine your TED talk and do a close reading of the information, and conclude you were almost entirely correct? A: Tiny. Less than one percent. And you know, if I was really being careful, I wouldn’t have even given that percentage a specific number, because a number requires data. But take that as my loose response.

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-hedgehog analogy, 199–201 through monomyths, 74 personal interpretation of events, 203 and relationship to history, 202–3 “utility myth,” 218–19 Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The (Kuhn), 114–16 subjective vs. objective, 94, 96–97, 148–51 Supreme Court, 210 symmetry, statistical, 26–27 Syro (album), 38n Talking Heads, 68 Tartt, Donna, 52 TED talk about the multiverse, 105–6 Teenage Fanclub, 92n teenage years, recognition of, 62n telephone usage, changes in, 15–16 television first Golden Age (1940s–1960), 172 second Golden Age (1990s–2010s), 172 ancient Egypt analogy, 162–63 as art form, 71, 165–66 as entertainment only (1970s–1980s), 172–73 filming and staging, 168 incomparability to radio, 160n “misunderstanding” plot (1970s), 167 natural dialogue, 166–67 realism, desire for, 163–65, 167–68 reality TV, 169–70 realness, achieving, 171–72 roman à clef programming, 170–71 sports viewing, 192–93, 251–52 viewing, changes in, 159–60 Teller, Miles, 188–89 Tenth of December (Saunders), 23 Terminator (film franchise), 227 “Testify” (music video), 197–98 time effect of, 44–45, 56–57, 70, 205–6, 233–35 and space, 113–14 Toland, Gregg, 244 “Tom Joad” (song), 230 transgender issues, 29–30 transgressive art, 79–80 Trial, The (Kafka), 36, 38 Truman Show, The (film), 126 truths, accepting, 238–39 Twitter, 86 Tyson, Neil deGrasse, 99–103, 105, 108–12, 115–16, 125n, 224–25 Ultimate Warrior, 234 universe.

The Introvert Entrepreneur: Amplify Your Strengths and Create Success on Your Own Terms
by Beth Buelow
Published 3 Nov 2015

They achieved their level of comfort after making (and witnessing) dozens of boring, mediocre, and nerve-wracking presentations, each time learning how to improve and building their confidence. When Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking and cofounder of the Quiet Revolution, was booked to do a TED talk to coincide with her book’s publication, she embarked on what she called her “Year of Speaking Dangerously.” She joined Toastmasters, hired coaches, and did extensive preparation. It doesn’t have to be something as big as a TED talk to call for similar measures. The first step is to normalize the activity by hanging around people who have what you want. There is certainly value in spending time with peers who are in the same stage as you (defining, searching, practicing).

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See also Facebook; LinkedIn; Twitter content on, 163 extrovert on, 164 hobbies on, 167 for networking, 20, 82, 86, 114 for other people, 86 overview of, 161–64 real life with, 165–68 research on, 99 risk on, 164 transparency on, 153, 164–65 tribe and, 155–58, 161–64 values and, 167 vulnerability on, 164 Solitude of introverts, 22–23 networking and, 76 Spielberg, Steven, 13 StartOut, 112 Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (Sinek), 99, 113 Success business expansion with, 217–18 in collaboration, 209, 210 defined, 64 freedom as, 143–44 Janeczko on, 113 motivation and, 143 in public speaking, 177–78 in sales, 141–44 ways to set yourself up for, 229–40 Surface acting, 67 Sustainability choices for, 21 for introvert entrepreneur, 21, 236–39 tribe and, 155 Swenson, Paula, 105 Talbot, Betsy, 28–29, 54–55 Talking to extroverts, 11–12 to introverts, 10–11 small talk, 77 Team Introvert, 13 Technology, 158–61 TED talks, 178 Telephone discomfort with, 44 for networking, 83 Testimonials from networking, 84, 85 for public speaking, 180 thank-you note for, 85 Thank-you notes, 85 TheIntrovertEntrepreneur.com, 63, 138, 139 on collaboration, 193 leadership resources in, 220 Toastmasters, 178, 179 Transparency authenticity and, 68–69 with content, 131 of introvert entrepreneurs, 153, 164–65 on social media, 153, 164–65 in tribe, 156–57, 185 Trial and error, 74 Tribe.

The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig
Published 12 Aug 2020

She apparently now worked for the BBC during their coverage of swimming events, had appeared on the TV show A Question of Sport, had written an autobiography called Sink or Swim, was an occasional assistant coach at British Swimming GB, and still swam for two hours every day. She gave a lot of money to charitable causes – namely to Marie Curie Cancer Care – and she had organised a fundraising charity swimathon around Brighton Pier for the Marine Conservation Society. Since retiring from professional sport, she had swum the Channel twice. There was a link to a TED talk she had given about the value of stamina in sport, and training, and life. It had over a million views. As she began to watch it, Nora felt as though she was watching someone else. This woman was confident, commanded the stage, had great posture, smiled naturally as she spoke, and managed to make the crowd smile and laugh and clap and nod their heads at all the right moments.

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Working at String Theory, although she was perfectly okay talking with customers, she rarely spoke up in staff meetings, even though there had never been more than five people in the room. Back at university, while Izzy always breezed through presentations Nora would worry about them for weeks in advance. Joe and Rory were staring at her with baffled expressions. The Nora she had seen in the TED talk was not this Nora, and she doubted she could ever become that person. Not without having done all that she had done. ‘Hello. My name is Nora Seed.’ She hadn’t meant it to be funny but the whole room laughed at this. There had clearly been no need to introduce herself. ‘Life is strange,’ she said.

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It took a second, given the fact that he was smartly dressed in a blue cotton shirt and with hair far shorter than it was in his Bedford life, for her to realise it was Ravi. This Ravi looked friendly, but she couldn’t shake the knowledge of the other Ravi, the one who had stormed out of the newsagent’s, sulking about not being able to afford a magazine and blaming her for it. ‘You see, I know that you were expecting my TED talk on the path to success. But the truth is that success is a delusion. It’s all a delusion. I mean, yes, there are things we can overcome. For instance, I am someone who gets stage fright and yet, here I am, on a stage. Look at me . . . on a stage! And someone told me recently, they told me that my problem isn’t actually stage fright.

The Growth Delusion: Wealth, Poverty, and the Well-Being of Nations
by David Pilling
Published 30 Jan 2018

It was Modi who saw how alluring and transformative economic growth could be. * * * — Not too long before he died in February 2017, I discussed the issue of growth in poor countries with Hans Rosling, a Swedish academic. Rosling was that rarest of things, a pop-star statistician.16 A master of the TED talk—in which he used dynamic bubble charts to present data, which he pointed to with a rubber hand attached to the end of a long stick—Rosling was a self-described “edutainer.” Although he objected to the term, he was also an optimist.17 He believed that poor countries were gradually closing the gap on rich Western ones, a trend that was most discernible in basic health data such as infant mortality.

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Murad Ahmed, “Your Robot Doctor Will See You Now,” Financial Times, January 13, 2016: www.ft.com. 11. “Why the Japanese Economy Is Not Growing: Micro-barriers to Productivity Growth,” McKinsey Global Institute, July 2000. 12. This hilarious example is taken from Rory Sutherland, “Life Lessons from an Ad Man,” TED Talk, July 2009: www.ted.com. 13. From a telephone interview with the former head of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Steve Landefeld, or Mr. GDP as I like to call him, February 2017. 14. Adam Sherwin, “Welsh Town Moves Offshore to Avoid Tax on Local Business,” Independent, November 10, 2015. 15.

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Larry Summers told me in a telephone interview, March 2017, “I think the statistics are wrong because I don’t think they take nearly enough account of quality improvements of various kinds. We need to make adjustments for quality increases.” 26. Chrystia Freeland, “The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich,” TED Talk, 2013: www.ted.com. CHAPTER 7: ELEPHANTS AND RHUBARB 1. “Bright Lights, Big Cities, Measuring National and Subnational Economic Growth in Africa from Outer Space with an Application in Kenya and Rwanda,” Policy Research Working Paper WPS7461, World Bank Group, 2015. 2. Morten Jerven, Poor Numbers, Cornell University Press, 2013, pp. 17–20. 3.

The Behavioral Investor
by Daniel Crosby
Published 15 Feb 2018

When the search party arrives they may well find your sun-bleached bones, whereas the monkey seems likely to be thriving, happy to be free of the taunts of school children on field trips. Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider a stranger, slightly less plausible variant of this experiment in his superb TED talk, ‘Bananas in heaven.’1 Imagine that your plane was filled with 1000 humans and 1000 monkeys, all of which survived and were forced to live on a remote island. Would the results be the same when the rescuers landed on the shore a year and a half later? Likely not. In the second scenario, the humans have the edge for a reason that sits at the heart of our ability to build both great societies and functioning capital markets: our ability to flexibly cooperate with one another.

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Notes 27 Nathaniel Branden, The Psychology of Self-Esteem: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Understanding that Launched a New Era in Modern Psychology (Jossey-Bass, 2001). 28 Daniel Crosby, You’re Not That Great (Word Association Publishers, 2012). 29 Dan Gilbert, ‘The surprising science of happiness’ TED Talk (February 2004). 30 Ibid. 31 Lee Ross and Craig Anderson, ‘Shortcomings in the attribution process: On the origins and maintenance of erroneous social assessments,’ in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky (eds.), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 129–152. 32 2014 NTSB US Civil Aviation Acccident Statistics. 33 Gerd Gigerenzer, Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions (Penguin, 2015). 34 Justin Kruger and David Dunning, ‘Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77:6 (1999), pp. 1121–34.

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What they found was hardly surprising – participants overestimated the likelihood of positive events by 15% and underestimated the probability of negative events by 20%. Likewise, Heather Lench and Peter Ditto performed a study where participants were shown six positive and six negative life events as well as their accompanying probability in the general population. Respondents endorsed 4.75 of the 6 positive life events as probably impacting them. In her TED talk, Dr. Tali Sharot speaks to some of the ways in which overestimation can impact our reasoning. She relates that overconfidence makes it hard for us to learn from new information and suggests that we are prone to revise our beliefs only when it suits us. She shares that patients who assume that they have a 50% chance of cancer and are informed that their odds are lower, say 30%, revise their opinion to around 35% when asked for a second estimate.

The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Published 2 Oct 2017

“The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents,” Journal of Marketing 54: 71–84. Doug Dietz MRI Adventure series. Dietz MRI story from his TED talk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jajduxPD6H4, plus Dan’s interview with Dietz in July 2016. The quote about taking 1 minute to get kids on the table, versus 10, came from the interview, as did the quote about Bobby and the cable car. The other quotes come from the TED Talk. Some descriptions drawn from documents shared by Dietz. The 80% statistic, and the drop in need for sedation at Children’s Hospital, is from http://www.jsonline.com/business/by-turning-medical-scans-into-adventures-ge-eases-childrens-fears-b99647870z1-366161191.html.

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He’d spent two years working on a new MRI machine, and in the fall of 2007, he had his first chance to see the machine installed in a hospital. He said he felt like a “proud Papa” going to see his baby. When he entered the MRI suite, he saw the new diagnostic imaging machine and “did a happy dance,” he said in a 2012 TED Talk. Dietz retreated to the hall to watch for the first patients. While he waited, he saw a couple and their young daughter coming down the hallway. The girl was crying. As they got closer to the room, the father leaned down to the girl and said, “We’ve talked about this. You can be brave.” As soon as the little girl entered the room, she froze, terrified.

Do Nothing: How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving
by Celeste Headlee
Published 10 Mar 2020

“Do you sometimes think we try to do too much at once?” I asked one of my mentors. “I used to do that,” he answered. “And then I started making sure there was space in my calendar, enough space to allow air in so that I could breathe.” I mentioned my concerns to another friend and she directed me to Carl Honoré’s TED talk on the Slow Movement. Honoré didn’t start the movement—his talk and book came years after the idea had sprung up in Italy and started to spread worldwide. But his thoughts on the subject were certainly compelling. The Slow Movement started out as a protest against fast food. You have probably seen pictures of the Piazza di Spagna in Rome.

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Ninety-five percent of them are read within three minutes, and it takes about 90 seconds to get a response. Ninety seconds! That means we often stop what we’re doing—getting dressed, eating dinner, talking to someone in front of you—in order to respond to “How’s it going?” Psychologist Adam Alter noted in his popular TED Talk that the smartphone is “where your humanity lives. And right now, it’s in a very small box.” Tech is the cause of many disruptions in our lives. For one thing, it interferes with our sleep. Most of us sleep with our phones in our hands or right beside us, and a third of us admit to checking our phones at some point in the middle of the night.

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It’s time to reevaluate many of the principles and priorities that govern our lives. The self-made-man ideal is just one of them. Another is the pursuit of constant growth in the consumer economy. Constant growth is not possible, and yet our jobs, retirement funds, and national financial security require growth to be considered healthy. As Kate Raworth said in her 2018 TED Talk, “We have economies that need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive, and what we need, especially in the richest countries, are economies that make us thrive whether or not they grow.” Globally, we are not merely addicted to growth in stock markets and profit margins and GDP. It’s not just about bigger salaries that bring bigger houses and cars, either.

Transport for Humans: Are We Nearly There Yet?
by Pete Dyson and Rory Sutherland
Published 15 Jan 2021

If a larger percentage of the infrastructure cost of introducing smart motorways had been put towards education and demonstration, with temporary limits instead framed as ‘recommended’ speeds, acceptance and compliance may have been far higher.2 In a later chapter we discuss this with respect to perceptions of safety too. Our argument is summed up by Rory’s opening to a Ted Talk entitled ‘Life lessons from an ad man’: A question was given to a bunch of engineers about fifteen years ago: How do we make the journey to Paris better? They came up with a very good engineering solution, which was to spend £6 billion building completely new tracks from London to the coast and knocking about forty minutes off the 3.5 hour journey time.

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The result: the jams return, but even larger than before. This goes beyond human choice. The effect was predicted computationally by German mathematician Dietrich Braess in 1968 for electrical circuits and biological systems. More is not always faster. 3 R. Sutherland. 2009. Life lessons from an ad man. TED Talk, July (www.ted.com/talks/rory_sutherland_life_lessons_from_an_ad_man). 4 This is known as the ‘Triple Access System’ and is explained in G. Lyons and C. Davidson. 2016. Guidance for transport planning and policymaking in the face of an uncertain future. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 88, 104–116.

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Rory Sutherland is the vice chairman of Ogilvy UK and the co-founder of its Behavioural Science Practice. He is author of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense, writes The Spectator’s Wiki Man column, presents several series for Radio 4, serves on the advisory board of the Evolution Institute, and is former president of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. His TED talks have been viewed more than 7 million times. Figure attributions The image on the front cover – ‘Metro Map Brain’ – was designed by Gareth Abbit/Ogilvy and figures 12, 18, 24 and the middle panel of figure 4 are photographs by Pete Dyson. The photo of Pete Dyson is © Dolly Crew, 2018; that of Rory Sutherland is © George Gottlieb, 2016.

Longshot
by David Heath
Published 18 Jan 2022

In their revisionist history, Moderna not only tosses Rossi’s contributions to the side, but they also don’t acknowledge the work of Karikó and Weissman. In Moderna’s telling, Noubar Afeyan and CEO Stéphane Bancel crafted the concept for the company and solved the problems associated with mRNA. In one account, these obstacles were overcome during Moderna’s first two years of “stealth mode”—a common dark period for startups. In a TED Talk in December 2013, Bancel gave his narrative of how the company began. So a few of us couple years ago, sitting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, thought about the following crazy idea: What if mRNA could be a drug? And the reason people have not developed mRNA drugs in the past, because from what I explained to you it’s pretty obvious, mRNA drugs, why not?

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“Bancel has been saying that at scientific meetings for years, where he credits Moderna as inventing nucleoside modified mRNA. And all the researchers in the audience point out to him that that’s not true… I think it’s purely a marketing and an ego thing. So if they can market that they invented it, people will give them more money.” When I first shared the TED Talk with Rossi, he was incredulous, saying that the notion of scientists sitting in Cambridge coming up with the idea out of the blue is so ridiculous. Said Rossi, “Their whole modus is to rewrite the truth.” Afeyan is even more dismissive of the work of Rossi, Warren, Weissman, and Karikó. In a 2020 interview, Afeyan explained that as a venture capitalist, he hears pitches all the time and he’s always on the prowl for companies that can change medical science.

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Bancel replied, “Shit, it’s going to be super cheap.”29 Bancel was named to the board of Moderna in March 2011, giving him time to settle affairs at BioMérieux. He would leave the French company in July to become executive chairman of Moderna and a senior partner at Flagship. He would take the role of CEO in October.30 Years later, in an interview with TED Talks, Bancel said he was already very wealthy when he went to Moderna. INTERVIEWER: When you were done running (BioMérieux) you could have just bought an island and done nothing. Is that true… or not true? BANCEL: Kind of true. INTERVIEWER: So you didn’t need to work another day in your life. You’d help a lot of people in the health space and you decided to jump in.

Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucent
by Douglas Coupland
Published 29 Sep 2014

So give a yak herder in rural Tibet some smooth connectivity and he’ll access the same memory menu you do, and instead of going to yaks.com, he’s probably going to kill time reading the really scary and bitter one-star hotel reviews on Tripadvisor.com—or maybe he’ll get caught in a cute puppy warp on YouTube or maybe he’ll make himself a worthier person by bingeing on TED talks but, to be honest, he’ll probably be checking out porn. So. Much. Porn. Hofmann continues, “We have to consider the impact of a technology, its time to market, and its process. Is the company pursuing too many near-term projects? Are we overestimating their impact? How much should you spend on internal research, as opposed to buying new technologies?

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How often have you considered taking an Internet-free holiday only to find yourself crumbling on day two, hunched over a keypad in an Internet café, quivering with the power of reconnecting like a junkie getting a fix? Once you’re addicted to connection, you’ll do whatever it takes stay connected. The woman across from me on the TGV is held rapt by a TED talk on her iPad. I can always tell when someone’s just upgraded to a better computer and is really starting to gorge on Internet culture, because they go on TED binges on YouTube. (“Did you see that woman with autism who designs cattle slaughter facilities? She has autism! And she designs cattle slaughter facilities!”)

The Minimalist Way
by Erica Layne
Published 25 Feb 2019

Over time, as you practice intentionality with your finances, you’ll start to feel the peace of mind that comes from not just living within your means but from putting your money toward the things you really value. 4. KEEP YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE This, I admit, is sometimes the point where my zeal for budgeting begins to die a slow, sad death … And I don’t think I’m alone in this. So often we read a chapter like this one (or watch an inspiring TED talk or have a great conversation with a friend who happens to be a budgeting boss), and we get all fired up about mastering our spending habits. So we create a budget and maybe even stick to it for a few months. But then life happens, and we lose the fire. My answer for this obstacle is accountability.

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Over time, the study has expanded to include the men’s wives and children, which number up to 2,000 collectively. Fascinatingly, this massive volume of research shows that what makes a satisfying life isn’t your job title, income level, career satisfaction, religious affiliation, the number of children you have, or any combination of the above. It’s the quality of your relationships. In his viral TED talk, Robert Waldinger, the fourth director of this multigenerational project, shared the three main lessons the study has revealed: 1.People who are socially connected live longer, healthier lives. 2.It’s not the number of relationships but the quality of those relationships that matters. 3.People who feel they have supportive friends and family stay mentally sharp longer than those who don’t.

MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom
by Tony Robbins
Published 18 Nov 2014

They don’t just think, they don’t just feel, they change, they transform. And my body language and my voice are essential to my style of teaching. So, I’ve got to confess, when I sit down to write words on a page, I feel like there’s a gag over my mouth and one hand tied behind my back! Heck, I found that I could reach more than ten million people through one TED Talk alone. So what made me change my mind? The financial crisis caused tremendous pain, but it also made us reevaluate what’s most important in our lives—things that have nothing to do with money. It was a time to get back to basics, to the values that have sustained us through troubled times before.

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Wouldn’t you bet anything that the one on the left is still longer? You know the answer, and yet your brain continues to deceive you. The one on the left still looks longer. Your eyes haven’t caught up with your brain. “Our intuition is fooling us in a repeatable, predictable, consistent way,” Ariely said at a memorable TED Talk. “And there is almost nothing we can do about it.” So if we make these mistakes with vision, which in theory we’re decent at, what’s the chance that we don’t make even more mistakes in areas we’re not as good at—financial decision making, for example? Whether or not we think we make good financial decisions, or poor ones, we assume we’re in control of the decisions we do make.

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Saving sounds like you’re giving something up, you’re losing something today. But you’re not. It’s giving yourself a gift today of peace of mind, of certainty, of the large fortune in your future. So how did Benartzi and Thaler get around these challenges? They came up with a simple system to make saving feel painless. It aligns with our natures. As Shlomo said in a TED Talk, “Save More Tomorrow invites employees to save more maybe next year—sometime in the future when we can imagine ourselves eating bananas, volunteering more in the community, exercising more, and doing all the right things on the planet.” Here’s how it works: you agree to automatically save a small amount of your salary—10%, 5%, or even as little as 3%.

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
by Kate Raworth
Published 22 Mar 2017

It actually worked, generating enough electricity to power four light bulbs and two radios in his family home. Soon there was a queue of people at the door wanting to charge up their mobile phones, and a string of journalists reporting his remarkable invention. It was five whole years later, when invited to Arusha in Tanzania to give a TED talk, that William got to use a computer for the first time. ‘I had never seen the Internet,’ he later recalled. ‘It was amazing … I Googled about windmills and found so much information.’98 Kamkwamba’s ingenuity is clearly exceptional, but there are already innovators and experimenters in every community who, with access to the Internet, the knowledge commons, and a makerspace, could copy, modify and invent technologies for tackling their own communities’ most pressing needs, from rainwater harvesting and passive solar housing to agricultural tools, medical equipment and, yes, wind turbines.

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Chancel, L. and Piketty, T. (2015) Carbon and Inequality: From Kyoto to Paris. Paris: Paris School of Economics. 44. Institute of Mechanical Engineers (2013) Global Food: Waste Not, Want Not. London: Institute of Mechanical Engineers, https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/reports/detail/global-food-waste-not-want-not 45. Jackson, T. (2010) ‘An Economic Reality Check’. TED Talk, available at https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_jackson_s_economic_reality_check/transcript?language=en 46. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2012) Cities and Biodiversity Outlook, Montreal, available at: https://www.cbd.int/doc/health/cbo-action-policy-en.pdf, p. 19. 2. See the Big Picture 1.

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Presentation at MIT System Design and Management Conference, 21 October 2010. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMNElsUDHXA 41. Sterman, J. D. (2010) ‘A Banquet of Consequences’. Presentation at MIT System Design and Management Conference, 21 October 2010. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMNElsUDHXA 42. Diamond, J. (2003) ‘Why Do Societies Collapse?’ TED Talk, February 2003, available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse?language=en 43. Diamond, J. (2005) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. London: Penguin. 44. Meadows, D. et al. (1972) The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books, and Meadows, D. et al. (2005) Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update.

Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
by Juli Berwald
Published 14 May 2017

Widder, “Bioluminescence of Deep-Sea Coronate Medusae (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa),” Marine Biology 146 (2004): 39–51. We need a NASA for the sea: Edith Widder, “How We Found the Giant Squid,” TED Talk, February 2013, https://www.ted.com/talks/edith_widder_how_we_found_the_giant_squid. Ocean Research & Conservation Association, or ORCA: http://www.teamorca.org/orca/index.cfm. “more than 90 percent”: Edith Widder, “The Weird, Wonderful World of Bioluminescence,” TED Talk, May 2011, https://www.ted.com/talks/edith_widder_the_weird_and_wonderful_world_of_bioluminescence/transcript?language=en. 8. Day-glo Jellies “pulmone marino si confricetur lignum”: The translation of the sentence is “If wood is thoroughly rubbed with Pulmo marinus, it seems to be on fire, so much so that a walking-stick, so treated, throws a light forward.”

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She poured all of her award money into the foundation, but it’s not enough. In 2013, funding for space exploration outpaced funding for the ocean exploration 150 to 1. Only three people have descended to the Marianas Trench, but more than five hundred have gone to space, and twelve have stepped on the moon. We need a NASA for the sea, Edie concluded at the end of a TED talk describing her search for the giant squid. Further, she has said, “more than 90 percent, 99 percent, of the living space on our planet is ocean. It’s a magical place filled with breathtaking light shows, bizarre and wondrous creatures, alien life-forms that you don’t have to travel to another planet to see.”

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See also Strobilation Strobilation, 56–57, 64, 129 Stylophora, 271 Submersibles, 13, 69, 99, 102–3, 105, 107, 168 Suez Canal, 31, 244–47, 284, 286–87 Sunfish, 171 Superstorm Sandy, 237–39 Sweden, 24 Swordfish, 171, 201 Synapses, 139–40 Syria, 30 Systema Naturæ (Linnaeus), 190 Taiwan, 46 Takahashi, Kazutoshi, 155 TED talk (Widder), 107 Tel Aviv, 4–5, 258, 276, 281, 283, 288 Tel Aviv University, 278–79, 283 Tethys (sea goddess), 56 Texas, 25, 44, 183, 210, 284–85. See also specific cities Texas, University of at Austin, 222, 233 at Dallas, 90 Texas A&M University at Galveston, 154 Thailand, 228 Tiberias (Israel), 258, 263, 265 Tiburonia granrojo (big red jellyfish), 99–100 Titov, Gherman, 128–29 Tokyo, 79, 225, 236 Tokyo Bay, 191 Toxins, jellyfish, 11, 234, 245, 253 biochemistry of, 250–51, 255–56, 258 deadliest, 26, 58, 248–50 stinging cell mechanism for deployment of, 258–60, 263 Tripedalia, 124 Tsien, Roger, 117–19 Tsushima Island (Japan), 202, 207–14, 235, 236, 238, 297 Tuna, 159–60, 174, 225, 226 bluefin, 171, 201 Turkey, 76, 245, 300 Turritopsis, 152–57 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Verne), 106, 109–10 Tyrannosaurus rex, 67 United Kingdom, 64 United Nations, 246, 286 Food and Agricultural Organization, 147, 198, 228 United States, 10, 34, 36, 64, 100, 111, 175, 228 atomic bombing of Japan by, 110 carbon emissions in, 284–85 desalination plants in, 25 endangered animals in, 172 jellyfish cuisine in, 48–49, 51–52 jellyfisheries in, 228 marine protected areas of, 199 ports accommodating supersize ships, 31 public aquaria in, 60 research on medical uses of jellyfish in, 50 in sting protocol collaborative network, 253 television commercials in, 114 See also specific cities, states, and regions Uruguay, 73 USS Ronald Reagan, 24–25 Uye, Shin-ichi, 184, 186–89, 193, 201–2, 210, 216–25, 227–35, 299, 302 Venomous and Poisonous Marine Animals (Williamson), 44 Venus girdle, 98 Verne, Jules, 106, 109–10 Vervoort, Wim, 74 Vesuvius, 109 Vienna, University of, 73 Vietnam, 228, 299 Villanueva, Alex, 88–91 Vineyard Sound, 86, 87 Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 88 Vogel, Steven, 85 Waikiki Beach (Hawaii), 25, 250 Wales, 300 Watson, Glen, 261–63 Whales, 24, 89, 92, 106, 161, 168, 170, 229 Widder, Edith (Edie), 102–3, 105–7 Widmer, Chad, 60 Wijnhoff, Gerarda, 73, 75 Woods Hole (Massachusetts), 84–94, 96, 97, 111 Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), 84, 94, 111, 177 Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), 84 World Open Water Swimming Association, 252 World War II, 73–75, 110, 160 Yamanaka, Shinya, 155, 156 Yanagawa (Japan), 216, 225–27, 229, 235 Yanagihara, Angel, 248–51, 253–55, 299 Yellow Sea, 187, 229, 234 Zappa, Frank, 156–57, 162 Zebrafish, 117 Zombie worms, 168 Zooplankton, 28, 30, 33, 76, 168, 261–62, 296 About the Author Juli Berwald received her Ph.D. in ocean science from the University of Southern California.

Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
by Marc Goodman
Published 24 Feb 2015

Chapter 1: Connected, Dependent, and Vulnerable 1 All or most of the information: Mat Honan, “How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking,” Wired, July 6, 2012; Mat Honan, “Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore,” Wired, Nov. 15, 2012. 2 Over the past hundred years: Peter Diamandis, “Abundance Is Our Future,” TED Talk, Feb. 2012. 3 And the mobile phone is singularly credited: Deloitte Consulting, Sub-Saharan Africa Mobile Observatory 2012, Feb. 4, 2014. 4 For centuries, the Westphalian system: Marc Goodman, “The Power of Moore’s Law in a World of Geotechnology,” National Interest, Jan./Feb. 2013. 5 Levin, a computer programmer: Amy Harmon, “Hacking Theft of $10 Million from Citibank Revealed,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 19, 1995. 6 One of the very first computer: Jason Kersten, “Going Viral: How Two Pakistani Brothers Created the First PC Virus,” Mental Floss, Nov. 2013. 7 Eventually, Brain had traveled the globe: For a fascinating and entertaining perspective on Amjad and Basit Farooq, and the history of computer malware, see Mikko Hypponen, “Fighting Viruses and Defending the Net,” TED Talk, July 2011. 8 Researchers at Palo Alto Networks: Byron Acohido, “Malware Now Spreads Mostly Through Tainted Websites,” USA Today, May 4, 2013. 9 Many large companies: Brian Fung, “911 for the Texting Generation Is Here,” Washington Post, Aug. 8, 2014. 10 In 2010, the German research institute: Nicole Perlroth, “Outmaneuvered at Their Own Game, Antivirus Makers Struggle to Adapt,” New York Times, Dec. 31, 2012. 11 In the summer of 2013: Kaspersky Lab, Global Corporate IT Security Risks: 2013, May 2013. 12 A survey of its members: “Online Exposure,” Consumer Reports, June 2011. 13 According to a study by the Gartner group: “Gartner Says Worldwide Security Software Market Grew 7.9 Percent in 2012,” Gartner Newsroom, May 30, 2013; Steve Johnson, “Cybersecurity Business Booming in Silicon Valley,” San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 13, 2013. 14 The results: the initial threat-detection rate: Imperva, Hacker Intelligence Initiative, Monthly Trend Report #14, Dec. 2012. 15 Though millions around the world: Tom Simonite, “The Antivirus Era Is Over,” MIT Technology Review, June 11, 2012. 16 The landmark survey: Verizon, 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report. 17 A similar study by Trustwave Holdings: Trustwave, Trustwave 2013 Global Security Report. 18 When businesses do eventually notice: Verizon RISK Team, 2012 Data Breach Investigation Report, 3. 19 From the time an attacker: Ibid., 51. 20 In that case, hackers: Mark Jewell, “T.J.

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/Feb. 2013. 5 Levin, a computer programmer: Amy Harmon, “Hacking Theft of $10 Million from Citibank Revealed,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 19, 1995. 6 One of the very first computer: Jason Kersten, “Going Viral: How Two Pakistani Brothers Created the First PC Virus,” Mental Floss, Nov. 2013. 7 Eventually, Brain had traveled the globe: For a fascinating and entertaining perspective on Amjad and Basit Farooq, and the history of computer malware, see Mikko Hypponen, “Fighting Viruses and Defending the Net,” TED Talk, July 2011. 8 Researchers at Palo Alto Networks: Byron Acohido, “Malware Now Spreads Mostly Through Tainted Websites,” USA Today, May 4, 2013. 9 Many large companies: Brian Fung, “911 for the Texting Generation Is Here,” Washington Post, Aug. 8, 2014. 10 In 2010, the German research institute: Nicole Perlroth, “Outmaneuvered at Their Own Game, Antivirus Makers Struggle to Adapt,” New York Times, Dec. 31, 2012. 11 In the summer of 2013: Kaspersky Lab, Global Corporate IT Security Risks: 2013, May 2013. 12 A survey of its members: “Online Exposure,” Consumer Reports, June 2011. 13 According to a study by the Gartner group: “Gartner Says Worldwide Security Software Market Grew 7.9 Percent in 2012,” Gartner Newsroom, May 30, 2013; Steve Johnson, “Cybersecurity Business Booming in Silicon Valley,” San Jose Mercury News, Sept. 13, 2013. 14 The results: the initial threat-detection rate: Imperva, Hacker Intelligence Initiative, Monthly Trend Report #14, Dec. 2012. 15 Though millions around the world: Tom Simonite, “The Antivirus Era Is Over,” MIT Technology Review, June 11, 2012. 16 The landmark survey: Verizon, 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report. 17 A similar study by Trustwave Holdings: Trustwave, Trustwave 2013 Global Security Report. 18 When businesses do eventually notice: Verizon RISK Team, 2012 Data Breach Investigation Report, 3. 19 From the time an attacker: Ibid., 51. 20 In that case, hackers: Mark Jewell, “T.J.

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Chapter 3: Moore’s Outlaws 1 According to the International Telecommunication Union: Miniwatts Marketing Group, “Internet Users in the World,” Internet World Stats, Dec. 31, 2013, http://​www.​internetworldstats.​com/. 2 Though it took nearly forty years: Miniwatts Marketing Group, “Internet Growth Statistics,” Internet World Stats, Feb. 6, 2013, http://​www.​internetworldstats.​com/. 3 The greatest growth: Miniwatts Marketing Group, “Internet Users in the World, Distribution by World Regions,” Internet World Stats, Feb. 5, 2014, http://​www.​internetworldstats.​com/. 4 And while half the world: Doug Gross, “Google Boss: Entire World Will Be Online by 2020,” CNN, April 15, 2013. 5 The concept was named: Marc Goodman and Parag Khanna, “Power of Moore’s Law in a World of Geotechnology,” National Interest, Jan./Feb. 2013. 6 Incredibly, it literally: Cliff Saran, “Apollo 11: The Computers That Put Man on the Moon,” Computer Weekly, July 13, 2009. 7 The modern smart phone: Peter Diamandis, “Abundance Is Our Future.” TED Talk, Feb. 2012. 8 As a result of mathematical repercussions: Ray Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence, March 7, 2001. 9 “law of accelerating returns”: Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Penguin, 2006). 10 Early criminal entrepreneurs: Evan Andrews, “6 Daring Train Robberies,” History.​com, Oct. 21, 2013. 11 Their carefully planned heist: Brett Leppard, “The Great Train Robbery: How It Happened,” Mirror, Feb. 28, 2013. 12 The incident kept the PlayStation: Keith Stuart and Charles Arthur, “PlayStation Network Hack: Why It Took Sony Seven Days to Tell the World,” Guardian, Feb. 5, 2014; “Credit Card Alert as Hackers Target 77 Million PlayStation Users,” Mail Online, Feb. 5, 2014. 13 In the end, financial analysts: J.

Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours
by Marc Nager , Clint Nelsen and Franck Nouyrigat
Published 8 Nov 2011

Medina, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Seattle: Pear Press, 2008). J. Rasmusson, The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software (Raleigh, NC: Pragmatic Programmers, LLC., 2010). Blogs and Other Media “10 Inspiring TED Talks for Startups” http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/07/ten-inspiring-ted-talks-for-st.php Jeff Bussgang, “Seeing Both Sides” http://bostonvcblog.typepad.com/vc/2009/11/what-makes-bostons-startup-scene-special.html Tom Chapman, “Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: Lessons from Omaha” http://www.scribd.com/doc/60113134/Building-an-Entrepreneurial-Ecosystem-Lessons-from-Omaha Brad Feld, “Feld Thoughts” http://www.feld.com/wp/ William Fisher, “View from the Fishbowl: Noodling” (Silicon Prairie News) http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2011/06/view-from-the-fishbowl-noodling Daniel Isenberg, “How to Start an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem” (HBR blog network) http://hbr.org/product/how-to-start-an-entrepreneurial-revolution/an/R1006A-HCB-ENG Eric Koester, “Zaarly on Capitol Hill: Why the Startup Ecosystem Matters” http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2011/05/13/zaarly-on-capitol-hill-why-the-startup-ecosystem-matters/ Sarah Lacy, “Predictably Rabid: The Life and Times of Sarah Lacy” http://www.sarahlacy.com/sarahlacy/2008/07/the-post-gets-m.html 37signals, “The Slicehost Story” http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2974-the-slicehost-story Index Acquisitions Action-based networking Advertising and company name context online Agile business model Altringer, Beth Andrzejewski, Alexa Angel investors Angulo, Dave Animotion Bar Camps Barriers to attending Startup Weekend between entrepreneurs Bashaw, Nathan BelongingsFinder.org Benson, Jim Best practices Big Kitty Labs Blank, Steven Blogs and communication Memolane reference list sharing successes on venture capital firms Bootstrapping Braindump Brainstorming.

Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
by Thomas Frank
Published 15 Mar 2016

Patrick was also the first black governor of Massachusetts and, in some ways, an ideal Democrat for the era of Barack Obama—who, as it happens, is one of his closest political allies.21 “Our government is incredibly enlightened,” said John Harthorne, the head of the MassChallenge startup incubator, in a 2010 TED talk in which he explained why he chose Massachusetts for his planned entrepreneurial utopia. “I would wager a bet that Deval Patrick could go head-to-head on an intelligence test with any other governor.”22 Patrick’s oft-told life story follows the classic Democratic trajectory. A young man with loads of intelligence but no money, Patrick was lifted from nowheresville by an academic scholarship to a fancy prep school.

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I learned about this from one of the only sarcastic stories about innovation that I have been able to find, Eric Levenson’s “Deval Patrick Joins MIT to Innovate Their Innovation Initiative,” a post on Boston.com dated January 13, 2015. 21. Obama even drew certain of his famous 2008 campaign themes from Patrick’s 2006 run for the Massachusetts governorship. On the connection between the two men, see Gwen Ifill’s book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama (Doubleday, 2009). 22. Watch Harthorne’s TED talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hisa30dJfP4. 23. For a concise summary of the life and times of Ameriquest, see the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, pp. 12–14: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf. For a lengthier version, see Michael W. Hudson, The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America—and Spawned a Global Crisis (Holt, 2010). 24. 

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See also financial crisis of 2008–9; and specific indexes Crash of 1929 stock options student loans subprime mortgages Summers, Larry surveillance Suskind, Ron symbolic analysts Syria TaskRabbit Tate & Lyle lockout Tawney, R. H. taxes Bill Clinton and capital-gains Carter and Cuomo and marginal rate Massachusetts and Obama and Social Security and taxi drivers teachers Teach for America Teamsters Union Tea Party technocracy Technocracy and The Politics of Expertise (Fischer) Techtopus scandal TED talks Teixeira, Ruy telecommunications Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) Ten Percent Third World Time To Save Everything, Click Here (Morozov) Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Treasury Department Truman, Harry Trump, Donald Truth in Sentencing Tsongas, Paul Twilight of the Elites (Hayes) Twitter Uber unemployment UNICEF innovation team United Auto Workers (UAW) United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights U.S.

Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Claim Our Power
by Rose Hackman
Published 27 Mar 2023

Her mother was among the first generation of women who entered previously male-dominated white-collar industries en masse in the second half of the twentieth century.22 The figure of a corporate woman was normal to her, and she had good reason to believe her qualifications combined with her natural intelligence, charm, and assertiveness would all work in her favor as she sought to get ahead. Only a few years prior, in 2010, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, delivered a viral TED Talk titled “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders” that was followed by a 2013 bestselling book, Lean In.23 Her insight promised younger women like Devin the tools to not just enter former male-dominated industries but do what few women of older generations had managed once they were there: climb up the corporate ladder and thrive.

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In two landmark studies, Harvard researchers followed hundreds of privileged and non-privileged boys and men from their teen years to the end of their lives and found a strong association between connected, high-quality, positive relationships and life longevity for men. “The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age fifty were the healthiest at age eighty,” Dr. Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and one of the leaders of the research, said in a TED Talk on the subject.26 Good relationships were shown to protect not only men’s physical health but their mental and emotional health too. “How happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,” Waldinger said in an interview with The Harvard Gazette titled “Good Genes Are Nice, but Joy Is Better.”27 Treating men as entirely rational and never emotional cuts them off from positive, connected relationships and time spent alive on Earth.

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Abele, “The Dynamics of Masculine-Agentic and Feminine-Communal Traits: Findings from a Prospective Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 4 (November 1, 2003): 768–76, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.4.768; Paula England, “The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled,” Gender & Society 24, no. 2 (April 2010): 149–66, https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243210361475. 25.  Heilman, Barker, and Harrison, The Man Box. 26.  Robert Waldinger, “What Makes a Good Life? Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness,” TED Talk, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkKuTCFvzI. 27.  Liz Mineo, “Good Genes Are Nice, but Joy Is Better: Harvard Study, Almost 80 Years Old, Has Proved That Embracing Community Helps Us Live Longer, and Be Happier,” The Harvard Gazette, April 11, 2017, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/. 28.  

Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything
by Martin Ford
Published 13 Sep 2021

Within a month of its publication, Elon Musk was declaring that “with artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon” and that AI “could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons.”29 A year later, Musk would co-found OpenAI and give it the specific mission of building “friendly” artificial intelligence. Among those most deeply influenced by Bostrom’s arguments, the idea that AI will someday pose an existential threat began to be perceived as a near certainly—and a danger ultimately far more terrifying and consequential than more mundane concerns like climate change or global pandemics. In a Ted Talk with more than five million views, the neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris argues that “it’s very difficult to see how [the gains we make in artificial intelligence] won’t destroy us or inspire us to destroy ourselves” and suggests that “we need something like a Manhattan Project” focused on avoiding that outcome by figuring out how to build friendly, controllable AI.30 None of this will be a concern, of course, until we manage to build a true thinking machine with cognitive capability at least equivalent to our own.

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Matt McFarland, “Elon Musk: ‘With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon,’” Washington Post, October 24, 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2014/10/24/elon-musk-with-artificial-intelligence-we-are-summoning-the-demon/. 30. Sam Harris, “Can we build AI without losing control over it? (video),” TED Talk, June 2016, www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_can_we_build_ai_without_losing_control_over_it?language=en. 31. Irving John Good, “Speculations concerning the first ultraintelligent machine,” Advanced in Computers, volume 6, pp. 31–88 (1965), vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/89424/TechReport05-3.pdf. 32.

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XIAOXIAO ZHAO MARTIN FORD is a futurist and the author of the New York Times bestseller Rise of the Robots, which won the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award; Architects of Intelligence; and The Lights in the Tunnel. He is also the founder of a Silicon Valley–based software development firm. His TED Talk on the impact of artificial intelligence on society has been viewed over 3 million times, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. Ford is a sought-after speaker and a leading expert on artificial intelligence.

The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
by Rob Copeland
Published 7 Nov 2023

Over the past decade, he has given hundreds of media interviews on five continents, preaching the gospel of Ray. He’s appeared on major broadcast and cable networks, popular podcasts, and magazine covers. He was interviewed by Gwyneth Paltrow. As of publication, nearly 2.5 million people follow him on LinkedIn. His TED Talks have been viewed nearly 7 million times and his most popular YouTube video more than 34 million times. While Dalio is hardly the first financier to develop a taste for the spotlight, he might be the first to claim that he alone has discovered the solution to what he sees as two of mankind’s greatest challenges: Our reluctance to disagree with one another, and our desire to pursue meaningful lives.

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That has been how we run the investment business, and it’s how we also deal with the people management.” Dalio wrapped up back where he began, predicting radical transparency for all. “In my opinion, it’s going to be wonderful. So I hope it is as wonderful for you as it is for me.” He opened his arms as if to give a quick bow, then walked off the stage to applause. * * * THE TED Talk would be viewed by millions. Dalio’s profile was rising at the perfect time, as he had firmly wrested control of his own narrative just as he was about to become world-famous. In the fall of 2017, Dalio released his autobiography, Principles: Life and Work. It was the book he’d earlier hoped Walter Isaacson might write but later decided to pen it himself with a ghostwriter.

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Dalio published second and third books, Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises and Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order, which didn’t make nearly the splash of his first (in fairness, much of their material had been posted for free online years earlier). There were few appearances on broadcast television, no new TED Talks, and his latest interview with his friend Charlie Rose was online only because Rose had been booted from CBS over a sexual harassment scandal. In April 2021, with the paid help of Wharton’s Adam Grant in designing and promoting it, Dalio launched PrinciplesYou, his long-gestating effort to bring his life’s work to the masses.

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism
by Evgeny Morozov
Published 15 Nov 2013

Will Glenn Beck’s followers gain fewer information calories when they consume him on television rather than online? Ideas are not like vegetables. Anyone who’s ever eaten cucumbers can reasonably expect that eating another cucumber won’t be a health menace; there’s no need to taste a second cucumber to reach this conclusion. The fact that an idea is wrapped inside a TED talk—presumably, Johnson would put TED talks under nutritious, low-calorie sources—doesn’t make it a good idea; one cannot assess its nutritional value before one has heard the talk (or read the transcript) and situated this idea in the broader intellectual context consisting of many other ideas. Approximating the calorie count of information based on where it comes from might preclude important, contrarian ideas—from small or fringe sources—from entering the public debate as forcefully as they deserve.

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Remove that notion, along with its simplistic assumptions about the inherent benefits of openness or publicness, and the pundits are suddenly forced to confront complex empirical matters, to inquire into the politics of algorithms, to grapple with the history of facial-recognition technologies, to understand how techniques like “deep packet inspection” actually work. As long as Internet-centrism rules supreme, our technological debate will remain lazy, shallow, and unproductive: “the Internet,” no matter how many TED talks and Kindle singles are dedicated to it, will not tell us whether we need regular public audits of search engine giants like Google. Of course, pundits might say that such audits are “a war on Internet openness”—but this is precisely the kind of discourse we ought to avoid, as it makes claims about what appears to be a mythical entity.

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Rate My Professors offers four criteria: helpfulness, clarity, easiness, and hotness. The last is there mostly for humorous reasons, but what about others? Why should “easiness” be of concern in evaluating how we learn? The world out there is a complex place, and those who want “easiness” can always gorge themselves on TED talks. But even “clarity” has attracted the ire of many critics, primarily for creating the wrong impression that all complex ideas can and should be crammed into PowerPoint presentations. As writer Matthew Crawford points out, “Certainly clarity is desirable in a lecture, and the absence of it is often nothing but the professor’s own confusion or his failure to extricate himself from the tertiary quarrels and jargon of his discipline.

Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley
by Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans
Published 25 Apr 2023

They tore out the slot machines, banned smoking, and upgraded the Wi-Fi. Now oversized games like chess and Jenga filled the former gaming floor. And if the Downtown Project was going to be a place where big ideas were driving its mission, then it would need to host a perpetual roster of big-thinking speakers—in essence, a place to hold TED Talk–style events. So they partnered with Michael Cornthwaite and purchased a shuttered convenience store next to the Downtown Cocktail Room, which they turned into a three-story building that housed a 150-seat theater complex, complete with a rooftop bar, a cocktail lounge, and a cafe. It would be called the Inspire Theater.

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Tony had often recounted that one of his first memories as a child was of catching fireflies in a jar. During a Zappos all-hands meeting one year, Tony took to the stage with the motivational speaker Simon Sinek, a former advertising executive who had sold books on how to influence human behavior, among other things, and had a hugely successful run on the TED Talk circuit. Tony’s first memory was significant, Sinek told the audience, because every person’s worldview is a product of the experiences they had when they were young. Tony “sees everybody as a firefly,” Sinek said, sitting next to Tony on an oversized box, their legs dangling beneath them. “He sees the entire world as people with bright lights.

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He is creating an archive of Tony-related assets to present to the Hsieh family from Zappos. Michelle continued to do media work for the Hsieh family, including the launch of the Tony Hsieh Award, which recognizes individuals who have achieved “significant advancement and bold innovation.” Collaborators on this include TED Talks, Alfred Lin, and Fred Mossler. In 2016, years after Tony texted her the message, “This too shall pass,” Michelle had the phrase tattooed on her back in Tibetan. After Tony’s death, she added “12.12” above the existing tattoo—for Tony’s birthday. Fred, his wife, Meghan, and their children still live in downtown Las Vegas.

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance
by Steven Kotler
Published 4 Mar 2014

The complete list of twenty-first-century skills includes: creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration information literacy, media literacy, information and communication technology literacy, and life and career skills. For more info, check out its website, http://www.p21.org. viii “Flow naturally catapults you to a level you’re not naturally in”: Ned Hallowell, AI, December 2012. Flow is an optimal state of consciousness: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow (HarperPerennial, 1990), pp. 4–5; or see his TED talk, http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html. Researchers now believe flow: The full list of what people believe flow can accomplish could go on for days. For a good short summary, see: “The Art of Work,” Fast Company, August 2005, or http://www.fastcompany.com/53713/art-work.

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v=osgP5L_-v7U. 16 “That’s part of the problem with trying to discuss…”: Travis Pastrana, AI, June 2012. “I’ve been shooting action sports for twenty years”: Mike Blabac, AI, June 2012. 17 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Csikszentmihalyi’s history can be found in a number of places. See his TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html, or “Interview: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,” Omni, 17(4), p. 73. Also see “The man who found the flow,” Shambhala Sun, September 1998. 19 “During a peak experience”: Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (Harper & Row, 1970), p. 164.

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Georg Winterer and Daniel Weinberger, “Genes, Dopamine and Cortical Signal-to-Noise Ratio in Schizophrenia,” Trends in Neuroscience, Vol. 27, No. 11, November 2004. And: Sven Kroener, L. Judson Chandler, Paul Phillips, and Jeremy Seamans, “Dopamine Modulates Persistent Synaptic Activity and Enhances the Signal-to-Noise Ratio in the Prefrontal Cortex,” PLoS One, August 2009, 4(8):e6507. Also, Michael Sherman gave an excellent TED talk on how too much dopamine/pattern recognition leads to strange beliefs, see: http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_on_believing_strange_things.html. it’s why learning happens: P. R. Montague, P. Dayan, and T. J. Sejnowski, “A Framework for Mesencephalic Dopamine Systems Based on Predictive Hebbian Learning,” Journal of Neuroscience 16(5): 1936–47; P.

The Simulation Hypothesis
by Rizwan Virk
Published 31 Mar 2019

At that time, I had yet to fully develop the arguments around the simulation hypothesis, which are the focus of this book, but the model of living inside a simulation, where our thoughts and actions are (1) monitored, and (2) fed back into a loop that creates seemingly external events based upon our game state and our specific set of quests and achievements, fits very well into Jung’s idea of synchronicity. Jacques Vallee, in his TED Talk titled “The Physics of Everything Else” in 2011, was more explicit: he said that synchronicity and coincidence may reveal part of the underlying structure of how the universe stores information. He uses the analogy of a physical library—where we store and retrieve books according to physical dimension (book x, shelf y, slot 7).

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NPCs (conscious beings or unconscious simulations), 285–86 PEAR (Princeton’s Advanced Engineering Research Lab), 76 Penfield, Wilder, 75, 79 Penny Dreadful, 4 Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, 232 Perry, Paul, 229–230 philosophical questions of QI, 140–41 photoelectric effect, 126–27, 167 photorealism and VR rendering, 61 Photorealistic Mixed Reality (MR), 63, 66 photorealistic real-time VR, 65 phowa (the transference of consciousness), 197 Physical Matter Reality (PMR), 157, 173–74 “physical reality” vs. “simulated reality,” 75 physical world, creation of, 219–221 physics, new, 126–27 physics, old (classical), 124–26 physics engines, 16–17, 36–37, 123, 162, 176–78, 235, 283–84 physics engines vs. rendering engines, 51 “The Physics of Everything Else” (Vallée, TED talk, 2011), 240–41 picture element (pixel), 163 pixelated reality, 161 pixels 3D pixels and particles, 164–65 and 3D rendering engines, 59 characteristics of, 255 created by rendering engine, 51 definition of, 10 games rendered using, 2D to 3D, 42–44 information rendered as, 53 and particles, 162–64 physics engines vs. rendering engine, 51 and quanta, 167–69 rendered pixels, 135 value of, 162–64, 181, 262 and video game languages, 33 and virtual space (pixelated world), 181–82 pixels, experiments for evidence, 255–266 Planck, Max, 167–68, 290 Planck constant, 168, 267 Planck length, 168–69, 175, 181–82 Planck time, 181–82 Planetfall, 29 Plato, 201, 270–71 Play Labs, 6 player characters (PCs), 82, 280–81 player game state, 30 PMR (Physical Matter Reality), 157, 173–74 PNG, 163–64 Podolsky, Boris, 261 Pole Position, 34, 35f Pong, 24–25, 32, 32f possible futures, 12 posthuman civilization, 111–13 Princeton’s Advanced Engineering Research Lab (PEAR), 76 probability wave for a particle, 128f procedural generation, 47 procedurally generated world, 51 “Programming a Computer for Playing Chess” (Shannon, 1950), 85 Project Blue Book, 232 purely deterministic model, 125 Q QI (quantum indeterminancy), 11, 124 QI, philosophical questions raised by, 140–41 Qiyamah, Day of, 221–23 quanta, 10, 126–27, 161, 166–67, 181–82 quanta, of space, 167–69 quantized space and time, 173–76, 288 quantized time, 171–74 quantum computers, 257–260, 267, 273–74 quantum cryptography, 261 quantum entanglement, 179–182, 259–260 quantum entanglement and simulation, 261–63 quantum error correction, 259–260, 263 quantum foam, 168 quantum indeterminacy (QI), 11, 124, 134–35, 139–140, 253, 255, 257, 267, 282–83 quantum leap, 10, 127 quantum mechanics, 133, 168, 254–55, 259 quantum physics many worlds interpretation, 148–150 as new physics, 126–27 physical reality as quantized, 281–82 and physical world, 122–23 quanta in, 166–67 rendering engines based on QI, 283–84 and subjective reality, 10–13 quantum probability wave, 10–11, 130, 253 quantum probability wave, collapse of, 129–130 quantum superposition, 132–34 qubits (quantum bits), 258 quests, 285–86 quests and achievements, 210–11 quests and storylines, 41 R Raiders of the Lost Ark, 38 random number generators (RNGs), 76 raster image, 163–64 Ready Player One, 56–57, 61 “real object” definition, 68–69 reality nature of, 6 world views and religion, 5 real-time motion controls, 36 real-world rendering, 67 rebirth, 201 Reid, Harry, 232 reincarnation, 285–86 reincarnation, theoretical model, 205–8, 206f religion, mysticism and simulation hypothesis, 13–16 remote viewing, 243–44 rendered pixels, 135 rendered world, 42 rendering engine, 3D, 59 rendering engine rules, 138 rendering engine vs. physical engine, 51 rendering engines 2D to 3D, 58–59 and 3D world rendering, 66–67, 123 based on quantum indeterminacy, 282–83 for real world, 3D printers as, 69–71 and Simulation Point, 63–64 speed of, 66–67 rendering engines, speed of, 66 rendering engines vs. physical engines, 51 The Republic (Plato), 5, 270 resource argument, 250–52 retrocausality, 146 retrocausation, 160 Ricard, Matthieu, 207 Ringel, Zohar, 251–52 RNGs (random number generators), 76 role-playing games (RPGs), 38 role-playing games (RPGs), graphical, 39–42 room-scale VR, 55–56 Rosen, Nathan, 178, 261 RPGs (role-playing games), 38 RPGs (role-playing games), graphical, 39–42 Rucker, Rudy, 251–52 Rumi, 183 Rutherford, Ernest, 125, 167–68 Rutherford-Bohr planetary model, 125 S Samsara, 201 Sauvageau, Joe, 254–55 Savage, Martin J., 255 Saved by the Light (Brinkley, 1994), 229–230 Schrödinger, Erwin, 125, 132–34 Schrödinger’s Cat, 132–34, 140, 149, 259 science, goal of, 6 Science Advances, 251–52 scroll of deeds, 222–23 Second Life, 4, 45–46, 50, 56, 71, 177, 180, 191, 209–10, 213 Sedol, Lee, 87 Sega Genesis, 38 The Self-Aware Universe (Goswami), 133 self-contained world (video games), 2–3 SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), 236 seventh yoga, 197–99 Shannon, Claude, 23, 85–86, 104 Siddhartha Gautama, 203 simple programs, 266 The Sims, 4 simulated artificial intelligence (SAI), 281 simulated consciousness, 17–18 simulated world, 3 Simulation Argument, 5, 24–26, 110–11, 112f simulation game, 3–4 simulation hypothesis, 16 AI, gods and angels, 226–28 and conscious based arguments, 267 and dreams, 196–97 experiments for, 254–55 to explain the unexplainable, 20–21 fundamental question of, 4–5 the Great Simulation, 19–20 implications of Plato’s allegory of the cave, 270–71 OBEs, remote viewing, telepathy and other “unexplained” phenomena, 241–44 and parallel universes, 159–160 and quantum indeterminacy (QI), 139–140 and quantum physics, 10–13 and quests, 213–14 in religion and mysticism, 13–16 and resource based arguments, 267 and science fiction, 6–10 and simulations, computation and chaos, 18–19 storage of consciousness, 117 video game model based on karma, 211–13 virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and simulated consciousness, 16–18 as world explanation, 118–19 simulation hypothesis, arguments/experiment categories evidence of conditional rendering, 248–49 evidence of consciousness, 248 evidence of negation, 248 evidence of pixels or computation, 249 Simulation point, 20, 25–26 simulation point, stages current stage, 49–52 definition of, 26–27 reaching stage 9, 92–94 stage 0: text adventures and game worlds (1970s to mid-1980s), 27–31 stage 1: graphic arcade and console games (1970s-1980s), 32–38 stage 2: graphical adventure / RPG games (1980s- 1990s), 38–42 stage 3: 3D rendered MMORPGs and virtual worlds (1990s-Today), 42–48 stage 4: immersion using virtual reality, 54–62 stage 5: photorealistic augmented and mixed reality (AR, MR), 62–66 stage 6: real-world rendering: light-field display and 3D printing, 66–72 stage 7: mind interfaces, 72–77 stage 8: implanted memories, 77–80 stage 9: artificial intelligence and NPCs, 82–84 stage 10: downloadable consciousness and digital immortality, 100 stage 11: reaching the simulation point, 107–8 simulation point, defining, 107–8t simulation point, stage 9 requirements ability to create further AI, 94 learning over time, 93–94 Natural Language Processing (NLP), 92 natural language response, AI/NPCs, 92 physical interactions, 94 spatial awareness, 94 voice output, AI/NPCs, 93 voice recognition, AI/NPCs, 93 simulations, 153–55 simultaneity between events, 12 single-player text adventures, 27–31 singularity, 82, 100–101 The Singularity is Near (Kurzweil, 2005), 101 Siri, 88 Six Yogas of Naropa (Tsongkhapa), 192, 198 skeptics: resource argument, 250–52 Skyfall, 70 SNLP (statistical NLP), 89–90 social media and AGI, 98 Sony PlayStation VR headset, 60 Sophia (robot), 91, 91f souls, 285–86 Space Invaders, 34, 35f, 36, 82, 87, 208, 273 space time, 181–82 space time, instant travel, simulation overview, 176 quantum entanglement, 176, 180–81 teleportation, 176–78 wormholes, 176, 178–180 SpaceWar!

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. [←59] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience [←60] https://dannionandkathrynbrinkley.com/dannions-ndes/ [←61] https://www.history.com/topics/paranormal/project-blue-book [←62] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html [←63] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612232/the-8-dimensional-space-that-must-be-searched-for-alien-life/ [←64] Jacques Vallee, “A Theory of Everything (Else),” TED Talk video presentation, 2011, www.jacquesvallee.com. [←65] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Bodies_Doctrine_(Vedanta) [←66] Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Philosophy (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007) 161. [←67] https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/amp/ncna913926 (Corey Powell) [←68] http://serious-science.org/skepticism-and-the-simulation-hypothesis-6189 [←69] https://www.simulation-argument.com/faq.html [←70] Andrew Masterson, “Matrix Phobia?

The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can't Think the Way We Do
by Erik J. Larson
Published 5 Apr 2021

Narrowness is endemic to systems like Watson that tackle natural language. As we saw in prior sections, this is because acts like reading and conversing are actually deep, open-ended feats of inference, requiring understanding of the world. Google Talk to Books, showcased predictably with much fanfare by Ray Kurzweil in a TED talk in 2018, promised an unparalleled question-answering capability by, as Quartz put it, “reading thousands of books.”13 In fact, it indexed about one hundred thousand books, encoding sentences numerically in vectors (data structures), and using deep learning (what else?) to compute their similarity to other vectors.

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Markram is known for his Blue Brain project, an ambitious attempt to model an entire neocortical column in a rat’s brain in silica, in a computer simulation on an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer. The Human Brain Project’s goals expand Blue Brain’s scope to include no less than a complete computer simulation of the entire human brain, a goal that Markram announced in a 2009 TED talk would be met by the end of the decade—though many other neuroscientists disagreed. Like futuristic claims made about AI, Markram’s prognostications were wrong—very wrong—and fortunately for science, the failure of his predictions was not altogether ignored. Writing in The Atlantic in 2019, Ed Yong remarked succinctly on what other neuroscientists had been predicting all along: “It’s been ten years.

…

Markram soon stepped down, but the project was retooled as software engineering—arguably less infected with AI mythology, but toothless for fundamental research by design.9 As Columbia University neuroscientist Eric Kandel put it, referring to the United States’ BRAIN Initiative when it first launched, “We knew the endpoint [for the Human Genome Project].… But here, we don’t know what the goal is. What does it mean to understand the human mind? When will we be satisfied? This is much, much more ambitious.”10 When the ten-year anniversary of Markram’s now notorious TED talk proclaiming that our brains would be mapped into a supercomputer—the ultimate statement of mythology about AI—came in 2019, Scientific American (no enemy of future ideas about science) and The Atlantic both published searching accounts of what went wrong.11 As one scientist put it, “We have brains in skulls.

The Naked Presenter: Delivering Powerful Presentations With or Without Slides
by Garr Reynolds
Published 29 Jan 2010

The Naked Presenter is a book whose time has come. Shedding everything to focus on the audience and the content is the true secret to great presentations. Now, Garr is sharing that secret (and how to do it) with the world. Thank you, Garr!” —Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image and author of Six Pixels of Separation “You’ve probably watched a TED Talk, or seen someone who just owns the stage like Tom Peters and has the audience gasping for more, but did you know that you too can deliver presentations that get great reviews? You can by being a Naked Presenter. I’ve used these techniques to be a better presenter and they work. Use them and your audience will rave about your presentations.

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As long as the imagery is relevant, the strong feelings the images evoke can increase attention and make the message more memorable. A flood in a distant land seems like an abstraction, but add high-impact vivid imagery of that flood and it becomes real and touches the viewer on a visceral level. In his 2009 TED talk, Information Designer Tom Wujec suggested we use images in three ways: (1) to clarify ideas, (2) to create engagement with our ideas, and (3) to augment memory with persistent and evolving views. 154 The Naked Presenter Wow! eBook <WoweBook.Com> t
Take a poll. I once saw a presenter begin her talk this way: “How many people in the room think there are more women than men in the world?

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
by Adam Grant
Published 2 Feb 2016

Soon she had collaborators on board with doctorates from Oxford and Stanford, with math and simulations confirming the idea was viable in theory. It was enough to attract a first round of funding and a talented chief technology officer who had initially been highly skeptical. “Once I showed him all the patents, he said, ‘Oh sh*t, this actually can work.’” In a popular TED talk and book, Simon Sinek argues that if we want to inspire people, we should start with why. If we communicate the vision behind our ideas, the purpose guiding our products, people will flock to us. This is excellent advice—unless you’re doing something original that challenges the status quo. When people championing moral change explain their why, it runs the risk of clashing with deep-seated convictions.

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Gersick, “Marking Time: Predictable Transitions in Task Groups,” Academy of Management Journal 32 (1989): 274–309, and “Revolutionary Change Theories: A Multilevel Exploration of the Punctuated Equilibrium Paradigm,” Academy of Management Review 16 (1991): 10–36. halftimes can be so influential: Nancy Katz, “Sports Teams as a Model for Workplace Teams: Lessons and Liabilities,” Academy of Management Executive 15 (2001): 56–67. “The number one thing”: Bill Gross, “The Single Biggest Reason Why Startups Succeed,” TED Talks, June 2015, www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_the_single_biggest_reason_why_startups_succeed/transcript. a first-mover advantage: Lisa E. Bolton, “Believing in First Mover Advantage,” manuscript under review. These edges create barriers: Marvin B. Lieberman and David B. Montgomery, “First-Mover Advantages,” Strategic Management Journal 9 (1988): 41–58; Montgomery and Lieberman, “First-Mover (Dis)advantages: Retrospective and Link with the Resource-Based View,” Strategic Management Journal 19 (1998): 1111–25.

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Asch, “Opinions and Social Pressure,” Scientific American 193 (1955): 31–35, and “Studies of Independence and Conformity: A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority,” Psychological Monographs 70 (1956): 1–70; see also Rod Bond and Peter B. Smith, “Culture and Conformity: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) Line Judgment Task,” Psychological Bulletin 119 (1996): 111–37. “The first follower”: Derek Sivers, “How to Start a Movement,” TED Talks, April 2010, www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement/transcript?language=en. “Never doubt that a small group”: Margaret Mead, The World Ahead: An Anthropologist Anticipates the Future, ed. Robert B. Textor (New York: Berghahn Books, 2005). just having one friend: Sigal G. Barsade and Hakan Ozcelik, “Not Alone But Lonely: Work Loneliness and Employee Performance,” working paper (2011).

The End of Men: And the Rise of Women
by Hanna Rosin
Published 31 Aug 2012

Children with involved fathers measure as having higher IQs by age three, higher self-esteem, and in the case of daughters, grow up to be less promiscuous. Deciding on more equitable child-care arrangements is not just a logistical matter; it’s about rooting out deep and crippling assumptions women hold long before they even have children. Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook beautifully reframed the issue of women and work in her 2010 TED talk with her memorable phrase “Don’t leave before you leave.” The phrase was attached to a story about a young woman at Facebook who came into her office agonizning about how she would balance work and a child. The woman looked very young, so Sandberg asked her, “Are you and your husband thinking about having a baby?”

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Secord, Too Many Women?: The Sex Ratio Question (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1983). On the cover of Guyland: Michael Kimmel, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (New York: HarperCollins, 2008). Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo: Philip Zimbardo, “The Demise of Guys?” TED Talk, March 2011. http://www.ted.com/talks/zimchallenge.html. This is the argument: Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs, Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986). More recently, Baumeister put that theory: Roy F. Baumeister, “Gender Differences in Erotic Plasticity: The Female Sex Drive as Socially Flexible and Responsive,” Psychological Bulletin 126, no. 3 (2000): 347–374.

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a massive Department of Education study, a child’s grades: “Fathers’ Involvement in Their Children’s Schools,” National Center for Education Statistics 98-091, September 1997, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/fathers/. memorable phrase “Don’t leave before you leave”: Sheryl Sandberg, “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders,” TED Talk, December 2010. http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html. “There was no having it all”: Barbara Walters, interview with Jane Pauley in 2003, quoted in Pamela Paul, “For Anchorwomen, Family Is Part of the Job,” The New York Times, December 9, 2011. as Fox’s Megyn Kelly did: Back from maternity leave on August 8, 2011, Megyn Kelly showed a photograph of her baby daughter, Yardley Evans, to viewers of America Live.

Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines
by Thomas H. Davenport and Julia Kirby
Published 23 May 2016

Here’s what they’ve found by administering standard personality tests over the decades: College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of twenty or thirty years ago.9 (And they’re more narcissistic, as tracked by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory over the same time frame.10) Other social scientists worry about ethics, or the “moral sense” that Charles Darwin thought was unique to humans. It is unlikely there will ever be a rigorous longitudinal study of this, and yet the perception is widespread that many parts of the world are experiencing declines. And then there is creativity. If you’re a fan of TED Talks, perhaps you saw the one that became the most viewed of the entire TED library: Sir Ken Robinson’s “How Schools Kill Creativity.” In it, Robinson argues that “[w]e don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we are educated out of it.” Children are naturally creative, he claims, but as they grow up, “we start to educate them progressively from the waist up and then we focus on their heads, and slightly to one side.”

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They could teach from an early age what it takes to forge an effective human–machine partnership, which has each partner effectively complementing the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Such offerings could be the contemporary version of “shop class,” in which boys learned to cut wood and metal. Our otherwise well-educated kids did not experience this in their own educations, which is unfortunate. Something Joi Ito, who heads the MIT Media Lab, said in a recent TED Talk connects well to this thought. Talking about education, he wondered why teachers continue to insist that students be able to perform certain tasks with no technological support when, in the real world for which they are being prepared, all those supports exist (primarily on the Internet or as smartphone apps).

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An example Wenger cites is crowdfunding, which enables creative people whose ideas do not offer enough value-creation potential to make them exciting to venture capitalists, to raise funds in the form of many small contributions from ordinary folk who would just like to see their ideas realized. It’s a completely new mechanism for funding projects, and Wenger points out that it constitutes an important social innovation that was wholly conceived and built outside the government’s purview. Joi Ito of MIT mentions another one, now called Safecast, in the TED Talk we referred to earlier in this chapter—a bottom-up, volunteer-based approach to mapping the spread of radiation in Japan after the 2011 tsunami. Online education is another one, given the social benefits of having education easily accessible for free or at a very low cost that previously would have cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

Masters of Scale: Surprising Truths From the World's Most Successful Entrepreneurs
by Reid Hoffman , June Cohen and Deron Triff
Published 14 Oct 2021

Valuable ad inventory was measured by page views and time-on-site. And what does search do? It shuffles you off the site as fast as you can go. That didn’t strike anyone as a good business model. But Google of course stuck with it—and rewrote the rules of online advertising. Or think of TED Talks. When my Masters of Scale colleague June Cohen first pitched the idea of putting TED Talks online, it was widely seen as a very small, very bad idea. Putting taped lectures online? Who would possibly watch them? And wouldn’t it capsize the business model of an expensive conference to give the content away for free? Of course, the opposite happened: The talks were an immediate viral hit, and so massively increased demand for the conference that the ticket price rose 5x—to $10,000—in the years that followed.

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PHOTO: © LORI PEDRICK June Cohen is the co-founder and CEO of WaitWhat, a media invention company that makes podcasts, live events, professional courses, and more, with a unique business model that develops horizontal integration around strong brands, such as the award-winning business podcast Masters of Scale, the tech+ethics show Should This Exist?, the creativity podcast Spark & Fire, and the nothing-else-like-it hit Meditative Story. Prior to co-founding WaitWhat in January 2017, June headed up media for TED, building its digital media operations from the ground up. In 2006, she launched TED Talks on the internet. And in 2009, she introduced the TED Open Translation Project, the largest subtitling effort in the world, with 120 languages, 20,000 translators, and 100,000 translations. She co-hosted the annual TED Conference with Chris Anderson and co-founded the annual TEDWomen with Pat Mitchell.

Reset: How to Restart Your Life and Get F.U. Money: The Unconventional Early Retirement Plan for Midlife Careerists Who Want to Be Happy
by David Sawyer
Published 17 Aug 2018

It’s not about conquering your fear; it’s about learning to act despite it. Doubt is good, too. Always beware the over-confident. Real experts spend most of their time scared they’ve got it wrong. Master your instant gratification monkey. Wait But Why’s Tim Urban is an arch-procrastinator, whose TED talk on the topic has 11m views. Interviewed on the Art of Charm[462] podcast, he talks about the limbic brain being the instant gratification monkey, which always dominates the rational decision-maker in all of us, until the “panic monster” roars into the room with minutes to go, leading the rational decision-maker to wrest control.

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Those chats with your neighbours, people at the school gate, the bloke serving you coffee at Starbucks, the guard on the train; it’s those daily interactions on which we place no emphasis that make a long life. How much, and with what positivity, you interact with people who don’t mean a great deal to you as you move through your day. Watch Susan Pinker’s TED talk[494], and the next time the old lady passes your house with her doddery dog, ask her how she’s doing. She’d like that. 12. Go it alone Self-employment is not for the faint-hearted. Eight out of ten entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months, according to Bloomberg[495].

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[491] “ghosts haunting the lost landscapes of our childhood”: “THE WRITING LIFE: TALES OUT OF SCHOOL – The Washington Post.” 18 Mar. 1997, toreset.me/491. [492] The Pomodoro [productivity] Technique: “Pomodoro Technique – Wikipedia.” toreset.me/492. [493] In a meta-analysis of 300,000-plus people: “Social Ties Boost Survival by 50 Per Cent – Scientific American.” 28 Jul. 2010, toreset.me/493. [494] Watch Susan Pinker’s TED talk: “The secret to living longer may be your social life – TED.com.” 18 Aug. 2017, toreset.me/494. [495] businesses fail within the first 18 months, according to Bloomberg: “Five Reasons 8 Out Of 10 Businesses Fail – Forbes.” 12 Sep. 2013, toreset.me/495. [496] joining the ranks of the one in 25 UK workers who work for themselves: “Rise in self-employment transforms UK – Financial Times.” 15 Oct. 2017, toreset.me/496

Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World
by Jevin D. West and Carl T. Bergstrom
Published 3 Aug 2020

He described bullshit as what people create when they try to impress you or persuade you, without any concern for whether what they are saying is true or false, correct or incorrect. Think about a high school English essay you wrote without actually reading the book, a wannabe modernist painter’s description of his artistic vision, or a Silicon Valley tech bro co-opting a TED Talk invitation to launch his latest startup venue. The intention may be to mislead, but it need not be. Sometimes we are put on the spot and yet have nothing to say. The bullshit we produce under those circumstances is little more than the “filling of space with the inconsequential.” Bullshit can be total nonsense.

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It’s easy to call bullshit on that statement when it stands by itself. And when you do so, perhaps your friend will simply laugh and admit, “Yeah, I made that up.” But suppose instead she doubles down and starts filling out—or making up—details to support her claim. “No, really, it’s true. I saw this TED Talk about it. They explained how cat owners value independence whereas dog owners value loyalty. People who value independence are more likely to have NVT…no…NVS…I can’t remember, but some kind of personality. And that makes them better able to rise in the workplace.” This is full-on bullshit, and it functions like one of Latour’s black boxes.

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The problem is the hype, the notion that something magical will emerge if only we can accumulate data on a large enough scale. We just need to be reminded: Big data is not better; it’s just bigger. And it certainly doesn’t speak for itself. In 2014, TED Conferences and the XPrize Foundation announced an award for “the first artificial intelligence to come to this stage and give a TED Talk compelling enough to win a standing ovation from the audience.” People worry that AI has surpassed humans, but we doubt AI will claim this award anytime soon. One might think that the TED brand of bullshit is just a cocktail of sound-bite science, management-speak, and techno-optimism. But it’s not so easy.

Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully
by Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett
Published 3 Apr 2023

And, of course, it’s our wily brains that have helped us—except for the odd angry hippo (see this page)—dominate the animal kingdom. But some people believe, and we are among them, that the brain’s most important job is to direct the body’s movements. Columbia University neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert subscribes to that theory, too, and he made the case for it during a TED Talk way back in 2011. As he spoke, Wolpert flashed a photo of sea squirts on the screen, hardly what you’d expect to see in a lecture titled “The Real Reason for Brains.” The sea squirt is an exceedingly humble animal, and the particular variety up on Wolpert’s screen—opaque with a ribbed, cellulose-like body—looked like an empty water bottle.

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When young, the animal swims freely around the ocean, but eventually it finds a suitable rock, attaches itself, and stays there for the rest of its life. Once ensconced, the sea squirt ingests its brain and nervous system. Strange, yes, but also quite efficient: Now that it’s completely sedentary, the sea squirt doesn’t need them anymore. “Movement,” Wolpert told his TED Talk audience, “is the most important function of the brain.” Physical Practice: Hip Mobilizations Most of us use our bodies in asymmetrical ways. It’s unlikely that you will spend as much time in hip extension as you do in hip flexion, and no one—least of all us—expects you to. And you don’t need to.

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See also movement-rich environment changing habits at work, 237–40 energy expenditure and, 232 hip extension and, 77 kids and, 236–37 while working, 240–44, 272–78 standing desk, 18, 86, 113, 232, 234–43 Standing Isometric, 98, 98, 270, 275 Standing Workstation, 240–44 Stanford University, 114 Star Wars (films), 63 steps, tracking, 102, 117–19, 279 Steps-Per-Day Inventory, 103–8, 270 stiffness, 15, 72–73, 91, 143 stress, 15, 17, 65, 72, 116, 129, 255 stretching, 23–24 static, 21 stroke, 168, 205 Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), 168–69 substance abuse, 208 surfing, 60, 161 surgery, 137–39, 150, 160, 174, 221 swimming, 60, 65, 68, 128, 171, 201, 217, 235 sympathetic nervous system, 65 Synkowski, EC, 155–56, 167, 169 system support, 22–23 T Tabata Squats, 204, 271, 274, 278 tai chi, 50, 218, 219 technology, bedtime and, 260–62 TED Talks, 93, 94 teeth, 64, 129 television, 261, 262 temperatures, extreme, 68–69 Templer, Paul, 67, 68 tendons, 110, 172 tennis elbow, 136 “10 Minute Squat Test, The” (video), 199 “10s, the,” 281 tests, 6–7, 18, 155.

Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn
by Chris Hughes
Published 20 Feb 2018

Small amounts of regular cash have an outsized power because they mitigate the ups and downs of income cycles. They reduce the feeling of living on the brink, which research unsurprisingly shows causes immense amounts of stress and poor decision-making. Historian Rutger Bergman made the provocative argument in a TED Talk that people aren’t poor because they make bad decisions, but that they make bad decisions because they are poor. Why do “the poor borrow more, save less, smoke more, exercise less, drink more and eat less healthfully?” he asked. It’s not because they are dim or lazy, but because they live in a mentality of scarcity.

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Center for Economic Progress, 2016. http://www.economicprogress.org/sites/economicprogress.org/files/restructuring_the_eitc_a_credit_for_the_modern_worker_0.pdf. Bloom, Ester. “It’s Not Your Imagination: Things Are More Expensive Than They Were 10 Years Ago.” CNBC, April 25, 2017. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/things-are-more-expensive-than-they-were-10-years-ago.html. Bregman, Rutger. “Poverty Isn’t a Lack of Character; It’s a Lack of Cash.” TED Talks, 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash/transcript?language=en. ———. Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-Hour Workweek. Translated by Elizabeth Manton. The Correspondent, 2016. Bridgman, Benjamin, Andrew Dugan, Mikhael Lal, Matthew Osborne, and Shaunda Villones.

Investing to Save the Planet: How Your Money Can Make a Difference
by Alice Ross
Published 19 Nov 2020

But this is expected to change. Encouraging consumers to think about where their pension money is invested is the latest campaign of Richard Curtis, the UK film director behind Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually, who is now a UN advocate for the sustainable development goals. He recalls watching a TED talk by Bronwyn King, an oncologist who discovered that her investment funds had holdings in tobacco companies, and realising that people’s ‘financial footprint’ is even more important than changes in their lifestyle as a consumer. His Make My Money Matter movement is aimed at encouraging pension holders and savers to push their money into sustainable investments and engage with their employers to do the same with their pension funds.

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That proved to be an unstable source, with the global financial crisis of 2008 leading some governments – notably in Spain, which had been a huge champion of solar energy – to slash subsidies. Meanwhile companies in the US and Europe went out of business after China introduced its own aggressive subsidies, which, combined with cheaper labour and production costs, helped to flood the market with supply when demand was still low, causing prices to crash. In a now-infamous 2007 TED talk, John Doerr, a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, said: ‘Green technologies – “going green” – is bigger than the Internet. It could be the biggest economic opportunity of the twenty-first century.’ Unfortunately, good ideas do not always equal good investments. A 2016 report from MIT found that venture capital firms spent over $25bn funding clean energy technology start-ups between 2006 and 2011 and lost over half their money.

Elon Musk
by Walter Isaacson
Published 11 Sep 2023

Ancient Egyptians learned how to build the pyramids, but then that knowledge was lost. The same happened to Rome, which built aqueducts and other wonders that were lost in the Dark Ages. Was that happening to America? “People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves,” he would say in a TED Talk a few years later. “It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better.” Another motivation was that colonizing other planets would help ensure the survival of human civilization and consciousness in case something happened to our fragile planet. It may someday be destroyed by an asteroid or climate change or nuclear war.

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“He was convinced that by the time we got Model Y into production it would be a full-on Robotaxi, fully autonomous,” von Holzhausen says. Almost every year, Musk would make another prediction that Full Self-Driving was just a year or two away. “When will someone be able to buy one of your cars and literally just take the hands off the wheel and go to sleep and wake up and find that they’ve arrived?” Chris Anderson asked him at a TED Talk in May 2017. “That’s about two years,” Musk replied. In an interview with Kara Swisher at a Code Conference at the end of 2018, he said Tesla was “on track to do it next year.” In early 2019, he doubled down. “I think we will be feature complete, Full Self-Driving, this year,” he declared on a podcast with ARK Invest.

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Haldeman, DC: The Canadian Years,” Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, 1995; “Before Elon Musk Was Thinking about Mars,” Regina Leader-Post, May 15, 2017; Joseph Keating, “Flying Chiros,” Dynamic Chiropractic, Dec. 15, 2003; Nick Murray, “Elon Musk’s Fascinating History with Moose Jaw,” Moose Jaw Independent, Sept. 15, 2018; Joshua Haldeman, “We Fly Three Continents,” ICA International Review of Chiropractic, Dec. 1954; Phillip de Wet, “Elon Musk’s Family Once Owned an Emerald Mine in Zambia,” Business Insider, Feb. 28, 2018; Phillip de Wet, “A Teenage Elon Musk Once Casually Sold His Father’s Emeralds to Tiffany & Co.,” Business Insider, Feb. 22, 2018; Jeremy Arnold, “Journalism and the Blood Emeralds Story,” Save Journalism, Substack, Mar. 9, 2021; Vance, Elon Musk; Maye Musk, A Woman. 2. A Mind of His Own: Author’s interviews with Maye Musk, Errol Musk, Elon Musk, Tosca Musk, Kimbal Musk. Neil Strauss, “The Architect of Tomorrow,” Rolling Stone, Nov. 15, 2017; Elon Musk, TED Talk with Chris Anderson, Apr. 14, 2022; “Inter-galactic Family Feud,” Mail on Sunday, Mar. 17, 2018; Vance, Elon Musk; Maye Musk, A Woman. 3. Life with Father: Author’s interviews with Maye Musk, Errol Musk, Elon Musk, Tosca Musk, Kimbal Musk, Peter Rive. Elon Musk report cards from Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Glenashley Senior Primary School, Bryanston High School, and Pretoria Boys High School; Neil Strauss, “The Architect of Tomorrow”; Emily Lane Fox, “How Elon Musk’s Mom (and Her Twin Sister) Raised the First Family of Tech,” Vanity Fair, Oct. 21, 2015; Andrew Smith, “Emissary of the Future,” The Telegraph (London), Jan. 8, 2014. 4.

Team Geek
by Brian W. Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman
Published 6 Jul 2012

[11] Great engineers also demand great team leaders, because crappy leaders not only tend to be too insecure to deal with great engineers, but also tend to boss people around. [12] When consensus can’t be reached, some teams have their leads decide, while other teams put it to a vote. The process your team uses is less important than having a process and sticking with it when there’s conflict. [13] In other words, team pride. [14] See Susan Cain’s excellent TED Talk, “The Power of Introverts” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4), or her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts (Crown). [15] We can’t stress enough how important this is—saying no to all of the distractions is what keeps you focused. [16] We’ve often likened writing open source software to building card houses on a trampoline.

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v=t4AqxNekecY. [35] Public criticism of an individual is rarely necessary, and most often is just mean or cruel. You can be sure the rest of the team already knows when an individual has failed, so there’s no need to rub it in. [36] As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, see also Dan’s fantastic TED talk on this subject. [37] This assumes that the engineers in question are being paid well enough that income is not a source of stress. [38] Of course, this assumes that you have engineers on your team who don’t need micromanagement. [39] Of course, it also means they’re more valuable and marketable employees, so it’s easier for them to pick up and leave you if they’re not enjoying their work.

Keeping Up With the Quants: Your Guide to Understanding and Using Analytics
by Thomas H. Davenport and Jinho Kim
Published 10 Jun 2013

If the data includes, for example, “One date/time category and any number of other categories or measures,” the program will automatically generate a line chart.7 * * * Purposes and Types of Visual Analytics IF YOU WANT TO: See relationships among data points: Scatterplot: Shows the relationship between two variables on a two-dimensional grid Matrix plot: For showing relationships and frequencies for hierarchical variables Heat map: Individual values contained in a matrix are represented as colors Network diagram: Shows relationships between entities and the strengths of the paths between them Compare a set of frequencies or values, typically for one variable: Bar chart: Length of bar represents values Histogram: Type of bar chart with bars showing frequencies of data at specified intervals Bubble chart: Displays a set of numeric values as circles, with the size of the circle corresponding to the value Show the rise and fall of one variable in relation to another (typically time): Line graph: Two-dimensional graph, typically with one variable or multiple variables with standardized data values Stack graph: Line graph with filled-in areas underneath the graph, typically showing change in multiple variables; can also show change in multiple categories with different colors See the parts of a whole and how they relate to each other: Pie chart: Displays distribution of values in one variable in a pie format; percentages of each value correspond to size of slices Tree map: Visual for showing the size of values in a hierarchical variable, such as world/continents/countries/population in each country Understand data across geography: Overlaying summarized data onto geographical maps with colors, bubbles, or spikes representing different values Analyzing text frequencies: Tag cloud: A visualization of word frequencies; more frequently used words are displayed in larger type Phrase net: Shows frequencies of combinations of words used together; more frequently used words are displayed in larger type * * * The types of visual analytics listed in the worksheet are static, but visual analytics are increasingly becoming dynamic and interactive. Swedish professor Hans Rosling popularized this approach with his frequently viewed TED Talk, which used visual analytics to show the changing population health relationships between developed and developing nations over time.8 Rosling has created a website called Gapminder (www.gapminder.org) that displays many of these types of interactive visual analytics. It is likely that we will see more of these interactive analytics to show movement in data over time, but they are not appropriate or necessary for all types of data and analyses.

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This list was adapted and modified from one on the IBM ManyEyes site; see http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/page/Visualization_Options.html. 7. This example is from the SAS Visual Analytics 5.1 User’s Guide, “Working with Automatic Charts,” http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/vaug/65384/ HTML/default/viewer.htm#n1xa25dv4fiyz6n1etsfkbz75ai0.htm. 8. Hans Rosling, “Stats That Reshape Your Worldview,” TED talk, February 2006, http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html. 9. While Schmitt’s group sometimes creates such videos in-house, this one was done by an external production company. 10. James Taylor, “Decision Management Systems: A Practical Guide to Using Business Rules and Predictive Analytics,” IBM Press, 2011. 11.

Unleashed
by Anne Morriss and Frances Frei
Published 1 Jun 2020

Susan Fowler, “Reflecting on One Very, Very Strange Year at Uber,” Susan Fowler (blog), February 19, 2017, https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber. 2. Kara Swisher, ubiquitous journalist, entrepreneur, and conscience of the tech sector, was writing regularly about the urgent need for stronger leadership and accountability in the industry. 3. These ideas were explored in a TED talk Frances gave called “How to Build (and Rebuild) Trust” (TED Talk, TED2018, Vancouver, April 13, 2018). 4. Ethan S. Bernstein and Stephen Turban, “The Impact of the ‘Open’ Workspace on Human Collaboration,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2018). 5. We want to thank Tien Larson for helping us to finally get this diagram right. 6.

An Optimist's Tour of the Future
by Mark Stevenson
Published 4 Dec 2010

As each packet passes through any of the routing points on the network, it says, ‘hey, I’m trying to get to B, do you know where B is?’ and one of three answers will come back: ‘Yes! I am B,’ ‘Yes, B is over there’ or ‘No, but I’m sending you to another machine who might know where B is.’ When I check this summary with Vint, he tells me, ‘Well, it is a bit more organised than that! But you are not far off!’ In a 2009 TED talk, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School, explained this process by asking his audience to imagine they were at a sporting event and somebody asks for a beer. ‘It gets handed at the aisle and your neighbourly duty is to pass the beer along, at risk to your own trousers, to get it to the destination.

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You can see Ken Robinson ask us to re-evaluate what we need from our educational systems, Steven Pinker tell you the world is less violent and then watch Robert Wright explain why that might be, along with a host of other mind-shifting presentations that make you see things from a different angle. I’ve come to see Chris because in putting together the TED talks he is probably assailed by more new ideas than pretty much anyone on the planet – and he has to make sense of them somehow. I ask him how he synthesises everything. ‘Well, like everyone else I’m on a journey,’ he says. ‘But there’s a very boring view of the world which is that ‘things happen’ and basically history is one thing after another, the idea that you really can’t say much about the future, other than it’s probably not going to be as good as you think.

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Thanks then to Felicia Spagnoli at Joule Biotechnologies for putting me in touch with John Ward ( Joule’s Senior Vice President of Production) and in doing so confirming that the idea for a carbon neutral petrol station that pulls its raw materials out of the sky isn’t bonkers. Paul Roberts got me to an underwater cabinet meeting in the Maldives and for that I will always be grateful. Laura Galloway of Galloway PR organised my meeting with Chris Anderson at TED, helped with clearances to quote numerous TED talks, took me out to dinner and remains generous, helpful and encouraging. She is also owed a cocktail the next time I’m in NYC. Rachel Nagler at Rubenstein PR organised for me to have my genetic profile processed by 23andMe. Rachel Whetstone, Anthony House and Carla LaFever (all of Google) formed a procession that led to Vint Cerf, and Nikki Fenwick and Aya Okuma helped me hook up with Dan Reicher.

Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
by Roger McNamee
Published 1 Jan 2019

Nielsen disagreed, saying Facebook still trailed Google, but it appeared to be only a matter of time before the two companies would agree that Facebook was #1. In March 2011, I saw a presentation that introduced the first seed of doubt into my rosy view of Facebook. The occasion was the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, the global launch pad for TED Talks. The eighteen-minute Talks are thematically organized over four days, providing brain candy to millions far beyond the conference. That year, the highlight for me was a nine-minute talk by Eli Pariser, the board president of MoveOn.org. Eli had an insight that his Facebook and Google feeds had stopped being neutral.

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When we thought about possible influencers for a national conversation, we realized we knew only a few people we could contact, all in technology and media. We had no relationships in government. The first potential opportunity was only a couple of weeks away, at the annual TED Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, ground zero for TED Talks. It would be the perfect platform for sharing Tristan’s message to leaders from the technology and entertainment industries, but we did not know if the organizers were even aware of Tristan’s ideas. They certainly had not offered an invitation to speak. Then a miracle occurred. Eli Pariser, whose legendary presentation on filter bubbles had mesmerized the TED audience in 2011, independently suggested to TED curator Chris Anderson that he add Tristan to the program.

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In the two years since I first realized there was a problem at Facebook, I have read several novels and many nonfiction volumes that helped me understand that problem. In this essay, I want to share my intellectual journey but also point to books and other media that shed light on the people, business practices, and culture that enabled it. My education about the dark side of social media began in 2011 with Eli Pariser’s groundbreaking TED Talk on filter bubbles. I recommend the video of that talk, as well as Eli’s book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (New York: Penguin Press, 2012). The book that energized me in early 2017 was Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, by Jonathan Taplin (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017).

The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century
by Rodrigo Aguilera
Published 10 Mar 2020

Centrist, liberal magazines like the Economist have also ingratiated themselves into this camp, making deliberate efforts to play down left-wing doom-mongering over capitalism’s shortfalls, particularly since the global financial crisis has made a more absolutist defense of free markets and free enterprise untenable (full disclosure: this author previously worked for The Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company to the Economist, but which produces its own independent content). Some other characters in this ecosystem are harder to pin down and don’t fall neatly within these two groups. These include the (recently deceased) TED Talk celebrity Hans Rosling, who mastered the art of using charts and other visual aids to seduce his audiences with optimism, or Oxford economist Max Roser, whose website Our World in Data is a statistical mecca for the movement even if Roser hardly proselytizes the narrative himself. He also appears to be the only one who shows any remote concern for issues like inequality and climate change, the former which the other New Optimists consistently play down as either not being an essential component of well-being and the latter as a problem which science will find ways of resolving in due time.

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When Scottish philosopher David Hume provocatively stated that “tis not contrary to reason [by this meaning rationality] to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger”,7 he is saying that in purely utilitarian terms, it is possible to prefer a painless alternative (the end of the world) to a painful one (a scratched finger). But this is only a rational choice, not a reasonable one. Only somebody with omnicidal tendencies would feel compelled to do such a thing. Pinker may exalt his Enlightenment heroes with a zeal typically reserved for religious icons, but Hans Rosling, the late Swedish physician-turned-TED Talk star, took the supposedly unobjectionable rationality of optimism to the level of self-help. It’s not enough that facts are good and feelings bad, but that facts are so good that they become feelings themselves. In Factfulness, he appears oblivious to why his corporate audience would feel so giddy at the news that the world is so much better than people think: The basic facts about the world’s progress are so little known that I get invited to talk about them at conferences and corporate meetings all over the world.

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Because ingenuity is rampant as never before in this massively networked world and the rate of innovation is accelerated, through serendipitous searching, not deliberate planning.39 Pinker would have probably made similar claims in Enlightenment Now had he not devoted nearly the entirety of his chapter on science to vilifying the humanities.40 Even when not explicitly mentioned, they are nonetheless implied every time he downplays technological threats like AI or outright ignores the very real controversies over the growing power of Silicon Valley and its impact on democracy. If New Optimism sounds like one giant TED Talk by a hyper-optimistic tech guru or venture capitalist, it’s because it shares with these people the boundless overconfidence of a future we should be anticipating with dangerously few reservations. There would also probably not be much fightback from the New Optimist camp if Silicon Valley ideology insidiously becomes more mainstream.

Help for Women With ADHD: My Simple Strategies for Conquering Chaos
by Joan Wilder
Published 18 May 2016

You can find it in many ways, depending on how you operate. As always, ADHD coaches can really help. So can ADHD buddies, friends, and family members who are naturally good at prioritizing or have learned how. Books on goal setting can help. If books aren’t easy for you, search for audiobooks, podcasts, or Ted talks on prioritizing, or goal setting. If the Internet is daunting for you, get someone to help you do this. Getting Distracted and Sidetracked Ever have one of those songs that just won’t stop going around and around your head? Your brain is wired to obsess over unresolved issues. When you have something you need to remember, or an idea you want to pursue but you haven’t acted on it, it creates an open loop that nags at you and congests your thinking.

So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
by Cal Newport
Published 17 Sep 2012

What’s important here, however, is that this explanation, though reasonable, contradicts the passion hypothesis, which instead emphasizes the immediate happiness that comes from matching your job to a true passion. Conclusion #3: Passion Is a Side Effect of Mastery Not long into his popular TED talk, titled “On the Surprising Science of Motivation,” author Daniel Pink, discussing his book Drive, tells the audience that he spent the last couple of years studying the science of human motivation. “I’m telling you, it’s not even close,” he says. “If you look at the science, there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.”

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Chapter Eleven Avoiding the Control Traps In which I explain the law of financial viability, which says you should only pursue a bid for more control if you have evidence that it’s something that people are willing to pay you for. Derek Sivers Is a Control Freak Not long into his 2010 TED talk on creativity and leadership, Derek Sivers plays a video clip of a crowd at an outdoor concert. A young man without a shirt starts dancing by himself. The audience members seated nearby look on curiously. “A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous,” Derek says. Soon, however, a second young man joins the first and starts dancing.

Presentation Zen
by Garr Reynolds
Published 15 Jan 2012

Clutter and the nonessential were strictly forbidden. Bill Gates, one of the most powerful and philanthropic businessmen of our time, always provided a lesson in contrast to Jobs’s visual simplicity—although Gates has gotten much better in the last couple of years, and his presentation visuals for his TED talks and Gates Foundation presentations have been good. However, the typical style of presentation that Gates became known for over the years was very similar to the style of slide presentation we still see too much of today—presentations with the kind of slides that hurt more than help with audience engagement.

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I wanted them to engage, to hash things out at the table, rather than show a bunch of slides. People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.” Jobs preferred to use the whiteboard to explain his ideas and hash out things with people. There is a difference between a keynote and ballroom style presentations (and TED talks and similar events) and a meeting around a conference table. Most productive meetings are a time for discussion and working things out, not simply going through a bunch of slides. Save the multimedia for the larger presentations. The tips below mainly concern presentations for larger audiences. Remember that even on stage, multimedia is not always needed.

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
by Timothy Ferriss
Published 6 Dec 2016

Through that, he’s learned how we can dramatically improve our own lives, often with very small changes. He has guided or been involved with ~1,000 deaths, and he’s spotted patterns we can all learn from. BJ is also a triple amputee due to an electrocution accident in college. His 2015 TED talk, “What Really Matters at the End of Life,” was among the top 15 most viewed TED talks of 2015. “Don’t believe everything that you think.” This was BJ’s answer to “what would you put on a billboard?” He wasn’t sure of the source but attributed it to a bumper sticker. By the end of this profile, you’ll see how BJ loves this type of absurdity.

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Spirit animal: Coconut octopus * * * Jane McGonigal Jane McGonigal, PhD (TW: @avantgame, janemcgonigal.com), is a research affiliate at the Institute for the Future and the author of the New York Times bestseller Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wired, and the New York Times. She has been called one of the “Top Ten Innovators to Watch” by BusinessWeek and one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business” by Fast Company. Her TED talks on games have been viewed more than 10 million times. Tetris as Therapy Have trouble getting to sleep? Try 10 minutes of Tetris. Recent research has demonstrated that Tetris—or Candy Crush Saga or Bejeweled—can help overwrite negative visualization, which has applications for addiction (such as overeating), preventing PTSD, and, in my case, onset insomnia.

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Spirit animal: Jackalope * * * Brené Brown Dr. Brené Brown (TW: @BreneBrown, brenebrown.com) is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Brené’s 2010 TEDxHouston talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” has been viewed more than 31 million times and is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world. She has spent the past 13 years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Brené is the New York Times best-selling author of Daring Greatly, The Gifts of Imperfection, and Rising Strong. Afraid and Brave Can Coexist “This idea that we’re either courageous or chicken shit is just not true, because most of us are afraid and brave at the exact same moment, all day long.”

Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-Hour Workweek
by Rutger Bregman
Published 13 Sep 2014

Miina Porka et al., “From Food Insufficiency towards Trade Dependency: A Historical Analysis of Global Food Availability,” Plos One (December 18, 2013). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24367545 14. Bjørn Lomborg, “Setting the Right Global Goals,” Project Syndicate (May 20, 2014). https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bj-rn-lomborg-identifies-the-areas-in-which-increased-development-spending-can-do-the-most-good 15. One is Audrey de Grey of Cambridge University, who gave a TED Talk on this topic: http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging 16. Peter F. Orazem, “Challenge Paper: Education,” Copenhagen Consensus Center (April 2014). http://copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/education 17. “Where have all the burglars gone?” The Economist (July 18, 2013). http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21582041-rich-world-seeing-less-and-less-crime-even-face-high-unemployment-and-economic 18.

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Bilmes, “The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan” (March 2013). https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=923 (Also see Chapter 2.) 4. I did this calculation for 2009. See: OECD, “Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries” (2009). http://www.oecd.org/tad/agricultural-policies/43239979.pdf 5. Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid (2009), p. 39. 6. Watch Duflo’s TED Talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_duflo_social_experiments_to_fight_poverty 7. We don’t see this “randomization” in the Book of Daniel. Modern studies are usually also “double blind,” which means neither the doctor nor the patients know who is getting which medicine. 8. Alfredo Morabia, “Pierre-Charles-Alexandre Louis and the evaluation of bloodletting,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (March 2006). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1383766/pdf/0158.pdf 9.

Robots Will Steal Your Job, But That's OK: How to Survive the Economic Collapse and Be Happy
by Pistono, Federico
Published 14 Oct 2012

Lessons from Stanford, Harvard and MIT recorded, available for free on the internet? Wow. “I need to take some time off to learn a ton of subjects”, I thought. But of course, that time never came. I got back from work at 8PM, feeling exhausted, and while I enjoyed keeping my brain working, I usually watched a TED talk or a conference from the Singularity University, but was difficult to follow a course on Quantum Entanglement or Biochemistry at 11PM. With Sal’s videos, in their 13-minute format, I could enjoy learning at any time of the day. At a lunch break, on the train, after dinner, you name it. The concepts are easy, very well presented, and I cannot stress this enough, they are intuitive.

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If, on the other hand, your goal is to make people more conscious and aware of a particular problem, you might want to start by respecting them, and showing the merits of your way of living. Again, ask yourself, is it easier to convert 10% of the people to eat no meat at all, or is it easier to convince 50% to eat less meat? The answer is very simple, and the concept is well developed by Graham Hill in his short book Weekday Vegetarian: Finally, a Palatable Solution and TED Talk Why I’m a weekday vegetarian.226 Imagine yourself being committed to the cause. At some point, you will look at your last hamburger, or your last steak, and you will know that you will not be having any more of those, forever. Many people are not quite ready for that. So what if you were to start a more gradual, easier approach?

The Payoff
by Jeff Connaughton

It leaked from the White House that Biden had helped push President Obama to support the Volcker Rule; a faction in the White House apparently believed, belatedly, that Obama must at least be viewed by the voters as tougher on the banks. Maybe Ted’s activism was beginning to have an effect, through Biden, on Obama’s thinking. Ted even quoted Biden in his Volcker speech: “As Vice President Biden aptly and succinctly put it: ‘Be a bank or be a hedge fund. But don’t be a bank hedge fund.’” I was happy but skeptical. I knew Ted talked to the vice president, but Ted never told me about the substance of those conversations. Those stayed forever in Ted’s vault. That’s one of the reasons Biden trusted him so much. That speech was the first time Ted used the phrase “too big to fail”—as recently popularized by Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book, which sat on Ted’s desk.

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Coburn told Ted that he’d been reading about his speeches and would like to help. Later that day on MSNBC, Coburn said he was working with Senator Kaufman on an amendment. On May 1, at a dinner in Wilmington, the Republican Party state chairman came up to Ted and said he supported everything Ted was doing on financial reform. Ted talked to Republican Senators Isakson (R-GA), Barrasso (R-WY), and Johanns (R-NE), reminding them that they represent southern or western states, which from our country’s founding have been opposed to the power of big banks. “It would be good for you politically if the front page of your hometown newspaper said ‘Senator Votes to Break Up Big Wall Street Banks.’”

Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code
by Jeff Atwood
Published 3 Jul 2012

So is it any wonder that some claim Stack Overflow is more satisfying than their real jobs? Not to me. If this all seems like a bunch of communist hippie bullcrap to you, I understand. It’s hard to explain. But there is quite a bit of science documenting these strange motivations. Let’s start with Dan Pink’s 2009 TED talk. WATCH: Daniel Pink|TED Talk| 2009 Dan’s talk centers on the candle problem. Given the following three items … A candle A box of thumbtacks A book of matches … how can you attach the candle to the wall? It’s not a very interesting problem on its own — that is, until you try to incentivize teams to solve it: Now I want to tell you about an experiment using the candle problem by a scientist from Princeton named Sam Glucksberg.

Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy
by Jonathan Taplin
Published 17 Apr 2017

So his pitch was, “If you want me to continue bringing down dictators, don’t regulate my business.” But a little distance from the Arab Spring lets us see that this is really a false choice. Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian Google employee who helped launch the Tahrir Square revolution in early 2011 that toppled Hosni Mubarak, tells the real story. His words come from a TED talk he gave after he was freed from jail and escaped Egypt. I once said, “If you want to liberate a society, all you need is the Internet.” I was wrong. I said those words back in 2011, when a Facebook page I anonymously created helped spark the Egyptian revolution. The Arab Spring revealed social media’s greatest potential, but it also exposed its greatest shortcomings.

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The amount of bad information and gossip on this subject is astonishing. David Auerbach, “Letter to a Young Male Gamer,” Slate, August 27, 2014, www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/08/zoe_quinn_harassment_a_letter_to_a_young_male_gamer.html. Michael Perilloux’s writing on Neoreaction can be found at www.socialmatter.net. Wael Ghonim’s Ted Talk, “Inside the Egyptian Revolution,” was filmed in March of 2011, www.ted.com/talks/wael_ghonim_inside_the_egyptian_revolution. Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness (New York: Simon and Schuster/TED, 2014). This is a slim volume, but full of wisdom. It was his suggestion that sent me to the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California.

The Ethical Algorithm: The Science of Socially Aware Algorithm Design
by Michael Kearns and Aaron Roth
Published 3 Oct 2019

Drink more red wine (or maybe less). Eat more chocolate (or maybe less). Seek out pomegranates, green tea, quinoa, açai berries, or the latest superfood. What if you want to boost your confidence before your next job interview? One of those social media posts you clicked on may have linked to a now famous 2012 TED Talk by Amy Cuddy, called “Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are”, which has been viewed more than 50 million times. In the video, Cuddy proposes that spending two minutes in a “power pose”—an example is “The Wonder Woman,” in which you put your hands on your hips and chin in the air—results not just in feelings of confidence but in measurable physiological changes including increased testosterone and reduced cortisol.

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See also gender data and bias sexual orientation data, 25–26, 51–52, 86–89 Shapley, Lloyd, 129–30 The Shining (King), 118, 120 Shmatikov, Vitaly, 25 Simmons, Joe, 157–58 simple algorithms, 174 simulated game play, 134–35 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), 30–31 singularity, 180 Smith, Adam, 36 smoking, 27–28, 34–36, 39, 51–54 Snowden, Edward, 47–48 social awareness, 16–17, 131 social welfare, 97, 113, 115 societal norms and values, 12, 15–18, 20–21, 86, 134, 169–70 socioeconomic groups, 57 software engineers, 48–49 sorting algorithms, 4–5 spurious correlations, 150, 159 stable equilibriums, 99–100, 128 stable matchings, 128–30 standoffs, 98 statistics and adaptive data analysis, 159 and aggregate data, 22–23, 30–31 and algorithmic violations of fairness and privacy, 96 Bayesian, 38–39, 173 and the Bonferroni correction, 149 criminal sentencing, 14–15 and differential privacy, 40, 44–45, 47–52, 167 and fairness issues, 193–94 flawed statistical reasoning, 140–41 and interpretability of model outputs, 171–72 and investing scams, 138–41 and medical research, 34 and online shopping algorithms, 117 and p-hacking, 144–45, 153–55, 157–59, 161, 164, 169–70 statistical modeling, 90 statistical parity, 69–74, 84 and US Census data, 195 and “word embedding” models, 57–58, 63–64 stock investing, 81, 137–41 strategy, 97–102 Strava, 50–51 subgroup protections, 88–89 subjectivity, 86, 172 subpoenas, 41, 45–46, 48 “superfood” research, 143–44 superintelligent AI, 179–81, 185, 187 supervised machine learning, 63–64, 69–70, 183 supply and demand, 94–97 Supreme Court nomination hearings, 24 survey responses, 40–45 Sweeney, Latanya, 23 synthetic images, 132–35 target populations, 172–73 TD-Gammon program, 132 technological advances, 100–101, 103 TED Talks, 141–42 telemarketing calls, 38 temporal difference, 132 Tesauro, Gerry, 132 test preparation courses, 74–75 theoretical computer science, 11–13, 36 threshold rule, 75 Title VII, 15 tobacco research, 34–36 torturing data, 156–59 traffic and navigation problems, 19–20, 101–11, 113–15, 179 training data, 61–62 transparency, 125–26, 170–71 trust, 45–47, 170–71, 194–95 “truthfulness” in game theory, 114 “tunable” parameters, 37–39, 125–26, 171 Turing, Alan, 11–12, 180 Turing Award, 133 Turing machine, 11 23andMe, 54–55 2020 Census, 49, 195 Twitter Predictor Game, 52–53 two-route navigation problem, 107 two-sided markets, 127 2001: A Space Odyssey (film), 184 typing, 118 underspecified problems, 183 unintended consequences, 6–8, 16–17, 184–85, 188 unique data points, 26–27 unsupervised learning, 63–64 upstream effects, 194 US Census Bureau, 49 US Constitution, 49 US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 86–87 user identifiers, 24 user modeling, 121 user ratings, 118–21 US military deployments, 50–51 US State Department, 15 validation sets, 162–63 value alignment problems, 184 values.

Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company's Future - and What to Do About It
by Tien Tzuo and Gabe Weisert
Published 4 Jun 2018

This year the entire global industrial output, or the systems, factories, and labor force behind everything we make, is expected to enjoy a double-digit increase in delivery and supply chain performance, primarily thanks to IoT. All this connectivity is set to ignite a revolution in manufacturing, and it’s sorely needed. As industrial systems thinker Olivier Scalabre pointed out in a great 2016 TED talk, every sustained period of global economic growth over the last 150 years has been instigated by a manufacturing innovation—the steam train in the nineteenth century, the era of mass production at the start of the twentieth century, and the first wave of factory automation that began in the 1970s.

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And if you sell technology to help sense conditions Scott Pezza, “How to Make Money with the Internet of Things,” Blue Hill Research, May 18, 2015, http://bluehillresearch.com/how-to-make-money-with-the-internet-of-things. most of our factories look the same Olivier Scalabre, “The Next Manufacturing Revolution Is Here,” TED talk, May 2016, www.ted.com/talks/olivier_scalabre_the_next_manufacturing_revolution_is_here/transcript. We recently hosted Gytis Barzdukas “Gytis Barzdukas, GE Digital,” Zuora Subscribed conference, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEq5HTz7MDE. chief digital transformation officer and president Matt Anderson Gabe Weisert, “Arrow Electronics: The Biggest IoT Innovator You’ve Never Heard Of,” Zuora Subscribed Magazine, www.zuora.com/guides/arrow-electronics-the-biggest-iot-innovator-youve-never-heard-of.

The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea, at the Right Time
by Allen Gannett
Published 11 Jun 2018

It doesn’t seem remarkable. Or perhaps you saw a work of abstract art and thought to yourself, “I can do that.” The author of the above passage is Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He is known for his bestselling book Flow, which popularized the notion of “getting into the flow,” and for his TED Talk on the topic, which has over four million views to date. For students of creative history, he also provides one of the most complete explanations for how things get labeled as “creative.” Csikszentmihalyi looks like a weathered Santa Claus who exudes not jolliness but a reassuring, Zen-like quality.

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“As a teenager I lived”: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Systems Model of Creativity: The Collected Works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2014). He is known for his: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper, 2008); and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “Flow, The Secret to Happiness,” TED Talk, 2004, https://www.ted.com/​talks/​mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow. Csikszentmihalyi looks like: Details relating to Csikszentmihalyi and his work drawn mostly from my interviews with him, Csikszentmihalyi, The Systems Model of Creativity; and Jacob Warren Getzels and Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, The Creative Vision: A Longitudinal Study of Problem Finding in Art (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 1976).

Secrets of the Autistic Millionaire: Everything I Know Now About Autism and Asperger's That I Wish I'd Known Then
by David William Plummer
Published 14 Sep 2021

Even if everything in their life is going quite Which letters do you see? well, when one important aspect of their life is not satisfactory, they might very well dedicate all their With low central coherence, some people will notice the smaller individual letters before discovering that they also form larger letters. Dr. T. Grandin, TED Talk Reproduced with Permission attention to that –– to the exclusion of other matters. While I prefer the term monofocus, much has been written about central coherence and monotropism as it relates to autism. A monotropic mind tends to focus on the details and miss things outside the attention tunnel.

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315 Sources Photo of Steve Jobs, page 11 Credit: Date: Source: Modifications: Matthew Riegler 17 June 2007 Wikimedia Commons Subject masked and mirrored Photo of David Plummer, page 97 Credit: Date: Janet Plummer 1969 Central Coherence Illustration, page 157 Credit: Temple Grandin. Ph.D. Source: TED Talk Used with Permission Ikigai Illustration, page 306 Credit: Date: Modifications: Eric Plummer 4 Oct 2021 Text callouts added About the Author According to Wikipedia, “David William Plummer is a Canadian-American programmer and entrepreneur. He created the Windows Task Manager, the Space Cadet Pinball game ports to Windows NT, Zip file support for Windows, HyperCache for the Amiga, and many other software products.

The Elements of Data Analytic Style
by Jeff Leek
Published 1 Mar 2015

Point 2 is more important than point 3. As a data scientist, it is hard to accept that the primary purpose of a talk is advertising, not data science. See for example Hilary Mason’s great presentation Entertain, don’t teach. Here are reasons why entertainment is more important: That being said, be very careful to avoid giving a TED talk. If you are giving a data science presentation the goal is to communicate specific ideas. So while you are entertaining, don’t forget why you are entertaining. 11.1 Tailor your talk to your audience It depends on the event and the goals of the event. Here is a non-comprehensive list: Small group meeting: Goal: Update people you work with on what you are doing and get help.

Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future
by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson
Published 26 Jun 2017

Perez, “ ‘Predictive Learning’ Is the New Buzzword in Deep Learning,” Intuition Machine, December 6, 2016, https://medium.com/intuitionmachine/predictive-learning-is-the-key-to-deep-learning-acceleration-93e063195fd0#.13qh1nti1. 81 Joshua Brown’s Tesla crashed: Anjali Singhvi and Karl Russell, “Inside the Self-Driving Tesla Fatal Accident,” New York Times, July 12, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/01/business/inside-tesla-accident.html. 82 it appears that neither Brown: Tesla, “A Tragic Loss,” June 30, 2016, https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss. 82 “Conventional wisdom would say”: Chris Urmson, “How a Driverless Car Sees the Road,” TED Talk, June 2015, 15:29, https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road/transcript?language=en. 82 “Our vehicles were driving through Mountain View”: Ibid. 83 The Japanese insurer Fukoku Mutual Life: Dave Gershgorn, “Japanese White-Collar Workers Are Already Being Replaced by Artificial Intelligence,” Quartz, January 2, 2017, https://qz.com/875491/japanese-white-collar-workers-are-already-being-replaced-by-artificial-intelligence. 83 “learn the history of past payment assessment”: Google Translate, “December 26, Heisei 28, Fukoku Life Insurance Company,” accessed January 30, 2017, https://translate.google.com/translate?

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accessed February 6, 2017, https://www.blablacar.in/faq/question/is-it-safe-for-me-to-enter-my-id. 209 “Many of the exchanges”: Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen, “The End of Asymmetric Information,” Cato Institute, April 6, 2015, https://www.cato-unbound.org/2015/04/06/alex-tabarrok-tyler-cowen/end-asymmetric-information. 209 Airbnb CEO and cofounder Joe Gebbia: Joe Gebbia, “How Airbnb Designs for Trust,” TED Talk, February 2016, 15:51, https://www.ted.com/talks/joe_gebbia_how_airbnb_designs_for_trust?language=en. 209 “High reputation beats high similarity”: Ibid. 209 “can actually help us overcome”: Ibid. 211 SoulCycle: SoulCycle, “All Studios,” accessed February 6, 2017, https://www.soul-cycle.com/studios/all. 217 But if it’s costly to switch: See, for instance, Paul Klemperer, “Markets with Consumer Switching Costs,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 102, no. 2 (1987): 375–94; and Joseph Farrell and Garth Saloner, “Installed Base and Compatibility: Innovation, Product Preannouncements, and Predation,” American Economic Review (1986): 940–55. 219 more than $15 billion in loans: Douglas MacMillan, “Uber Raises $1.15 Billion from First Leveraged Loan,” Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-raises-1-15-billion-from-first-leveraged-loan-1467934151. 221 The lodging-industry benchmarking company STR: Bill McBride, “Hotels: Occupancy Rate on Track to Be 2nd Best Year,” Calculated Risk (blog), October 17, 2016, http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2016/10/hotels-occupancy-rate-on-track-to-be_17.html. 221 In Los Angeles the daily hotel rate: Hugo Martin, “Airbnb Takes a Toll on the U.S.

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Arrow et al., “The Promise of Prediction Markets,” Science 320 (May 16, 2008): 877–78, http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/PromisePredMkt.pdf. 240 “Hello everybody out there using minix”: Derek Hildreth, “The First Linux Announcement from Linus Torvalds,” Linux Daily, April 15, 2010, http://www.thelinuxdaily.com/2010/04/the-first-linux-announcement-from-linus-torvalds. 241 over 1.5 billion Android phones and tablets: Linus Torvalds, “The Mind behind Linux,” TED Talk, February 2016, 21:30, https://www.ted.com/talks/linus_torvalds_the_mind_behind_linux?language=en. 241 11,800 individual developers: Linux Foundation, “Linux Kernel Development: How Fast It Is Going, Who Is Doing It, What They Are Doing, and Who Is Sponsoring It [2015],” accessed February 7, 2017, https://www.linux.com/publications/linux-kernel-development-how-fast-it-going-who-doing-it-what-they-are-doing-and-who. 241 including Samsung, IBM, Google, and Intel: Linux Foundation, “The Linux Foundation Releases Linux Development Report,” February 18, 2015, https://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2015/02/linux-foundation-releases-linux-development-report. 242 This was an early example: Tim O’Reilly, “What Is Web 2.0,” September 3, 2005, http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html. 242 “There was no intention behind”: Torvalds, “Mind behind Linux,” 21:30. 244 Raspbian: Raspbian.org, “Welcome to Raspbian,” accessed February 7, 2017, https://www.raspbian.org. 244 Raspberry Pi: Gavin Thomas, “Raspbian Explained,” Gadget [2015], accessed February 7, 2017, https://www.gadgetdaily.xyz/raspbian-explained. 244 “I am not a visionary”: Torvalds, “Mind behind Linux,” 17:00. 245 “is about really seeing”: Ibid., 21:30. 246 “sum of all human knowledge”: ARTFL Project, “Chambers’ Cyclopaedia,” accessed February 7, 2017, https://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/content/chambers-cyclopaedia. 246 “We wish editors to be true experts”: Karim R.

Humankind: A Hopeful History
by Rutger Bregman
Published 1 Jun 2020

After all, what could they possibly learn from guys sitting around like it was a country club?’16 That the Stanford Prison Experiment hasn’t been scrapped from the textbooks after confessions like this is bad enough. But it gets worse. In June 2013, French sociologist Thibault Le Texier stumbled across a TED Talk Zimbardo gave in 2009. As a part-time filmmaker, his attention was immediately caught by the images Zimbardo showed on screen. The raw footage of screaming students looked, to Le Texier’s practised eye, like perfect material for a gripping documentary. So he decided to do some research. Le Texier secured a grant from a French film fund and booked a flight to California.

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Snow, ‘Science and Government’, The Godkin Lectures (1960). 2David Hume, ‘Of the Independency of Parliament’, in Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1758, Part 1). 3See the famous poem by Bernard Mandeville ‘The Grumbling Hive: Or, Knaves turn’d Honest’, The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Public Benefits (1714). 4Marshall Sahlins, The Western Illusion of Human Nature (Chicago, 2008), pp. 72–6. 5His Holiness Pope Francis, ‘Why the Only Future Worth Building Includes Everyone’, TED Talks (April 2017). 6Ara Norenzayan, Big Gods (Princeton, 2013), p. 75. 7If you don’t believe it, this will set you straight: Hans Rosling, Factfulness. Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (New York, 2018). 8For an overview, see the first chapter of my previous book Utopia for Realists (London, 2017). 9See, for example, Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca, 1989), and Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism.

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Utopia for Realists was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and has been translated from the Dutch into thirty-two languages. He has twice been nominated for the prestigious European Press Prize for his work at The Correspondent, and his writing has also been featured in the Washington Post and the Guardian. His TED talk, ‘Poverty isn’t a lack of character; it’s a lack of cash’, has been viewed more than three million times. He was ranked number 10 in the Big Issue’s Top 100 Changemakers of 2020. @rcbregman | rutgerbregman.com BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 2019 in the Netherlands as De Meeste Mensen Deugen by De Correspondent First published in Great Britain 2020 This electronic edition published 2020 Copyright © Rutger Bregman, 2020 Translation © Elizabeth Manton and Erica Moore Rutger Bregman has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work All rights reserved.

This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race
by Nicole Perlroth
Published 9 Feb 2021

In January 2011 the three published a lengthy account of the worm in the Times, detailing Israeli involvement. Two months later, in March 2011, Ralph Langner was in Long Beach. He’d been asked to deliver a ten-minute talk breaking down the Stuxnet code at the annual TED ideas conference. Langner had never even heard of TED Talks; the entire concept behind it is antithetical to everything Germans stand for. Germans don’t do small talk, and they don’t do bullshit. Feel-good messages and blatant self-promotion have no place in Germany. Doing your job well is not a good reason to deliver a long, self-aggrandizing speech. That March, Langner was in the middle of a bitter divorce, and he figured a paid trip to California, and a few walks on the beach, might offer some respite.

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I would later describe some of my conversations with the Italians for an article I wrote with David Sanger for the Times: “Nations Buying as Hackers Sell Flaws in Computer Code,” in July 2013. David Sanger’s book Confront and Conceal is the most comprehensive account of Olympic Games/Stuxnet. Ralph Langner’s 2011 TED Talk remains one of the most accessible descriptions of Olympic Games/Stuxnet by a technical expert and can be viewed here: www.ted.com/talks/ralph_langner_cracking_stuxnet_a_21st_century_cyber_weapon#t-615276. I should note that some Israeli publications claim the name “Olympic Games” was a nod to the intelligence agencies of five countries—the U.S., Israel, the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK—but my sources dispute this and say it was a nod to five American and Israeli agencies who collaborated on the development and execution of the computer worm.

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Their analysis was later incorporated into a forensic dissection of Stuxnet by Carey Nachenberg at Stanford University Law School in 2012. I also must thank Ralph Langner, “The German,” for being so patient with me as I returned to this subject nearly a decade after he first started dissecting Stuxnet’s code. Langner’s 2011 Ted Talk on Stuxnet is still one of the most easily digestible analyses there is. It is available here: www.ted.com/talks/ralph_langner_cracking_stuxnet_a_21st_century_cyber_weapon?language=en. To this day, Iranian officials still maintain that they were able to uncover Stuxnet before it could wreak havoc.

The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning With the Myth of the Good Billionaire
by Tim Schwab
Published 13 Nov 2023

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and hundreds of other organizations signed a petition expressing concern about potential coercion in the project: “The Family Planning Summit must ensure that the clocks are not put back on women’s human rights: women’s autonomy and agency to decide freely on matters related to sexual and reproductive health without any discrimination, coercion or violence must be protected under all circumstances,” the petition read. Before the London summit, Gates gave a TED Talk in which she briefly acknowledged how numerical targets play into the history of eugenics, yet she made no effort to reconcile the numerical goals at the heart of FP2020: “Some family planning programs resorted to unfortunate incentives and coercive policies. For instance, in the 1960s India developed very specific numeric targets and they paid women to accept having an IUD placed in their bodies.”

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While public health experts raised concerns about the foundation’s takeover of the Covid-19 pandemic response and about its patent-forward, Big Pharma–friendly strategy, the news media clung to a hero narrative that portrayed Bill Gates as a visionary leader and generous philanthropist. Journalists widely cited a TED Talk he gave in 2015 about pandemics, bombastically reporting that Bill Gates had “predicted” the novel coronavirus outbreak. As the pandemic became a reality, few outlets had the presence of mind to ask the really obvious question: Should an unelected billionaire be given this much influence over a major global public health crisis?

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FP2020’s planning teams: Win Brown et al., “Developing the ‘120 by 20’ Goal for the Global FP2020 Initiative,” Studies in Family Planning 45, no. 1 (March 2014): 73–84, doi:10.1111/j.1728-4465.2014.00377.x; Anne Hendrixson, “Population Control in the Troubled Present: The ‘120 by 20’ Target and Implant Access Program,” Development and Change 50, no. 3 (2019): 786–804, https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12423. “London Olympics”: Gates, Moment of Lift. “women’s autonomy and agency”: Petition available at https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Civil-Society-Declaration_06_19_2012.pdf. gave a TED Talk: Melinda Gates, “Change the Big Picture,” Transcript, TEDx, April 12, 2012, https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/speeches/2012/04/melinda-gates-tedxchange-the-big-picture. one-and-done implant: David Bank, “Guaranteed Impact: Increasing Supplies and Cutting Prices for Contraceptives Without Spending a Dime,” in Stanford University with ImpactAlpha, Making Markets Work for the Poor, Supplement, Stanford Social Innovation Review (Summer 2016): 17.

Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan's Army Conquered the Web
by Cole Stryker
Published 14 Jun 2011

This kind of humor is just a sliver in the wider world of meme culture that he hopes to explore through ROFLCon and the Web Ecology Project. Naysayers look at something like the Xzibit meme and see a corny joke at best, but folks like Hwang see nothing less than tiny revolutions in entertainment, media, and human social interaction. Even moot showed up at the last ROFLCon after giving a TED Talk. In his book Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky argues that the web is making us smarter, collectively. Humanity is working together like never before, each individual contributing something so minute as a single correction to an obscure Wikipedia entry or a photograph uploaded to Flickr. Even our Google queries help the search giant perfect its algorithms.

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On top of that, collecting our actions elsewhere on the net—our browsing and our likes—and making that public, too, through Facebook, disturbed people even more. Where does it end? 4chan offers a place where people are completely in control of their identity, allowing for expressions of opinions without repercussions. In a 2010 TED Talk, Christopher Poole explained his view on anonymity: The greater good is being served here by allowing people—there are very few places now where you can go and be completely anonymous and say whatever you like. Saying whatever you like is powerful. Doing whatever you like is now crossing the line, but I think it’s important to have a place [like 4chan].

Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It.
by Mitch Joel
Published 20 May 2013

Technology is awesome, and it’s hard not to be impressed with the iPhone and the incredible computational power we have in the palms of our hands (and how it connects us all). Turkle suggests another perspective: Do we really think that digital will help us lead better lives? Shortly after attending the TED conference and discussing these topics with Turkle (which happened the night before her TED talk), I found myself at a party in Montreal for a new product launch. I got to the event a little early and instead of mingling, I retreated to a couch in the corner and the safety of my iPhone. There was nothing pressing in terms of emails or tweets for me to tend to; it was much more like a security blanket than anything else.

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David and his team have my best interests at heart, and that makes them a complete pleasure to work with. Chris Anderson, the TED team, and my fellow TEDsters. My first TED event was the last one held in Monterey. I’ve done my best to attend every TED since then. There are few events that rattle my brain and get me thinking more than TED. While billions of people have viewed the TED talks online, I often tell people that the presentations are a minor component of what makes TED so special. TED is more about the attendees and what happens in between the sessions than it is about the presentations. I’m sure many of the concepts and ideas I bring forward in Ctrl Alt Delete were formulated or percolated because of someone I met in a hallway at TED.

The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems-And Create More
by Luke Dormehl
Published 4 Nov 2014

If this is the case, are we to assume that the algorithm simply guessed what users would next want to search for, or that the users in fact made a certain selection because an algorithm had placed particular options in front of them? Here the question becomes almost irrelevant. As the sociologists William and Dorothy Thomas famously noted, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” Or to put it in the words Kevin Slavin memorably used during his TED Talk, “How Algorithms Shape Our World,” the math involved in such computer processes has transitioned from “something that we extract and derive from the world, to something that actually starts to shape it.”28 This can quite literally be the case. On September 6, 2008, an algorithm came dangerously close to driving United Airlines’ parent company UAL out of business.

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“Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s Notions of Objectivity.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 77, no. 4, January 1972. https://umdrive.memphis.edu/cbrown14/public/Mass%20Comm%20Theory/Week%2012%20Encoding/Tuchman%201972.pdf. 27 Mayer, Marissa. “Google I/O ’08 Keynote Address.” June 5, 2008. 28 Slavin, Kevin. “How Algorithms Shape Our World.” TED Talk, 2011. youtube.com/watch?v=ENWVRcMGDoU. Thomas, W. I., and D. S. Thomas. The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs (New York: Knopf, 1928). 29 “United Airlines Stock Decline & the Power of Google.” OneUpWeb. oneupweb.com/blog/united_airlines/. 30 Meiklejohn, Alexander. Political Freedom: The Constitutional Powers of the People (New York: Harper, 1960). 31 Resende, Patricia.

The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We've Lost in a World of Constant Connection
by Michael Harris
Published 6 Aug 2014

When the light changes in your peripheral vision, you must look at it because that could be the shadow of something that’s about to eat you. If a twig snaps behind you, ditto. Having evolved in an environment rife with danger and uncertainty, we are hardwired to always default to fast-paced shifts in focus. Orienting responses are the brain’s ever-armed alarm system and cannot be ignored. • • • • • This is why a TED Talk lecture, for example, can be even more engaging on your computer screen than it was in person. In a lecture hall, you are charged with mustering your own attention and holding it, whereas a video is constantly triggering your orienting response with changes in camera angle and lighting; it does these things to elicit attention out of you.

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MINIGEN A distinct group of people born within five years of one another. At the party, all the kids a minigen younger than me were obsessed with memes I’d never heard of. OVERSPIRE The experience of too much inspiration, resulting in no further gains in creativity. Over the weekend I watched a dozen TED Talks in a row and got this vaguely overspired feeling. PHONE BURROW The act of becoming dead to the world while pouring all attention into a phone. (Often more obvious in public spaces.) She froze in the intersection, dove into full phone burrow, and let her umbrella drop to the pavement. PHONE DODGE The act of compulsively checking one’s phone in an awkward situation.

Immortality, Inc.
by Chip Walter
Published 7 Jan 2020

The Wall Street Journal wrote, “If even one of [de Grey’s] proposals works, it could mean years of extended healthy living.” In 2010, Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Weiner was so captured by de Grey’s persona that he wrote a whole book, entitled Long for This World about the man and his revolutionary quests. De Grey’s TED Talks hit numbers that clocked in at the millions. He was even interviewed on 60 Minutes, sitting under the lights opposite Morley Safer, expostulating on the possibility of immortality, stroking his great beard and explaining how he had worked out his prescriptions for everlasting life—or as he liked to put it, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, or SENS.

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A PDF is available at arxiv.org/PS_cache/q-bio/pdf/0411/0411019v3.pdf. 13. The “e” or epsilon in the formula is a variable commonly used in mathematics that has negligible effect, but is often included. CHAPTER 20 14. You can also see examples of the Face Project’s results in Sabatini’s 2016 TED Talk here: ted.com/talks/riccardo_sabatini_how_to_read_the_genome_and_build_a_human_being. CHAPTER 22 15. Stamatis passed away February 3, 2013, 35 years after he was diagnosed with cancer. He was either 98 or 102. He was never sure of his exact birth date. For more, read pappaspost.com/remembering-stamatis-moraitis-man-almost-forgot-die.

The Smartphone Society
by Nicole Aschoff

See, for example, Toplensky, “EU Fines Google €2.4bn over Abuse of Search Dominance”; Waters, Toplensky, and Ram, “Brussels’ €2.4bn Fine Could Lead to Damages Cases and Probes in Other Areas of Search;” Barker and Khan, “EU Fines Google Record €4.3bn over Android.” 45. For a good synopsis of Pariser’s ideas, see Beware Online Filter Bubbles, video of TED Talk, https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en; see also Pariser, The Filter Bubble. 46. Zuckerberg himself used to refer to Facebook as a “social utility,” but in recent years he has eschewed this terminology, possibly because the implications of Facebook’s being a utility are far afield from his vision for the company. 47.

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Dobson, “Inside the Verdura Resort in Sicily, Home to Google’s Top Secret Summer Camp.” 55. Rushe, “Scholar Says Google Criticism Cost Him Job.” 56. Foroohar, “Big Tech’s Grip.” 57. Lears, Rebirth of a Nation, 298. Chapter 3: New Frontier 1. Bennett, “Kim Kardashian Just Wants to Be Seen.” 2. Kardashian, Selfish. 3. Gary Vaynerchuk, “Do What You Love (No Excuses!),” Ted Talk, Web 2.0 Expo, September 2008. 4. Burgess, Marwick, and Poell, SAGE Handbook of Social Media, introduction. 5. Rojek, Presumed Intimacy, 135. 6. Ling, New Tech, New Ties, 43. 7. Lewis and Jacobs, “How Business Is Capitalising on the Millennial Instagram Obsession.” 8. Lewis and Jacobs, “How Business Is Capitalising on the Millennial Instagram Obsession.” 9.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
by Bill Gates
Published 16 Feb 2021

So although I got more involved, I didn’t make it a top priority. When I could, I read and met with experts. I invested in some clean energy companies, and I put several hundred million dollars into starting a company to design a next-generation nuclear plant that would generate clean electricity and very little nuclear waste. I gave a TED talk called “Innovating to Zero!” But mostly, I kept my attention on the Gates Foundation’s work. Then, in the spring of 2015, I decided that I needed to do more and speak out more. I had been seeing news reports about college students around the United States who were holding sit-ins to demand that their schools’ endowments divest from fossil fuels.

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To anyone who knows the history of pandemics, the devastation caused by COVID-19 was not a surprise. I had been studying disease outbreaks for years as part of my interest in global health, and I had become deeply concerned that the world wasn’t ready to handle a pandemic like the 1918 flu, which killed tens of millions of people. In 2015, I had given a TED talk and several interviews in which I made the case that we needed to create a system for detecting and responding to big disease outbreaks. Other people, including former U.S. president George W. Bush, had made similar arguments. Unfortunately, the world did little to prepare, and when the novel coronavirus struck, it caused massive loss of life and economic pain such as we had not seen since the Great Depression.

To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death
by Mark O'Connell
Published 28 Feb 2017

He had started out in artificial intelligence research, he said, but now made his living as a keynote speaker at business conferences, informing corporations and business leaders of trends and technologies that were going to disrupt their particular sectors. He spoke as though he were doing a brisk and slightly distracted run-through of a TED talk; his physical gestures were both emphatic and relaxed, suggesting a resolute optimism toward a horizon of vast and terrible disruptions. He spoke to me of those changes and opportunities that were at hand, of a near future in which AI would revolutionize the financial sector, and in which a great many lawyers and accountants would become literally redundant, their expensive labor made superfluous by ever smarter computers; he spoke to me of a future in which the law itself would be inscribed in the mechanisms through which we act and live, in which cars would automatically fine their drivers for breaking speed limits: a future in which there would in fact be no need for such things as drivers, or car manufacturers, given that vehicles would soon be sailing calmly out of showrooms like ghost-ships, still warm from the 3D printer from which they had lately emerged, according to the precise specifications of the consumer for whose home or workplace they were now setting course.

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Max and Natasha Vita-More had both spoken approvingly of his work, as had Randal Koene; he had been the subject of a handful of books and documentaries, and of a profusion of variously credulous and dismissive newspaper articles. Among the ideas he had popularized (through, among other channels, a widely consumed 2005 TED talk) was something referred to as “longevity escape velocity.” This was the notion that the pace of technological advancement in the area of life extension would eventually increase to the point that, for every year that passes, average human life expectancy increases by more than a year—at which point, the theory goes, we put a comfortable distance between ourselves and our own mortality.

Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond
by Tamara Kneese
Published 14 Aug 2023

They had never even considered their legacy in the way that you’re framing it.” For what it’s worth, in my attempt to fit in with their schema, I titled my talk “Information Management and the Life Cycle.” 50. Prabhakar, “The Merging of Humans and Machines Is Happening Now.” 51. Farman, On Not Dying, 41–42. 52. Farman, On Not Dying, 41–42. 53. Gruber’s TED talk has been viewed more than two million times. Gruber, “How AI Can Enhance Our Memory.” 54. Gruber, “How AI Can Enhance Our Memory.” 55. Gruber, “How AI Can Enhance Our Memory.” 56. TEDx, “A Conversation about Conversational AI,” TEDxBeaconStreet, January 17, 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoCwsvIyp9Y.

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Counterproductive: Time Management in the Knowledge Economy. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2018. Grossman, Cathy Lynne. “Today We Are All Hokies on Facebook.” USA Today, April 17, 2007. usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2007-04-17-facebook_N.htm. Gruber, Tom. “How AI Can Enhance Our Memory, Work, and Social Lives.” TED talk (video), April 2017. www.ted.com/talks/tom_gruber_how_ai_can_enhance_our_memory_work_and_social_lives. Hafner, Katie. The Well: A Story of Love, Death, and Real Life in the Seminal Online Community. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2001. Haigh, Thomas. “Historical Reflections: The Immortal Soul of an Old Machine.”

The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-And How We Can Make It Better
by Annie Leonard
Published 22 Feb 2011

Quote appears on the Water Footprint website: waterfootprint.org/?page=files/home. 67. Bergkamp and Sadoff, “Water in a Sustainable Economy,” p. 114. 68. “Dublin Statements and Principles,” Global Water Partnership (gwpforum.org/servlet/PSP?iNodeID=1345). 69. Ray Anderson, “The business logic of sustainability,” TED talk filmed February 2009, posted May 2009 (ted.com/talks/ray_anderson_on_the_business_ logic_of_sustain ability.html). 70. Dirty Metals: Mining, Communities, and the Environment, Earthworks and Oxfam America, 2004, p. 4 (nodirtygold.org/pubs/DirtyMetals.pdf). 71. “Bingham Canyon Mine,” Wikipedia (wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingham_Canyon_Mine). 72.

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“Mobile Industry Unites to Drive Universal Charging Solution for Mobile Phones,” press release from the GSMA, February 17, 2009. GSMA (Groupe Special Mobile) is the association of the worldwide mobile communications industry. 185. Ibid. 186. Biomimicry Institute website: biomimicryinstitute.org. 187. Ibid. 188. Janine Benyus, “Janine Benyus shares nature’s designs,” TED talk filmed February 2005 (ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature _s_designs.html). Chapter 3: Distribution 1. Sarah Anderson, John Cavanagh, and Thea Lee, Field Guide to the Global Economy, rev. ed. (New York: New Press, 2005), p. 6. 2. Interview with Dara O’Rourke, April 2009. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5.

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Joel Makower, “Calculating the Gross National Trash,” March 17, 2009 (readjoel.com/joel_makower/2009/03/calculating-the-gross-national-trash.html). 12. Makower, “Industrial Strength Solution.” 13. Ibid. 14. “A Natural Step Network Case Study: Interface, Atlanta, Georgia,” The Natural Step (naturalstep.org/en/usa/interface-atlanta-georgia-usa). 15. Ray Anderson, “The business logic of sustainability,” TED talk filmed February 2009, posted May 2009 (ted.com/talks/ray_anderson_on_the_business_ logic_of_sustain ability.html). 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Charles Fishman, “Sustainable Growth—Interface, Inc.” Fast Company, December 18, 2007 (fastcompany.com/magazine/14/sustaing.html). 19. Kate Fletcher, Sustainable Fashion and Textiles (London: Earthscan, 2008), p. 158. 20.

Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things That Seem Impossible Today
by Jane McGonigal
Published 22 Mar 2022

At my lowest point, I decided to try to make a game to help myself heal. I used everything I knew about how games could increase motivation, optimism, attention, creativity, and collaboration to design some quests and challenges that might jump-start my brain back to a more hopeful and capable state. It worked. This game, called SuperBetter, became the subject of a TED talk with over seven million views, a best-selling book of the same title, and an app that has helped more than a million people tackle their own health challenges. But the only reason I had the confidence to tell anyone about this deeply personal game I made for myself, let alone make an app for others to try, was the previous experience I’d had sharing ideas with that CDC researcher.

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(For pointers on how to look for clues to the future, see chapter 6.) Commit to tracking a future force: Each scenario is inspired by real future forces that are already changing what’s possible today. Pick one of the forces listed in the scenario and make a commitment to learn more about it in the coming year. Find at least one book, podcast episode, TED talk, downloadable trend report, expert you can follow on social media, or newsletter you can subscribe to that will increase your understanding of this future force. (For more guidance on how to track a future force, see chapter 7.) Plan a micro-action: What’s one thing you could do to feel at least a little more prepared for this scenario if it were really to happen?

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Part One: This Is Your Brain on Discontinuity,” Snap Forward, June 28, 2021, https://alexsteffen.substack.com/p/when-it-gets-real. 20 Erik Hoel, “The Overfitted Brain: Dreams Evolved to Assist Generalization,” Patterns 2, no. 5 (May 2021): 100244, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100244. About the Author Jane McGonigal, PhD, is a future forecaster and game designer who creates games to improve real lives and solve real problems. She is the author of two New York Times bestselling books, Reality Is Broken and Super Better, and her TED talks on how gaming can make a better world have more than 15 million views. She was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; one of Fast Company’s Top 100 Creative People in Business; and one of the Top 35 Innovators Changing the World through Technology by MIT Technology Review. She is the Director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future, a nonprofit research group in Palo Alto, California. 1 For many people, imagination is a highly visual process—but this may not apply to everyone.

What's Mine Is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption Is Changing the Way We Live
by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers
Published 2 Jan 2010

The artist Chris Jordan talked about this idea during his talk at the TED conference (June 2008). The video can be viewed at www.ted.com/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats.html. 15. “Dixie Cup Company History,” Lafayette College Libraries (August 1995), www.lafayette.edu/∼library/special/dixie/company.html. 16. Jordan, TED talk. 17. Giles Slade, Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America (Harvard University Press, 2006), 25. 18. Susan Strasser, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash (Henry Holt and Company, 1999). Strasser talks at length about the connections of disposability and woman’s liberation. 19.

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Charles Fishman, “Sustainable Growth—Interface Inc.,” Fast Company (March 31, 1998), www.fastcompany.com/magazine/14/sustaing.html. 32. Walter R Stahel, The Industrial Green Game (National Academy Press, 1997), 91. 33. John Thackara, Inside the Bubble (MIT Press, 2006), 224. 34. Rifkin, The Age of Access, 93. 35. Fishman, “Sustainable Growth.” 36. Ray Anderson, “The Business Logic of Sustainability,” a TED talk (February 2009), www.ted.com/talks/ray_anderson_on_the_business_logic_of_sustainability.html. 1. “Largest Environmental Web Community in the World,” Freecycle press release (September 9, 2008), www.freecycle.org/pressreleases/08-09-09_Freecycle_press_release.pdf. 2. Statistics on membership numbers and group numbers retrieved from www.freecycle.org.

Lurking: How a Person Became a User
by Joanne McNeil
Published 25 Feb 2020

It was anonymous, but for a time it wasn’t quite leaderless—or public-figureless, rather. Christopher Poole (“moot”) came out as its founder in 2008, and provided the media with a perfect foil to Mark Zuckerberg—they looked alike-ish, while Poole held beliefs in direct contrast with the Facebook founder’s anti-privacy, one-identity inflexibility. In 2010, he even gave a TED talk entitled “The Case for Anonymity Online.” Zuckerberg and Poole also differed in wealth. Conference stipends only go so far, and meanwhile he was responsible for a website that made advertisers wary—4chan was just about impossible to monetize. Given his spotlight, compounded with decisions as a leader to comply with DMCA requests and turn over IP addresses to authorities, Poole lost the confidence of the 4chan community.

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I don’t know what to do about contrition, forgiveness, and redemption, any more than I know how to convince them to change. This net is cast so widely already, I’m not even sure who should be included—Trump voters? Yes, them, too. And some might change as a result of unsavory motivations. I find myself dreading who will be the first “cured all right” ex-alt-right guy to cash in on a hateful past—with book deals, TED talks, and CNN commentator gigs—parading through publicity infrastructures, their conversion enshrined as a media event. Anyone honest about stepping into the light would have to eschew all of this. To make a break from this past, one has to be humble and accountable, rather than shift to a new grift.

The Startup Wife
by Tahmima Anam
Published 2 Jun 2021

Was it when multiple “Cyrus Is the Messiah” fan sites popped up online, something that caused Jules and me and Destiny to laugh and Cyrus to scroll for hours, reading what people were saying about him? Right now Cyrus is in Washington, DC, giving a TED Talk entitled “Death: A Manual.” There are currently several hundred thousand people all over the world waiting for him to tell them how to die. After the TED Talk there will be interviews, and after the interviews someone will transcribe the talk, and then there will probably be a book. “How’s the warning system?” Jules asks. “For WAI or for the world?” “The world is fucked anyway.”

Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Published 20 Feb 2018

He speaks of “equality of races” and “economic equality,” but never goes out drinking with a minority cab driver (again, no real skin in the game, as, I will repeat until I am hoarse, the concept is fundamentally foreign to the IYI). The modern IYI has attended more than one TED talk in person or watched more than two TED talks on YouTube. Not only did he vote for Hillary Monsanto-Malmaison because she seemed electable or some such circular reasoning, but he holds that anyone who didn’t do so is mentally ill. The IYI mistakes the Near East (ancient Eastern Mediterranean) for the Middle East. The IYI has a copy of the first hardback edition of The Black Swan on his shelf, but mistakes absence of evidence for evidence of absence.

Thinking in Bets
by Annie Duke
Published 6 Feb 2018

Admitting that we don’t know has an undeservedly bad reputation. Of course, we want to encourage acquiring knowledge, but the first step is understanding what we don’t know. Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein’s book Ignorance: How It Drives Science champions the virtue of recognizing the limits of our knowledge. (You can get a taste of the book by watching his TED Talk, “The Pursuit of Ignorance.”) In the book and the talk, Firestein points out that in science, “I don’t know” is not a failure but a necessary step toward enlightenment. He backs this up with a great quote from physicist James Clerk Maxwell: “Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science.”

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For a treatment that more fully explores the differences between skill and luck, I recommend Michael Mauboussin’s The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing, along with other sources cited in the Selected Bibliography and Recommendations for Further Reading. * Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, is simultaneously a leading researcher in the discipline of behavioral economics and responsible for introducing millions of people to the practical aspects of behavioral economics through popular TED Talks, best-selling books, a blog, a card game, and even an app. His most popular book is titled Predictably Irrational. * I lifted these from an article by Robert MacCoun (described in the following paragraph) and repeat them without guilt. First, they are incredibly amusing and informative; the greater crime would be not sharing them.

Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?
by Aaron Dignan
Published 1 Feb 2019

Their policy of “who needs to know” no longer worked, because they didn’t know who needed to know. On more than one occasion they were this close to capturing or killing someone, only to find out that the target was working undercover and they were on the same side. With everything on the line, they completely changed their stance on information. In a recent TED Talk, McChrystal shared what they learned. “What we found is we had to change. We had to change our culture about information. We had to knock down walls. We had to share. We had to change from ‘Who needs to know?’ to . . . ‘Who doesn’t know?’ and we need to tell them, and tell them as quickly as we can.”

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It depends who you ask. A legacy economist might scoff, but a renegade economist such as Kate Raworth would say we have no choice. Raworth is part of a new movement in economics that’s questioning whether growth is truly the solution to all our problems, or if it might be time to transform our economic OS. In her 2018 TED Talk, she addressed traditional economic theory head on. “Twentieth-century economics assured us that if growth creates inequality, don’t try to redistribute, because more growth will even things up again. If growth creates pollution, don’t try to regulate, because more growth will clean things up again.

Outnumbered: From Facebook and Google to Fake News and Filter-Bubbles – the Algorithms That Control Our Lives
by David Sumpter
Published 18 Jun 2018

How often do you think you would get it right? The accuracy of a regression model based on Facebook data is very good. In eight out of nine attempts, the regression correctly identifies the political views of the Facebook user. The main group of likes that identify a Democrat were for Barack and Michelle Obama, National Public Radio, TED Talks, Harry Potter, the I Fucking Love Science webpage and liberal current affairs shows like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. Republicans like George W. Bush, the Bible, country and western music, and camping. It isn’t too surprising that Democrats like the Obamas and The Colbert Report or that many Republicans like George W.

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Science 354, no. 6312: aaf5239. 11 Tyson, G., Perta, V. C., Haddadi, H. and Seto, M. C. 2016. ‘A first look at user activity on Tinder.’ Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference pp. 461–6. IEEE. Chapter 11 : Bubbling Up 1 In his book and TED Talk on the filter bubble, Eli Pariser revealed the extent to which our online activities are personalised. Pariser, Eli. 2011. The Filter Bubble: How the new personalized web is changing what we read and how we think. Penguin. Google, Facebook and other big Internet companies store data documenting the choices we make when we browse online and then use it to decide what to show us in the future. 2 https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/04/news-feed-fyi-from-f8-how-news-feed-works 3 www.techcrunch.com/2016/09/06/ultimate-guide-to-the-news-feed 4 In the model, the probability a user chooses the Guardian at time t is equal to where G(t) is the number of times the user has already chosen the Guardian and T(t) is the number of times the user has chosen the Telegraph.

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
by Fareed Zakaria
Published 5 Oct 2020

The public took note, too. In 1994, Richard Preston’s best-selling book, The Hot Zone, detailed the origins of the Ebola virus. The 2011 film Contagion, inspired by the SARS epidemic of 2002–3 and the swine flu pandemic of 2009, imagined a virus that claimed 26 million lives around the world. In 2015, Bill Gates gave a TED Talk warning that “if anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus.” In 2017, he sounded the alarm louder, predicting in a speech at the Munich Security Conference that there was a reasonable chance that such a pandemic would erupt in the next ten to fifteen years.

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Julie Gratz (Scy-Chazelles, France: Centre européen Robert Schuman, 2011), http://www.centre-robert-schuman.org/userfiles/files/REPERES%20%E2%80%93%20module%201-1-1%20-%20explanatory%20notes%20%E2%80%93%20World%20War%20I%20casualties%20%E2%80%93%20EN.pdf. 7 called the Spanish flu not because it began in Spain: see John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (New York: Viking, 2004), 171. 7 how to treat this new infection: For more on the Spanish flu, see Barry, The Great Influenza, especially 353–58. 7 TED Talk warning: Bill Gates, “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready,” TED2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_next_outbreak_we_re_not_ready/transcript?language=en. 8 a speech at the Munich Security Conference: Bill Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, February 17, 2017, https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Speeches/2017/05/Bill-Gates-Munich-Security-Conference. 8 a segment of my CNN show: Fareed Zakaria, “Global Pandemic Possibility,” Fareed Zakaria GPS: Global Public Square, CNN, June 25, 2017, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1706/25/fzgps.01.html. 9 asymmetric shocks: For a treatment of historical pandemics as asymmetric shocks, see: Guido Alfani, “Pandemics and Asymmetric Shocks: Lessons from the History of Plagues,” VoxEU, Center for Economic Policy Research, April 9, 2020, https://voxeu.org/article/pandemics-and-asymmetric-shocks. 9 $5.4 trillion: Neta C.

The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet
by Arthur Turrell
Published 2 Aug 2021

Their arguments that nuclear fusion could help save the planet have stirred interest among the public. Sir Steve Cowley, a professor who now runs a star machine at Princeton University, has given a talk on fusion that has received more than half a million views; Taylor Wilson, who built his first fusion reactor at fourteen, has a TED Talk that’s racked up millions of views.10 Some fusion start-ups have tapped into the interest directly through crowdfunding websites.11 Even Hollywood has caught the fusion buzz: both Batman and Spider-Man have grappled with evil star machines. Whether all the talk about fusion has propelled fusion research or, rather, scientific breakthroughs have increased the chatter, there’s no question that the race to achieve fusion is heating up.

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“Boris Johnson Jokes About UK Being on the Verge of Nuclear Fusion,” New Scientist (2019), https://www.newscientist.com/article/2218570-boris-johnson-jokes-about-uk-being-on-the-verge-of-nuclear-fusion/#ixzz66tYUwh6k. 8. R. F. Post, “Controlled Fusion Research—An Application of the Physics of High Temperature Plasmas,” Reviews of Modern Physics 28 (1956): 338. 9. R. Herman, Fusion: The Search for Endless Energy (Cambridge University Press, 1990). 10. S. Cowley, “Fusion Is Energy’s Future,” TED Talk (2009). 11. “FOCUS FUSION: emPOWERtheWORLD,” IndieGoGo (2014), https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focus-fusion-empowertheworld--3\#. 12. J. Tirone, “Nuclear Fusion,” Bloomberg (2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/nuclear-fusion/2019/06/20/c6bd5682-938d-11e9-956a-88c291ab5c38_story.html. 13.

Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil
by Kenneth Cukier , Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Francis de Véricourt
Published 10 May 2021

On the limitation of crow cleverness: Alex H. Taylor et al., “Do New Caledonian Crows Solve Physical Problems Through Causal Reasoning?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 276, no. 1655 (January 22, 2009): 247–54. Crows versus other birds on dinner plates: The quip is inspired by Alison Gopnik’s delightful TED Talk. See: Alison Gopnik, “What Do Babies Think?,” filmed July 2011, TED video, https://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think. Pinker’s “cognitive niche”: The term is not Pinker’s per se, though he’s most closely associated with it. As he points out, the idea and phrase come from the anthropologists John Tooby and Irven DeVore.

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See also: Ian MacLeod, “Chalk River’s Toxic Legacy,” Ottawa Citizen, December 16, 2011, https://ottawacitizen.com/news/chalk-rivers-toxic-legacy; Arthur Milnes, “Jimmy Carter’s Exposure to Nuclear Danger,” CNN, April 5, 2011, https://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/05/milnes.carter.nuclear/index.html. On simulated surgery: Peter Weinstock gave a TED Talk on his approach and in a talk for OPENPediatrics. Peter Weinstock, “Lifelike Simulations That Make Real-Life Surgery Safer,” filmed January 2016, TED video, https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_weinstock_lifelike_simulations_that_make_real_life_surgery_safer/; Building an Enterprise-Wide Simulation 2.0 Program: Part 1 “Rationale, Origins and Frameworks,” OPENPediatrics, YouTube video, 35:48, November 26, 2018.

Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves From the American Dream
by Alissa Quart
Published 14 Mar 2023

She read Sandberg’s book and was allured by its photo of the author smiling demurely, dressed in business casual. She watched Sandberg’s TED talk on women’s leadership, where the speaker opined on why there are so few women leaders while gesticulating with semaphore-like precision. (My favorite parody of a line from one of these ubiquitous talks appeared in an article by the scholar Jedediah Britton-Purdy: “‘Hello, there is literally nothing we can do to change the course of this global death cult, thank you for coming to my TED talk.’”) In that talk, Sandberg recounted her experience “pitching a deal” in a private equity office where she realized that she may have been “the only woman to have pitched a deal in this office in a year,” all to illustrate that only 15 percent of women make it to the “C-suite” and also, presumably, that Sandberg herself had made it.

Vassal State
by Angus Hanton
Published 25 Mar 2024

Available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/816/816-h/816-h.htm. 11 Quoted in Mark Thompson, ‘Some GOP candidates seem to prefer howitzers to humiliation’, Time (15 January 2016), https://time.com/4182006/republican-debate-iran-sailors/. 12 For the figure of $8–12 trillion, see ‘“There’s a better way to do it – find it”: a Thomas Edison TED talk by John Keegan’ [video], Edison Innovation Foundation [website], https://www.edisonmuckers.org/ted-talk-on-thomas-edison/. 13 ‘Grants & funding’, National Institutes of Health [website], https://www.nih.gov/grants-funding. 14 For solar cells, see ‘This month in physics history: April 25, 1954: Bell Labs demonstrates the first practical silicon solar cell’, American Physical Society [website] (April 2009), https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200904/physicshistory.cfm. 15 For $717 billion, see Alexander Rhodes, ‘United States exceeds $700 billion in gross domestic expenditures on R&D in 2020’, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics [website] (22 June 2023), https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23346. 16 Einar H.

Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the Surveillance State
by Barton Gellman
Published 20 May 2020

Snowden not only could speak and listen, see and be seen, but move around a room or down a hallway. He controlled the motion with the arrows on his keyboard. The effect reminded me of Rosie, the household robot in the Jetsons cartoons. In March 2014, Snowden made his public debut with a BeamPro by giving a TED Talk in Vancouver, pivoting between the moderator and his audience. I had to go meet the Snowbot. On the day I arrived at the sleek New York headquarters of the ACLU, which represented Snowden, he had already spent hours at the office from thousands of miles away. He attended and participated in a moot court held in preparation for appellate arguments coming soon in ACLU v.

…

Bill (char.), 213 Mueller, Robert, 82, 227 on panel with BG, 249–50 Russian interference investigation of, 322 Mukasey, Michael, permissive data collection rules approved by, 176 MUSCULAR project, 299–300, 311, 315 Muslims, slurs against, 211–12 My Country, My Country (film), 5 Nación, La, 257 Nakashima, Ellen, 190 National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, 75 National Reconnaissance Office, 75 national security: changing targets of, 345 harm vs. public accountability in, 183, 258–71, 304, 305, 334–36 see also secrecy, government National Security Agency (NSA): access control system of, 67 active directory profiles at, 71–72 annual cyberweapons conference of, see Jamboree Application Vulnerabilities Branch of, 79 as banned from domestic surveillance, 70, 125 cover names used by, see cover names cultural and ethnic slurs in teaching materials of, 211–12 data collection by, see data collection, by NSA defend and attack as twin missions of, 117, 384 ES’s leaks of top secret files of, see Pandora archive ES’s proposed EPICSHELTER system for, 59–60, 61 ES’s release of files of, xii evolution of, 309–10 foreign surveillance by, see surveillance, foreign Google cloud penetrated by, 279–88, 297–302, 408 Information Assurance Directorate of, 84, 117 information dominance as goal of, 188 iPhone security preoccupation of, 215–20 Kunia center of, see Kunia Regional Security Operations Center Large Access Exploitation working group of, 317 latent power of, as inherent threat, 345–46 mass surveillance by, xv, 2, 285–88, 307 misfiling of restricted material at, 68–72 mix of civilian and military employees at, 193 outward-facing cyber security of, 72 Pacific Technical Center (Yokota) of, 57–58 PKI certificates and, 67 Q Group of, 1, 361–62 Remote Operations Center (ROC) of, 82, 194, 200, 220 Rochefort command center of, 32, 83, 369 secrecy culture of, xv self-policing by, 161 Shadow Brokers leak and, 268 Special Source Operations of, 316 Tailored Access Operations (TAO) of, 81–83, 200, 204, 214 telecoms’ relations with, 311 Tor anonymity protection broken by, 79–81 Unified Targeting Tool of, 86 XKEYSCORE tool of, 86, 87, 330, 331 Yahoo penetration by, 299–300 see also specific programs National Security Agency (NSA), hacker culture of, 189, 192–94, 200–213, 219 Clapper on, 214 cover names as clues to, 203–4, 206–7, 208–10 memes circulated in, 192, 210–11 STRAWHORSE and, 216–20 National Security Agency (NSA), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Directorate, 84, 117–18, 176, 184–85, 188, 212 leaks and, 272–73 S2 (analysis and production division), 118 S3 (acquisition division), 118, 199 national security letters, 14, 248 National Threat Operations Center (NTOC), 34, 83–88, 193–94 domestic surveillance by, 85–86 ES’s training at, 85–86 Naval Research Laboratory, U.S., 7 Negroponte, John, 161, 181, 184 in Aspen Security Forum panel with BG, 155–66 NSA call data collection defended by, 157–58 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 342, 380, 410 New York Times, 56, 92, 123, 175, 288 BG’s decision not to offer NSA story to, 97–98 Pentagon Papers published by, 380 warrantless wiretap story delayed by, 97, 381 Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, 197 Nixon, Richard, 180, 308 No Place to Hide (Greenwald), 138 NSANet, 10, 75, 77 NSA Round Table, 208 NTOC, see National Threat Operations Center Oath, The (film), 5 Obama, Barack, 55–56, 249, 368 Obama administration, FISA amendments defended by, 126 Oberdorfer, Don, 91 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 87, 227 Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, 277 Ohm, Paul, 167 OkCupid, 236, 237 Osborne, Jared, 215 Otakon, 43 overcollection, 343–44 Pahlavi, Mohammed Reza Shah, 195 Pandora, myth of, 27 Pandora archive, xii, 2, 99, 202–3 BG as subject of files in, 221–22, 272, 274 BG’s backup drive of, 99–100, 102, 114–15, 245–46, 382 denial and deception folder in, 224–25 harm to NSA operations caused by publication of, 265–67 journalists’ decision not to publish some material from, 260, 269 massive size of, 22–25, 377 possible foreign penetration of, 241–42 README files in, 27–28, 256, 326–27 scattered clues to NSA’s Google cloud hack in, 283 security measures surrounding access to, 198, 237, 238–40 see also specific files and programs Panetta, Leon, 249 Patinkin, Mandy, 308–9 Paul, Ron, 64 Pelosi, Nancy, 331 Pentagon Papers, 92, 288, 379–80 PKI (public key infrastructure), 67, 78 Playing to the Edge (Hayden), 309 Poitras, Laura, 79, 104, 113, 120, 130, 213, 241, 255, 327 Alexander’s proposed raid on, 245–46, 247, 248, 249 and BG’s decision to take NSA story to Post, 98 BG’s first meeting with, 4–7 BG’s relationship with, 108 cryptographic signature issue and, 131–32 customs interrogations of, 5, 364 cyber security measures of, 2–4, 361, 362, 363 in decision not to publish some Pandora material, 269 ES documentary by, see Citizen Four ES’s leaks to, 1–2, 361 ES’s public announcement filmed by, 133–34, 148 ES’s relationship with, xiii and ES’s wiretapping claims, 329 filmmaking career of, 5 in first discussions with BG about NSA leaks, 8–11 on Greenwald, 138 in Hong Kong meeting with ES, 138, 347 Hong Kong trip postponed by, 135–36 in joint investigation with BG, 11 as possessing NSA documents not seen by BG, 330 Poulsen, Kevin, 234 power, information as, xvi precomputation, MAINWAY’s use of, 173–76 President’s Daily Brief, 121 Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software, 365, 404 PRISM, 2, 22, 84, 87, 99, 104, 117, 331, 362 access to internet companies’ data by, 121–22, 124 capabilities and scope of, 121–22, 123–24, 340–41 data on U.S. persons acquired and retained by, 126, 340–41 and direct access to internet companies’ servers, 147–48 ES’s desire for quick publication of, 105 Google and, 283, 285, 300 government objection to revealing internet companies’ cooperation with, 146–47 internet companies and, 111–12 low threshold of evidence for targeting by, 125–26 mass surveillance distinguished from, 124–25 Provider List of, 119 targets of, 112 valuable intelligence uncovered by, 145 Yahoo and, 300 PRISM slide show files, 119–20 cryptographic signature on, 128–29 privacy, digital: cellphones and, 318–20, 325 cryptography and, 8, 350–52 cypherpunks’ obsession with, 7–8 digital trails, xvi, 3, 6 internet’s cost to, 6–7 and NSA’s ability to unmask names in data collection, 342–43 overcollection and, 343–44 right to vs. need for intelligence gathering, 313–14 Soltani as specialist in, 196–97 of U.S. persons, impact of NSA foreign surveillance on, 287–88, 338–44 Privacy Act, BG and, 276 Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, 180 private keys, 4, 105, 258, 404 probable cause, border searches and, 6 “Project Frankie,” 61 Protect America Act (2007), 111, 123, 338 QUANTUM, 199 Rabin, Yitzhak, 10 radiation, deliberate exposures of U.S. troops to, 262 RAGTIME, 122 Rasmussen, Nicholas, 312 Reagan, Ronald, 282 reasonable articulable suspicion, 126 Reddit, 192, 193 relevance, Patriot Act as perversion of legal standard of, 143–44 remote-access trojan (RAT), 235 Remote Operations Center (ROC), 82, 194, 200, 220 Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 276 Rhodes, Ben, 141 Rick (PRISM program manager), 117–18, 125 on scope of PRISM program, 121, 123–24 slide show created by, 119–20 Risen, James, prosecution of, 242–43, 403 Rodriguez, Jose, 186 Rogers, Clyde, 216, 217 Romero, Anthony, 152 Russia, ES’s denial of relationship with, xiv–xv, 292–94 Ryuhana Press, 43 S3283, 202–4 Sandia National Laboratories, 215, 216, 217 Sandvik, Runa: ES’s emails with, 65 Kunia cryptoparty cohosted by, 65–66 Saturday Night Live (TV show), 213 Savage, Charlie, 140 Sayre, Valerie, 302 Schindler, John, 282 Schmidt, Eric, xvi, 111 Schneier, Bruce, 323 Schwalb, Larry, 241 secrecy, government: and BG’s decision not to publish some Pandora material, 260 BG’s longstanding concern with, 262 BG’s Martian parable about, 258–59 classification levels of, 25, 67, 95, 265 conflict of core values in, 267 espionage vs. leaks of, 275–76 harm vs. public accountability in exposure of, 183, 258–71, 304, 305, 334–36 Hayden’s defense of, 325 human rights abuses and, 262–63 as inherent in surveillance state, xii, xv, 28 intelligence community’s opposition to exposure of, 260 journalists and revelation of, 267–68 see also classified materials Secrecy (documentary), 273–74 SecureDrop, 234–35 self-government, secrecy and, 267 sensitive compartmented information (SCI), 25 see also TS/SCI (Top Secret/sensitive compartmented information) clearance September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, xvi, 70, 75, 122, 168–69, 222, 338 expansion of surveillance state after, xi servers, ES’s early interest in, 37–38 Sessions, Jeff, 205, 249 sexually transmitted diseases, unethical experiments with, 262 sexual metaphors, in cover names, 203–4 Shadow Brokers leak, 268 Sheremetyevo Airport, ES’s detention at, 226–27, 293 Sigdev (signals development), 214–15 SIGINT (signals intelligence), xii, 84, 266 active vs. passive, 309 constant flux in, 266 viewed as top priority by NSA, 184–85 SIM cards, xvii Simon, Barry, 133 “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” (parlor game), 159–60 Six Degrees of Separation (Guare), 159 Skype, 112, 121 smartphones: as subject to customs searches, 5–6, 364–65 as tracking devices, 4 Smith, Brad, 301, 314–15 Snowden, Edward (ES): accused of breaking “sacred oath,” 182 anonymous proxies as early interest of, 45 army injury and discharge of, 47–48 as Army Special Forces recruit, 46–47 Ars Technica posts of, 37–38, 42–43, 50, 51, 54, 56 in Asia, 84 asylum plans of, 129–30 background of, 32–33 BeamPro used by, 320–21 BG convinced of general reliability of, 11, 332–33 BG first contacted by, xvii BG interrogated on journalistic principles by, 13–14 BG’s and Poitras’s commitment doubted by, 11–12, 137 BG’s conversations with, 225–27, 229, 259 and BG’s decision to take NSA story to Post, 98 BG’s independence doubted by, 15–16 BG’s interviews with, 73–74, 88 and BG’s need to authenticate leaked documents, 18–19 BG’s participation accepted by, 16 BG’s photographing of, 252–54 BG’s relationship with, xiii–xiv, 108 BG’s secure video and digital contacts with, xiv–xv blackmail as motive for NSA surveillance discounted by, 290 as Booz Allen contractor at NTOC, 83–88 Booz Allen test-system proposal of, 62–63 on changing targets of national security, 345 character and personality of, xiii childhood and adolescence of, 38–45 Churchyard code name of, 54 as CIA employee, 51–57 CIA methods as troubling to, 55–56 CIA tradecraft training of, 52–54 as contractor at CIA headquarters, 49–50 in conversation with NSA intern about Tor vulnerabilities, 80–81 costs vs. benefits of leaks by, xv, 21 as cyber security conference instructor, 57–59 cyber security tradecraft of, 2–4 “dead man’s switch” and, 64, 256–58, 328, 332 as Dell liaison with CIA, 61–62 Ecuador as intended destination of, 307 Ellsberg compared with, 295–96 Ellsberg’s online conversation with, 289–95 encrypted NSA files sent to BG without keys by, 328, 332 EPICSHELTER system designed by, 59–60, 61 epilepsy diagnosed in, 34, 64, 370 on Espionage Act, 292 exaggerated claims of, 63–64 in flight to Hong Kong, 27, 88, 307 in flight to Moscow, xi on foreigners’ right to privacy, 291–92 gaming of tests as talent of, 42 GED diploma of, 40–41 government disparagement of, 40, 51–52, 86–87, 134 government’s standoff with, 352–53 Greenwald and, see Greenwald, Glenn hacker mindset of, 40 as having accomplished his goals, 255–56, 308 Heartbeat program of, see Heartbeat identity disclosed by, 28–29 importance of cryptographic signature to, 105–6, 128–30, 137, 386–87 importance of leaks by, xii instrumental approach to truth by, 324–26, 332–33 IQ score of, 38–39 on journalists’ overdedication to provable facts, 324–26 Kunia assignment of, see Kunia Regional Security Operations Center leaks to Poitras and BG by, see Pandora archive libertarian politics of, 55, 64–65 marriage of Mills and, 353 memoir of, 50–51 Microsoft systems engineer certification of, 42 in Moscow, see Moscow motives of, 28, 290–91, 304, 335–36 on NSA penetration of Google cloud, 285 on NSA’s latent power as inherent threat, 345–46 on NSA’s sexual metaphors, 204 personal attacks anticipated by, 19 Poitras and, see Poitras, Laura on political use of hacked documents, 322 possible harm from publication of Pandora files dismissed by, 265–66 PRISM slide show files uncovered by, 120 public announcement of identity of, 148–49 quick publication of NSA documents sought by, 105, 127–28, 306, 327 on revealing secrets, 259 revoked passport of, 227, 307 role-playing and fantasy interests of, 43–44 Russian relationship denied by, xiv–xv, 292–94 security credentials of, 67–68 security guard job of, 48–49 as self-taught polymath, 40, 41 Sheremetyevo Airport detention of, 226–27, 293 size of data leaks by, 73 TAO job offer rejected by, 82–83, 204 Tekken obsession of, 44–45 Tor used by, 79–81 treason charges against, 334 TS/SCI clearance of, 48 Verax as cover name of, xvii, 226 in virtual chat with Homeland cast and crew, 303–9, 320 virtual TED Talk given by, 321 Washington Post distrusted by, 11 wiretapping of Congress and Supreme Court claimed by, 326–32 Snowden, Elizabeth, 38 Snowden, Jessica, 39 Snowden, Lonnie G., Jr., 38, 57, 251 Snowden archive, see Pandora archive social graphs, 159, 163 social justice, 345 social media, memes on, 192, 210 social networks, mapping of, MAINWAY as tool for, 170–77 Soghoian, Christopher, 319 Soltani, Ashkan: background of, 195–96 as BG’s guide to hacking culture, 191 digital privacy as specialty of, 196–98 in E.O. 12333 investigations, 315, 318, 324 Google cloud story and, 279–81, 297–300 hacker background of, 189–90 on hacker culture, 208 Pandora archive and, 189–91, 198–99, 238–39, 340 Pandora security and, 238–39 suspected attempt at honey trapping of, 236–37 South China Morning Post, 84 Special Forces, U.S., 212 Special Operations Command, U.S., 151 Special Source Operations, 191 spiders (tools in networked computing), 76 Spiegel, Der, 182 Spotlight (film), 104 SSL (secure sockets layers), 280, 297 STARBURST, 70 Star Trek (TV series), 210 State Department, U.S., ES’s passport revoked by, 227, 307 STELLARWIND (domestic surveillance program), 26, 122, 170 as illegal domestic surveillance, 169, 175 NSA inspector general’s report on, 70–71 STRAWHORSE, 216–20 Suitable Tech Inc., 320 Supreme Court, U.S., ES’s claims of having wiretapped, 326–32 surveillance: authority (legal basis) for, 86–88 BG’s increasing preoccupation with, 234–35, 238–42, 255 Church on inherent threat of, 346 cryptography as counterforce to, 350–52 difficulty in scaling back technology of, 349–50 NSA’s ability to unmask names in, 342–43 possible misuse of, 347–49, 350 post-9/11 expansion of, xi secrecy as inherent in, xii, xv, 28 surveillance, domestic: breakdown of divide between foreign and, xii, 338–39 mass, 143 NSA as banned from, 125 warrantless, 9, 26, 70, 97, 122–23, 142, 156, 157, 169, 263 surveillance, foreign: breakdown of distinction between domestic and, xii, 338–39 data on U.S. persons collected by, 287–88, 335–36, 337–46 “Surveillance Self-Defense” (Electronic Frontier Foundation), 365 Swartz, Aaron, 234 Taguba, Antonio, 262 Tailored Access Operations (TAO), 81–83, 200, 204, 214 cover support for, 201–2 Tate, Julie, 107, 190, 269, 271, 340 TECHEXPO Top Secret, 49 TED Talk, ES’s virtual, 321 Tekken, 44–45 Tekserve, 233–34 telecommunications companies: NSA given access to data by, 111–12, 142, 199, 310 NSA’s relations with, 311 see also internet companies Terminator films, 322 “terrorist,” definition of, 113 TheTrueHOOHA (ES’s Ars Technica handle), 37 Thompson, Ken, 217 Time, 8 NSA story declined by, 93–97 Time Inc., 94–95 Tisinger, Jeanne, 62 Top Secret classification, 25, 67 legal standard for, 265 Top Secret clearance, 67 Tor Project, 65 ES’s use of, 79–81 NSA’s breaking of anonymity protection of, 79–81 traffic shaping, 200 Travis, Debra, 233 “treason,” constitutional definition of, 334 Trump, Donald, 162, 181, 205, 246, 247, 249 Clapper attacked by, 349 espionage charges brought against Assange by, 261 governing norms ignored by, 347–48 trust: government and, 180–84 NSA data collection and, 164 TS/SCI (Top Secret/sensitive compartmented information) clearance, 25, 36 TS/SCI networks, 77 Tu, Alan, 193–94, 265 in NSA hacker culture, 194 on NSA’s sexual metaphors, 204 TURMOIL, 299 Turner, Shawn, 142, 144, 246, 270 Underground Railroad, 345 Unified Targeting Tool, 124–25 United Kingdom, Official Secrets Act of, 275 United States v.

…

Bill (char.), 213 Mueller, Robert, 82, 227 on panel with BG, 249–50 Russian interference investigation of, 322 Mukasey, Michael, permissive data collection rules approved by, 176 MUSCULAR project, 299–300, 311, 315 Muslims, slurs against, 211–12 My Country, My Country (film), 5 Nación, La, 257 Nakashima, Ellen, 190 National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, 75 National Reconnaissance Office, 75 national security: changing targets of, 345 harm vs. public accountability in, 183, 258–71, 304, 305, 334–36 see also secrecy, government National Security Agency (NSA): access control system of, 67 active directory profiles at, 71–72 annual cyberweapons conference of, see Jamboree Application Vulnerabilities Branch of, 79 as banned from domestic surveillance, 70, 125 cover names used by, see cover names cultural and ethnic slurs in teaching materials of, 211–12 data collection by, see data collection, by NSA defend and attack as twin missions of, 117, 384 ES’s leaks of top secret files of, see Pandora archive ES’s proposed EPICSHELTER system for, 59–60, 61 ES’s release of files of, xii evolution of, 309–10 foreign surveillance by, see surveillance, foreign Google cloud penetrated by, 279–88, 297–302, 408 Information Assurance Directorate of, 84, 117 information dominance as goal of, 188 iPhone security preoccupation of, 215–20 Kunia center of, see Kunia Regional Security Operations Center Large Access Exploitation working group of, 317 latent power of, as inherent threat, 345–46 mass surveillance by, xv, 2, 285–88, 307 misfiling of restricted material at, 68–72 mix of civilian and military employees at, 193 outward-facing cyber security of, 72 Pacific Technical Center (Yokota) of, 57–58 PKI certificates and, 67 Q Group of, 1, 361–62 Remote Operations Center (ROC) of, 82, 194, 200, 220 Rochefort command center of, 32, 83, 369 secrecy culture of, xv self-policing by, 161 Shadow Brokers leak and, 268 Special Source Operations of, 316 Tailored Access Operations (TAO) of, 81–83, 200, 204, 214 telecoms’ relations with, 311 Tor anonymity protection broken by, 79–81 Unified Targeting Tool of, 86 XKEYSCORE tool of, 86, 87, 330, 331 Yahoo penetration by, 299–300 see also specific programs National Security Agency (NSA), hacker culture of, 189, 192–94, 200–213, 219 Clapper on, 214 cover names as clues to, 203–4, 206–7, 208–10 memes circulated in, 192, 210–11 STRAWHORSE and, 216–20 National Security Agency (NSA), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Directorate, 84, 117–18, 176, 184–85, 188, 212 leaks and, 272–73 S2 (analysis and production division), 118 S3 (acquisition division), 118, 199 national security letters, 14, 248 National Threat Operations Center (NTOC), 34, 83–88, 193–94 domestic surveillance by, 85–86 ES’s training at, 85–86 Naval Research Laboratory, U.S., 7 Negroponte, John, 161, 181, 184 in Aspen Security Forum panel with BG, 155–66 NSA call data collection defended by, 157–58 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 342, 380, 410 New York Times, 56, 92, 123, 175, 288 BG’s decision not to offer NSA story to, 97–98 Pentagon Papers published by, 380 warrantless wiretap story delayed by, 97, 381 Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, 197 Nixon, Richard, 180, 308 No Place to Hide (Greenwald), 138 NSANet, 10, 75, 77 NSA Round Table, 208 NTOC, see National Threat Operations Center Oath, The (film), 5 Obama, Barack, 55–56, 249, 368 Obama administration, FISA amendments defended by, 126 Oberdorfer, Don, 91 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 87, 227 Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, 277 Ohm, Paul, 167 OkCupid, 236, 237 Osborne, Jared, 215 Otakon, 43 overcollection, 343–44 Pahlavi, Mohammed Reza Shah, 195 Pandora, myth of, 27 Pandora archive, xii, 2, 99, 202–3 BG as subject of files in, 221–22, 272, 274 BG’s backup drive of, 99–100, 102, 114–15, 245–46, 382 denial and deception folder in, 224–25 harm to NSA operations caused by publication of, 265–67 journalists’ decision not to publish some material from, 260, 269 massive size of, 22–25, 377 possible foreign penetration of, 241–42 README files in, 27–28, 256, 326–27 scattered clues to NSA’s Google cloud hack in, 283 security measures surrounding access to, 198, 237, 238–40 see also specific files and programs Panetta, Leon, 249 Patinkin, Mandy, 308–9 Paul, Ron, 64 Pelosi, Nancy, 331 Pentagon Papers, 92, 288, 379–80 PKI (public key infrastructure), 67, 78 Playing to the Edge (Hayden), 309 Poitras, Laura, 79, 104, 113, 120, 130, 213, 241, 255, 327 Alexander’s proposed raid on, 245–46, 247, 248, 249 and BG’s decision to take NSA story to Post, 98 BG’s first meeting with, 4–7 BG’s relationship with, 108 cryptographic signature issue and, 131–32 customs interrogations of, 5, 364 cyber security measures of, 2–4, 361, 362, 363 in decision not to publish some Pandora material, 269 ES documentary by, see Citizen Four ES’s leaks to, 1–2, 361 ES’s public announcement filmed by, 133–34, 148 ES’s relationship with, xiii and ES’s wiretapping claims, 329 filmmaking career of, 5 in first discussions with BG about NSA leaks, 8–11 on Greenwald, 138 in Hong Kong meeting with ES, 138, 347 Hong Kong trip postponed by, 135–36 in joint investigation with BG, 11 as possessing NSA documents not seen by BG, 330 Poulsen, Kevin, 234 power, information as, xvi precomputation, MAINWAY’s use of, 173–76 President’s Daily Brief, 121 Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software, 365, 404 PRISM, 2, 22, 84, 87, 99, 104, 117, 331, 362 access to internet companies’ data by, 121–22, 124 capabilities and scope of, 121–22, 123–24, 340–41 data on U.S. persons acquired and retained by, 126, 340–41 and direct access to internet companies’ servers, 147–48 ES’s desire for quick publication of, 105 Google and, 283, 285, 300 government objection to revealing internet companies’ cooperation with, 146–47 internet companies and, 111–12 low threshold of evidence for targeting by, 125–26 mass surveillance distinguished from, 124–25 Provider List of, 119 targets of, 112 valuable intelligence uncovered by, 145 Yahoo and, 300 PRISM slide show files, 119–20 cryptographic signature on, 128–29 privacy, digital: cellphones and, 318–20, 325 cryptography and, 8, 350–52 cypherpunks’ obsession with, 7–8 digital trails, xvi, 3, 6 internet’s cost to, 6–7 and NSA’s ability to unmask names in data collection, 342–43 overcollection and, 343–44 right to vs. need for intelligence gathering, 313–14 Soltani as specialist in, 196–97 of U.S. persons, impact of NSA foreign surveillance on, 287–88, 338–44 Privacy Act, BG and, 276 Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, 180 private keys, 4, 105, 258, 404 probable cause, border searches and, 6 “Project Frankie,” 61 Protect America Act (2007), 111, 123, 338 QUANTUM, 199 Rabin, Yitzhak, 10 radiation, deliberate exposures of U.S. troops to, 262 RAGTIME, 122 Rasmussen, Nicholas, 312 Reagan, Ronald, 282 reasonable articulable suspicion, 126 Reddit, 192, 193 relevance, Patriot Act as perversion of legal standard of, 143–44 remote-access trojan (RAT), 235 Remote Operations Center (ROC), 82, 194, 200, 220 Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 276 Rhodes, Ben, 141 Rick (PRISM program manager), 117–18, 125 on scope of PRISM program, 121, 123–24 slide show created by, 119–20 Risen, James, prosecution of, 242–43, 403 Rodriguez, Jose, 186 Rogers, Clyde, 216, 217 Romero, Anthony, 152 Russia, ES’s denial of relationship with, xiv–xv, 292–94 Ryuhana Press, 43 S3283, 202–4 Sandia National Laboratories, 215, 216, 217 Sandvik, Runa: ES’s emails with, 65 Kunia cryptoparty cohosted by, 65–66 Saturday Night Live (TV show), 213 Savage, Charlie, 140 Sayre, Valerie, 302 Schindler, John, 282 Schmidt, Eric, xvi, 111 Schneier, Bruce, 323 Schwalb, Larry, 241 secrecy, government: and BG’s decision not to publish some Pandora material, 260 BG’s longstanding concern with, 262 BG’s Martian parable about, 258–59 classification levels of, 25, 67, 95, 265 conflict of core values in, 267 espionage vs. leaks of, 275–76 harm vs. public accountability in exposure of, 183, 258–71, 304, 305, 334–36 Hayden’s defense of, 325 human rights abuses and, 262–63 as inherent in surveillance state, xii, xv, 28 intelligence community’s opposition to exposure of, 260 journalists and revelation of, 267–68 see also classified materials Secrecy (documentary), 273–74 SecureDrop, 234–35 self-government, secrecy and, 267 sensitive compartmented information (SCI), 25 see also TS/SCI (Top Secret/sensitive compartmented information) clearance September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, xvi, 70, 75, 122, 168–69, 222, 338 expansion of surveillance state after, xi servers, ES’s early interest in, 37–38 Sessions, Jeff, 205, 249 sexually transmitted diseases, unethical experiments with, 262 sexual metaphors, in cover names, 203–4 Shadow Brokers leak, 268 Sheremetyevo Airport, ES’s detention at, 226–27, 293 Sigdev (signals development), 214–15 SIGINT (signals intelligence), xii, 84, 266 active vs. passive, 309 constant flux in, 266 viewed as top priority by NSA, 184–85 SIM cards, xvii Simon, Barry, 133 “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” (parlor game), 159–60 Six Degrees of Separation (Guare), 159 Skype, 112, 121 smartphones: as subject to customs searches, 5–6, 364–65 as tracking devices, 4 Smith, Brad, 301, 314–15 Snowden, Edward (ES): accused of breaking “sacred oath,” 182 anonymous proxies as early interest of, 45 army injury and discharge of, 47–48 as Army Special Forces recruit, 46–47 Ars Technica posts of, 37–38, 42–43, 50, 51, 54, 56 in Asia, 84 asylum plans of, 129–30 background of, 32–33 BeamPro used by, 320–21 BG convinced of general reliability of, 11, 332–33 BG first contacted by, xvii BG interrogated on journalistic principles by, 13–14 BG’s and Poitras’s commitment doubted by, 11–12, 137 BG’s conversations with, 225–27, 229, 259 and BG’s decision to take NSA story to Post, 98 BG’s independence doubted by, 15–16 BG’s interviews with, 73–74, 88 and BG’s need to authenticate leaked documents, 18–19 BG’s participation accepted by, 16 BG’s photographing of, 252–54 BG’s relationship with, xiii–xiv, 108 BG’s secure video and digital contacts with, xiv–xv blackmail as motive for NSA surveillance discounted by, 290 as Booz Allen contractor at NTOC, 83–88 Booz Allen test-system proposal of, 62–63 on changing targets of national security, 345 character and personality of, xiii childhood and adolescence of, 38–45 Churchyard code name of, 54 as CIA employee, 51–57 CIA methods as troubling to, 55–56 CIA tradecraft training of, 52–54 as contractor at CIA headquarters, 49–50 in conversation with NSA intern about Tor vulnerabilities, 80–81 costs vs. benefits of leaks by, xv, 21 as cyber security conference instructor, 57–59 cyber security tradecraft of, 2–4 “dead man’s switch” and, 64, 256–58, 328, 332 as Dell liaison with CIA, 61–62 Ecuador as intended destination of, 307 Ellsberg compared with, 295–96 Ellsberg’s online conversation with, 289–95 encrypted NSA files sent to BG without keys by, 328, 332 EPICSHELTER system designed by, 59–60, 61 epilepsy diagnosed in, 34, 64, 370 on Espionage Act, 292 exaggerated claims of, 63–64 in flight to Hong Kong, 27, 88, 307 in flight to Moscow, xi on foreigners’ right to privacy, 291–92 gaming of tests as talent of, 42 GED diploma of, 40–41 government disparagement of, 40, 51–52, 86–87, 134 government’s standoff with, 352–53 Greenwald and, see Greenwald, Glenn hacker mindset of, 40 as having accomplished his goals, 255–56, 308 Heartbeat program of, see Heartbeat identity disclosed by, 28–29 importance of cryptographic signature to, 105–6, 128–30, 137, 386–87 importance of leaks by, xii instrumental approach to truth by, 324–26, 332–33 IQ score of, 38–39 on journalists’ overdedication to provable facts, 324–26 Kunia assignment of, see Kunia Regional Security Operations Center leaks to Poitras and BG by, see Pandora archive libertarian politics of, 55, 64–65 marriage of Mills and, 353 memoir of, 50–51 Microsoft systems engineer certification of, 42 in Moscow, see Moscow motives of, 28, 290–91, 304, 335–36 on NSA penetration of Google cloud, 285 on NSA’s latent power as inherent threat, 345–46 on NSA’s sexual metaphors, 204 personal attacks anticipated by, 19 Poitras and, see Poitras, Laura on political use of hacked documents, 322 possible harm from publication of Pandora files dismissed by, 265–66 PRISM slide show files uncovered by, 120 public announcement of identity of, 148–49 quick publication of NSA documents sought by, 105, 127–28, 306, 327 on revealing secrets, 259 revoked passport of, 227, 307 role-playing and fantasy interests of, 43–44 Russian relationship denied by, xiv–xv, 292–94 security credentials of, 67–68 security guard job of, 48–49 as self-taught polymath, 40, 41 Sheremetyevo Airport detention of, 226–27, 293 size of data leaks by, 73 TAO job offer rejected by, 82–83, 204 Tekken obsession of, 44–45 Tor used by, 79–81 treason charges against, 334 TS/SCI clearance of, 48 Verax as cover name of, xvii, 226 in virtual chat with Homeland cast and crew, 303–9, 320 virtual TED Talk given by, 321 Washington Post distrusted by, 11 wiretapping of Congress and Supreme Court claimed by, 326–32 Snowden, Elizabeth, 38 Snowden, Jessica, 39 Snowden, Lonnie G., Jr., 38, 57, 251 Snowden archive, see Pandora archive social graphs, 159, 163 social justice, 345 social media, memes on, 192, 210 social networks, mapping of, MAINWAY as tool for, 170–77 Soghoian, Christopher, 319 Soltani, Ashkan: background of, 195–96 as BG’s guide to hacking culture, 191 digital privacy as specialty of, 196–98 in E.O. 12333 investigations, 315, 318, 324 Google cloud story and, 279–81, 297–300 hacker background of, 189–90 on hacker culture, 208 Pandora archive and, 189–91, 198–99, 238–39, 340 Pandora security and, 238–39 suspected attempt at honey trapping of, 236–37 South China Morning Post, 84 Special Forces, U.S., 212 Special Operations Command, U.S., 151 Special Source Operations, 191 spiders (tools in networked computing), 76 Spiegel, Der, 182 Spotlight (film), 104 SSL (secure sockets layers), 280, 297 STARBURST, 70 Star Trek (TV series), 210 State Department, U.S., ES’s passport revoked by, 227, 307 STELLARWIND (domestic surveillance program), 26, 122, 170 as illegal domestic surveillance, 169, 175 NSA inspector general’s report on, 70–71 STRAWHORSE, 216–20 Suitable Tech Inc., 320 Supreme Court, U.S., ES’s claims of having wiretapped, 326–32 surveillance: authority (legal basis) for, 86–88 BG’s increasing preoccupation with, 234–35, 238–42, 255 Church on inherent threat of, 346 cryptography as counterforce to, 350–52 difficulty in scaling back technology of, 349–50 NSA’s ability to unmask names in, 342–43 possible misuse of, 347–49, 350 post-9/11 expansion of, xi secrecy as inherent in, xii, xv, 28 surveillance, domestic: breakdown of divide between foreign and, xii, 338–39 mass, 143 NSA as banned from, 125 warrantless, 9, 26, 70, 97, 122–23, 142, 156, 157, 169, 263 surveillance, foreign: breakdown of distinction between domestic and, xii, 338–39 data on U.S. persons collected by, 287–88, 335–36, 337–46 “Surveillance Self-Defense” (Electronic Frontier Foundation), 365 Swartz, Aaron, 234 Taguba, Antonio, 262 Tailored Access Operations (TAO), 81–83, 200, 204, 214 cover support for, 201–2 Tate, Julie, 107, 190, 269, 271, 340 TECHEXPO Top Secret, 49 TED Talk, ES’s virtual, 321 Tekken, 44–45 Tekserve, 233–34 telecommunications companies: NSA given access to data by, 111–12, 142, 199, 310 NSA’s relations with, 311 see also internet companies Terminator films, 322 “terrorist,” definition of, 113 TheTrueHOOHA (ES’s Ars Technica handle), 37 Thompson, Ken, 217 Time, 8 NSA story declined by, 93–97 Time Inc., 94–95 Tisinger, Jeanne, 62 Top Secret classification, 25, 67 legal standard for, 265 Top Secret clearance, 67 Tor Project, 65 ES’s use of, 79–81 NSA’s breaking of anonymity protection of, 79–81 traffic shaping, 200 Travis, Debra, 233 “treason,” constitutional definition of, 334 Trump, Donald, 162, 181, 205, 246, 247, 249 Clapper attacked by, 349 espionage charges brought against Assange by, 261 governing norms ignored by, 347–48 trust: government and, 180–84 NSA data collection and, 164 TS/SCI (Top Secret/sensitive compartmented information) clearance, 25, 36 TS/SCI networks, 77 Tu, Alan, 193–94, 265 in NSA hacker culture, 194 on NSA’s sexual metaphors, 204 TURMOIL, 299 Turner, Shawn, 142, 144, 246, 270 Underground Railroad, 345 Unified Targeting Tool, 124–25 United Kingdom, Official Secrets Act of, 275 United States v.

SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully
by Jane McGonigal
Published 14 Sep 2015

Do you think that’s true for you? And then the most powerful question to ask any gamer (because connecting is always better than escaping): Can I play with you? I’ve made it my mission to explain the difference between playing to escape and playing with purpose to as many gamers as possible—through my TED talks, my first book, in interviews, on Twitter, and anywhere else I can reach them. Through this work, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many gamers—and parents and spouses of gamers—who, simply by changing their mindset, have been able to make the leap from just playing games to being gameful in everyday life.

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But most SuperBetter players I’ve interviewed have found it very easy to explain the concept of real-life power-ups, bad guys, and quests—it only takes a minute. And if you’d like to give your allies a chance to dig deeper, sharing this book is one way to get them up to speed; a faster way is to send them a link to the video of the TED talk I gave on SuperBetter (search online for “The game that can give you 10 extra years of life”). Here are some tips for talking to potential allies about SuperBetter: Start by sharing your challenge. “I’m playing a game to help me [your challenge here]. If you’re up for it, I’d love to have you as my ally in the game.”

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See epic wins; upward spiral effect; winning success stories, 4–5, 8, 11–12, 19–20, 38, 60–61, 69–71, 97, 125–29, 148–50, 153–54, 179–80, 202–4, 228–32, 244–48, 254–56, 275–77, 281–82, 300–03, 321–23 suicidal thoughts, 3, 147, 168, 193–94, 215, 339 Suits, Bernard, 144–45 Super Mario, 42, 50, 111, 184, 293, 331, 336 SuperBetter Diaries, The blog, 246 SuperBetter Labs, 417 SuperBetter method, 18 and classroom curriculum, 311 community of, 120–21 daily dose of, 319–20, 335, 341, 423 description of, 3–4, 10, 19–20, 125–27 digital version, 422–23 and illness, 425 invention of, 2–4, 10, 219 length of, 10, 20, 126, 327, 422 lighthearted approach of, 416, 421 online, 10, 303, 419–20 online support for, 258, 327–28, 341, 415–16 and overwhelming problems, 133–34 positive results of, 4–5, 9–10, 323–24, 327 science behind, 10, 12, 16–17, 19–20, 125–27, 129, 415–25 success of, 125–26, 421, 423 TED talk for, 118, 248 tests/trials of, 10, 20, 126, 129, 319, 327, 415–25 superheroes, 97–102, 265–67, 274–75, 288–89. See also heroic qualities synchronization, 53–59, 61–66, 68, 74–76 teachers, 49, 91, 97, 101, 129, 205, 240, 346 Team Fortress, 112, 246 testosterone, 74–75 Tetris, 23, 35–39, 43, 50–51, 108 therapy, 30, 40, 47, 202–3, 214, 222–25, 246, 275–76, 384, 416–17, 419 thoughts, 94, 116, 268, 422 and bad guys, 186, 197, 199, 201, 208 blocking of, 35, 51 controlling of, 1, 50–51, 104, 125, 128, 163, 286, 340 counterproductive, 186, 199 and game playing, 51, 421 lonely, 346, 360–62, 365–66 negative patterns of, 89, 283–84, 288–89, 360 paying attention to, 408 positive, 107–8 and power-ups, 365–66 and quests, 360–62 time affluence vs. time poverty, 396–98 losing track of, 29, 44, 330 poverty, 347, 396, 408–9, 411–12, 414 rich, 20, 345, 347, 395 See also adventures: “Time Rich” touch, 17–18, 59, 252 Towne, Michelle, 11 Tran, Beckie, 127 transformative growth, 6, 155, 191, 299, 313, 340 trauma, 5, 43, 133–35, 284 benefits from, 6–7 and challenge mindset, 158 and game playing, 29, 35–39, 50–51, 129 power-ups for, 181 prevention of, 29, 35 recovering from, 35–38 See also post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) true selves, 6, 276, 339, 371 trust, 18, 65, 68, 202, 211, 239, 244 United Kingdom, 85, 88 University of California at Berkeley, 3, 33, 92, 189, 282, 328, 345, 398–400 University of California at Los Angeles, 89 University of Geneva, Switzerland, 88 University of Helsinki, 53 University of Michigan, 280, 282 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 163–64, 408 University of Pennsylvania, 7, 10, 126, 189, 280, 319, 326–27, 337, 345, 415–22, 424 University of Washington, 30 upward spiral effect, 55–56, 165, 218, 231, 236, 297, 323, 418 vagal tone, 162–65, 168–69, 171, 174, 179–81, 183 vagus nerve, 162–63, 165, 171, 174 values, 100–101, 213, 216, 220–27, 235–36, 251, 270, 285, 298, 309 Values in Action (VIA) strengths, 268–70, 277, 279 video games.

The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions...and Created Plenty of Controversy
by Leigh Gallagher
Published 14 Feb 2017

It isn’t just Chesky; Gebbia and Blecharczyk espouse these beliefs, too, and they permeate the air at the company’s headquarters. The company likes to say that it is “the UN at the kitchen table,” bringing people together from different worlds and uniting strangers. “Maybe the people that my childhood taught me to label as strangers were actually friends waiting to be discovered,” Gebbia said in a TED talk he delivered on how the company built its platform for trust. When asked about his goals for the company, Chip Conley told one of my colleagues that he would like to see it win the Nobel Peace Prize within ten years. While no one doubts that any of this is sincere, the high-minded, “save the world for humanity” ethos has drawn its share of ribbing: “None of this is done with much of a sense of humor,” wrote Max Chafkin in Fast Company, referring to a sign on the wall at the time that read “Airbnb is the next stage of human evolution.”

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Johns, 105 Botton, Alain de, 77 Bowerman, Bill, 1 brand awareness, xii, 38, 40, 58–59, 198 Brannan Street, 170 Brown, Clayton, 75–76, 132 Brown-Philpot, Stacy, 171 Bryant, Kimberly, 187 Buffett, Warren, xvi, 166–67, 172, 209 Burch, Tory, 174 Bush, George W., 60 business travel, 145–47 C Campbell, Michael and Debbie, 68–69 Cap’n McCain’s, 21–23 Case, Steve, 174 castles, xii, 59–60, 61 Chafkin, Max, 172–73 challenges, 80–104 deaths and, 96–97 EJ incident, 50–55, 80, 93 fines and violations, 108–9 key exchange, 75–76 Paris Airbnb Open, 77–78 parties, 81–90 sexual assault incident, 90–93 Chan, Robert “Toshi,” 111 Chesky, Allison, 169 Chesky, Brian on accidents, 97 at Airbnb Open, 76, 77 background of, 3–4, 11, 42–43, 169 on corporate rentals, 115, 116–17 on culture, 182–83 on EJ safety crisis, 53–55 on future directions, 193–94, 197–98 on future regulations, 136 on home sharing, 130 hospitality and, 70–72 on hosts and brand, 117 on hotels, 140, 159 on law enforcement, 91–92 Los Angeles move, 4–5 on mission of Airbnb, 172 on NYC and politics, 105, 113, 133 praise for, 161–62 on public companies, 201 on racism, 101, 102, 103 on rebranding, 64–65, 78–79 at Rhode Island School of Design, 1–4, 169 on safety, 48 San Francisco move, 6–7 strengths, 167–69 on Wimdu competition, 49–50 Y Combinator and, 23–29 Chesky, Deb and Bob, 3–4, 23, 32, 166, 168–69, 174, 208–9 Chicago, short-term rentals, 125 Choice Hotels, 153 Cianci, Buddy, 2 City Hosts, 191 Civil Rights Act, 101, 103 Clampet, Jason, 93, 141, 148–49 Clinton, Bill, 124 Clooney, George and Amal, 209 cloud computing, 45 Clouse, Dave and Lynn, 149–50 Collins, Jim, 181 commercial listings, 110–13, 114, 115 Common, 156 “community compact,” 114 competitors, xi–xii, xvii Couchsurfing.com, 13, 14, 41, 46 Craigslist (see Craigslist) HomeAway (see HomeAway) tourism, 112–13, 191–96 VRBO.com, xi, xvii, 41, 87, 106, 149–50 Wimdu (Samwer brothers), 48–50 See also hotels compression pricing, 144 Conair internship, 1–3 Concur, 145 conferences Airbnb and corporate travel, 145–46 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, 166–67 Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech, 103, 131, 187 International Council of Societies of Industrial Design/Industrial Designers Society of America, ix, 1, 7–10 South by Southwest, 12–14, 39 Conley, Chip on business travelers, 146 on Chesky, 171 on company goals, 117, 172 on home-sharing history, 149 on hospitality industry, 73, 76–77, 139–40, 147 in joining Airbnb, 70–72 Corden, James, 191 core values, 36, 186–87, 219 Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 70, 166 Couchsurfing.com, xi, 13, 14, 41, 46 Craigslist, 38–39, 41, 51, 82, 100, 108, 149, 179 crisis management, 48–50, 51–54, 77–78, 90–93 CritBuns, 5–6, 11, 209 Crittenden, Quirtina, 100–101 Crossing the Chasm (Moore), 181 Cuba, 161–62, 185–86 Culting of Brands, The (Atkin), 64 culture, of company, 35–38, 165, 174–75, 182–88 Cuomo, Andrew, 106–7, 108, 121, 126 Curtis, Mike, 77, 181, 184, 185 customer-service platform, 44, 52–54, 56, 86–90, 94 D Dandapani, Vijay, 115, 122 de Blasio, Bill, 113, 119 Democratic National Convention (Denver), 15, 18–20 Diller, Barry, 142 Dimon, Jamie, x discrimination controversy, xv, 99–104, 171 Disney, Walt, 166, 167, 197 diversity, 187–88 DogVacay, 56 Donahoe, John, 71, 165, 168 Dorsey, Jack, 165 Drybar, 152 Dubost, Lisa, 171 dukana, 56 E Ecolect.net, 11 Edition, 148, 152 Eisenhower, Dwight, 139 EJ incident, 50–55, 80, 93 emergency reaction policy, 91 “entrepreneur,” as term, 11 European market, 48–50 Everbooked, 75 Expedia, 142, 148, 154, 198 Experiences, 192 F Federal Highway Act, 139 fee structure, 39–40 Ferriss, Tim, 93 fines and violations, 108–9, 117, 129, 134 Firestarter, 127 Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The (Lencioni), 181 Flatbook, 156 FlipKey, 146 Friedman, Tom, 173 future directions, 130–31, 145–47, 177–79, 188–210 G Gandhi, 160, 227 Gates, Bill and Melinda, 209 Gatto, Chris, 132 Gebbia, Joe background of, 42–43 culture, of company, 185 hometown, 12 leadership of, xviii, 174–79 prototyping/design studio, 177–79 refugee crisis, 209 at Rhode Island School of Design, 1–3 San Francisco, ix, 5 TED talk, 172 Y Combinator and, 23–29 Gilbert, Elizabeth, 191 Giving Pledge, 209 Glassdoor survey, 185, 186 GLō, 152 Golden, Jonathan, 184 golf party incident, 82–90 Gonzales, Emily, 89, 90 Good to Great (Collins), 181 Google, 145, 188, 195, 197 Google AdWords, 38, 179 Gore, Al, 60, 124 Gothamist, 111 Graham, Paul on Chesky, 171–72 interview with, 23–24 mentoring of Airbnb founders, 26–27, 28–29, 164, 170–71 on Wimdu competition, 49–50 Y Combinator and, 15, 25–26, 59 Grandy, Nick, 36 Grazer, Brian, 191 Grove, Andy, 166 growth, xii–xiii, 38–41, 46–47, 56, 144, 162, 198–99 guest arrivals August 2009, 35 average age of, 66 fee structure, 39–40 growth of, xii, 41, 58–59, 180 number of, 26–27, 199 as term, ix–x Guesty, 75 Gupta, Prerna, 67–68 H Hantman, David, 109 Hartz, Kevin, 31 Hempel, Jessi, 201, 203–4 Hewlett, Bill, 1 High Output Management (Grove), 166 Hilton, Conrad, 139 Hilton hotels, 141–42, 152, 167 hiring, 25, 35–38, 49–50, 55, 56–57 Hoffman, Reid as adviser, 49–50, 164, 197 “Blitzscaling” course, 188 on Chesky, 167–68 on growth, 56, 199 as investor, 46–47 NYC politics, 121 on uniqueness, 62 Holder, Eric, 102, 171 Holiday Inn, origin, 138–39 home sharing, xvi–xvii, 125–26, 149 HomeAway, xvii, 41, 82, 106, 108, 133, 146, 150, 154, 198 HonorTab, 75 Hoplamazian, Mark, 152 Horowitz, Ben, 47, 52, 164, 171 hospitality, 70–73, 115, 117, 129–31, 139–45, 151–53, 165, 166 Host Assist platform, 76 Host Guarantee, 82, 86, 87, 88, 89, 94 hosts as asset and lobbyists, 111–12, 126–29 average age of, xii–xiii, 65 as career choice, 73–75 from Cuba, 185–86 data and behavior, 114–15 defined, x discrimination, 99–102 experiences offered by, 178 fee structure and earnings, 39–40, 73, 110, 112–13 growth challenges, 40–41, 180 hospitality and, 70–73, 117 initial public offering, 199–200 liability and legal issues, 97, 106, 109–10, 122, 128–29 matching with guests, 44–45 Verified ID, 95 See also Airbnb Open hotels vs.

Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life
by Colin Ellard
Published 14 May 2015

Such a system not only underpins our ability to use many different kinds of technology ranging from a pencil to a touch screen, but it also suggests that instantiating a bodily state such as a facial expression, even if it is covert, may be the chief means by which we can share feelings with others. Wonder Woman Poses, Cold Relationships, and Rickety Foundations In a recent viral Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) talk, social psychologist Amy Cuddy described her own research on body language, suggesting that our posture could affect not only our mood, but our body chemistry as well. Her studies showed that participants who were asked to strike “power poses” so that they imitated superheroes like Wonder Woman performed better in mock job interviews, were more inclined to take risks, and even showed measurable increases in testosterone levels and decreased levels of the stress hormone cortisol after only two minutes of “faking” it.

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The phenomenon has been repeated many times in many laboratories, including my own where we use the demonstration to interest students in issues related to embodiment. 7A technical account of remapping of space using pointers is provided by Longo and Lourenco of the University of Chicago in a paper titled “On the nature of near space: Effects of tool use and the transition to far space,” in Neuropsychologia (2006, Volume 44, pages 977–981). 8Amy Cuddy’s fascinating and popular TED talk can be found at http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en A technical paper describing some of the findings she discusses in the talk can be found in a paper titled “Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance,” in Psychological Science (2010, Volume 21, pages 1363–1368). 9Maarten Bos and Amy Cuddy describe the effects of use of electronic devices of varying size on power postures and, through this our behavior in a paper titled “iPosture: The Size of Electronic Consumer Devices Affects Our Behavior,” in Harvard Business School Working Paper (2013, No. 13-097).

Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing
by Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman
Published 20 Nov 2012

This is good for reverse engineering and to speed up the design process if we want to duplicate the object exactly in digital form or change it. In a nutshell, the next generation of design software will bring fast reality into the computer.” Chapter 7 Bioprinting in “living ink” Anthony Atala, a researcher at Wake Forest University, caused a sensation when he appeared in a TED talk in 2011 and gave what many people mistook for a demonstration of how to print a living human kidney. Naturally, since 90 percent of the patients on the organ donation list are waiting for replacement kidneys, people got very excited. After the ensuing confusion was sorted out, it turned out that 3D printing live kidneys was still in the early research phase.

…

Much of the excitement around computer-generated design and 3D printing is the hope that finally we will be able to 3D print objects whose shape is optimized for their environment or application. As technology advances, we continue to return to nature for inspiration. Nature’s designs represent elegant and time-tested solutions to the challenges of the physical world. As expressed by design architect Michael Pawlyn in a TED talk in 2010, “You could look at nature as being like a catalog of products, and all of those have benefited from a 3.8-billion-year research and development period.” Responsive design In another architectural college in central London, students 3D print honeycomb structures and futuristic dome-shaped architectural prototypes.

How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong
by Elizabeth Day
Published 3 Apr 2019

As if to prove Gilbert’s point about childlessness still being perceived as an oddity by the mainstream, the piece was hilariously headlined ‘Elizabeth Gilbert Never Imagined Being a Childless Adult’ despite the interview covering myriad other topics and despite her success as a globally bestselling author whose first TED talk garnered over four million views. There’s still a bone-headed assumption that a child-free woman is some kind of ambitious harpy with no maternal instinct who must fundamentally be a bit weird. Remember when Andrea Leadsom, challenger for the Conservative Party leadership, said in a 2016 newspaper interview that she wasn’t sure her colleague Theresa May was fully invested in the future of the country because she wasn’t a parent?

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Now, the scaffolding was being dismantled and all I was left with was rubble and the dust of crushed bricks. I did many of the clichéd things that people do in the aftermath of a break-up. Sometimes clichés are clichés for a reason: because they work. I took baths in the middle of the day. I looked up TED talks on heartbreak. I became familiar with the notion of kintsugi, the Japanese art of putting pieces of broken pottery back together and filling the cracks with lacquered resin and powdered gold. On one particularly desperate occasion, I actually Googled ‘how long does it take to get over someone?’ I ate mostly hummus because cooking for myself seemed too much effort.

Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes: Essays
by Phoebe Robinson
Published 14 Oct 2021

They either risked exposure to the virus by being outside without a mask or wore a bandana on their face and hoped they wouldn’t be harassed or worse. These situations were, of course, just the tip of the iceberg, but whatever your 2020 quarantine situation was, it’s safe to say you didn’t see this coming. Honestly, outside of a select few (e.g., Bill Gates, who, back in a 2015 TED Talk, stated that many governments were woefully underprepared if a virus pandemic seized the world), most of us were too consumed with our day-to-day responsibilities to ponder potential doomsday scenarios. But another part of the reason Covid so totally and utterly blindsided many of us is because it happened in 2020.

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How long does it take to say “I high-key fucks with myself”? Did we really need to trudge through beautiful language and imagery to read about him sounding his “barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world”? Bruh, take your yawps and wrap this shit up. We got places to be and people to see. This concludes my TED Talk. Come back next week when I drag F. Scott Fitzgerald for taking 218 pages to write about how the American dream is trash when The Great Gatsby could’ve been summed up in two words: “Duh, bitch!” But back to my point. Self-care has kind of always been centered around individualism, so I don’t want to pretend that it was this pure, enlightened concept that got sullied.

Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil
by Hamish McKenzie
Published 30 Sep 2017

While still on Shell’s payroll, he spent eight years as a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, after retiring, went on to be a senior advisor on the commission that investigated the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico—the worst offshore environmental disaster ever. I first came across Sears, a tall, lean man with a long nose and deep-set eyes, when I watched a TED talk he gave in 2010 about planning for the end of oil. In that speech, he noted that there were a hundred trillion gallons of crude oil in the world still to be developed and that it would never run out. “It’s not because we have a lot of it,” he said. “It’s not because we’re going to build a bajillion windmills.

…

Inside, he has hung old Shell memorabilia on the walls. That day at Stanford, Sears was wearing the relaxed uniform of Silicon Valley—a polo shirt and jeans. He spoke slowly and somewhat theatrically, peppering his speech with guess whats and by the ways, in the manner of someone accustomed to making a case before a crowd. As he said in his TED talk, Sears believes that it’s technology that drives great economic change, and that the same will prove true for the world’s energy economy. “The revolution is not a molecule,” he told me. “It’s the system.” It was Sears who gave me the idea that oil could be thought of in the same way as salt.

Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI
by John Brockman
Published 19 Feb 2019

But whatever the motivations, the review concluded that it was downright immoral to withhold the power of the objective over the subjective, the algorithmic over expert judgment.* The algorist view has gained strength. Anne Milgram served as attorney general of the state of New Jersey from 2007 to 2010. When she took office, she wanted to know who the state was arresting, charging, and jailing, and for what crimes. At the time, she reports in a later TED Talk, she could find almost no data or analytics. By imposing statistical prediction, she continues, law enforcement in Camden during her tenure was able to reduce murders by 41 percent, saving thirty-seven lives, while dropping the total crime rate by 26 percent. After joining the Arnold Foundation as its vice president for criminal justice, she established a team of data scientists and statisticians to create a risk-assessment tool; fundamentally, she construed the team’s mission as deciding how to put “dangerous people” in jail while releasing the nondangerous.

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Gopnik, The Gardener and the Carpenter (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2016), chapters 4 and 5. * William M. Grove and Paul E. Meehl, “Comparative Efficiency of Informal (Subjective, Impressionistic) and Formal (Mechanical, Algorithmic) Prediction Procedures: The Clinical-Statistical Controversy,” Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 2, no. 2 (1996): 293–323. * TED Talk, January 2014, https://www.ted.com/speakers/anne_milgram. * Rebecca Wexler, “Life, Liberty, and Trade Secrets: Intellectual Property in the Criminal Justice System,” Stanford Law Review 70 (2018). * “Then, Doctors ‘All Anxious’ About Test-tube Baby,” http://edition.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/parenting/07/25/cnna.copperman

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
by Priya Parker
Published 14 May 2018

See, for example, Margaret Robertson, “Werewolf: How a Parlour Game Became a Tech Phenomenon,” Wired UK, February 4, 2010, http://www.wired.co.uk/article/werewolf. Alana Massey’s essay “Against Chill” Alana Massey, “Against Chill,” Medium, April 1, 2015, https://medium.com/matter/against-chill-930dfb60a577. cut off much of his tie Chris Anderson, TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), 190. “On the corner of” Jessica P. Ogilvie, “Amy Schumer’s Irvine Set Disrupted by Lady Heckler,” Los Angeles Magazine, October 12, 2015, http://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/amy-schumers-irvine-set-disrupted-by-lady-heckler/.

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Solomon, “Musangwe Fight Club: A Vicious Venda Tradition,” The New York Times, February 26, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/sports/musangwe-fight-club-a-vicious-venda-tradition.html. Chapter 8: Accept That There Is an End experience, sense of meaning, and memory The behavioral psychologist Daniel Kahneman writes and speaks extensively about what he calls our “remembering self” and our “experiencing self,” and how they differ. In his 2010 TED Talk, he describes the difference between two patients who undergo a colonoscopy treatment, and how the patient with the longer treatment (and therefore who experiences a longer period of pain) reports a better experience than Patient A (with the shorter treatment) because he experienced a better ending.

The Science and Technology of Growing Young: An Insider's Guide to the Breakthroughs That Will Dramatically Extend Our Lifespan . . . And What You Can Do Right Now
by Sergey Young
Published 23 Aug 2021

MAKE SLEEP YOUR SUPERPOWER Men who sleep five hours a night have significantly smaller testicles than those who sleep seven hours or more . . . Lack of sleep will age a man by a decade . . . We see equivalent impairments in female reproductive health, caused by a lack of sleep. And that is the best news I have for you today. That is Dr. Matthew Walker, from his 2019 TED Talk. Walker is a British neuroscientist, professor at the University of California at Berkeley, founder of the Center for Human Sleep Science, and author of the best-selling book Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. One of the world’s foremost experts in slumber, he preaches the essential nature of sleep to maintaining good mental and physical health, and to living long.

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Gilbert (New York: Reinhold, 1961 [1959]). 8Adam de la Zerda, “New imaging lights the way for brain surgeons,” TEDx Talks, last modified May 24, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klUoJxGv9wg. 9Anne Trafton, “New sensors could offer early detection of lung tumors,” MIT News, last modified April 1, 2020, http://news.mit.edu/2020/urine-sensor-test-detect-lung-tumors-0401; Sangeeta Bhatia, “This tiny particle could roam your body to find tumors,” TED Talk, last modified November, 2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/sangeeta_bhatia_this_tiny_particle_could_roam_your_body_to_find_tumors#t-510452. 10“Mind control technology exists, but it needs work,” Quartz Youtube Channel, last modified September 28, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBlpodGjBLU. 11“Neuralink Launch Event,” Neuralink, last modified July 16, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?

How to Work Without Losing Your Mind
by Cate Sevilla
Published 14 Jan 2021

Throughout my career, in times of stress, I’ve spent a lot of time reading many different business books and inspirational quotes from inspirational business women, hoping for some answers, hoping that someone will tell me what to do next, and how to do it. The problem is, with very rare exceptions, no matter how many times I read these quotes or watch their TED Talks or even purchase their books, with all due respect, I just never know what the fuck they’re on about. I mean … ‘Empathetic instincts, when coupled with operating rigor, drive a leadership style in which everybody wins.’ Fran Hauser, The Myth of the Nice Girl ‘We must raise both the ceiling and the floor.’

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Now, after a few years of reflection, this is my wish for you: any time you hear someone say ‘bring your whole self to work’ I want it to trigger an automatic response in your brain that sounds like Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars yelling ‘IT’S A TRAP!’ Because, my friend, it is a trap. I don’t think Google or any other company saying they want you to bring your whole self to work is lying, as such. On the contrary, I think they think they genuinely mean it, as does everyone who uses the phrase (which is also the subject of both a TED talk and a book). The problem is, that they don’t understand what bringing your whole self to work actually means. Part of the problem lies in defining just what your whole self is. The benevolent and benign message at its core is that an employee should bring their values with them to work – the things they care about.

Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy
by George Gilder
Published 16 Jul 2018

“Oh, it was an Intel 386.” “Yes,” I said, “that’s the microprocessor, but what brand of computer was it? What company made it?” Ali looked baffled, then responded, “Oh, I don’t know. I assembled the computer myself.” I realized we were talking serious twelve-year-old Pakistani tech talent here. In a TED talk PowerPoint he presented in Manhattan in 2016, we can see him in a photo some fifteen years before, a diminutive boy wearing the red shorts and shirt of a medallioned school uniform, with his right arm around his younger brother.4 Gaining strength from each other, they are standing on a wooden span across a turbid river in Pakistan, a metaphorical bridge between different worlds of culture and technology.

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Just as Strivr can train firemen and skiers, these advances can improve the training of nurses, emergency services, surgeons, and even physicists. Late in 2017, I interviewed Jules Urbach of OTOY when he was still in the thrall of a visit earlier that day by the writer-physicist-celebrity Lisa Randall of Harvard, a paragon of TED talks and New York Times bestsellers and another candidate to live forever without believing in God. Randall had dropped by OTOY to discuss Jules’s Octane VR rendering tool, which measures and interprets the movements, reflections, refractions, and interactions of photons. She saw it as an empirically tested model of photon behavior that might offer clues to the multidimensional nature of light.

Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It
by Daniel Knowles
Published 27 Mar 2023

Apparently, he thinks that traffic can be “abolished” by creating a network of underground tunnels and elevators to carry people’s Teslas up and down into them from street level. The idea is essentially that we can make up for the limited amount of land available aboveground by building what he calls a “3D” infrastructure below. The Tesla boss introduced this idea at a TED Talk in 2017. He began with a remarkable insight, at least for a car-industry executive, that most driving sucks. “One of the most soul-destroying things is traffic,” he said. “It affects people in every part of the world. It takes away so much of your life. It’s horrible. It’s particularly horrible in LA.”

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Musk has in fact built a functional version of this transport system. It is in Las Vegas, and it runs for 1.7 miles, connecting various parts of the enormous Las Vegas Convention Center. The tunnel itself is rather fine—it is about the same size as the ones that make up the London Underground. But instead of rails, or even the electric skates that Musk’s TED Talk depicted, it is lined with a road, and passengers are transported around it in individual Tesla cars. On its site, the Boring Company admits that the model is essentially “Teslas in tunnels.” Each one, with a capacity of four tightly squeezed passengers, has to have its own driver. The cars have to stop as they arrive, so that passengers can climb out and new ones can get in, which obviously generally takes longer than it does to get in and out of a train.

Private Equity: A Memoir
by Carrie Sun
Published 13 Feb 2024

He had told me he wanted to say something about time, about how each moment is but one point in time on a specific path of history. Using this and variations on this theme (a moment in time, a spot of time, awareness of a point in time), I searched and searched—Google Books, Goodreads, Genius, IMDb, TED Talks, Wikiquote, and Bartleby.com—and I had found nothing. Mainly because, in addition to the specific idea he had asked me to help him verbalize, the unspoken assumption was that the author of the quote had to be more of a big deal than Boone himself. I’d offered up options, a few of which he did not instantly reject.

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Once, Parmita and I went to an event with an HBS professor, after which, ahead of the publication of her book, the audience received advanced reader copies. In a sit the next morning I mentioned I had a book for him from a talk I had gone to last night. “What did you think of the speaker?” he asked. She was very smart, I said, but I think her TED Talk may have captured a lot of the material. “Carrie,” he said, “why would you give me a book you thought was only okay? Also, why would you give me a book that you haven’t even read?” I dealt with it by not giving him the book and by acknowledging the shame I would feel after his rhetorical questions plus a death stare.

No More Work: Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea
by James Livingston
Published 15 Feb 2016

Oxford economists who study employment trends tell us that fully two-thirds of existing jobs, including those involving “non-routine cognitive tasks”—you know, like thinking—are at risk of death by computerization within twenty years. They’re elaborating on conclusions reached by two MIT economists in a book from 2012 called Race against the Machine. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley types who give TED talks have started speaking of “surplus humans” as a result of the same process—cybernated production. Rise of the Robots, the title of a new book that cites these very sources, is social science, not science fiction.1 So this Great Recession of ours is a moral crisis as well as an economic catastrophe.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
by Naomi Klein
Published 15 Sep 2014

Public belief in the problem was high, and the issue seemed to be everywhere. Yet on looking back on that period, what is strange is that all the energy seemed to be coming from the very top tier of society. In the first decade of the new millennium, climate talk was a strikingly elite affair, the stuff of Davos panels and gee-whiz TED Talks, of special green issues of Vanity Fair and celebrities arriving at the Academy Awards in hybrid cars. And yet behind the spectacle, there was virtually no discernible movement, at least not of the sort that anyone involved in the civil rights, antiwar, or women’s movements would recognize. There were few mass marches, almost no direct action beyond the occasional media-friendly stunt, and no angry leaders (other than a former vice president of the United States).

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Though he professes great concern about climate change, the Gates Foundation had at least $1.2 billion invested in just two oil giants, BP and ExxonMobil, as of December 2013, and those are only the beginning of his fossil fuel holdings.21 Gates’s approach to the climate crisis, meanwhile, shares a fair amount with Branson’s. When Gates had his climate change epiphany, he too immediately raced to the prospect of a silver-bullet techno-fix in the future, without pausing to consider viable—if economically challenging—responses in the here and now. In TED Talks, op-eds, interviews, and in his much-discussed annual letters, Gates repeats his call for governments to massively increase spending on research and development with the goal of uncovering “energy miracles.” By miracles, Gates means nuclear reactors that have yet to be invented (he is a major investor and chairman of nuclear start-up TerraPower); he means machines to suck carbon out of the atmosphere (he is also a primary investor in at least one such prototype); and he means direct climate manipulation (Gates has spent millions of his own money funding research into various schemes to block the sun, and his name is listed on several hurricane-suppression patents).

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“Why We Oppose the Copenhagen Accord,” Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, June 3, 2010; “Filipina Climate Chief: ‘It Feels Like We Are Negotiating on Who Is to Live and Who Is to Die,’ ” Democracy Now!, November 20, 2013; Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). 44. “Bill Gates: Innovating to Zero!” TED Talk, February 12, 2010, http://www.ted.com; Levitt and Dubner, SuperFreakonomics, 199. 45. Bruno Latour, “Love Your Monsters: Why We Must Care for Our Technologies as We Do Our Children,” in Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene, ed. Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus (Oakland: Breakthrough Institute, 2011); Mark Lynas, The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans (London: Fourth Estate, 2011). 46.

A Short Guide to a Long Life
by David B. Agus
Published 7 Jan 2014

Avoid sources of inflammation. 10. Get a yearly flu shot. Top 10 Things to Help Educate Kids About Health and Wellness 1. Explain why. All too often we just tell our children what to do without explaining the reasons. If you don’t understand why, find out. 2. Watch the Jamie Oliver videos and TED Talk about children and nutrition. You can access Jamie’s videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/JamieOliver. 3. Be a good example. 4. Encourage activity. 5. Teach them the importance of digital-free downtime. 6. Vaccines, vaccines, vaccines. 7. Take them food shopping and to the farmers market and engage them in the kitchen when you’re cooking. 8.

Hacking Growth: How Today's Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success
by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown
Published 24 Apr 2017

In a 2005 study, researchers for the Marketing Science Institute, Debora Viana Thompson, Rebecca Hamilton, and Roland Rust, found that companies routinely hurt long-term retention by packing too many features into a product, explaining “that choosing the number of features that maximizes initial choice results in the inclusion of too many features, potentially decreasing customer lifetime value.” They concluded that “firms should consider having a larger number of more specialized products, each with a limited number of features, rather than loading all possible features into one product.”25 David Pogue, a technology columnist, brought this painful reality to light in a 2006 TED talk in which he showed the cringe-inducing screenshot below indicating what the Microsoft Word screen would look like with every toolbar option turned on. MICROSOFT WORD TOOLBAR OVERLOAD26 Timing the rollout of new features can be particularly challenging with online products, in part because they’re so much easier to launch than physical products.

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Debora Viana Thompson, Rebecca W. Hamilton, and Roland T. Rust, “Feature Fatigue: When Product Capabilities Become Too Much of a Good Thing,” Marketing Science Institute blog, 2005, msi.org/reports/feature-fatigue-when-product-capabilities-become-too-much-of-a-good-thing/. 26. David Pogue, “Simplicity Sells,” TED Talk, filmed February 2006, retrieved at: ted.com/talks/david_pogue_says_simplicity_sells?language=en. 27. Jordan T. McBride, “Dan Wolchonok on Running Retention Experiments,” ProfitWell (blog), January 21, 2016, blog.profitwell.com/saasfest-recap-dan-wolchonok-on-running-retention-experiments. CHAPTER EIGHT 1.

Heart of the Machine: Our Future in a World of Artificial Emotional Intelligence
by Richard Yonck
Published 7 Mar 2017

Designing Sociable Robots. MIT Press. 2002. 9. TED Talk: “Cynthia Breazeal: The rise of personal robots.” TEDWomen 2010. 10. MIT Media Lab—Personal Robots Group. http://robotic.media.mit.edu/project-portfolio/systems/. 11. “JIBO, The World’s First Social Robot for the Home.” Indiegogo. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jibo-the-world-s-first-social-robot-for-the-home. 12. Guizzo, E. “The Little Robot That Could … Maybe.” IEEE Spectrum, vol 53, issue 1. January 2016. 13. Hanson Robotics web site. http://www.hansonrobotics.com/about/innovations-technology/. 14. TED talk: “David Hanson: Robots that ‘Show Emotion’.”

The Butterfly Defect: How Globalization Creates Systemic Risks, and What to Do About It
by Ian Goldin and Mike Mariathasan
Published 15 Mar 2014

Copeland and Taylor, 2004, 67. CHAPTER 6: PANDEMICS AND HEALTH RISKS 1. This paragraph draws on Fiona Fleck, 2003, “How SARS Changed the World in Less than Six Months,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 81 (8): 625–626. 2. Larry Brilliant, 2006, “Larry Brilliant Wants to Stop Pandemics,” TED Talks, February, accessed 27 January 2013, http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_stop_pandemics.html. 3. WHO (World Health Organization), 2004a, “China’s Latest SARS Outbreak Has Been Contained, but Biosafety Concerns Remain—Update 7,” Global Alert and Response, World Health Organization, 18 May, accessed 28 January 2013, http://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_05_18a/en/index.html. 4.

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Braithwaite, John, and Peter Drahos. 2000. Global Business Regulation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Brandt, Loren, and Thomas G. Rawski. 2008. China’s Great Economic Transformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Brilliant, Larry. 2006. “Larry Brilliant Wants to Stop Pandemics.” TED Talks, February. Accessed 27 January 2013. http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_stop_pandemics.html. Brintrup, Alexandra, Tomomi Kito, Felix Reed-Tsochas, and Steve New. 2011. “Mapping the Toyota Supply Network: Emergence of Resilience.” Saïd Business School Working Paper 2011-05-012. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

Bezonomics: How Amazon Is Changing Our Lives and What the World's Best Companies Are Learning From It
by Brian Dumaine
Published 11 May 2020

In late 2018, an Amazon customer in Germany: Jennings Brown, “The Amazon Alexa Eavesdropping Nightmare Came True,” Gizmodo, December 20, 2018. In 2017, a six-year-old: Jennifer Earl, “6-Year-Old Orders $160 Dollhouse, 4 Pounds of Cookies with Amazon’s Echo Dot,” CBS, January 5, 2017. Linguist John McWhorter: John McWhorter, “Txting is Killing Language, JL!!!,” TED Talk 2013. Chapter 8: Warehouses That Run in the Dark Compared to Amazon’s: J. Clement, “Number of Full-Time Facebook Employees from 2007 to 2018,” Statista, August 14, 2019, https://www.statista.com/statistics/273563/number-of-facebook-employees/. By 2022, there will be: “Growth of the Internet of Things and in the Number of Connected Devices Is Driven by Emerging Applications and Business Models, and Supported by Standardization and Falling Device Costs,” Internet of Things Forecast, Ericsson.com, https://www.ericsson.com/en/mobility-report/internet-of-things-forecast.

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The winner was Cartman: Evan Ackerman, “Aussies Win Amazon Robotics Challenge,” IEEE Spectrum, August 2, 2017. In America, there are 3.6 million cashiers: “Cashiers,” Occupational Outlook Handbook, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/sales/cashiers.htm. That report was delivered: Martin Ford, “How We’ll Earn Money in a Future Without Jobs,” TED Talk, April 2017, https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_ford_how_we_ll_earn_money_in_a_future_without_jobs. Consider that, globally: “Robots Double Worldwide by 2020,” press release, International Federation of Robotics, May 30, 2018, https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/robots-double-worldwide-by-2020.

Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy
by Alexandrea J. Ravenelle
Published 12 Mar 2019

Although almost every sharing platform requires users to create a profile, and many utilize community ratings, organizations such as Traity, and the now-defunct TrustCloud, work to collect information on people’s online reputations based on their social media footprint and information data exhaust, the trail that users leave as they engage with others on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and TripAdvisor.15 This information could possibly be used to calculate “reliability, consistency, and responsiveness[,] . . . a contextual badge you’d carry to any website, a trust rating similar to the credit rating” of the off-line world.16 Relying on a credit rating is the antithesis of trust. Trust is generally defined as a firm belief in the reliability, truth, and ability of something; but in the sharing economy, trust is easily conjured—Airbnb’s website even features a TED Talk by cofounder Joe Gebbia on how the service “designs for trust.” TaskRabbit also markets its “trust and safety” efforts, which include an identity check, criminal-offense screening, and a two-hour orientation that discusses the best practices for success on the TaskRabbit platform. As the TaskRabbit website explains, “We share knowledge of what creates a great task so that [Taskers] can deliver safe and superior experiences.”

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See TaskRabbit workers TaskRabbit: 1099 reporting, 205; overview, 7, 21, 22; algorithm-based acceptance and response rates, 2; as app-based service, 17; background on, 54–57; bidding marketplace model, 1, 55, 56, 79, 137, 137–38; business use of, 120, 182; commission structure model, 6; communication issues, 63–64; competitors, 64; corporation-focused branch, 228n14; criminal activity, 135–39; as on-demand economy company, 27; emergency tasks, 141; employee monitoring, 204; escrow services, 229n6; as exchange of services, 27; growth of, 7; Ikea acquisition of, 182; income level, 184; key transfers and, 34; low capital-barrier, 43tab. 1; low skill-barrier, 42, 160; out-of-pocket expense policy of, 140–41; participant recruitment and methodology, 42–43; Peers.com and, 72; pivots, 1, 17, 55–56, 79–80, 138, 203, 222n62; policy changes, 82–83; promises of, 25; Rebecca, 161; reorientations, 86; response rates, 160; response rates and, 82–83; Richard, 161; safety issues, 113–15; Sarah, 88; Strugglers and, 61–64; supplemental income, 3–4; temporary-agency model, 1; term reinvention and, 29; terms of service, 224n2; trust and, 30; value of, 76–77; worker safety, 100; workplace injuries, 97; work stigma and, 160–61 TaskRabbit for Business, 120 TaskRabbit workers: overview, 4; advanced planning and, 97–100; age of, 56; Austin, 116; bathroom use, 88; Brandon, 142; breaks, 90–91; Christina, 82–83, 147–49; Donald, 83, 88–89; educational level of, 56; Emma, 90–92, 95; as employees, 109; food consumption, 91; gender of, 56; identity checks, 113–15; income level, 56, 184–85; as independent contractors, 36; Jamal, 98–99, 99fig. 11, 135–39, 157; Jasmine, 83, 114–16; Michael, 83–84, 141–42, 229n5; Natasha, 79–80, 85, 97–98; race of, 56; Rebecca, 84, 85; research work, 147–49; Richard, 80; Sarah, 1–2, 6, 79, 86–87; sexual harassment, 114–17; Shaun, 3–5, 6, 97, 116–17; small business support for, 56; Will, 85–86; workplace injuries, 90, 91 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, 234n95 Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), 143–45, 167 taxi industry: driver requirements, 222n64; nightclub bottle service, 223n75; taxi apps, 32–33; taxicab syndrome, 104 Taylorism, 178 technological issues: advancements, 26; automation, 179; entrepreneurship and, 38; gig economy, 26; job destruction, 186; technology as secondary, 191–92. See also cashless payment systems; customer review sites; smartphones technology focus: apps, 6; contactless payment systems, 6; review systems, 6; smartphones, 6 TED talk, 30 temporary-agency model: sexual harassment and, 119–21; TaskRabbit as, 1, 55; worker expectations and, 121–24 temporary workers, 179–80 Temp Slave (Kelly), 180 1099/freelance workers, 94–96, 186, 189, 198fig. 14, 205 Teran, Dan, 190 term reinvention, 28–29 term usage: disruption, 30; sharing, 28–29; trust, 29–30 textile industry: cottage industry, 66; in New England, 66; strikes in, 67, 70, 224n12; textile mills, 66 Thumbtack, 64 Tien, Jon, 58 time rule solution, 202–3, 206 time with passenger calculations, 226n47 tips, 77 Title VII protections, 118 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 16, 31 Ton, Zeynep, 190 Tonnie, Ferdinand, 32 tool libraries, 26 Trader Joe’s, 190 Tradesy, 9 traditional employment, 184, 190 Traity, 29 travel time, 15 Treaty of Detroit, 177 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911, 92, 93, 226–27n3, 227n8 TripAdvisor, 30 trust: Airbnb and, 30; decreasing rate of, 33; problems and, 46–47; trust-and-safety/support fees, 55–56, 79; trust ratings, 30; verifications and, 29–30, 208 TrustCloud, 29 The Tumbleweed Society (Pugh), 38 twenty-factor test, 197, 199–201box 1 Twitter, 30 Uber, 2; overview, 4, 7, 21, 22, 223n75; African-Americans as users of, 35; background on, 49–54; bathroom use, 88; business use of, 182, 228n14; communication issues, 63; complaints against passengers, 108–9; criminal activity and, 143–47; Driver Injury Protection insurance, 102; driver requirements, 167; employee monitoring, 204; as environmentally friendly, 226n47; financing programs, 3, 73, 226n36; general liability insurance, 110; growth of, 7; high capital-barrier, 43, 43tab. 1, 167; homeless workers and, 42; income level, 184–85; insurance requirements, 145; lawsuits against, 233n54; lawsuits by workers against, 38; legalization strategies of, 145; low skill-barrier, 43tab. 1, 160; 180 Days of Change campaign, 102; participant recruitment and methodology, 42–43; party-line rides, 105–6; payment rate changes, 74–78, 75tab. 2; pivots, 74–79; policies and algorithms of, 6; price-fixing conspiracy lawsuit, 71; promises of, 25, 233n54; recruitment, 73; rental cars, 5; research financed by, 38; response rates, 81, 160; safety issues, 101–4, 113; as sharing economy company, 26; start-up expenses, 145; as supplemental income, 39; tiered commission system, 76; UberPeople.net, 72–73; underpayment by, 76; usage by race, 194; value of, 77; worker-client sexual interactions, 132–33; work stigma and, 161.

Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy
by Andrew Yang
Published 15 Nov 2021

What would you do? Write a letter to the editor of your local paper? Hand out leaflets? Stand in the town square? But today you can stake out your corner of the internet and find some people to listen to you: the more outrageous or toxic your ideas, the more likely they are to evoke a reaction. In a TED talk, the technologist J. P. Rangaswami compared the information we consume to a diet. A work of great literature could be compared to an incredibly nourishing and fortifying meal. Social media snippets could be compared to snacking on junk food. Imagine if we surrounded children with an unlimited buffet of Cheetos and Twinkies.

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“The brain fires off” P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking, LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), 3. In 2018, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Robinson Meyer, “The Grim Conclusions of the Largest-Ever Study of Fake News,” Atlantic, March 8, 2018. In a TED talk “JP Rangaswami: Information Is Food,” YouTube, uploaded May 8, 2012, www.youtube.com/​watch?v=3A1LvXRnpVg. Jaron Lanier, the technology Jeremy Price, “The Father of Virtual Reality on How Facebook Is Messing with Your Mind,” Next Big Idea Club. in the graph Jean Twenge, “Six Facts About Screens and Teen Mental Health That a Recent New York Times Article Ignores,” Institute for Family Studies, Jan. 22, 2020.

The Intelligence Trap: Revolutionise Your Thinking and Make Wiser Decisions
by David Robson
Published 7 Mar 2019

The students there were learning about the ways to calculate the interior angles of the polygon, and rather than teaching the principles outright, the class had to struggle through the logic of coming up with the formula themselves – a strategy that reminded me a lot of Stigler’s accounts of the Japanese classroom. Later on, I saw an English class in which the students discuss music appreciation, which included a TED talk by the conductor Benjamin Zander, in which he discusses his own difficulties with learning the piano – again promoting the idea that intellectual struggle is essential for progress. Throughout the day, the teachers also ‘modelled’ the virtues themselves, making sure to admit their own ignorance if they didn’t immediately know an answer – an expression of intellectual humility – or their own curiosity if something suddenly led their interest in a new direction.

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I’ve also written about this work for BBC Future: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171012-how-emotions-can-trick-your-mind-and-body. 14 Redelmeier, D.A. and Baxter, S.D. (2009), ‘Rainy Weather and Medical School Admission Interviews’, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 181(12), 933. 15 Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G.L. and Jordan, A.H. (2008), ‘Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(8), 1096–109. 16 Lerner, J.S., Li, Y., Valdesolo, P. and Kassam, K.S. (2015), ‘Emotion and Decision Making’, Annual Review of Psychology, 66. 17 This quote was taken from Lisa Feldman Barrett’s TED talk in Cambridge, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYAEh3T5a80. 18 Seo, M.G. and Barrett, L.F. (2007), ‘Being Emotional During Decision Making—Good or Bad? An Empirical Investigation’, Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 923–40. 19 Cameron, C.D., Payne, B.K. and Doris, J.M. (2013), ‘Morality in High Definition: Emotion Differentiation Calibrates the Influence of Incidental Disgust on Moral Judgments’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(4), 719–25.

Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
by David Christian
Published 21 May 2018

Other Sources on Big History Bill Gates has funded the creation of the Big History Project, a free, online big-history syllabus for high schools. Big history now has its own scholarly organization (the International Big History Association), and Macquarie University has established a Big History Institute to advance teaching and research in big history. A TED Talk on big history that I gave in 2011 was designed to offer a short introduction to the idea of big history; it is available at https://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history. Glossary A list of technical terms or terms that are used in distinctive ways in this book. absorption lines: Dark lines that appear when starlight is analyzed with a spectroscope; they indicate the presence of particular elements that have absorbed some of the energy of starlight and can be used to detect the motion of remote objects as the dark lines shift to the red or blue end of the spectrum.

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McNeill, who saw big history as the logical next phase beyond world history, and Jerry Bentley, who first invited me to publish on the relationship between big history and world history. The Teaching Company invited me to give a lecture series on big history, and Bill Gates, who listened to those lectures, gave a tremendous boost to the field by supporting the creation of a free online syllabus in big history for high schools and inviting me to give a TED Talk on big history in 2011. His support resulted in the Big History Project, very ably managed first by Michael Dix and colleagues from Intentional Futures and now by a team headed by Andy Cook and Bob Regan. Co-creators of the Big History Project include the hundreds of teachers and schools and students who have taken the courageous gamble of teaching and learning this ambitious new approach to the past.

Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
by Anil Seth
Published 29 Aug 2021

these and … other hypotheses: Brainard & Hurlbert (2015); Witzel et al. (2017). changes what you consciously see: Eye Benders (Gifford & Seth, 2013). compelling auditory examples: Chris Darwin has some excellent examples of sine wave speech online at www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Chris_Darwin/SWS. I use another example in my 2017 TED talk: www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality. There are also auditory equivalents of The Dress. One example is a sound which some people hear as ‘Yanny’ and others as ‘Laurel’ (Pressnitzer et al., 2018). In 2020 a TikTok video appeared in which an ambiguous tinny noise from a cheap toy can be heard either as ‘green needle’ or ‘brainstorm’, depending on which words you are reading (time.com/5873627/green-needle-brainstorm-explained).

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Seth has published over 160 academic papers and is recognised as a ‘highly cited’ researcher, placing him in the top one per cent of researchers by field. A Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow, his writing has appeared in New Scientist, Scientific American, the Guardian and Granta, and he features regularly in the media, including on Radio 4’s The Life Scientific. His TED talk on consciousness has been viewed over 11 million times. @anilkseth | www.anilseth.com Copyright This ebook edition first published in the UK in 2021 by Faber & Faber Ltd Bloomsbury House 74–77 Great Russell Street London WC1B 3DA All rights reserved © Anil Seth, 2021 The right of Anil Seth to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ‘Creep’ Words & Music by Colin Greenwood, Jonathan Greenwood, Edward O’Brien, Philip Selway, Thomas Yorke, Albert Hammond & Mike Hazlewood, copyright © 1996 Concord Songs Limited.

Mapmatics: How We Navigate the World Through Numbers
by Paulina Rowinska
Published 5 Jun 2024

Imagine a whole, fresh cauliflower, and carefully detach one big branch – it looks just like the whole vegetable, doesn’t it? From this branch, detach a smaller one, and again, you get almost a copy of the vegetable you bought from the market. You can keep going, although at some point the tiny branches will resemble flour rather than the initial cauliflower. In his 2010 TED talk, Mandelbrot described a cauliflower as very complicated and very simple at the same time. Smaller pieces of this vegetable are similar to the whole – not identical, but they look alike. Mandelbrot noticed the same property in the seemingly random noise he studied at IBM. Mandelbrot thought back to weird geometric shapes that fascinated him as a young mathematician.

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the École Polytechnique: Benoît Mandelbrot, ‘École Normale and Thought in Mathematics’, Web of Stories video, 24 January 2008, https://www.webofstories.com/play/benoit.mandelbrot/16. (and getting married in the meantime): Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon, ‘Benoît Mandelbrot Obituary’, The Guardian, 17 October 2010. very complicated and very simple at the same time: Benoit Mandelbrot, ‘Fractals and the Art of Roughness’, TED Talks video, February 2010, https://www.ted.com/talks/benoit_mandelbrot_fractals_and_the_art_of_roughness?language=en. no possible significance: Benoît Mandelbrot, ‘Errors of Transmission in Telephone Channels (50/144)’, Web of Stories video, n.d., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EeAclc1OEc. as IBM’s engineers tended to explain the problem: James Gleick, ‘A Geometry of Nature’, in Chaos: Making a New Science (Harrisonburg, VA: Viking, 1987), 81–118.

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future
by John Brockman
Published 18 Jan 2011

We are all today in possession of nearly absolute power in several—but not all—dimensions of thinking, and since this hugely distorts the balance between what is hard and what is easy, it may indeed corrupt us all in ways we cannot prevent. The Rediscovery of Fire Chris Anderson Curator, TED Conferences, TED Talks Amid the apocalyptic wailing over the Internet-inflicted demise of print, one countertrend deserves a hearing. The Web has allowed the reinvention of the spoken word. Thanks to an enormous expansion of low-cost bandwidth, the cost of online video distribution has fallen almost to zero. As a result, recorded talks and lectures are spreading across the Web like wildfire.

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In addition to the Web page, the blog, and the tweet, we are witnessing the rise of riveting online talks, long enough to inform and explain, short enough for mass impact. The Web has allowed us to rediscover fire. The Rise of Social Media Is Really a Reprise June Cohen Director of media, TED Conference; TED Talks In the early days of the Web, when I worked at HotWired, I thought mainly about the new. We were of the future, those of us in that San Francisco loft—champions of new media, new tools, new thinking. But lately I’ve been thinking more about the old—about those aspects of human character and cognition that remain unchanged by time and technology.

Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution
by Beth Gardiner
Published 18 Apr 2019

Now, outside air is sucked into a tank on the roof, where it is washed and filtered, then pumped through the greenhouse to boost oxygen content. An operating room–style positive pressure system prevents contaminants from coming in when doors are opened. Meattle, who made his fortune in packaging, is deeply detail oriented, the kind of guy who tells you about the patents he holds and boasts of the TED talk he gave. As we speak, he barks instructions to an assistant projecting slides and videos on a screen at the front of the room. “Just open that presentation,” he orders. “The plants, show the plants also. Slide by slide, just run through it.” He forbids workers from eating anywhere other than the cafeteria for fear vapors from their food might taint the building’s air.

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“That’s a new idea,” he says. “But anyway, that’s on the side.” The bigger point, he says, is Paharpur’s effect on well-being. Undoubtedly, the building offers a pleasant respite, and Meattle points to a study showing headaches, breathing troubles, and eye irritation are much lower than in other offices. His TED talk was titled “How to Grow Clean Air,” and he says the oxygen the plants give off boosts workers’ productivity. It’s not long before his aide clips an oxygen monitor to my index finger. Meattle assures me my reading of 98 percent indicates an acceptable level of respiratory health, although “chances are you’d become 99” after a day in the building.

Bit Rot
by Douglas Coupland
Published 4 Oct 2016

So give a yak herder in rural Tibet some smooth connectivity, and he’ll access the same memory menu you do. Instead of going to yaks.​com, he’ll probably kill time reading the really scary and bitter one-star hotel reviews on TripAdvisor, or maybe he’ll get caught in a cute puppy warp on YouTube, or maybe he’ll make himself a worthier person by bingeing on TED talks, but he’ll probably be checking out porn. So. Much. Porn. Am I being judgmental here? If I am, it is a positive judgment, because the last thing planet Earth needs right now is 6.5 billion people being outside in the world wrecking things. It’s actually all for the better that everyone is inside YouTubing Russian dashcam compilations instead of wrecking the physical environment.

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To be discussed. So okay then, Greece leaves the euro zone, or the euro zone leaves Greece. In that scenario would Athens become the new New Delhi? Would everyone have to hand in their Lacoste shirts and iPhones to receive a box of Nestlé tinned meal-substitutes, and sit in communal theatres to watch TED talks projected onto bedsheets? Does Greece enter class warfare? But wait—Greece doesn’t really seem to be a one-percent-y country; Greeks all seem to more or less be in the same boat, so there aren’t that many heads you can chop off and put onto stakes. What would it mean for Greece to no longer be middle-class?

Don't Be Evil: How Big Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles--And All of US
by Rana Foroohar
Published 5 Nov 2019

“I find the notion that people would only vote some way because they were tricked to be almost viscerally offensive,” he told Osnos, in a statement that is truly stunning, given the company’s development and deployment of technologies that do just that. These problems did not come without warning. People in the Valley were openly fretting about them as early as 2011. That’s when Eli Pariser, the board president of the liberal political organization MoveOn.org, gave a TED Talk about how both Facebook and Google were using algorithms that encouraged people to migrate into political siloes populated only by those who thought as they did. The talk, entitled “Beware Online Filter Bubbles,”19 came out the same year that Google was introducing its own social network and vying with Facebook to create ever more detailed—that is to say, more valuable to advertisers—profiles of users’ online activity.

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Ryan Mac et al., “Growth at Any Cost: Top Facebook Executive Defended Data Collection in 2016 Memo—and Warned That Facebook Could Get People Killed,” BuzzFeed News, March 29, 2018. 18. Osnos, “Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy?” 19. Eli Pariser, “Beware Online ‘Filter Bubbles,’ ” TED Talk, March 2011. 20. McNamee, Zucked, 152. 21. Sam Levin, “ACLU Finds Social Media Sites Gave Data to Company Tracking Black Protesters,” The Guardian, October 11, 2016. 22. Shapiro and Aneja, “Who Owns Americans’ Personal Information and What Is It Worth?” 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25.

How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success From the World's Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs
by Guy Raz
Published 14 Sep 2020

—and that a decent number of NPR listeners and fans of TED Radio Hour would check out at least the first episode or two. But I also knew that we would hit a ceiling eventually if we de­pended only on the buzz that we built prior to launch. I’d seen it with TED Radio Hour back in early 2013. People loved TED Talks. Peo­ple were starting to really love podcasts. Put those two things to­gether, and you had a recipe for a very respectable listenership right out of the gate. Except the download numbers for TED Radio Hour, as respectable as they were, stayed somewhat flat for a while. It wasn’t until a few weeks into the show, when people began telling their friends about the podcast and recommending that they listen, that the download numbers started shifting up and across the y- and x-axes of the growth chart.

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See copyright and intellectual property publicity, negative, 169–72 Puddicombe, Andy, 198–201 punctualists vs. gradualists, 180 Pure Software, 204–5 purpose, 193–202 Angie’s BOOMCHICKAPOP, 251–52 Chez Panisse, 209–10 Gary Erickson on, 245–47 Headspace app, 198–201 lack of, 196–98 mission first approach, 194 vs. money alone, 193–94 of Rent the Runway, 194–96 See also mission; values Q Quaker Oats Company, 245 R Rahal, Peter, xiv, 88–92, 99 Raikes, Jeff, 97–98, 103 railroads, 218 Randolph, Marc, 211 Raz, Guy on career, xiii–xiv childhood and education, xii–xiii crucible phase, 144–45 on first interview for How I Built This, 265–66 on going live with show, 7 on Hannah (wife), ix, 271–72, 274 on How I Built This, 273 on kindness, 253–55 on luck, 266–67 on San Francisco, 214–15 on self-knowledge, 232–33 on this book, xiv–xvi Reagan, Ronald, 14 recalls, 170–72, 173–74, 177 recommendations, 127, 128 Reddit, 225–28 Reid, Antonio “L.A.”, 112 Rent the Runway, 148–50, 194–96 research, 32–41 examples of, 39–41 importance of, 32–33 inexperience as a benefit, 33–34 in luggage industry, 34–38 for Method soap, 46–47 purpose of, 38–39 risks fear vs. danger, 13–14, 17–18, 20 Jim Koch on, 16–18 mitigation of, 23–31 See also credit card use; crisis management Rock, Chris, 157 Rolling Stone, 112 Roney, Carley, 130–31, 132, 134, 269 Rubio, Jen brand building, 122–24, 125 on idea for Away, 34 money from family, 77 partnership and, 43 on research, 34–39 RXBar, 88–89, 91, 99, 103 Ryan, Eric bootstrapping, 51–52 building buzz, 117 money from family, 76–77, 78, 82 parental influence, 45 partnership and, 44–47 on partnership tension, 224–25, 228 privilege and access, 79 S safety nets, 23–31 Salesforce, 215 Sam Adams beer, 14, 17 Sandberg, Ryne, 235 Sand Hill Road Airbnb and, 57 Bevel and, 153–54, 157 Method and, 51–52 misconceptions about, 76 Shopify, 106–7 San Francisco markets, 214–16 scaling a business professional money, 147–58 protection, 168 vs. starting a business, 243–44 vs. you, 186, 200–201, 212 Scott, Kendra, 269 Scudamore, Brian, 208–9, 271 Segal, Gordon and Carole, 77, 79 self-doubt, 156–57 self-knowledge, 232–42 Andy Dunn on, 233–35 Gary Erickson on, 245–47 Guy Raz on, 232–33 identity crisis, 235–38, 239–42 post-merger conflict, 238–39 See also partnerships selling, 243–52 “Servant to Servants, A” (poem), 138, 146 sexism, 149, 194 Shaich, Ron, 77–78, 79, 269, 270 Shark Tank, 10, 24, 75 Shear, Emmett, 185–86, 187 Shoe Dog (Knight), 27 Shopify, 106–9, 268–69 side doors, 97–104 Signal and the Noise, The (Silver), 126 signal-to-noise ratio, 126 Silver, Nate, 126 Slack, xiv, 189–90 Smith, Jared, 90, 99 Snowdevil, 107 Sonnenfeld, Jeffrey, 206 South by Southwest (SXSW), 55 Southwest Airlines, 28, 220, 268, 269 Spaly, Brian, 226–27, 228, 230, 233, 241 Spanx, 265–66 Sports Illustrated, 121, 124 Stacy’s D’Lites, 181, 183 Stacy’s Pita Chips, 181–84 Starbucks, 262 Stitch Fix, 110–11, 223 Stonyfield Farm, 138–43, 145–46, 166, 184 storytelling, 63–73 Airbnb, 71–72 Away, 123–24 Bumble, 65–70 fundraising and, 80 Headspace, 199 hierarchy for, 65 importance of, 73 as marketing, 64 Procter & Gamble, 63–64 questions to ask, 65 Straight-at-Home, 131 Strauss, Levi, 216, 219 success brand building, 115 fear of, 191–92 founder relationships and, 222–31 of new businesses, 115–16 of small businesses, 147 See also location; luck Sun Also Rises, The (Hemingway), 180 Swiffer, 63 SXSW, 55 Systrom, Kevin, 118–20, 186, 270 T Tai, Bill, 155 talent, attracting and keeping, 208–9, 253–64 TED Radio Hour (podcast), 132, 232, 265 TED Talks and Conference, 132, 204 Theranos, 193 Thiel, Peter, 76, 99, 104 Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman), 181 Thomas, Lisa, 245–47 Thrasher’s, 135 Ticketmaster, 270 time, as resource, 260–64 Time Warner merger with AOL, 238–39, 263 Tinder, 66 Today show, 196 Tonight Show, 196, 254 TPG Capital, 247, 251 trademark, 162 Trader Joe’s, 250, 251 train tracks, 218 transition, into an entrepreneur Daymond John on, 25–26 examples of, 27–28 fallback plans, 29–31 research process, 32–33 vs. risk taking, 23–24, 248–52 transparency, 175 traps.

Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed With Alcohol
by Holly Glenn Whitaker
Published 9 Jan 2020

If you’re Elon Musk and you blow up the first few rockets you launch and lose millions upon millions of dollars—and years—in the process, you’re just working out the kinks. If you’re Elizabeth Gilbert and you write the wildly unsuccessful Committed after publishing the epochal Eat, Pray, Love, nothing bad has happened—you’re just practicing for your TED Talk, your Oprah tour, your next New York Times best seller. For them, failure never equaled going back to square one; failure was a leap forward. None of their careers are seen as a zero-sum game where the only things that count are the wins, and their failures aren’t measured as stumbling blocks; they are measured as legacy.

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It wasn’t because of the size of our brains but because our brains are built to connect us to one another, to cooperate with one another to accomplish impossible tasks. In 2015 Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream, posited that the opposite of addiction is connection. Everyone went apeshit. Seemingly every single person in my network sent me his article—and subsequent TED Talk—because it was such a radical notion: that we are sick with addiction because we are disconnected. At first I was appalled at the intrinsic reductionism in that statement—it felt like an invalidation of everything we were just starting to understand about the pathology of addiction in the wake of developments in neuroscience, and too simple of an answer.

Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success
by Tom Eisenmann
Published 29 Mar 2021

Despite great uncertainty about demand and costs, Agassi was successful with this fundraising round in large part due to his charisma and ability to spin an inspiring, spellbinding vision of a better tomorrow. It didn’t hurt that he’d become something of a business celebrity; in 2009 Agassi was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People,” and his TED Talk, in which he asserted that the transition to electric cars was “the moral equivalent of abolishing slavery,” garnered 1.3 million views. As Joe Paluska, who served as Better Place’s head of communications and policy, remarked of the founder, “The confidence he has in what he’s telling you is incredible.”

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Creating the vehicle’s software: OSCAR is described in Blum, Totaled, p. 64 and p. 135. According to tech journalist Brian Blum: The $60 million cost estimate is from Blum, Totaled, p. 67. he’d become something: Time magazine list is mentioned in Blum and Ben-Hur, “Better Place: An Entrepreneur’s Drive.” TED Talk was on April 19, 2009. “The confidence he has”: Chafkin, “Broken Place.” “I’ve never seen someone”: Vauhini Vara, “Software Executive Shifts Gears to Electric Cars,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29, 2007. “the born salesman’s ability”: Clive Thompson, “Batteries Not Included,” New York Times Magazine, Apr. 16, 2009.

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson
Published 15 May 2023

They are also unlikely to be exposed to contrarian voices in these echo chamber–like environments. Echo chambers may be an inevitable by-product of social media. But it has been known for more than a decade that they are exacerbated by platform algorithms. Eli Pariser, internet activist and executive director of MoveOn.org, reported in a TED talk in 2010 that although he followed many liberal and conservative news sites, after a while he noticed he was directed more and more to liberal sites because the algorithm had noticed he was a little more likely to click on them. He coined the term filter bubble to describe how algorithm filters were creating an artificial space in which people heard only voices that were already aligned with their political views.

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Steve Jobs, “Let’s go and invent…,” is from a 2007 conference (https://allthingsd.com/20070531/d5-gates-jobs-transcript). Labor market developments, including wage inequality by education, are examined in more detail in Chapter 8; see the notes for that chapter for details on our sources and calculations. The Bandwagon of Progress. “What can we do…” is from a TED talk by Erik Brynjolfsson in April 2017 (www.techpolicy.com/Blog/April-2017/Erik-Brynjolfsson-Racing-with-the-Machine-Beats-R.aspx). Automotive industry facts are from McCraw (2009, 14, 17, 23). Auto industry employment in the 1920s is from CQ Researcher (1945). The evolution of tasks in the auto industry is discussed further in chapters 7 and 8; full sources are in the notes for those chapters.

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Misinformation Machine. Statistics on social media use and sources of news are from Levy (2021), Allcott, Gentzkow, and Yu (2019), and Allcott and Gentzkow (2017). “[F]alsehood diffused…” is from Vosoughi, Roy, and Aral (2018). See Guess, Nyhan, and Reifler (2020) on the 2015‒2016 election. Pariser’s 2010 TED talk is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8of WFx525s. The discussion of the doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is from Frenkel and Kang (2021). Nick Clegg, “Our job…,” is from Timberg, Romm, and Harwell (2019). The discussion of the Oath Keepers is from Frenkel and Kang (2021). YouTube radicalization and “I fell down the alt-right rabbit hole” are from Roose (2019).

The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
by Michiko Kakutani
Published 17 Jul 2018

It’s a big reason why liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, find it harder and harder to agree on facts and why a shared sense of reality is becoming elusive. It also helps explain why elites in New York and Washington—including the Clinton campaign and much of the press—were so shocked by Trump’s win in the 2016 election. “If algorithms are going to curate the world for us,” Pariser warned in a 2011 TED talk, “if they’re going to decide what we get to see and what we don’t get to see, then we need to make sure that they’re not just keyed to relevance but that they also show us things that are uncomfortable or challenging or important, other points of view.” 7 ATTENTION DEFICIT When you want to know how things really work, study them when they’re coming apart.

Tokyo Like a Local
by Dk Eyewitness

g ARTS & CULTURE g Contents Culture Live PECHAKUCHA NIGHT KABUKIZA THEATRE TOKYO COMEDY BAR SUNTORY HALL PIRATES OF TOKYO BAY GLOBAL RING THEATRE KANZE NOGAKUDO g Culture Live g Contents PECHAKUCHA NIGHT Various locations; www.pechakucha.org/cities/tokyo Translating to “chit chat,” Pechakucha is like a TED Talk in hyperspeed. Giving a fresh take on the public speaking scene, talks – held in both Japanese and English – are based on the 20x20 format: speakers have 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide to get their ideas across to an audience, all of whom come for a quick, powerful dose of inspiration. What started as a one-off event in Tokyo has become a global phenomenon, where designers, artists, and architects show their work to a relaxed community of fellow creatives.

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
by Sam Harris
Published 5 Oct 2010

In February of 2010, I spoke at the TED conference about how we might one day understand morality in universal, scientific terms (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww). Normally, when one speaks at a conference the resulting feedback amounts to a few conversations in the lobby during a coffee break. As luck would have it, however, my TED talk was broadcast on the internet as I was in the final stages of writing this book, and this produced a blizzard of useful commentary. Many of my critics fault me for not engaging more directly with the academic literature on moral philosophy. There are two reasons why I haven’t done this: First, while I have read a fair amount of this literature, I did not arrive at my position on the relationship between human values and the rest of human knowledge by reading the work of moral philosophers; I came to it by considering the logical implications of our making continued progress in the sciences of mind.

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And even if minds were independent of the physical universe, we could still speak about facts relative to their well-being. But we would be speaking about some other basis for these facts (souls, disembodied consciousness, ectoplasm, etc.). 24. On a related point, the philosopher Russell Blackford wrote in response to my TED talk, “I’ve never yet seen an argument that shows that psychopaths are necessarily mistaken about some fact about the world. Moreover, I don’t see how the argument could run.” While I discuss psychopathy in greater detail in the next chapter, here is such an argument in brief: We already know that psychopaths have brain damage that prevents them from having certain deeply satisfying experiences (like empathy) that seem good for people both personally and collectively (in that they tend to increase well-being on both counts).

The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age
by Robert Wachter
Published 7 Apr 2015

Over the past decade, Abraham Verghese, an infectious disease specialist and bestselling author, has become increasingly concerned about how technology is cleaving the sacred bond between doctor and patient. “I joke, but I only half joke, that if you came to one of our hospitals missing a limb, nobody would believe you until they got a CAT scan, an MRI, and an orthopedic consult,” the soft-spoken Verghese likes to say. In a 2011 TED talk, Verghese lamented that when we stop talking to and examining patients, dangerous things start to happen, including overlooking simple diagnoses that can be treated when they’re caught early. But we lose more than that. “We’re losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and at the heart of the patient-physician relationship,” said Verghese.

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While the real patient keeps the bed warm and ensures that his folder remains alive on the computer, “the iPatient’s blood counts and emanations are tracked and trended like a Dow Jones Index, and pop-up flags remind caregivers to feed or bleed.” “The iPatient is getting wonderful care all across America,” Verghese said in his TED talk, “but the real patient often wonders, Where is everyone? When are they going to come by to explain things to me? Who is in charge?” Sitting in Verghese’s sun-drenched office on Stanford’s idyllic Palo Alto campus, I asked what prompted him to write about the iPatient. He recalled arriving at Stanford in 2007 from his previous job in Texas and walking to the patient care floor, expecting to see the residents in the internal medicine training program he had been hired to direct.

Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door -- Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy
by Christopher Mims
Published 13 Sep 2021

Some see this as an opportunity to end the wage slavery of long-haul truckers, the relationship- and soul-destroying nature of their work, the alienation, the exploitation of people by companies and systems that pay them by the mile in a form of twenty-first-century piecework not so different from the kind that still burdens many garment workers. For all the TED Talk–style hand-waving and hypothesizing by analysts, technologists, and think tanks, it remains to be seen what the real-world impacts of autonomous trucking will be. A world in which autonomous trucks have taken all the plum gigs—regular routes over long distances, for example—is just as likely to be one in which independent contractors continue to be exploited as they haul goods between the hubs served by autonomous trucks, says sociologist Steve Viscelli.

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My guide today is Ted Dengel, managing director of operations technology and innovation for FedEx’s ground-based shipping network. Where Amazon’s managers and flacks talk about their employer in a way that reminds me of every tech start-up ever—that is, in a specialized and cultish language, with an emphasis on how everything they’re doing is going to change the world—Ted talks about what FedEx does in the context of the company’s history. He rattles off hard numbers, interrupts himself with caveats, gets a little wistful about how things used to be done, widens his eyes when emphasizing how much better they are now. When I ask him whether the hardware inside of the facility we are touring is all that different from any other sortation center owned by his competitors, he pauses and then says no, not really.

Human Frontiers: The Future of Big Ideas in an Age of Small Thinking
by Michael Bhaskar
Published 2 Nov 2021

Intellectuals, like creative artists, have seen their rebellion defanged. For many, the notion of having a big idea and communicating it directly to a wide general public is inconceivable: they are narrowly specialised, communicating to one another in obtuse academic vernacular. For others, the promise of quick celebrity and a TED talk does quite the reverse. Meanwhile big ideas have become gauche, unfashionable, seen as risky, wrongheaded and unwieldy. There are almost certainly more academics alive in the last twenty or thirty years than at any other time in history, working across the full span of intellectual endeavour on political theory, philosophy, anthropology, sociology.

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Screw evidential standards and slow, messy research: bask in the glory of a breathless headline, a different but no less insidious brand of populism. We move from ‘public intellectuals’ to ‘thought leaders’; from critics and sceptics to evangelists; from open to closed minds; from expertise towards personal experience, however shallowly constituted; from lecture series to ten-minute TED talks; from books to blog posts; from scholarship to the consultancy gig; from disinterestedness to the impact agenda; from thoughtful correspondence to Twitter; from research for research's sake to research for plutocrats and autocrats. Discussion is moving away from a commitment to academic, critical, inquisitive values towards the more deliberately provocative and point-scoring.92 It has business analogues in a commercial system primed to offer pointless services and quickly discarded gadgets; cultural analogues in the endless production of same-same eyeball-sucking pabula.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century
by Yuval Noah Harari
Published 29 Aug 2018

He looked at the propaganda posters – which typically depicted coal miners, steelworkers and housewives in heroic poses – and saw himself there: ‘I am in that poster! I am the hero of the future!’5 In 2018 the common person feels increasingly irrelevant. Lots of mysterious words are bandied around excitedly in TED talks, government think tanks and hi-tech conferences – globalisation, blockchain, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, machine learning – and common people may well suspect that none of these words are about them. The liberal story was the story of ordinary people. How can it remain relevant to a world of cyborgs and networked algorithms?

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In contrast, in the twenty-first century we are flooded by enormous amounts of information, and even the censors don’t try to block it. Instead, they are busy spreading misinformation or distracting us with irrelevancies. If you live in some provincial Mexican town and you have a smartphone, you can spend many lifetimes just reading Wikipedia, watching TED talks, and taking free online courses. No government can hope to conceal all the information it doesn’t like. On the other hand, it is alarmingly easy to inundate the public with conflicting reports and red herrings. People all over the world are but a click away from the latest accounts of the bombardment of Aleppo or of melting ice caps in the Arctic, but there are so many contradictory accounts that it is hard to know what to believe.

Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again
by Eric Topol
Published 1 Jan 2019

A few years ago, she said, “I consider the pixel data in images and video to be the dark matter of the Internet.”40 Many different convolutional DNNs were used to classify the images with annual ImageNet Challenge contests to recognize the best (such as AlexNet, GoogleNet, VGG Net, and ResNet). Figure 4.6 shows the progress in reducing the error rate over several years, with ImageNet wrapping up in 2017, with significantly better than human performance in image recognition. The error rate fell from 30 percent in 2010 to 4 percent in 2016. Li’s 2015 TED Talk “How We’re Teaching Computers to Understand Pictures” has been viewed more than 2 million times, and it’s one of my favorites.41 FIGURE 4.6: Over time, deep learning AI has exceeded human performance for image recognition. Source: Adapted from Y. Shoham et al., “Artificial Intelligence Index 2017 Annual Report,” CDN AI Index (2017): http://cdn.aiindex.org/2017-report.pdf.

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It’s the combination of AI learning with key human-specific features like common sense that is alluring for medicine. All too commonly we ascribe the capability of machines to “read” scans or slides, when they really can’t read. Machines’ lack of understanding cannot be emphasized enough. Recognition is not understanding; there is zero context, exemplified by Fei-Fei Li’s TED Talk on computer vision. A great example is the machine interpretation of “a man riding a horse down the street,” which actually is a man on a horse sitting high on a statue going nowhere. That symbolizes the plateau we’re at for image recognition. When I asked Fei-Fei Li in 2018 whether anything had changed or improved, she said, “Not at all.”

The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture
by Scott Belsky
Published 1 Oct 2018

Duckworth explains that what determines whether you succeed or fail is grit, a special blend of passion and perseverance directed at accomplishing long-term goals. “Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Duckworth said in her 2013 TED talk. But working hard doesn’t mean showing no pain or pretending all is well. Duckworth clarifies in a New York Times interview that “when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive. They’re able to say things like, ‘Dude, I totally lost my temper this morning.’

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opt-in online survey: Lauren Carroll and Louis Jacobson, “Trump Cites Shaky Survey in Call to Ban Muslims from Entering US,” PolitiFact, December 9, 2015, www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/09/donald-trump/trump-cites-shaky-survey-call-ban-muslims-entering. STRESS-TEST YOUR OPINIONS WITH RADICAL TRUTHFULNESS. “I wanted to make”: Ray Dalio, “How to Build a Company Where the Best Ideas Win,” TED talk, April 2017, www.ted.com/talks/ray_dalio_how_to_build_a_company_where_the_best_ideas_win/transcript?language=en. “Rules for Bridgewater’s”: Rob Copeland and Bradley Hope, “The World’s Largest Hedge Fund Is Building an Algorhythmic Model from Its Employees’ Brains,” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2016, www.wsj.com/articles/the-worlds-largest-hedge-fund-is-building-an-algorithmic-model-of-its-founders-brain-1482423694.

New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI
by Frank Pasquale
Published 14 May 2020

Stephan Russ-Mohl, “Bots, Lies and Propaganda: The New Misinformation Economy,” European Journalism Observatory, October 20, 2016, https://en.ejo.ch/latest-stories/bots-lies-and-propaganda-the-new-misinformation-economy; Carole Cadwalladr, “Facebook’s Role in Brexit—and the Threat to Democracy,” TED talk, filmed April 2019 at TED2019 Conference, 15:16, https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_threat_to_democracy/transcript?language=en. 11. Alex Shepard, “Facebook Has a Genocide Problem,” New Republic, March 15, 2018, https://newrepublic.com/article/147486/facebook-genocide-problem; Euan McKirdy, “When Facebook becomes ‘The Beast’: Myanmar Activists Say Social Media Aids Genocide,” CNN, April 6, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/asia/myanmar-facebook-social-media-genocide-intl/index.html.

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Gabriella Blum, “Invisible Threats,” Hoover Institution: Emerging Threats, 2012, https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/emergingthreats_blum.pdf. 6. P. W. Singer and August Cole, Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War (New York: Houghton, 2015). 7. P. W. Singer, “Military Robots and the Future of War,” TED talk, February 2009, https://www.ted.com/talks/pw_singer_on_robots_of_war; P. W. Singer, “News and Events,” https://www.pwsinger.com/news-and-events/; MCOE Online, “August Cole Discusses Future Fighting Possibilities,” YouTube, March 3, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl_J9_x-yOk. 8. Anatoly Dneprov, Crabs on the Island (Moscow: Mir Publishers, 1968), 10: “ ‘Surely I told you I want to improve my robots.’

Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life
by Ozan Varol
Published 13 Apr 2020

Tunneling Tech to Help Humans Settle Mars,” Teslarati, May 23, 2018, www.teslarati.com/spacex-use-boring-company-tunneling-technology-mars; CNBC, “SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell on Elon Musk and the Future of Space Launches,” video, YouTube, uploaded May 22, 2018, https://youtu.be/clhXVdjvOyk. 77. The discussion on the Boring Company is based on the following sources: Boring Company, “FAQ,” www.boringcompany.com/faq; Elon Musk, “The Future We’re Building—and Boring,” TED talk, April 2017, www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_future_we_re_building_and_boring. 78. Back to the Future, by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale and directed by Robert Zemeckis (Universal Pictures, 1985). The quote was uttered by the character Emmet “Doc” Brown as he and his friends prepare to blast off to another time-traveling adventure. 79.

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More Than You Realize,” UX Collective, August 1, 2018, https://uxdesign.cc/what-does-ux-and-stand-up-comedy-have-in-common-more-than-you-realise-d18066aeaecf. 41. Entrepreneurship.org, “Field Observations with Fresh Eyes: Tom Kelley (IDEO),” video, YouTube, uploaded June 24, 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvkivmyKgEA. 42. Paul Bennett, “Design Is in the Details,” TED talk, July 2005, www.ted.com/talks/paul_bennett_finds_design_in_the_details. 43. Art Kleiner, “The Thought Leader Interview: Tim Brown,” Strategy + Business, August 27, 2009, www.strategy-business.com/article/09309?gko=84f90. 44. Kleiner, “Tim Brown.” 45. “Ideo on 60 Minutes and CBS This Morning,” video, IDEO, April 2013, www.ideo.com/post/ideo-on-60-minutes-and-cbs-this-morning. 46.

The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop Per Child
by Morgan G. Ames
Published 19 Nov 2019

However, nostalgic design violates some of the core principles of user-centered design: to design for one’s users, not for oneself, and to account for the messy realities of use.16 Indeed, the project did little to engage these realities: there was no OLPC-specific pilot or user testing to speak of.17 Negroponte, in fact, derided pilots in his talks: in his 2006 TED talk on OLPC, he said, “The days of pilot projects are over. When people say, ‘Well, we’d like to do three or four thousand in our country to see how it works.’ Screw you. Go to the back of the line and someone else will do it, and then when you figure out that this works, you can join as well.”18 As reported by MIT professor Ethan Zuckerman in a 2006 update on the project, Gettys told him that “the current plan to distribute five million laptops in five nations next year is a pilot—when you’re talking about building and distributing more than two billion devices, a few million is just a toe dipped into the water.”19 Though this flies in the face of well-established usability principles, designing for some abstracted user based more on social imaginaries or one’s own nostalgic memories instead of taking the time to really grapple with the contradictions of actual use is nevertheless common in technology design.

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His first public performance for OLPC was the demonstration at the World Information Summit in Tunis in November 2005, where he and UN secretary-general Kofi Annan debuted a nonworking prototype laptop and made a number of promises regarding laptop features and project reach that OLPC was ultimately unable to fulfill.13 Over the next several years, the charismatic performances continued as Negroponte flung XO laptops across stages to demonstrate their ruggedness and showed pictures of smiling children sitting with their laptops in pastoral fields and forests.14 In 2012, as evaluations from Peru’s poorly supported OLPC project showed little change, his charismatic performances changed course: he started talking about dropping tablet computers out of helicopters to enable children in Ethiopia to teach themselves to read English.15 His 2014 TED Talk evoked a vision of roaring success for this Ethiopia project: I then tried an experiment, and the experiment happened in Ethiopia. And here’s the experiment. The experiment is, can learning happen where there are no schools. And we dropped off tablets with no instructions and let the children figure it out.

Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South
by Beth Macy
Published 17 Oct 2016

With his antibullying platform Positive Exposure, fashion photographer Rick Guidotti has launched a campaign to show the beauty of people with albinism and to include positive messages about children with all kinds of genetic differences, including cleft palates and mobility issues. “As an artist, it’s our responsibility to steady that gaze a little bit longer.… To start seeing beauty in difference,” he said in a popular TED Talk. But it was centuries before the stigma surrounding albinism would lift enough to create a space for Guidotti’s stunning albino supermodels. (Sunglasses weren’t even mass-produced until 1929.) The negative stereotypes were embedded in the mind-set of America’s most heralded founding father, the author of the Declaration of Independence.

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Negative views of albinos: Maryrose Cuskelly, Original Skin: Exploring the Marvels of the Human Hide (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2011). Possibility of Noah’s being an albino: Damon Rose, “The People Who Think Noah Had Albinism,” BBC News, April 3, 2014. “start seeing beauty in difference”: Rick Guidotti, “From Stigma to Supermodel,” TED Talk, https://www.ted.com/talks/rick_guidotti_from_stigma_to_supermodel. Background on history of science, albinism, and early entertainment-venue draws: Taken primarily from Bogdan, Freak Show, and author interview, Bogdan, Sept. 2, 2014, and from Charles D. Martin, The White African American Body: A Cultural and Literary Exploration (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002), from which the story of Jefferson’s fascination with albinism is also summarized.

Rich White Men: What It Takes to Uproot the Old Boys' Club and Transform America
by Garrett Neiman
Published 19 Jun 2023

I’ve started asking myself these questions not only because they help me counter socialization I’ve received to devalue some people’s humanity, but also because I’ve learned that daily interactions like these do more to boost longevity than the finest medicines, products, and services that money can buy. I’ve learned that, in the most primal sense, my well-being is tethered to the well-being of others. In her 2017 TED Talk, psychologist and longevity researcher Susan Pinker describes the biological nature of these findings.16 Face-to-face interactions—including things as small as making eye contact, shaking hands, or giving a high five—release neurotransmitters that lower cortisol levels, release oxytocin, and generate dopamine.

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“About Us,” Relational Uprising, accessed September 19, 2022, https://relationaluprising.org/mission. 15. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Timothy B. Smith, and J. Bradley Layton, “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-Analytic Review,” PLOS Medicine 7, no. 7 (2010): e1000316, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316. 16. Susan Pinker, “The Secret to Living Longer May Be Your Social Life,” TED Talk, TED2017, April 2017, Vancouver, BC, video posted on TED.com, https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_pinker_the_secret_to_living_longer_may_be_your_social_life. 17. Dave Davies, “A Former Neo-Nazi Explains Why Hate Drew Him In—and How He Got Out,” Fresh Air, NPR, January 18, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/01/18/578745514/a-former-neo-nazi-explains-why-hate-drew-him-in-and-how-he-got-out. 18.

Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life
by Kristen R. Ghodsee
Published 16 May 2023

Learning new things together with others is a wonderful way to forge bonds with strangers, widening or strengthening our social networks and modeling curiosity for the next generation. More’s idea of free and lifelong education has found various outlets online, particularly in projects like Wikipedia, TED Talks, Duolingo, the original edX courses offered by Harvard and MIT, and other attempts to democratize knowledge. Although many people would still rather binge a streaming series than take an online course after a long day at work, a potential future of shorter hours, or, with the rise in remote work, fewer hours lost in commutes, might free up time to engage in more self-directed learning.

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Wade reversed by, 197 Sweden: cohousing in, 60 state-supported childcare in, 96–97, 100 state-supported maternity leave in, 97 Tabennisi, Egypt, first cenobitic monastery in, 35 TallBear, Kim, 191, 219 tamarin monkeys, parenting by, 180 Tamera Peace Research & Education Center, 161, 221 child-rearing in, 221, 228 polyamory practiced in, 221 Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), 121 Tanzania, Republic of, 119–20 colonial education system in, 121 Nyerere’s education system in, 121–23 tax policies, 14 benefiting homeowners, 256 benefiting married people, 191, 256 communal communities and, 157–60, 254 technology sector, blue sky thinking and, 16 TED Talks, 129 Telesio, Bernardino, 6 Terra Nova, 161 Themiscyra (Pontus), 2 Thirty Tyrants, 4 Thompson, Helen, 60–61 Three Dads and a Baby (Jenkins), 224–25 Thucydides, 3 TikTok, 251 Title IX, 2 Tolstoy, Leo, 201 Topkapi Palace (Istanbul), 187 Traister, Rebecca, 197 transcendentalists, 10 Tribune des femmes, 208 Tristan, Flora, 8, 18–19, 91, 208, 211, 251 Truman Show, The (film), 12 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Canada), 19–20 Tummers, Lidewij, 67 Tversky, Amos, 12 Twin Oaks community, 163–66, 228 Two Echo Cohousing community, 52–53, 53, 58, 62–64 Uchebno-Profesionalni Kompleksi (Education-Professional Complexes) (Bulgaria), 118 Uhura (char.), 27, 232 UK Cohousing Network, 66 ultimogeniture, 189 Ulyanov, Vladimir Ilyich, see Lenin, V.

The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset That Drives Extraordinary Results
by Andrew McAfee
Published 14 Nov 2023

Soft Treats That Provide Hard Lessons When Peter Skillman was working at the design consultancy IDEO in the early 2000s, he came up with a simple exercise for small teams: in eighteen minutes, using twenty pieces of spaghetti, one meter of masking tape, one meter of string, and a marshmallow, build the tallest tower possible on a tabletop. The only constraints were that the tower had to remain motionless for three seconds after it was finished, and the marshmallow had to be on top. Consultant Tom Wujec picked up Skillman’s marshmallow challenge and gave it to a wide variety of groups. In a 2010 TED talk, he summarized his findings: The average tower height was about twenty inches. CEOs were a little better than average, lawyers significantly worse. The group with the shortest overall towers were business-school students. Kindergartners did at least two and a half times better than the B-schoolers, and a bit better than the CEOs.

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sref=iW3WrQuv. 43 A May 2022 story: Hage, “VW-Aufsichtsrat Fürchtet Folgen Des Softwarechaos.” 44 simple exercise for small teams: Peter Skillman, “The Design Challenge (Also Called Spaghetti Tower),” Medium, April 14, 2019, https://medium.com/@peterskillman/the-design-challenge-also-called-spaghetti-tower-cda62685e15b. 45 2010 TED talk: Tom Wujec, “Build a Tower, Build a Team,” TED video, 00:50, accessed February 15, 2023, www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower_build_a_team?language=zh. 46 “don’t waste time”: “Peter Skillman Marshmallow Design Challenge,” YouTube video, January 27, 2014. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p5sBzMtB3Q. 47 “Most people begin”: Wujec, “Build a Tower.” 48 “We do everything wrong”: Eric Ries, The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (New York: Currency, 2011). 49 something of a personal mantra: Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman), “You may have heard me say: If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late [www.linkedin.com/pulse/arent-any-typos-essay-we-launched-too-late-reid-hoffman],” Twitter March 29, 2017, 1:46 p.m., https://twitter.com/reidhoffman/status/847142924240379904?

Surviving AI: The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence
by Calum Chace
Published 28 Jul 2015

The robot displayed worm-like behaviour despite having had no programming apart from what was contained in the connectome. The Human Brain Project (HBP) and Obama’s BRAIN initiative Henry Markram, an Israeli / South African neuroscientist, has become a controversial figure in his field while attracting enormous funding for projects to reverse engineer the human brain. In an influential TED talk, he suggested that an accurate model of the brain could enable scientists to devise cures for the diseases which afflict it, such as Alzheimer’s disease. As people live longer, more of us succumb to brain diseases, which can ruin our final years. He does not tend to talk about creating a conscious mind in silico, although he did tell a Guardian journalist in 2007 that “if we build [the model] right, it should speak.” (32) In 2005 he launched the Blue Brain project, based at Lausanne in Switzerland.

Mind Over Clutter
by Nicola Lewis
Published 26 Feb 2019

– Anonymous Client References 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/well/mind/clutter-stress-procrastination-psychology.html 2. https://undecidedthebook.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/saxbe-repetti-pspb-2010.pdf 3. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/media-center/press-release/americans-bedrooms-are-key-better-sleep-according-new-poll Sourcebook Mental health and wellbeing www.lifecoach-directory.org.uk For comprehensive data base of UK life coaches and NLP practitioners www.marymeadows.co.uk Life coach and NLP Practitioner www.mind.org.uk www.sleepfoundation.org www.ted.com/talks For TED Talks – influential videos by expert speakers Eco-friendly cleaning products www.biodegradable.biz www.ecoegg.com www.ecover.com www.koala.eco www.koh.com www.methodproducts.co.uk www.tincturelondon.com Essential oils www.hollandandbarrett.com For 100 per cent pure essential oils www.nealsyardremedies.com For 100 per cent pure organic essential oils Donating www.ageuk.org.uk Charity shops and for computers, tablets, mobile phones, tools www.battersea.org.uk For bedding www.beautybank.org For unopened beauty products, toiletries and other ‘little luxuries’ www.bhf.org.uk (British Heart Foundation) Charity shops and for furniture – will collect from your home www.books2africa.org For books www.carolinehirons.com For Give and Make Up for unused make-up and cosmetics www.charitychoice.co.uk For list of all UK charities www.charityretail.org.uk To find charity shops in your area www.dogtrust.org.uk For bedding thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk For bedding www.emmaus.org.uk Charity shops and for furniture, electrical items, clothing, etc. – will collect from your home www.freecycle.org Nonprofit grassroots movement for donating and reusing stuff for free in your town or neighbourhood www.thehygienebank.com For donating new, unused and in-date hygiene essentials, beauty and personal care products www.lionsclubs.org/en For eyewear www.lovesupportunite.org For women’s and girls’ underwear www.mariecurie.org Charity shops and for eyewear www.nhs.uk For searching for hospitals to donate to waiting rooms, children’s wards and wards for elderly patients and for toys, books, games www.oxfam.org.uk Charity shops www.redcross.org.uk Charity shops www.refuge.org.uk For clothes, toys and bedding www.rspca.org.uk For bedding www.salvationarmy.org.uk Charity shops and for toys, clothing www.savethechildren.org.uk Charity shops www.shelter.org.uk Charity shops and for clothing, furniture, books, electrical items www.smallsforall.org For women’s and girls’ underwear www.specsavers.co.uk Accepts, recycles and donates eyewear working with specialist charities www.tfsr.org (Tools For Self Reliance) For tools www.trusselltrust.org/get-help/find-a-foodbank/ For food donations www.visionaidoverseas.org For eyewear www.womensaid.org.uk For clothes, toys, bedding, furniture www.workaid.org For tools www.ymca.org.uk For bedding, towels, linen, furniture Recycling www.compareandrecycle.co.uk For mobile phone recycling comparison www.sellmymobile.com For quotes from UK recycling companies www.terracycle.co.uk For recycling hard-to-recycle waste, as well as food wrappers, pens, plastic containers and bottles, etc.

The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It
by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
Published 1 Sep 2020

Only about a third of Americans trusted Donald Trump’s medical advice.22 One poll in late April showed that 62 percent of the French had no confidence in their government’s handling of the crisis, with commentators, on both the right and the left, comparing France’s response to Covid to the country’s “strange defeat” by Germany in 1940.23 At its worst, this distrust created conspiracy theories: that the virus had been deliberately manufactured, either by China or Big Pharma or indeed the United States; that it spread through 5G towers and masks; that it was a plot to kill off the old. Bill Gates was blamed, because long before Covid he had (correctly) warned about the danger of a global pandemic in a TED talk, and invested cash in trying to find a cure. This nonsense has consequences: people have burned down scores of 5G towers, including sometimes towers that served medical facilities. A third of Americans say that they won’t get themselves vaccinated if one is found. OVERLOADED—AND OVER? Meanwhile, in terms of geopolitics, the crisis has left the West weaker and Asia stronger.

Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
by Michael Shermer
Published 8 Apr 2020

Michael Shermer is Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, USA, the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the host of the Science Salon podcast, and for eighteen years he was a monthly columnist for Scientific American. He is the author of a number of New York Times bestselling books including: Heavens on Earth, The Moral Arc, The Believing Brain, and Why People Believe Weird Things. His two TED talks, viewed over nine million times, were voted into the top 100 out of more than 2,000 TED talks. Giving the Devil His Due Reflections of a Scientific Humanist Michael Shermer Chapman University University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions
by Johann Hari
Published 1 Jan 2018

He has twice been named Newspaper Journalist of the Year by Amnesty International UK for his reporting on the war in the Congo and human rights abuses in Dubai. He appears regularly as a panelist on the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher. His TED Talk, “Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong,” and the animation he scripted based on it have been viewed over twenty million times. Also available by Johann Hari Chasing the Scream The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs What if everything we think we know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari’s TED talk on this subject – and the animation based on it – have been viewed more than 20 million times, and this New York Times bestselling book takes you on the remarkable journey that led him to uncovering these breakthroughs.

Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--And How to Think Deeply Again
by Johann Hari
Published 25 Jan 2022

: Ferriss, “Show Transcripts—Fighting Skynet and Firewalling Attention.” GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT “I want you to imagine walking into a room. A control room, with a bunch of people, a hundred people”: T. Harris, “How a Handful of Tech Companies Control Billions of Minds Every Day” (TED talk), TED2017, https://www.ted.com/​talks/​tristan_harris_how_a_handful_of_tech_companies_control_billions_of_minds_every_day?language=en. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT “Why don’t we make it buzz your phone every time we get an email?”: C. Newton, “Google’s New Focus on Well-Being Started Five Years Ago with This Presentation,” Verge, May 10, 2018, https://www.theverge.com/​2018/​5/10/​17333574/​google-android-p-update-tristan-harris-design-ethics.

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Jackson, entitled The Fix. His second book, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression—and the Unexpected Solutions was described by the British Journal of General Practice as “one of the most important texts of recent years,” and shortlisted for an award by the British Medical Association. Hari’s TED Talks “Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong” and “This Could Be Why You Are Depressed or Anxious” have been viewed more than 75 million times. He has written over the past decade for some of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the Spectator, Le Monde diplomatique, the Age (Melbourne), and Politico.

Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind
by Susan Schneider
Published 1 Oct 2019

The Language of Thought: A New Philosophical Direction. Boston: MIT Press. ________. 2014. “The Philosophy of ‘Her’,” New York Times, March 2. ________. 2015. “Alien Minds,” In S. J. Dick, ed., The Impact of Discovering Life beyond Earth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ________. 2016. “Can a Machine Feel?” TED talk, June 22, Cambridge, MA, http://www.tedxcambridge.com/speaker/susan-schneider/. ________. 2018a. “Idealism, or Something Near Enough,” in K. Pearce and T. Goldschmidt, eds., Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ________. 2018b. “Spacetime Emergence, Panpsychism and the Nature of Consciousness,” Scientific American, August 6. ________.

Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Workflow
by Dominica Degrandis and Tonianne Demaria
Published 14 May 2017

Garish Card Colors Information/data can be beautiful to gaze upon, but not when surrounded by colors that are at visual war with each other or with the background. Beauty attracts. Design your visual kanban user experience with beauty in mind. Author of three bestselling books on visualizing information and TED talk speaker David McCandless identifies four elements he believes are necessary for a visualization to work: Information: The data must have integrity and must be accurate. Function: The goal must be useful and efficient. Visual form: The metaphor must have beauty and structure. Story: The concept must be interesting and relevant.1 Make boards visually appealing to keep people interested and engaged and to avoid confusion and wasted time.

Slow
by Brooke McAlary
Published 22 Aug 2017

Keep in mind that these suggestions won’t always be applicable to your situation, but embracing them where you can means the space you work hard to free up in your decluttering efforts will stay free. Share things The sharing economy is growing at a rapid pace, and the idea of sharing resources is starting to take hold in the mainstream. In her 2012 TED talk, Rachel Botsman spoke of the sharing economy as a way to minimise buying things that have a limited use. Talking of handheld drills, which, on average, are used for a total of 12–13 minutes throughout their entire life, she exclaimed, ‘You need the hole, not the drill!’ Turo, Lyft, TaskRabbit and Airbnb are symbolic of the emergence of mainstream sharing, but there is a much more personal way to share that also taps into one of our most important resources—community.

The Choice Factory: 25 Behavioural Biases That Influence What We Buy
by Richard Shotton
Published 12 Feb 2018

The brilliance of this book is that Sutherland takes the same biases that everyone else knows about and applies them in wonderfully unique ways. Sutherland also writes a fortnightly blog for The Spectator. It’s ostensibly a technology column but it often covers behavioural science. If you prefer videos to the written word then watch his many TED talks, starting with ‘Life Lessons from an Ad Man’. Irrationality [Stuart Sutherland, 1992] If I had to recommend just one pure psychology book, it’d be this. It was written by Sutherland, the Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex, a full 16 years before Nudge. Somehow, in the early 2000s, it went out of print.

Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business
by Rana Foroohar
Published 16 May 2016

That will change at some point in the future, and when it does, there will be nothing to stop Wall Street from brewing up another food bubble, unless our policy makers (or, less likely, the banks themselves) take action to rein in financial speculation in the commerce markets. Before moving on from her post at the World Food Programme, Josette Sheeran gave a moving TED Talk on the problem of global hunger. “If we look at the economic imperative here, this isn’t just about compassion,” she said. “The fact is studies show that the cost of malnutrition and hunger—the cost to society, the burden it has to bear—is on average six percent, and in some countries up to 11 percent, of GDP a year.

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Moore, “Morgan Stanley Agrees to Sell TransMontaigne Stake to NGL,” Bloomberg Business, June 9, 2014. 66. Author interview with Donner for this book. 67. Popper and Eavis, “Senate Report Finds Banks Can Influence Commodities.” 68. Kelly, The Secret Club That Runs the World, 151. 69. Josette Sheeran, “Ending Hunger Now,” TED Talk, July 2011. CHAPTER 7: WHEN WALL STREET OWNS MAIN STREET 1. Rana Foroohar, “A Tale of Two California Cities,” Time, October 2, 2012. 2. Right to the City Alliance, “Renting from Wall Street,” a report of the Homes for All Campaign, July 2014. 3. John Gittelsohn and Heather Perlberg, “Blackstone’s Home Buying Binge Ends as Prices Surge,” Bloomberg Business, March 14, 2014. 4.

The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone
by Brian Merchant
Published 19 Jun 2017

This wasn’t a cell phone, where you could make a verbal call. This was a way to interconnect people. And that was the point. That moment, where I stood outside of COMDEX, where I had a chance to take a deep breath and realize that this was about to change the world.” If this were a Hollywood movie, or even a TED Talk or a business-management bestseller, this is when all the hard work would pay off. This is when, having overcome the odds, the Simoneers, as they’d taken to calling themselves, would launch a bestselling, world-changing product and put it on retail shelves around the world. It didn’t happen. IBM sold only fifty thousand Simons over the six months it was available, between 1994 and 1995, before the company discontinued the product.

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“I’m going to have to watch what I say on the record here,” says Tom Gruber with a short smile and a nod toward my recorder. That’s because Gruber is head of advanced development for Siri at Apple. We’re both aboard Mission Blue, a seafaring expedition organized by TED, the pop-lecture organization, and Sylvia Earle, the oceanographer, to raise awareness of marine-conservation issues. By night, there are TED Talks. By day, there’s snorkeling. Gruber’s easy to spot—he’s the goateed mad scientist flying the drone. He looks like he’s constantly scanning the room for intel. He talks softly but at a whirring clip, often cutting one rapid-fire thought short to begin another. “I’m interested in the human interface,” he says.

Destined for War: America, China, and Thucydides's Trap
by Graham Allison
Published 29 May 2017

As Thomas Jefferson put it, “The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.”34 The political legitimacy of any government, Americans believe, can only be derived from the consent of the governed. Most Chinese would disagree. They believe that political legitimacy comes from performance. In his provocative TED Talk, “A Tale of Two Political Systems,” the Shanghai venture capitalist Eric Li challenges democracy’s presumed superiority. He recounts, “I was asked once, ‘The Party wasn’t voted in by election. Where is the source of legitimacy?’ I said, ‘How about competency?’” He goes on to remind his audience, “We all know the facts.

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Lee Kuan Yew, “Speech at the Abraham Lincoln Medal Award Ceremony,” Washington, DC, October 18, 2011, https://www.mfa.gov.sg/content/mfa/overseasmission/washington/newsroom/press_statements/2011/201110/press_201110_01.html. [back] 34. Thomas Jefferson letter to William Hunter, March 11, 1790. [back] 35. Eric X. Li, “A Tale of Two Political Systems,” TED Talk, June 2013, https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems/transcript?language=en. [back] 36. Kissinger, World Order, 236. [back] 37. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 184. [back] 38. Kissinger, On China, 17. [back] 39. Kissinger, World Order, 230. [back] 40.

The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts
by Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind
Published 24 Aug 2015

, TEDBlog, 13 Nov. 2013 <http://blog.ted.com/ ted-reaches-its-billionth-video-view/> (accessed 7 March 2015). 73 <https://www.youtube.com/t/education> (accessed 7 March 2015). 74 ‘Research on the Use of Khan Academy in Schools’, SRI Education, Mar. 2014 <http://www.sri.com/sites/default/files/publications/2014-03-07_implementation_briefing.pdf> (accessed 7 March 2015). 75 ‘Let’s use video to reinvent education’, a TED talk from Salman Khan, Mar. 2011 <http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education?language=en> (accessed 7 March 2015). 76 3.4 per cent in 2012, up from 1.7 per cent in 1999. ‘Fast Facts’, US Center for National Education Statistics <http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?

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Kessels, Roy, ‘Patients’ Memory for Medical Information’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 96: 5 (2003), 219–22. Kessler, Andy, The End of Medicine (New York: HarperCollins, 2006). Keynes, John Maynard, Essays in Persuasion (New York: Norton & Co., 1963). Khan, Salman, ‘Let’s Use Video to Reinvent Education’, TED talk, Mar. 2011 <http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education?language=en> (accessed 7 March 2015). Khatchadourian, Raffi, ‘We Know How You Feel’, New Yorker, 19 Jan. 2015. Kiechel, Walter, The Lords of Strategy (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2010). Kim, W. Chan, and Renée Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005).

The Happiness Effect: How Social Media Is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost
by Donna Freitas
Published 13 Jan 2017

But in our attempts to polish away those imperfections and “put on a happy face,” as one student told me, as we try to forget the darker and more tender sides of our humanity, we also risk losing the best parts of who we are. WE ARE WORTHY When I started mentioning the idea of a “happiness effect” to my friends and colleagues, about how I worry that it is costing us our humanity, our authenticity, and the things that make our lives meaningful, everyone told me that I must watch Brené Brown’s TED Talks. I hemmed and hawed for a while, then finally sat down and watched the first one, on vulnerability, moving quickly on to the second, about shame. I found myself crying as I listened to Brown speak so eloquently about how in our imperfections we find our own worthiness and are able to encounter love and belonging, and how, in order to live wholeheartedly, vulnerability is essential.

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See also methodology on anonymity, 137–8 on being always “on call,” 218–9 on branding, 80 on comparison trap, 40–1 on concerns about potential employer reviews, 51, 311n11 on curation of photos, 71–2 essay questions, 148–9, 246, 247 on expression of emotions, 126 on forced positivity, 13 gender of respondents, 95–6, 95f on limiting social media usage, 238 on political/religious opinions, 110, 316n2 on selfies, 84–5, 88 on sexting, 207 on taking breaks from phones, 215, 217 on temporarily quitting social media, 238 on use of Tinder, 197, 199 TED Talks, xvi thin vs. thick skin, 159, 168–71, 257 Tinder, 194 embarrassment about, 196 flirting on, 197–8 for hookups, 195–202, 324n1 lesbian use of, 200 negative views on, 200–1 pros/cons of, 195–201 sexting on, 206 use of GPS on phone, 135, 195, 197 trolling, 159–63, 167. See also bullying/cyberbullying Trottier, Daniel, 47 Tumblr, 129 Turkle, Sherry, 76, 229, 305n2 Twenge, Jean, 82 Twitter.

Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time
by Brigid Schulte
Published 11 Mar 2014

Atsunori Ariga and Alejandro Lleras, “Brief and Rare Mental ‘Breaks’ Keep You Focused: Deactivation and Reactivation of Task Goals Preempt Vigilance Decrements,” Cognition 118, no. 3 (March 2011): 439–43, doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2010.12.007. 16. John Tierney, “Discovering the Virtues of a Wandering Mind,” New York Times, June 28, 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/science/29tier.html?pagewanted=all. 17. John Kounios, “The Neuroscience Behind Epiphanies,” TED Talks Talent Search, video, http://talentsearch.ted.com/video/John-Kounios-The-neuroscience-b. 18. John Kounios and Mark Beeman, “The Aha! Moment: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Insight,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 18, no. 4 (2009): 210, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01638. 19. Legend has it that when the Greek mathematician Archimedes sank into his bath and saw his body displacing the water in the tub, he suddenly realized he could measure the volume of gold the same way.

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For the shape of both the journey and themes in the book, I am forever grateful to my friend Larry Robertson, who shared the guiding principles he used to write his own book on entrepreneurs, A Deliberate Pause, that became the twin beacons of my own search for time serenity: Why are things the way they are? How can they be better? To Martin Seligman, for the TED Talk I watched one day while I was sick, which gave me the idea of investigating time pressure in the three great arenas that make for a good life: work, love, and play. And to Dan Heath, who, when I confessed I wanted to find hope without resorting to treacly platitudes, suggested I concentrate on looking for real-world Bright Spots.

Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations
by Garr Reynolds
Published 14 Aug 2010

“Yes, I do have notes tucked away from the audience (students) in presenter’s view, but once my lectures start the notes disappear and the story starts to flow, with the pictures/diagrams as illustrations of my story.” How Bacteria Talk Dr. Bonnie Bassler Professor Department of Molecular Biology Princeton University www.molbio1.princeton.edu/labs/bassler/ In her 2009 TED talk, Dr. Bassler showed how bacterial “chatter” is not exceptional behavior as was once thought. In fact, most bacteria chatter, and most do it all the time. Dr. Bassler and designer Todd Reichart (who is also her husband) worked together to make the concepts visual for the TED audience. Dr. Bassler is a wonderful speaker.

The End of Jobs: Money, Meaning and Freedom Without the 9-To-5
by Taylor Pearson
Published 27 Jun 2015

I had just joined the ranks of a rapidly growing class of people in the West: College-educated and unemployed. I was, relatively speaking, quite fortunate. Unlike many unemployed Americans, I just had to avoid pissing off my parents so much that they kicked me out or stopped buying my groceries and gas. Anyone that’s watched a TED talk, or read an article about the current state and future of science and technology, can’t help but be inspired and excited. Never before have we had so much opportunity, and yet never have we felt so powerless to grasp it. I couldn’t help but think of the curse: May you live in interesting times.

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
by Malcolm Gladwell
Published 26 Apr 2021

Because the Norden represented a dream—one of the most powerful dreams in the history of warfare: if we could drop bombs into pickle barrels from thirty thousand feet, we wouldn’t need armies anymore. We wouldn’t need to leave young men dead on battlefields or lay waste to entire cities. We could reinvent war. Make it precise and quick and almost bloodless. Almost. Footnotes i In 2011 I gave a TED Talk on Norden and his invention. Chapter Two “We make progress unhindered by custom.” 1. Revolutions are invariably group activities. That’s why Carl Norden was such an anomaly. Rarely does someone start a revolution alone, at his mother’s kitchen table. The impressionist movement didn’t begin because one genius took up painting impressionistically and, like the Pied Piper, attracted a trail of followers.

Around the World in 80 Trees
by Jonathan Drori
Published 28 May 2018

After a career that included making science documentaries, I found myself returning to Kew, this time as a trustee. I also joined the boards of the Woodland Trust and the Eden Project, and the Council of Ambassadors of the World Wide Fund for Nature, all 8 organizations that engage the public with the natural world. I soaked up the expertise around me and combined it with my own experience. Several TED talks and 3 million views later, I realized that there is public interest in plant stories that cross disciplines – hence my urge to write this book. With a few provisos, the broad definition of a tree is a plant that has a tall, woody stem; it can support itself and lasts from year to year. Botanists debate how tall such a plant must be to qualify.

The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future
by Julia Hobsbawm
Published 11 Apr 2022

Informa, the world’s biggest live professional events business, reported a 42 per cent drop in its revenues in 2020. When people do return to professional networking gatherings, I predict they will lean towards smaller clusters, more like salons, and that much of what they do will be hybrid: live streaming at scale was pioneered by TED Talks when their own conferences grew too big. In Nowhere Office times, instead of expensive time and travel budgets people will favour in-person gatherings for far more focused and special purposes, reserving larger networking to be done digitally out of their newly refurbished offices, or in local hotel suites, co-working spaces or indeed their living rooms.

Ego Is the Enemy
by Ryan Holiday
Published 13 Jun 2016

Now more than ever, our culture fans the flames of ego. It’s never been easier to talk, to puff ourselves up. We can brag about our goals to millions of our fans and followers—things only rock stars and cult leaders used to have. We can follow and interact with our idols on Twitter, we can read books and sites and watch TED Talks, drink from a fire hose of inspiration and validation like never before (there’s an app for that). We can name ourselves CEO of our exists-only-on-paper company. We can announce big news on social media and let the congratulations roll in. We can publish articles about ourselves in outlets that used to be sources of objective journalism.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
by Daniel H. Pink
Published 1 Jan 2008

At the headquarters in Montara, California, Tulley's tinkerers have built: working zip-lines, motorcycles, toothbrush robots, roller coasters, and plastic bag bridges strong enough to hold people. Most of us aren't able to ship our kids out to California for a week of tinkering, but we can all learn the Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do. So take nine minutes to listen to Tulley's 2007 online TED Talk of that title. Then hand your kids a pocket-knife, some power tools, and a book of matches and get out of the way. For more information, go to (includes a link to Tulley's talk). ¥ Puget Sound Community School . Like Sudbury and Big Picture, this tiny independent school in Seattle, Washington, gives its students a radical dose of autonomy, turning the one size fits all approach of conventional schools on its head.

Team Human
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 22 Jan 2019

Metzner and Jamie Fellner, “Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons: A Challenge for Medical Ethics,” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 38, no. 1 (March 2010). 8. an invisible landscape of mushrooms and other fungi connecting the root systems of trees in a healthy forest Suzanne Simard, “How Trees Talk to Each Other,” TED talk, June, 2016. When the leaves of acacia trees come in contact with the saliva of a giraffe, they release a warning chemical Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate (Vancouver: Greystone, 2016). 9. “Individualists” who challenged the leader’s authority or wandered away Merlin Donald, Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

The Tyranny of Metrics
by Jerry Z. Muller
Published 23 Jan 2018

Jensen, “Paying People to Lie: The Truth about the Budgeting Process,” European Financial Management 9, no. 3 (2003), pp. 379–406. 27. Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih, “Restoring American Competitiveness,” Harvard Business Review (July 2009), pp. 11–12. 28. Yves Morieux of Boston Consulting Group, in his TED talk, “How Too Many Rules at Work Keep You from Getting Things Done,” July 2015; see also Morieux and Tollman, Six Simple Rules. 29. Frank Knight, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (New York, 1921). 30. Isabell Welpe, “Performance Paradoxon: Erfolg braucht Uneindeutigkeit: Warum es klug ist, sich nicht auf eine Erfolgskennzahl festzulegen,” Wirtschaftswoche July 31, 2015, p. 88.

The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future
by Jeff Booth
Published 14 Jan 2020

Too early, and the cost or market doesn’t fit; too late, and new monopolies are already forming, making it all but impossible to enter. I am acutely aware of the role of luck and timing in my own story, as well as those of many of my friends who have both succeeded—or failed—by the narrowest of margins. In 2015, Bill Gross gave a great TED Talk in Vancouver (viewed more than two million times) where he discussed his research on the differences between companies that succeeded or failed. The findings surprised even Bill when he determined that timing stood out above all in determining success rates of startups. In fact, 42 percent of the success could be attributed to timing.

Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection
by Jacob Silverman
Published 17 Mar 2015

The same features that have chained us to platforms—surveillance, tracking, advertising, the inability to take our data (i.e., our digital selves) with us—have killed off the cyber-flâneur. These elements make us feel like leaving the platform would be a great loss. And yet we aim to experience the online world with a bohemian sort of joy—Look at this cat photo! Check out this inspiring TED talk! Did you read this incredible story?—but end up turning our consumption of pop culture into work for others. How do we reconcile this tension between consuming the world as we want to and knowing that every act of enjoyment translates to a micro-payment in the pocket of Google, Twitter, Facebook, or some faceless advertising network?

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A few of the speakers appeared deliberately ridiculous; one gustily flicked off the camera, another grabbed his own crotch. So what’s the scam, what’s the joke? It’s that, once published, images of these scenes—much in line with TED’s motto—began to spread through the Internet. And now, performing a Google image search on TED talks, some of the fake images come up alongside the real. (I found one of the fakes on the Web site of a well-known magazine.) The message seems to be not that just a simulacrum can come to be mistaken for the real thing, but that something about TED’s sudden ubiquity, its ease of replication, franchised all over the world like some fast-food chain, calls the whole enterprise into question.

From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds
by Daniel C. Dennett
Published 7 Feb 2017

How many words have you learned this week?) If we zero in on her earliest days of word learning, we discover that it takes, on average, about six tokenings of a word in the presence of the child to generate her first clear efforts to say the word, to utter a copy (Roy 2013; see also Roy’s brilliant TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word). So you might say that unlike a virus, a word has to have multiple parents before it can be born, but they don’t have to come together at the same time. Most of the words infants hear are not directed to them; the infants are overhearing the speech of parents and caregivers.

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“Natural Selection and Cultural Rates of Change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105 (9): 3416–3420. Rosenberg, Alexander. 2011. The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions. New York: W. W. Norton. Roy, Deb. 2011. “The Birth of a Word.” TED talk, http://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word0. Sanford, David H. 1975. “Infinity and Vagueness.” Philosophical Review 84 (4): 520–535. Scanlon, Thomas. 2014. Being Realistic about Reasons. New York: Oxford University Press. Schönborn, Christoph. 2005. “Finding Design in Nature.” New York Times, July 7.

Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall and Unlikely Return of Conservatism
by Ed West
Published 19 Mar 2020

They look at their political opponents, who in their heads think of themselves as being on the side of Galileo and Darwin against the bigoted establishment, as more resembling a modern-day Inquisition, ruthless in enforcing orthodoxy wherever they can. Likewise many of the establishment beliefs trotted out in top-selling pop psychology books and repeated at TED Talks and then parroted in high-status postcodes turn out to be rubbish. Among the theories that have crumbled from psychology’s ‘replication crisis’ of the 2010s is ‘stereotype threat’, the idea that preconceived beliefs about people become self-fulfilling prophecies and affect their outcomes. Stereotype threat explains that there are fewer women than men at the top of maths and science-based professions because they are put off by the perception that men are better, an idea so comforting that one 1995 paper has been cited over five thousand times.

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K. 183 royalists 37, 50, 64 ruling class 13 see also bourgeoisie Ruskin, John 75, 76 Russell, Bertrand 81, 129, 226 Russia 94, 303 see also Soviet Union Russian Revolution 126 Rylance, Mark 24 Sacheverell, Henry 293 Sacks, Jonathan 240 Sailer, Steve 247–8 Saintsbury, George 265 Salisbury, Lord 257 Salisbury Review (magazine) 16 same-sex marriage 222–3, 228–9, 272–3, 292, 328 Samoa 134 Sandalistas 15 Sandhurst 8–9 Sandinistas 14, 15 Sandys, Edwin 305 Santayana, George 328 Sarandon, Susan 24 Sargent, John Singer 94 Sartre, Jean-Paul 121, 132 Satan 224 Saunders, Jennifer 331 Savio, Mario 324 Sayers, Dorothy 162 schools 18–19 independent 10, 13 Schultz, Debra 148 Schwarzenegger, Arnold 114 sciencocrats 215 Scott, Walter 181 Scottish Enlightenment 50 Scottish National Party (SNP) 357 Scruton, Sir Roger 16–17, 68, 132, 230, 239, 272, 281 Second World War 98, 100, 145–6, 196 Section 28 16 secularisation 220 secularism, procedural 292 segregation 295–6 Sen, Hopi 236 Seneca 187 September 11th attacks 115, 236 serfdom 93 Sesame Street (TV show) 259 Seventh Day Adventists 116 sex, before marriage 127–8 Sex and the City (TV show) 252 Sex Education Forum 241 sex scandals 83–4, 86, 166, 308, 358 sexism 28, 183, 247, 280, 291, 341, 343 sexual deviance 107 sexual freedom 165–71 Shaftesbury, Lord 51–2 Shakespeare, William 187, 291 Henry V 102, 103 Shapiro, Ben 365 Shaw, George Bernard 274 Sheen, Martin 24 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 181–2, 224 Short, Clare 170 Sicily 158 Sidney, Algernon 52 Siedentop, Larry 222 Simpson, Homer 282 Simpsons (TV series) 307 Sinn Féin 357 Sixties, The 125–32 Sky Television 283 Skywalker, Anakin 273, 365 Slate (magazine) 333 Slavs 117 Smith, Adam 280 Smith, Iain Duncan 236 Snoop Dogg 122 SNP see Scottish National Party social anthropology 133–5 social constructivism 133–40 Social Democracy 9, 236 social homophily 137 social justice 326 social liberalism 8, 270, 272 social media 296–9 socialism 1, 9, 15, 21–3, 91–100, 129, 153, 182, 262–3, 274 Society of Friends (Quakers) 57, 92 Sokal, Alan 136 Soprano, Tony 161, 163 Sorens, Jason 248 Soros, George 259 South Africa 16, 89, 189 Southern Baptists 115–16 Southey, Robert 46, 91–2 Soviet Union 21, 31, 80, 81, 86, 98, 100, 143–6, 153, 167, 168, 178–9, 182, 211, 218, 263, 314 see also Russia Soviet–American conflict 31 Sowell, Thomas 130, 239 Spain 52, 211, 303 Spanish Armada 36 Spanish Civil War 14, 103, 178–9 Sparta 31, 246 Spectator (magazine) 89, 162–3, 202, 259, 308 Spencer, Richard 346 Spengler, Oswald 90, 119 Spielberg, Steven 228 Spitting Image (TV series) 142 Sporanos, The (TV series) 163 Springsteen, Bruce 24 Stalin, Joseph 80, 81, 99, 126, 167, 182, 244 Stamford Bridge 47 Starbucks 4–5 state 271 state spending 266–7 state-worship 95–6 statist ideology 271 status quo 68, 112, 187, 338 Stein, Harry 28 STEM subjects 7 Stenner, Karen 337–8 Stephen, James Fitzjames 71 Steptoe, Albert 192 ‘stereotype threat’ 350 Sternhell, Zeev 95 Stewart, James 123 Stewart, Jon 329 Steyn, Mark 162 Stone, Oliver 178 Strachey, John 47 Straub, Peter 242 Streep, Meryl 24 strikes 19 Strummer, Joe 24 Stuart dynasty 50, 51 Stubbes, Philip 33–4, 48 Stubbings, Mr 122 Stuff White People Like (SWPL) (blog) 243–5, 317 Styron, William 121 subversion myths 300 suffrage female 176 universal 175 suffragettes 176 Sullivan, Arthur 101 Sumner, William Graham 223 Sun (newspaper), Page 3 170 Sunday Times (newspaper) 23 Sweden 351 Sweden Democrats 347 Switzerland 38, 61 Syria 14–15 tabloids 11 Tacitus 131 Taleb, Nassim Nicholas 341 Tarantino, Quentin 123 Tatchell, Peter 219 tax avoidance 165 taxpayers’ money 200 Tebbit, Norman 307–8, 365 tech giants 4 TED Talks 350 television 190 Terror, the 59, 60 terrorism 367–8 Islamic 115, 136, 367–8 see also War on Terror Test Act 1672 289, 290 That Mitchell and Webb Look (TV series) 88 Thatcher, Margaret 77, 79, 82, 83, 126–7, 129, 133, 194, 203, 252, 268, 280, 282, 364, 365 Thatcher, Mark 280 Thatcher era 16, 85, 194, 280 Thatcherism 77, 153, 215, 270, 282 theatre 60, 151, 187–90 censorship 148, 166, 188–9 Third Reich 26, 88, 99, 258, 358 Thompson, Damian 307 Thompson, Hunter S. 186 threat perception 116–17 ‘Thrive/Survive’ theory 118 Time magazine 362 Times (newspaper) 3, 83, 355 Times Higher Education supplement 322 Tinker Bell 259 Titanic (1997) 184–5 Tito 15 To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) 183, 189 Today programme 195, 269, 371 tolerance/intolerance 295–6, 326–7 Tolkien, J.

The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite
by Duff McDonald
Published 24 Apr 2017

That’s not a criticism of either man; their goal is not to be as famous as Beyoncé, but to be influential in the realm of management, and they certainly both have influence in spades. The closest HBS has to a celebrity in 2016? Associate Professor Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist and TED talk superstar. Cuddy’s 2012 TED talk, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” is the second-most watched TED talk in history, having been viewed more than 30 million times. The gist of it: Your body language isn’t simply a reflection of how you feel about yourself today; it is also a crucial variable in the equation of who you will be tomorrow. It’s persuasive stuff, and Cuddy explores the fact that our body language doesn’t just have an influence on how others will respond to us; it also influences our own minds.

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
by Steven Pinker
Published 13 Feb 2018

Information about human progress, though absent from major news outlets and intellectual forums, is easy enough to find. The data are not entombed in dry reports but are displayed in gorgeous Web sites, particularly Max Roser’s Our World in Data, Marian Tupy’s HumanProgress, and Hans Rosling’s Gapminder. (Rosling learned that not even swallowing a sword during a 2007 TED talk was enough to get the world’s attention.) The case has been made in beautifully written books, some by Nobel laureates, which flaunt the news in their titles—Progress, The Progress Paradox, Infinite Progress, The Infinite Resource, The Rational Optimist, The Case for Rational Optimism, Utopia for Realists, Mass Flourishing, Abundance, The Improving State of the World, Getting Better, The End of Doom, The Moral Arc, The Big Ratchet, The Great Escape, The Great Surge, The Great Convergence.32 (None was recognized with a major prize, but over the period in which they appeared, Pulitzers in nonfiction were given to four books on genocide, three on terrorism, two on cancer, two on racism, and one on extinction.)

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These arguments can matter, because practical men and women and madmen in authority are affected, directly or indirectly, by the world of ideas. They go to university. They read intellectual magazines, if only in dentists’ waiting rooms. They watch talking heads on Sunday morning news shows. They are briefed by staff members who subscribe to highbrow papers and watch TED talks. They frequent Internet discussion forums that are enlightened or endarkened by the reading habits of the more literate contributors. I like to think that some good might come to the world if more of the ideas that trickle into these tributaries embodied the Enlightenment ideals of reason, science, and humanism.

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“Time Spent on Laundry,” HumanProgress, http://humanprogress.org/static/3264, based on S. Skwire, “How Capitalism Has Killed Laundry Day,” CapX, April 11, 2016, http://capx.co/external/capitalism-has-helped-liberate-the-housewife/, and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 15. Not to be missed: H. Rosling, “The Magic Washing Machine,” TED talk, Dec. 2010, https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine. 16. Good Housekeeping, vol. 55, no. 4, Oct. 1912, p. 436, quoted in Greenwood, Seshadri, & Yorukoglu 2005. 17. From The Wealth of Nations. 18. Falling price of light: Nordhaus 1996. 19. Kelly 2016, p. 189. 20.

Navel Gazing: True Tales of Bodies, Mostly Mine (But Also My Mom's, Which I Know Sounds Weird)
by Michael Ian Black
Published 5 Jan 2016

I, too, have experienced the runner’s high. I get it every time I stop. There are two reasons running sucks. The first is because it’s boring. Putting foot in front of foot for an hour or more at a time is tedious, even when listening to music or podcasts or books on tape or motivational speakers or TED talks or the sound of the woods or any of the other distractions I have used to pass the time. The runner is encouraged to experience the outdoors, to take in its bounty, to feel the wind against his face and know he is one with his environment. The runner is asked to launch himself through space by the volition of his own feet, to propel himself across its vast and wondrous terrain and to feel himself to be master of his own destiny as he surveys the world, arms akimbo, from the top of its mountains, mountains he has summited through the application of willpower alone, the diligent repetition of footstep following footstep leading, incredibly—inevitably—to glory.

The New Snobbery
by David Skelton
Published 28 Jun 2021

The political class continues to be dominated by high-status, professional graduates with the views and values generally representative of that group. Some combination of freedom of movement, freedom of capital, unfettered free trade and various elements of economic and social liberalism are common currency amongst them. Often vapid TED Talks are venerated, and counterculture imagery is used to obscure the fact that priority is given to policies that benefit the professional class, such as open borders and the abolition of tuition fees, rather than policies that would benefit the wider population, such as building dignity at work or tackling the housing crisis.

Grand: A Memoir
by Sara Schaefer
Published 10 Aug 2020

This was a whole entire show, with my name in the title, and it was live. On the night of the premiere, Nikki and I stood facing each other in the hallway outside of the studio. We could hear music pumping and the crowd cheering. Sound engineers tucked wires into our collars as wardrobe stylists ran lint rollers over our dresses. One of us had recently watched a TED Talk in which the speaker said that standing in the “Wonder Woman” stance for ninety seconds was scientifically proven to increase confidence and performance. We decided to try it. We spread our feet shoulder-width apart, puffed out our chests, and put our hands on our hips. I felt powerful, but also as if I might tip over.

The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically
by Peter Singer
Published 1 Jan 2015

The figures for the Princeton and Yale endowments are taken from Daniel Johnson, “Updated: Princeton Endowment Rises 19.6%, Now Valued at $21 Billion,” Daily Princetonian, October 17, 2014, http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2014/10/endowment_rises_to_21_billion/; and Michael MacDonald, “Harvard’s 15.4% Gain Trails as Mendillo Successor Sought,” Bloomberg News, September 24, 2014, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-23/harvard-has-15-4-investment-gain-trailing-dartmouth-penn-1-.html. Chapter 2. A Movement Emerges 1. The essay will be reprinted and published as a book by Oxford University Press, New York, in 2015. 2. Ian Parker, “The Gift,” New Yorker, August 2, 2004. 3. Esther Duflo, “Social Experiments to Fight Poverty,” TED Talk, February 2010, http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_duflo_social_experiments_to_fight_poverty. 4. For more discussion of GiveWell and its methods of assessment, see chapter 14. For GiveWell’s impact in moving donations, see http://www.givewell.org/about/impact. 5. Tom Geoghegen, “Why I’m Giving £1m to Charity,” BBC News Magazine, December 13, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine–11950843; email from Toby Ord to the author, July 2014. 6.

The Passenger
by AA.VV.
Published 23 May 2022

Time and again I’ve encountered Asian-American characters in novels, movies, and television shows who are cold and analytical, utterly lacking in people skills. Repeated and repeated, such tropes harden into the only truth afforded to Asian Americans. It’s what novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie described in her 2009 TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story”: “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete,” she said. “They make one story become the only story. It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.”

Interactive Data Visualization for the Web
by Scott Murray
Published 15 Mar 2013

GeoJSON of the world’s oceans, now properly projected See the result in 09_mercator.html—oceanic GeoJSON paths, downloaded, parsed, and visualized. Chapter 13. Exporting Sometimes you need to take your visualization beyond the browser, such as when you’re asked to present your work in a TED talk or in your first solo show at MoMA. Here are three easy ways to get D3 visualizations out of D3 and into formats suitable for other, noninteractive media. D3 has no explicit “export” function built in (although some people have built their own), so what follows are simple techniques that will work for any SVG image in a web browser.

Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Published 9 Oct 2017

Daniela Hernandez, “The New Google Photos App Is Disturbingly Good at Data-Mining Your Photos,” Fusion, June 4, 2015, http://fusion.net/story/142326/the-new-google-photos-app-is-disturbingly-good-at-data-mining-your-photos. 14. Fei-Fei Li tells the story of bringing this sort of neural network to life in her 2015 TED talk: “How We’re Teaching Computers to Understand Pictures,” March 2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/fei_fei_li_how_we_re_teaching_computers_to_understand_pictures/transcript. 15. “Google Apologises for Photos App’s Racist Blunder,” BBC News, July 1, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33347866. 16.

This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World
by Yancey Strickler
Published 29 Oct 2019

10 billion people by 2050: Population projections come from the UN’s World Population Prospects report. his final user experience: Steve Jobs’s last words were reported by his sister, Mona Simpson (“A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs,” New York Times, October 30, 2011). ten years old in our species’ life span: Will MacAskill’s perspective on the age of humanity comes from a 2018 TED Talk called “What Are the Most Important Moral Problems of Our Time?” MacAskill is also cofounder of a movement called effective altruism, which seeks to maximize the altruistic impact people create in their lives. CHAPTER TWO: THE NO-LEFT-TURN RULE the world of retail planning: I came across the “no-left-turn rule” after reading about Robert Gibbs, an urban retail planner, in a 1994 article in The Atlantic.

The People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations Are Laying the Foundation for Socialism
by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski
Published 5 Mar 2019

It is a delicious irony that big data, the producer and discoverer of so much new knowledge, could one day facilitate what Hayek thought only markets are capable of. Really, it is not such a big step from a good recommendations system to Amazon’s patent for “anticipatory shipping.” It has a viability beyond any Silicon Valley, TED Talk–style huckster bombast or tech-press cheerleading. The reason this genuinely incredible, seemingly psychic distribution phenomenon could actually work is not a result of any psychological trickery, subliminal advertising craftiness, or mentalist power of suggestion, but is found in something much more mundane: demand estimation.

Hello, Habits
by Fumio Sasaki
Published 6 Nov 2020

Step 25: Realize that no one has the power to concentrate During the process of writing this book, I once tried to measure how long my concentration could last. I checked the amount of time that had passed since I started writing to when my concentration broke and my fingers moved away from the keyboard. The average time was twenty minutes, and I thought to myself that I was lacking in concentration, but that may not necessarily be the case. A TED Talk is capped at eighteen minutes. This rule is based on the assumption that no matter how interesting a topic may be, people will only listen attentively for eighteen minutes. In the Pomodoro Technique, a concentration method, the duration is basically the same. You set your timer for twenty-five minutes, and you concentrate on doing something within that period.

Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change
by Ronald Cohen
Published 1 Jul 2020

You are in a safe place.”’68 That man was Hamdi Ulukaya, the CEO and founder of Chobani, the multi-billion-dollar yoghurt company.69 Since founding the company, Ulukaya, who insists he is ‘not a businessman’, has operated Chobani with several core principles that he called the ‘anti-CEO playbook’ in a TED Talk in 2019. These principles include accountability, community, gratitude, being accountable to the consumer (as opposed to corporate boards) and responsibility.70 Hiring refugees is one way in which Ulukaya cares for his community; by 2019, 30 per cent of Chobani’s employees were refugees and immigrants.71 ‘The private sector has a powerful incentive to find new solutions to a crisis that cannot be solved by governments and goodwill alone,’ Ulukaya has written.72 To help mobilize other employers, he also founded a refugee advocacy foundation called the Tent Partnership for Refugees.

The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman
by Timothy Ferriss
Published 1 Dec 2010

The visible results, of course: TOOLS AND TRICKS ColPaC Gel Wrap (www.fourhourbody.com/colpac) These pliable wraps, used in physical therapy clinics, can be cooled quickly and applied to any body part, including the back of the neck, for BAT activation. “How to Make a Real Ice Pack for $0.30” (www.fourhourbody.com/diy-ice) If you prefer the frugal approach, this article will show you how to quickly and easily make your own reusable ice packs at a fraction of the cost of store-bought packs. “TED Talks Lewis Pugh Swims the North Pole” (www.fourhourbody.com/pugh) Lewis Pugh is known as the human polar bear. Why? He swam across the icy waters of the North Pole in a Speedo and regularly swims in freezing cold water. Watch this TED speech for astonishing footage and blunt commentary on super-cold swims.

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Confidentially and anonymously contact SFSI, which provides free and nonjudgmental information about sex and reproductive health. The telephone hotline is available in the United States (or from anywhere if you use Skype), and the “Ask Us” e-mail service is available to English and Spanish speakers. “TED Talk—Mary Roach: Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm” (www.fourhourbody.com/roach) Sexual physiology has been studied for centuries, behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, Alfred Kinsey’s attic, and, more recently, MRI centers, pig farms, and sex-toy R&D labs. Mary Roach spent two years wheedling and conniving her way behind those doors to bring you the answers to the questions Dr.

Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth
by A. O. Scott
Published 9 Feb 2016

But even as we drift into a state of antiscientific mock skepticism, we also worship idols of vulgar pseudoscientific empiricism. The opiate of the half-enlightened masses in the digital era is information, data, “the math”—impersonal, unarguable, but nonetheless mysterious numbers that promise to turn our messiest and most intractable problems into sudoku puzzles. The burgeoning industries of TED-talk idea-flogging, pop-science publishing, and slick “explanatory” journalism offer the steady seduction of cool, counterintuitive insights and frictionless solutions. Matters that once had to be pondered and argued—deep questions of politics, morality, art, and justice—can now be mapped and quantified.

World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech
by Franklin Foer
Published 31 Aug 2017

It has pursued a business plan that radically deflates the value of knowledge, which renders writing a cheap, disposable commodity. To pull off this strategy, it has attempted to puncture the prestige of the professional author. This war is another instance of Silicon Valley’s fake populism. Fittingly, its primary theorist is a Harvard law professor. • • • LONG BEFORE TED TALKS, there was Larry Lessig. His lectures and speeches were gripping spectacles of intellect, punctuated by multimedia. They became the stuff of legend. To this day, an official Microsoft tutorial provides lessons in how to give a “Lessig-style” talk. More than any other academic of his generation, Lessig has a feel for the zeitgeist.

The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance
by Jim Whitehurst
Published 1 Jun 2015

Connecting to the mission and showing personal passion can take any organization to a new level of performance. Hire Passionate People The level of passion in your organization is obviously correlated with how deeply your people connect with its purpose. As Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, stated in a TED Talk he gave in 2009, there has to be a reason, a purpose, for today’s workers to commit and give their best effort for an organization. He continued: Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not.

Inequality and the 1%
by Danny Dorling
Published 6 Oct 2014

Fergusson, ‘Punishing the Young Unemployed’, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies Report, 15 October 2013, at crimeandjustice.org.uk. 52. OECD, ‘Crisis Squeezes Income and Puts Pressure on Inequality and Poverty’, New Results from the OECD Income Distribution Database, OECD, 2013, at oecd.org (see Fig. 8, p. 7). 53. J. Berman, ‘Nick Hanauer’s TED Talk on Income Inequality Deemed Too “Political” for Site’, Huffington Post, 17 May 2012, at huffingtonpost.com. 54. Equality Trust, ‘Wealth Increase of Britain’s 100 Richest Would Pay For 1.75 Million Living Wage Jobs’, Press Release, 19 February 2014, at equalitytrust.org.uk. 55. On what more is needed, see P.

Comedy Sex God
by Pete Holmes
Published 13 May 2019

I hadn’t been tearing the sermon apart as much as I had the other parts of church, because I genuinely liked our pastor. My whole time sitting in his congregation, when I believed and when I didn’t, his sermons had always been my favorite part. His talks were filled with love, and practical advice, and humor. He was modern, using one of those TED talk face microphones, and kind, and earnest, and a great performer who had done some acting, and it showed. But looking at my dad counting the pipes on the organ, and the empty seat where my brother would have been if he hadn’t plucked up and told my folks he didn’t want to go anymore, I was looking for a way out.

How Cycling Can Save the World
by Peter Walker
Published 3 Apr 2017

CHAPTER 3 1 Peter Walker, “Utrecht’s Cycling Lessons for Migrants: ‘Riding a Bike Makes Me Feel More Dutch,’” The Guardian, April 28, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/28/utrecht-cycling-lessons-refugees-riding-bike-feel-dutch. 2 Interview with the author. 3 UK Office for National Statistics. 4 Center for Transit Oriented Development, 2008 study. 5 2011 UK census, car or van availability by local authority. 6 Enrique Peñalosa TED talk, September 2013. http://www.ted.com/talks/enrique_penalosa_why_buses_represent_democracy_in_action. 7 UK National Travel Survey. 8 League of American Bicyclists. 9 John Pucher and Ralph Buehler, City Cycling (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), 2012. 10 2011 census, analysis: cycling to work. 11 Pucher and Buehler, City Cycling. 12 TransAlt, “Fifth and Sixth Avenue Bicycle and Traffic Study,” 2015, https://www.transalt.org/sites/default/files/news/reports/2015/TransAlt_5th_6th_Avenue_Report.pdf. 13 Rosamund Urwin, “Why Are Female Cyclists More Vulnerable to London’s Lorries?”

Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad---And Surprising Good---About Feeling Special
by Dr. Craig Malkin
Published 6 Jul 2015

The possibilities are exhilaratingly endless. But it’s easy to forget about who’s actually standing next to us while we’re caught up in all the online excitement. When we do that, we run the risk of sliding not just ourselves, but also the people we love, further up the narcissism spectrum. Psychologist Sherry Turkle, in her TED talk “Connected but Alone,” warns of the dangers of slipping mindlessly into the virtual world. It’s not unusual to see adults at the theater, smartphones in hand, scrolling through messages instead of speaking to their companions, or parents sitting on playground benches, tapping away, oblivious to their children looking over to see if mom or dad is watching.

Built for Growth: How Builder Personality Shapes Your Business, Your Team, and Your Ability to Win
by Chris Kuenne and John Danner
Published 5 Jun 2017

See also team dynamic Captains and, 135–138, 182–183 Crusaders and, 98, 104–107, 111, 180–182 Drivers and, 177–179, 219 Explorers and, 179–180 mission-based values for, 107 overhiring, 219 Hogan Assessments, 13 Holmes, Elizabeth, 100, 104, 108 Honest Company, 88–90 Hornthal, Jim, 102 Hsu, Jonathan, 221 Hyman, Jenn, 6, 104, 105 IBM, 40 IgnitionOne, 48 incrementalism, 140, 144 innovation, 140, 144 innovators, 41 Intel, 154 internal rate of return (IRR), 189–190 intuition, Drivers and, 33, 34 Intwine, 36 iSuppli, 67–68 Jackson, Adam, 44–45, 48–49, 219–220 Jiff, 90 Jobs, Steve, 17 Johnson & Johnson, 20, 30 Tylenol, 15, 64, 77–78, 195–196 Jung, Carl, 22 Kawasaki, Guy, 174 Kellner, Peter, 104, 197 Kepler Group, 40, 49 Khan, Umair, 112 Kissinger, Henry, 104 Kocher, Bob, 42 Kraus, Margery, 118–120, 138, 139 Kravis, Henry, 104 Kuenne, Chris, 28–30 Kutcher, Ashton, 41 laissez-faire style, 91 leadership, 3, 234 by Captains, 119, 141–142 by Crusaders, 89 by Drivers, 29 by Explorers, 59 learning, cross-type, 15–16, 22, 211–230 for Captains, 225–227 for Crusaders, 223–225 for Drivers, 217–220 for Explorers, 220–223 strategies for, 213–217 Lee, Mi Jong, 33–34, 48, 227 Leighton, Tom, 62, 80 Lerman, Howard, 32–33, 36–37, 48 Levie, Aaron, 113 Lewin, Danny, 62 Lidow, Derek, 67–68 listening Captains and, 130–131, 142 by Crusaders, 109, 111–112 lone-wolf approach, 65, 83 Ma, Jack, 128–129, 159 MacIsaac, Sean, 36 Maeder, Paul, 187, 213 management, 3, 233 by Captains, 119, 121, 138 cobuilders and, 159–160 by Crusaders, 89 by Drivers, 29 by Explorers, 59 of talent, 184–186 Margiloff, Will, 48 Massive Inc., 96 master builder strategy, 16, 213–217 Captains and, 226–227 Crusaders and, 224–225 Drivers and, 218–220 Explorers and, 221–223 polar complements and, 215–217 Maximum Games, 104 MBNA, 15, 46–47 McGraw, Phil, 44 McLaughlin, George, 131 Mead, Margaret, 114 MedAvante, 121–123, 139, 144 mentoring, 184 by Captains, 119–120, 141–142 by Crusaders, 112 by Explorers, 82 Microsoft, 20, 154 Mink, 62 Mirapath, 113 Monroe, Cindy, 135–136, 139 Moore, Geoffrey, 13, 41, 70, 95 Morris, Nate, 6, 15, 94–95, 97, 101–102, 104, 109, 197 motivation, 3, 233 of Captains, 119, 120 of Crusaders, 89 of Drivers, 29 of Explorers, 59 recruiting team members and, 176 Myers, Isabel Briggs, 22, 236 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), 13, 238 National Venture Capital Association, 187 negotiation, 172–174 Newell, Derek, 90 NFX Guild, 103 Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, 124 Oakleaf, 95 O’Kelley, Brian, 58–60, 65–66, 74, 220–221 ownership issues, 158 Packard, Dave, 19 Page, Larry, 18 Pagon, Len, 40–41 partners, 153–174 complexity and number of, 170–171 conversation versus negotiation with, 172–174 level of equality among, 157 relationship with, 155–157 PC Construction, 98, 106 Personality-Based Clustering, 20–22, 30, 231–240 personality research, 13, 20–22 personality testing, 236–240 Phillips, Tom, 63–64, 68, 80 Pinkham, Chris, 15, 73–74, 80, 133 Pinterest, 155 Pizzagalli, Angelo, 98, 106 PlayStation, 132 polar complements, 22 master builder strategy and, 215–217 Pompe disease, 123–124, 212 Prepay Nation, 84 Prezi, 127 product-market fit, 190–194 Drivers and, 32–34 product narcissism, 49, 52–53 Rachleff, Andy, 190–191 Raju, Dan, 53 Rent the Runway, 6, 104, 155 Republic Industries, 94 research methodology, 13, 20–22, 231–241 Ressler, June, 143 Return Path, 45 Rice, Julie, 153–154 Richmond Global, 104, 197 Right Media, 58, 65–66 risk, Drivers and, 43 Roberts, Bryan, 85 Rosemark Capital, 113–115 Rosetta, 20–22, 231–240 Rubenstein, Michael, 221 Rubicon Global, 6, 94–95, 101–102, 197 sales cycles, 53–54 Samsung, 20 scale dynamic across customer segments, 13 Captains and, 135–138 Crusaders and, 104–107 Drivers and, 44–47 Explorers and, 75–79, 79–80 SEBCO Laundry Systems, 35 Seelye, Christina, 104, 105 solution dynamic Captains and, 121–124 Crusaders and, 93–97 Drivers and, 32–34 Explorers and, 61–65 Sony e-commerce, 132–133 SoulCycle, 153–154 Spanx, 5, 62 Spengler, Laurie, 37–38, 48, 228–229 sponsor dynamic, 187–204 Captains and, 131–135, 200–204 Crusaders and, 103–104, 196–199 Drivers and, 41–43, 54–55, 190–194 Explorers and, 72–75, 194–196 strategic alignment and, 189 Stevenson, Howard, 3, 189 Stone, Biz, 92 Suriyakumar, Suri, 129–131, 134, 226–227 talent management, 184–186 team dynamic, 15 Captains and, 122, 124–127, 138–139, 182–183 Crusaders and, 97–100, 180–182 Drivers and, 5, 36–39, 51–52, 177–179 Explorers and, 65–70, 80, 179–180 recruiting, 175–186 talent management and, 184–186 TED Talks, 127 Theranos, 100, 104 Thirty-One Gifts, 135–136, 139 Titus, Greg, 110, 111 Tradier, 53 Traitorous Eight, 193 trust Captains and, 121, 142–143, 145 Crusaders and, 109 Drivers and, 38 Twitter, 92–93 Tylenol, 15, 64, 77–78, 195–196 United Silicon Carbide, 140–141 valuation Drivers and, 54–55 negotiating fair, 191 Venrock, 42, 85 ViVoom, 98–99 Walmart, 94 Warby Parker, 155 Waste Management, 94 WebSphere, 41 Wegmans Food Markets, 94, 101–102, 109 Weiss, Ben, 4–5, 32, 48, 49, 52 customer dynamic and, 39 sponsor dynamic and, 41–42 Women Presidents’ Organization, 114–115 Wozniak, Steve, 17 Yeh, Doris, 113 Yext, 32–33, 48 Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), 233 Zuckerberg, Mark, 18 Acknowledgments Some of the original ideas that underpin this book came from the extraordinary men and women who helped build Rosetta.

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
by Cal Newport
Published 5 Feb 2019

In Washington, DC, where I live, it’s well-known that the biggest political scandals are those that confirm a negative that most people already suspected to be true. This insight perhaps explains the fervor that greeted Harris’s revelations. Soon after going public, he was featured on the cover of the Atlantic, interviewed on 60 Minutes and PBS NewsHour, and was whisked off to give a TED talk. For years, those of us who were grumbling about the seeming ease with which people were becoming slaves to their smartphones were put down as alarmist. But then Harris came along and confirmed what many were increasingly suspecting to be true: These apps and slick sites were not, as Bill Maher put it, gifts from “nerd gods building a better world.”

The Decline and Fall of IBM: End of an American Icon?
by Robert X. Cringely
Published 1 Jun 2014

Peter Drucker, who had been writing about business for 50 years before Jensen and Meckling wrote their paper in 1976, said the only purpose of a business was “to create a customer.” The chapters to come will show in great detail what a lousy job IBM has been doing at that lately. CHAPTER FOUR Why Big Companies Can’t Change There’s a very good TED Talk (Technology, Entertainment, Design; a global set of conferences owned by the private, non-profit Sapling Foundation) by leadership expert and author Simon Sinek about how great leaders inspire their companies by asking “Why?” I think it also goes a long way toward explaining why big companies don’t handle change well.

The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human, and How to Tell Them Better
by Will Storr
Published 3 Apr 2019

Curiosity is shaped like a lowercase n: ‘The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity’, Celeste Kidd and Benjamin Y. Hayden, Neuron, 4 November 2015: 88(3): 449–460. In his paper, ‘The Psychology of Curiosity’: ‘The Psychology of Curiosity’, George Lowenstein, Psychological Bulletin, 1994, Vol. 116. No. 1. pp. 75–98. Mystery, he’s said, ‘is the catalyst for imagination’: J. J. Abrams, ‘The Mystery Box’, TED talk, March 2007. 1.3 Consider that whole beautiful world around you, with all its: ‘Exploring the Mysteries of the Brain’, Gareth Cook, Scientific American, 6 Oct 2015. If you hold out your arm and look at your thumbnail: The Brain, Michael O’Shea (Oxford University Press, 2005) p. 5. the rest of your sight is fuzzy: Incognito, David Eagleman (Canongate, 2011) pp. 7–370.

Spite: The Upside of Your Dark Side
by Simon McCarthy-Jones
Published 12 Apr 2021

As a result, people are less likely to reject low offers.46 Similarly, if the proposer does not have intentions, a low offer is less likely to trigger spite. How would you react if told a computer had randomly generated the lousy two-dollar offer you had received? Clearly, there can be no unfair intent in this situation (unless you’ve been watching too many movies or TED talks about malign AI systems).47 Getting a low offer from a computer, rather than a person, radically changes people’s behavior. The computer’s lack of intent avoids tripping our counterdominant side. Normally, about 70 percent of people will reject low offers. Yet when a computer randomly offers a low amount, we see the complete opposite reaction.

McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality
by Ronald Purser
Published 8 Jul 2019

Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont — assure us that mindfulness is a “disruptive technology,” capable of reforming even the most dysfunctional organizations into something more compassionate and sustainable.23 I once sat in on one of Hunter’s presentations at the International Symposium for Contemplative Studies in Boston. Clean-cut and well groomed, Hunter impressed me as the quintessential management consultant. He began with the standard formula of a TED talk — an emotional story of a stressed executive who was saved by mindfulness. His story came across as an over-rehearsed — and over-repeated — shtick. “As more people within the organization become more open and inquisitive,” he gushed, “they become agents for large-scale change.” All by searching inside themselves.

Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away
by Julien Saunders and Kiersten Saunders
Published 13 Jun 2022

Sometimes there’s a general topic the group will discuss, like real estate. Other times there is no topic, and you operate in the same way you would in a networking event at work: introduce yourself, ask people about their story, and see if you have anything in common. Some free meetups are far more structured, like mini TED talks where an expert speaks and then opens up the floor for conversation. In our experience, the more informal these are, the better. The lack of formality makes the entire experience more relaxing and takes the pressure off any insecurities you may have about money. Events like these are typically promoted online, through social media and the blogs, podcasts, and video channels of your favorite personal finance personalities.

My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's
by Sandeep Jauhar
Published 11 Apr 2023

Department of Agriculture validation therapy vascular dementia Vini (brother-in-law) viruses visuospatial reasoning wandering Watson, James Wellbutrin widowhood Wilks, Samuel working memory Wyatt, John ALSO BY SANDEEP JAUHAR Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician Heart: A History A Note About the Author Sandeep Jauhar is the bestselling author of three acclaimed books, Intern , Doctored , and Heart: A History , which was named a best book of 2018 by Science Friday, The Mail on Sunday , and the Los Angeles Public Library, and was a PBS NewsHour / New York Times book club pick; it was also a finalist for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize. A practicing physician, Jauhar writes regularly for the opinion section of The New York Times . His TED Talk on the emotional heart was one of the ten most watched of 2019. To learn more about his work, follow him on Twitter: @sjauhar. You can sign up for email updates here . Thank you for buying this Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters.

Cooking for Geeks
by Jeff Potter
Published 2 Aug 2010

"A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success" Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay has carved out a niche as a raging culinary maniac. (Secretly, I bet he’s "tough but gentle on the inside," and that the TV series Hell’s Kitchen has edited the footage to exaggerate his hot temper.) Getting results doesn’t have to be about fear and intimidation, though. There’s a great TED talk (TED is an annual conference loosely related to "Technology Education Design") by Alain de Botton available online, called "A kinder, gentler philosophy of success"; see http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success.html. Picking a Recipe I hope by now I’ve convinced you that it’s okay to burn the meal, to read the entire recipe before starting, and that xkcd is awesome.

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The quick-serve industry is not saying "we want GMO foods"; they’re simply buying what’s most economical, because in a price-sensitive market, the chains need to keep prices down to remain in business. For a glimpse into the interconnectedness of our food system, search online for Louise Fresco’s touching TED talk, "On Feeding the Whole World" (http://www.ted.com/talks/louise_fresco_on_feeding_the_whole_world.html). Analytical Method There have been a number of attempts over the years to devise a scientific model for predicting which flavors will work well together. While not particularly well suited for day-to-day cooking, these types of approaches do have a place in helping create new combinations of flavors and they are used by the food industry and some high-end chefs.

The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life
by Timothy Ferriss
Published 1 Jan 2012

Place the lid on the stockpot. 04 Immediately put the wrapped sweet potatoes on the middle rack in the oven. 05 Set an alarm for 30 minutes (when you’ll check on the sous-vide temp). Watch a TED talk on ted.com. Try Elizabeth Gilbert’s “On Nurturing Creativity” or Dan Gilbert’s “Why Are We Happy?” 06 When the alarm goes off, adjust the heat under the stockpot as needed to maintain 145-155°F (63-68°C) and set the alarm for another 30 minutes. Read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” or “Shooting an Elephant” if you haven’t. Or watch another TED talk. 07 When the alarm sounds, revisit the sous-vide temp and set the alarm again, this time for 20 minutes. Yes, you guessed it: TED.

The Google Resume: How to Prepare for a Career and Land a Job at Apple, Microsoft, Google, or Any Top Tech Company
by Gayle Laakmann Mcdowell
Published 25 Jan 2011

So what would make a good answer? Something like this: I’ve always valued my creativity, so gaming is a natural fit for my creative side as well as my drive to build cool things. I’m specifically excited about your company because I love its approach to fusing learning opportunities with fun. I saw a really interesting TED talk given by your CEO about the impact that engagement has in children’s learning, and that really rang true for me. Passion + Research = Excellence in Answering. ~Gayle Chapter 11 The Offer David and I met over drinks to discuss my job offer. This was negotiation number 3. I’d thought a more social atmosphere might relax the situation, but things didn’t quite go as planned.

I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted
by Nick Bilton
Published 13 Sep 2010

Also phone interviews with Mark Carrier and Nancy Cheever, 2009. Chapter 8: what the future will look like 1 The Minority Report concepts: Personal interview with Dale Herigstad, creative director, Schematic. Also e-mail interview with Mr. Herigstad and video by John Underkoffler about the future of user interface for 2010 TED Talk, http://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_drive_3d_data_with_a_gesture.html. Also: Wikipedia entry for Minority Report, en.Wikipedia.org. 2 Test their viewing experiences on different kinds of screens: Maria Elizabeth Grabe, Matthew Lombard, Robert D. Reich, et al., “The Role of Screen Size in Viewer Experiences of Media Content,” Visual Communication Quarterly 6 no. 2 (1999): 4–9. 3 Mobile phones … used for teaching: Nipan Maniar, Emily Bennett, Steve Hand, et al., “The Effect of Mobile Phone Screen Size on Video Based Learning,” Journal of Software 3 no. 4 (2008): 51–61.

Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future
by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe
Published 6 Dec 2016

Scherer, “Demand-Pull and Technological Invention: Schmookler Revisited,” The Journal of Industrial Economics 30, no. 3 (1982): 225–37, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2098216. 13 See https://aws.amazon.com/what-is-cloud-computing/. 14 David Weinberger. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web (New York: Basic Books, 2003). 15 Dan Pink, “The Puzzle of Motivation,” TED Talk, July 2009, https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation. 16 IETF, “Mission Statement,” https://www.ietf.org/about/mission.html 17 As of May 2016, more than eighty institutions and organizations—including Jeff’s home university, Northeastern—were using Experiment.com to raise funds for research.

Do Over: Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work, and Never Get Stuck
by Jon Acuff
Published 6 Apr 2015

I can’t predict the future, but I can change the present. I can’t tell you if in ten years I will have written five more books. But I can tell you that this year I will write one. I can’t tell you if in ten years my blog will have five million readers, but I can write a new post today. I can’t tell you if in ten years I’ll be doing a TED talk but I can write a speech for a local event next week. Once I decided that I would not choose to stay stuck, I was able to start seeing skills I could work on. I think most of our skills are developed in life when we run into ceilings. Skills are a hammer. They help us break through ceilings.

A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life
by Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman
Published 6 Apr 2014

Her research focuses on shame and vulnerability, and she is the author of several best-selling books. She calls herself “a researcher and a storyteller,” and often says, “Maybe stories are just data with a soul.” Her talk at TEDxHouston in June 2010—“The Power of Vulnerability”—is the fourth-most-watched TED talk ever, at 17 million views as of the end of 2014: www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability, accessed October 18, 2014. 2. Bianca Bosker, “Google Design: Why Google.com Homepage Looks So Simple,” Huffington Post, March 27, 2012, www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/google-design-sergey-brin_n_1384074.html, accessed October 18, 2014. 3.

Alan Partridge: Nomad: Nomad
by Alan Partridge
Published 19 Oct 2016

86 Backing singer: ‘A change would do you good!’ 87 Backing singer: ‘A change would do you good!’ 88 Backing singer: ‘A change would do you good!’ 89 Backing singer: ‘A change would do you good!’ 90 Backing singer: ‘A change would do you good!’ 91 I should point out that these opening paragraphs were lifted directly from a TED talk I wrote but was subsequently not required to give. 92 Who is American. 93 This was a phrase first used by Paul Ross in 1990 that I have always found deliciously clever. 94 It was a party to usher in the new brand for the station – ‘Shape: The Way You Want It to Be’. I admit that, at the time, I liked the brand.

The Economic Singularity: Artificial Intelligence and the Death of Capitalism
by Calum Chace
Published 17 Jul 2016

The allocation of new housing stock, the best date for an important election, the cost ceiling for a powerful new drug, for instance. Arguments are probably going to become increasingly commonly and increasingly vehement over which decisions should be made by machines, and which by humans. 5.5 – Cohesion The scenario of “the Gods and the Useless” As mentioned in chapter 1, at the end of his July 2015 TED talk,[cccxxxvii] the author of “Sapiens”, Yuval Harari, makes a seemingly throw-away comment about humanity devolving into two classes: the gods and the useless. The audience laughs at this brutal assessment, but I suspect Harari is deadly serious. Imagine a society where the great majority of people lead lives of leisure, their income provided by a beneficent state, or perhaps a gigantic charitable organisation.

Evil by Design: Interaction Design to Lead Us Into Temptation
by Chris Nodder
Published 4 Jun 2013

“Instagram's new terms of service: from overreaction to retraction.” The Verge (verge.com). December 20, 2012. Retrieved March 2013. Chad’s garage comic: “Instagram” © Randall Munroe, xkcd.com. Sell the intangible value Goldhut photo credit: Chris Nodder. Problems of perception: Rory Sutherland “Perspective is everything” Ted talk, (ted.com). Make a request in order to be seen more favorably Benjamin Franklin quote: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1906. p. 107. Return the money you won: Jon Jecker and David Landy. “Liking a person as a function of doing him a favour.” Human Relations 22.4 (1969): 371–378.

Sleeping Giant: How the New Working Class Will Transform America
by Tamara Draut
Published 4 Apr 2016

Many of these jobs exist at the bottom of a long line of contracts and subcontracts, or are staffed by temp agencies, or are part of a franchise system—all forms of hiring that no longer align with existing labor laws written almost a century ago, making them vulnerable to wage theft and unsafe working conditions. These jobs are the giant amoeba of the American labor market, swallowing and engulfing more and more of our workers in a huge blob of low-paying work. This reality is not reflected in TED talks, swanky ideas summits, or other intellectually elite venues where rumination about the knowledge economy, entrepreneurship, and creative destruction are de rigueur. But make no mistake, it is the economy of our present and our future. Table 1. The Largest Jobs in the Bargain-Basement Economy (2012) Source: U.S.

The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment
by Guy Spier
Published 8 Sep 2014

Indeed, I’m convinced that this is the single most important way that we can tilt the playing field in our favor to achieve success as investors and in other areas of life. How, then, do we create and nurture the right relationships so that we can learn from them what we need to learn and become who we ought to be? I’m not sure that I fully grasped the overwhelming importance of our peer group until I came across a fascinating book and a subsequent TED talk by Nicholas Christakis. He and his colleagues at Harvard had studied obesity in human networks, and this research led them to an important discovery: if you have obese friends, you’re more likely to be obese. Similarly, if you have fit and healthy friends, you’re more likely to be fit and healthy.

Shorter: Work Better, Smarter, and Less Here's How
by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Published 10 Mar 2020

At this point, they’re not just questioning habits and practices from the five-day week, they’re reevaluating things they implemented in the early days of the four-day week. For example, the company first implemented a practice of spending ten minutes a day on training—watching instructional videos or TED talks—but it proved hard to build the habit. They replaced the daily practice with a weekly “Tech Tuesday” and an optional Friday hackathon. Most of the experiments have been proposed and conducted by employees themselves. The upside of that approach is that it gives everyone a chance to become involved, to reflect on how they work, to try new things, and to learn from experience and each other.

Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life
by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica
Published 14 Jul 2013

Not everyone fulfilled their dreams: but they were all prepared to take the chance. It was our intention with The Element to move people. As it turns out, we managed to do that—sometimes even physically. In 2008, Lisa and Peter Labon and their four children were living in San Francisco—a place Lisa calls “our favorite city in the world”—when they saw my first TED talk and picked up a copy of The Element. They’d been slowly realizing that they needed to do something very different with their lives, and the book provided further impetus. “It was life-saving nectar from a deeply hidden well,” Lisa told me. “Not only did we not want schools to kill our children’s creativity, we recognized our own abandoned dreams and withered passions in the dustbin of modern achievement.

Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business
by Paul Jarvis
Published 1 Jan 2019

Properly Utilizing Trust and Scale 152 92 percent of consumers: Cited in “Consumer Trust in Online, Social and Mobile Advertising Grows,” Nielsen, April 10, 2012, http://www.nielsen.com/ca/en/insights/news/2012/consumer-trust-in-online-social-and-mobile-advertising-grows.html. 152rated referrals: Anita Campbell, “85 Percent of Small Businesses Get Customers Through Word of Mouth,” Small Business Trends, June 10, 2015, https://smallbiztrends.com/2014/06/small-businesses-get-customers-through-word-of-mouth.html. 153 smaller businesses thrive: Fareena Sultan and William Qualls, “Placing Trust at the Center of Your Internet Strategy,” MIT Sloan Management Review 42, no. 1 (Fall 2000): 39–48. 153only 29 percent actually do so: “Anatomy of the Referral: Economics of Loyalty,” Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, and Advisor Impact, Salisbury, NC, December 2010. 15388 percent of American consumers: “Local Consumer Review Survey 2014,” BrightLocal, 2014, https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey-2014/. 11. Launching and Iterating in Tiny Steps 168 predictability, accessibility: George Whitesides, “Towards a Science of Simplicity,” TED Talks, February 2010, https://www.ted.com/talks/george_whitesides_toward_a_science_of_simplicity. 170 the most-funded KickStarter project ever: “Pebble Time—Awesome Smartwatch, No Compromises,” Kickstarter, accessed October 9, 2017, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/getpebble/pebble-time-awesome-smartwatch-no-compromises. 170( didn’t ensure Pebble’s long-term success): Lauren Goode, “Fitbit Bought Pebble for Much Less Than Originally Reported,” The Verge, February 22, 2017, https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/22/14703108/fitbit-bought-pebble-for-23-millionw. 171 best suited for consumer-facing products: Olav Sorenson, “Could Crowdfunding Reshape Entrepreneurship?”

Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms
by Hannah Fry
Published 17 Sep 2018

People who downloaded their quiz knowingly handed over data on both: the history of their Likes on Facebook and, through a series of questions, their true personality scores. It’s easy to imagine how Likes and personality might be related. As the team pointed out in the paper they published the following year,19 people who like Salvador Dalí, meditation or TED talks are almost certainly going to score highly on openness to experience. Meanwhile, people who like partying, dancing and Snooki from the TV series Jersey Shore tend to be a bit more extraverted. The research was a success. With a connection established, the team built an algorithm that could infer someone’s personality from their Facebook Likes alone.

5 Day Weekend: Freedom to Make Your Life and Work Rich With Purpose
by Nik Halik and Garrett B. Gunderson
Published 5 Mar 2018

For example: Body Rituals: regular walks, eating at certain times throughout the day, going to bed at a set time, playing sports Emotional Rituals: humor and laughter, expressing appreciation to others, spending time with friends Mental Rituals: shutting off your phone at certain times, reading, watching TED talks, practicing a new skill Spiritual Rituals: meditation, prayer, scripture reading 3. Optimize Your Sleep Sleep isn’t a necessary evil — a distraction from work. It’s a vital component of our body’s productivity, a natural way of recharging. Listen to your body to determine the appropriate amount of sleep for you.

People Powered: How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brand, and Teams
by Jono Bacon
Published 12 Nov 2019

From there a healthy culture can form. 5. Strive for and Be Reactive to Insight I am going to annoy a lot of product managers right now. There is an arrogance in the halls of many businesses that the people sitting around the conference room table have all the answers. Elegantly drawn diagrams on whiteboards, oftreferenced TED talks and books, and other evidence tries to solidify their case. Here’s the thing: when you build anything for people, including products, services, or communities, the answers to your questions live in the heads of your audience. We just need to tease them out in a form that we can act on. Throughout this process of building a community you are going to have a lot of questions.

The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50
by Jonathan Rauch
Published 30 Apr 2018

Charles, “Taking Time Seriously: A Theory of Socioemotional Selectivity,” in American Psychologist 54:3 (1999); and with her book A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity (PublicAffairs, 2009). For engaging summaries, see Carstensen’s April 2012 TED talk, “Older People Are Happier” (www.ted.com/talks/laura_carstensen_older_people_are_happier), and her 2015 Aspen Ideas Festival talk, “Long Life in the 21st Century” (www.aspenideas.org/session/aspen-lecture-long-life-21st-century). Other Carstensen contributions I consulted include “Emotional Behavior in Long-Term Marriage,” with John M.

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
by Jenny Blake
Published 14 Jul 2016

The first thing I do when someone hands me a book is crack it open, stick my face in it, and inhale its new book smell. Ahhh, the glory of all that wisdom in one condensed package! The author poured years of his or her life experience and expertise into one guide, all for the cost of a few lattes. You can also draft by listening to TED Talks and podcasts, especially if you are an audio learner or want to experience another dimension of an expert’s work. Friendtors You have heard the adage that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I say the more the merrier; but at a minimum, if you do not have friends that inspire you and help you expand, it is time to add new ones.

The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism
by Hubert Joly
Published 14 Jun 2021

The customer is happy: she has found someone who listened and helped her. And Anthony feels good as well: he is not pushing headphones; he’s made a positive difference in someone’s daily life. This is authentic human connection at work. This approach inspires more than employees. In his widely watched 2009 TED Talk, Simon Sinek argued that it is purpose—what he calls the “why”—that indeed sets the most inspiring leaders and organizations apart from others. The organizations that inspire deep loyalty from customers are those able to think, act, and communicate, starting from their purpose. “People don’t buy what you do,” says Simon Sinek; “people buy why you do it.”2 This approach ensures that economic activity is sustainable Let me be clear here: I deeply disagree with Milton Friedman’s view that business has no business dealing with societal issues.

The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime
by Bradley Hope
Published 1 Nov 2022

But it would not be long before the men would meet again. * * * — Despite his anti-business-school stance, Adrian wasn’t entirely antiestablishment. After quitting LiNK, he was selected into the inaugural class of TED Fellows. A tech-savvy humanitarian with big ideas, he was a perfect fit for the program. By 2009, TED Talks were a household name thanks to the media entrepreneur Chris Anderson, whose nonprofit foundation had acquired the TED Conferences business from its two original founders eight years earlier and steadily built it into a juggernaut of videos and events featuring “the world’s most inspired thinkers.”

Escape From Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It
by Erica Thompson
Published 6 Dec 2022

Chapter 1: Locating Model Land King, Mervyn, and John Kay, Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making for an Unknowable Future, Bridge Street Press, 2020 Chapter 2: Thinking Inside the Box #inmice, https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice https://www.climateprediction.net Held, Isaac, ‘The Gap Between Simulation and Understanding in Climate Modeling’, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 86(11), 2005, pp. 1609–14 Mayer, Jurgen, Khaled Khairy and Jonathon Howard, ‘Drawing an Elephant with Four Complex Parameters’, American Journal of Physics, 78, 2010 Morgan, Mary, The World in the Model, Cambridge University Press, 2012 Page, Scott, The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You, Basic Books, 2019 Parker, Wendy, ‘Model Evaluation: An Adequacy-for-Purpose View’, Philosophy of Science, 87(3), 2020 Pilkey, Orrin, and Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future, Columbia University Press, 2007 Stainforth, David, Myles Allen, Edward Tredger, and Leonard Smith, ‘Confidence, Uncertainty and Decision-Support Relevance in Climate Predictions’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 365(1857), 2007 Stoppard, Tom, Arcadia, Faber & Faber, 1993 Chapter 3: Models as Metaphors Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, ‘The Danger of a Single Story’, TED talk (video and transcript), 2009 Bender, Emily, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major and Shmargaret Shmitchell, ‘On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?’, Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 2021 Bolukbasi, Tolga, Kai-Wei Chang, James Y.

A Book for Her
by Bridget Christie
Published 1 Jul 2015

So that kind of gendered language is designed to undermine and devalue what women do. But there is another, more sinister way of manipulating language that benefits patriarchal or ‘dominant’ systems. Jackson Katz, an American anti-sexist activist, did an extraordinarily brilliant and insightful TED talk about the way in which ‘men’s problems’ have been spun to make them look like ‘women’s problems’ by switching the focus on to victims rather than the perpetrators. He explains how ‘men are rendered invisible in large measure in the discourse about issues that are primarily about themselves, especially when it comes to domestic or sexual violence.’

Extreme Teams: Why Pixar, Netflix, AirBnB, and Other Cutting-Edge Companies Succeed Where Most Fail
by Robert Bruce Shaw , James Foster and Brilliance Audio
Published 14 Oct 2017

Of those with managers who talked up meaning, 68% indicated they rarely think about looking for a new job outside KPMG; that share fell to 38% for employees whose managers didn’t discuss meaning.” 38Jason Snell, “Steve Jobs: Making a Dent in the Universe,” Macworld, www.macworld.com/article/1162827/steve_jobs_making_a_dent_in_the_universe.html. 39Paul Tough, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), 74. 40Angela L. Duckworth, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” TED Talk, May 2013, www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit/transcript?language=en. In this talk, she summarizes her findings: “I started studying kids and adults in all kinds of super challenging settings, and in every study my question was, who is successful here and why? My research team and I went to West Point Military Academy.

Life as a Passenger: How Driverless Cars Will Change the World
by David Kerrigan
Published 18 Jun 2017

_r=0 Blogs: A selection of blogs on the topic of Driverless cars: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/# http://utilware.com/autonomous.html http://ideas.4brad.com/rodney-brooks-pedestrian-interaction-andrew-ng-infrastructure-and-both-human-attitudes https://medium.com/@alexrubalcava/a-roadmap-for-a-world-without-drivers-573aede0c968 http://www.newgeography.com/content/005024-preparing-impact-driverless-cars http://blog.piekniewski.info/2017/05/11/a-car-safety-myths-and-facts/ https://medium.com/@christianhern/self-driving-cars-as-the-new-toolbar-8c8a47a3c598 https://backchannel.com/self-driving-cars-will-improve-our-cities-if-they-dont-ruin-them-2dc920345618#.4va0brsyg Videos: A selection of Videos on the topic of Driverless cars: Video of Tesla Auto pilot - https://thescene.com/watch/arstechnica/cars-technica-hands-on-with-tesla-s-autopilot https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg (15 Minute TED Talk by Chris Urmson of Google, 2015) * * * [1] http://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/McKinsey%20Digital/Our%20Insights/Disruptive%20technologies/MGI_Disruptive_technologies_Full_report_May2013.ashx [2] http://www.morganstanley.com/articles/autonomous-cars-the-future-is-now [3] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Media/WEF_FutureofJobs.pdf [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Amara [5] https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/763209924302090240 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes#Dichotomy_paradox [7] https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/771115479393906688 [8] https://lilium.com/ [9] https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/ [10] The Salmon of Doubt, Douglas Adams, 2002 [11] http://farmerandfarmer.org/mastery/builder.html [12] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/innovation-and-its-enemies-9780190467036?

The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being
by William Davies
Published 11 May 2015

‘One way is to just gaze at them … like a shepherd sitting above a meadow watching the sheep’.1 A few hundred thoughts of stock portfolios and illicit gifts for secretaries back home most likely meandered their way across the mental pastures of his audience. True to their competitive business principles, the Davos organizers had not just gone for any monk. This was a truly elite monk, a French former biologist named Matthieu Ricard, a minor celebrity in his own right, who acts as French translator to the Dalai Lama and gives TED Talks on the topic of happiness. This is a subject he is uniquely qualified to speak on, thanks to his reputation as the ‘happiest man in the world’. For a number of years, Ricard participated in a neuroscientific study at the University of Wisconsin, to try and understand how different levels of happiness are inscribed and visible in the brain.

The Dark Net
by Jamie Bartlett
Published 20 Aug 2014

At one point in our interview he told me that he has instructed his wife to ‘stick me in the freezer’ if he dies unexpectedly.) Zerzan In the 2014 movie Transcendence, Johnny Depp plays a brilliant transhumanist scientist called Dr Caster – an Anders Sandberg type – who is building a hyperintelligent machine, in pursuit of Vernor Vinge’s Singularity moment. After a TED Talk (of course), Dr Caster is shot by a member of a radical anti-technology terrorist group called Revolutionary Independence From Technology (RIFT). RIFT are sabotaging the work of artificial intelligence laboratories all over the world. Shooting Dr Caster is part of the plan to disrupt what they see as the frightening march of technology.

The Glass Cage: Automation and Us
by Nicholas Carr
Published 28 Sep 2014

At least a phone can be stuffed into a pocket or handbag, or slipped into a car’s cup holder. The fact that you interact with Glass through spoken words, head movements, hand gestures, and finger taps further tightens its claim on the mind and senses. As for the audio signals that announce incoming alerts and messages—sent, as Brin boasted in his TED talk, “right through the bones in your cranium”—they hardly seem less intrusive than the beeps and buzzes of a phone. However emasculating a smartphone may be, metaphorically speaking, a computer attached to your forehead promises to be worse. Wearable computers, whether sported on the head like Google’s Glass and Facebook’s Oculus Rift or on the wrist like the Pebble smartwatch, are new, and their appeal remains unproven.

4th Rock From the Sun: The Story of Mars
by Nicky Jenner
Published 5 Apr 2017

One of the most pressing predictable risks is that of climate change, of a runaway greenhouse effect that continues to warm our planet faster than we can adapt in order to survive. ‘In this century, not only has science changed the world faster than ever, but [it has done so] in new and different ways,’ said astronomer Martin Rees in a 2005 TED Talk. ‘Targeted drugs, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, perhaps even implants into our brains, may change human beings themselves. And human beings, their physique and character, have not changed for thousands of years. That may change this century. It’s new in our history. And the human impact on the global environment – greenhouse warming, mass extinctions and so forth – is unprecedented, too.

The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age
by Astra Taylor
Published 4 Mar 2014

The essence of amateurism is intrinsic motivation: to be an amateur is to do something for the love of it.” Making a similar case, Yochai Benkler likens cultural creation to blood drives: the quality of donations increases when organizers stop paying.12 “Remember, money isn’t always the best motivator,” Benkler said, reiterating the point during a TED Talk touching on similar themes. “If you leave a fifty dollar check after dinner with friends, you don’t increase the probability of being invited back. And if dinner isn’t entirely obvious, think of sex.”13 So it won’t matter if some people’s operating costs end up exceeding their earned income. A well-received academic monograph about the impact of online file sharing on music production, published under the auspices of Harvard Business School, echoes these insights, allaying any suspicion one might have that lack of income could inhibit the world’s creative output.

The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success
by Ross Douthat
Published 25 Feb 2020

To many readers, this argument will seem counterintuitive: a definition of decadence that dealt only with excess and luxury and various forms of political sclerosis might fit our era, but the idea of an overall stagnation or repetition—of late-modern civilization as a treadmill rather than a headlong charge—doesn’t fit particularly well with many readings of the age in which we live. It seems in tension with the sense of constant acceleration, of vertiginous change, that permeates so much of early-twenty-first-century life—as well as with the jargon of our time, which from Davos, to Silicon Valley, to the roving tent-revivalism of TED Talks, retains a breathless faith that the world is changing at a pace that would put Thomas Edison and Samuel Morse to shame. The question, though, is whether that jargon corresponds with reality anymore, or whether our sense of continued acceleration is now to some extent an illusion created by the Internet—the one area of clear technological progress in our era, but also a distorting filter on the world beyond your screen.

The Buddha and the Badass: The Secret Spiritual Art of Succeeding at Work
by Vishen Lakhiani
Published 14 Sep 2020

You don’t need a business to do this. This applies to the stealth leader just as much as it does to anyone in a leadership position. However, before we get there, I’ll share some ideas to help you really dive deep into your beliefs and reason for existing. TACTIC #2: FIND YOUR BIG WHY In his famous TED Talk, Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why, says, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.” Sinek also said, “There are only two ways to influence human behavior: You can manipulate it or you can inspire it.” This is where most people go wrong when they share their ideas about a business.

Covid-19: The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened and How to Stop the Next One
by Debora MacKenzie
Published 13 Jul 2020

Peter Daszak heads the EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit that conducts research aiming both to prevent pandemics and promote wildlife conservation. An Englishman in New York, he became captivated by wildlife diseases in 1995 after discovering a previously unknown pathogen causing diarrhea in a zoo’s collection of giant hissing cockroaches. A natural showman, he once carried a pocketful of them into a TED Talk. Until then, wildlife biologists hadn’t been much interested in disease. It wasn’t considered important to species survival. They reasoned that as a disease kills a species off, new victims become scarcer, so the disease fails to find new hosts and dies out long before the species does. After the pesticide DDT decimated birds worldwide, chemical pollutants got more attention.

Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World
by Mo Gawdat
Published 29 Sep 2021

We just can’t seem to stop ‘Despite all of the dystopian scenarios we had witnessed in sci-fi movies, and clear signals around the 2020s that AI was taking over, humanity never managed to do the right thing and question the actual impact, the cost–benefit analysis, of what we were building. ‘Everybody knew the associated risks. The topic was brought to the attention of all those in charge by some of the world’s most renowned experts. Countless articles, TED Talks and books explained where we were heading. Yet we continued to argue. As a collective society, we managed to brush these concerns off and ignore them. Our egos prevented us from focusing the conversation on the possible threats and instead we argued about irrelevant parts of the emerging technology – how to control it, how to integrate it into our future cyborg bodies and how to celebrate the benefits we were promised it would bring.

The Twittering Machine
by Richard Seymour
Published 20 Aug 2019

The destruction of an ill-founded cyber-utopianism, insufficiently attentive to the political economy of platform capitalism and its pathologies, has given rise to a counter-utopian backlash. It manifests in the proliferation of articles with headlines like, ‘I quit social media and it changed my life’. TED talks such as Cal Newport’s ‘Why you should quit social media’. Books like Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Alongside these are the innumerable head-shaking think pieces about how to combat ‘fake news’ and stop Russian trolls from destroying democracy. Increasingly, the rich absent themselves, professionalizing and delegating their social media accounts.

Odd Girl Out: An Autistic Woman in a Neurotypical World
by Laura James
Published 5 Apr 2017

I want to learn to feel instead of think. I want to learn how to do all the normal things people do, like manage their money, remember to eat, have friends, be organized. I want to know what I like and what I don’t. I want to stop being so confused by the world. I want it all to be easier.’ M gives me homework. She asks me to watch a TED Talk on vulnerability by Brené Brown. She gives me a feelings wheel to take away and colour in. I’m struck by the sheer number of feelings shown. I just don’t feel any of them. Apart from fear. What does responsive feel like? Valued? Or insignificant? How can anyone feel insignificant when they are at the centre of their own life experience?

Everything I Know About Love
by Dolly Alderton
Published 1 Feb 2018

Their function was for gratification, whereas female friends provided everything else that mattered. It was a way of keeping boys at arm’s length. When Farly and I came back from Sardinia and she began her new life as a single woman for the first time since her early twenties, I gave her quite the imperious TED talk on the complexities of modern dating. ‘The first thing you’ve got to realize,’ I said, ‘is no one meets in real life any more. Things have changed since you were last on the market, Farly, and, unfortunately, you’ve got no choice but to change with them.’ ‘OK,’ she said, nodding and taking mental notes.

Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us
by Dan Lyons
Published 22 Oct 2018

Now we’ve come indoors for an event that is meant to evoke the atmosphere of a big Silicon Valley conference, or an Apple product announcement. Tim Brown, the head of IDEO, a cooler-than-thou Silicon Valley design shop, hangs out in the hallway. The Ford execs wear jeans and give casual talks about coping with change and disruption. Dan Ariely, a famous TED Talk guy, gives a TED-style talk. A journalist interviews Fields on stage, and I conduct a similar interview with Ford’s chief technology officer. At last we get to the hackathon. As a host explains, months ago Ford challenged all of its two hundred thousand employees to dream up their wildest, craziest, most ambitious inventions.

Talk on the Wild Side
by Lane Greene
Published 15 Dec 2018

In economics, the richest places in the world have chosen markets, with all their irrationality, with all their booms and busts, over central planning. In language, there is no less reason to trust the masses over the masters. Notes Introduction: The case of the missing whom 1. Figures are for 2011. UNESCO Institute for Statistics Fact Sheet, September 2013, No. 26. 2. See McWhorter’s 2013 TED talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk 1. Bringing the universe to order 1. Jorge Luis Borges, The Analytical Language of John Wilkins, in Otras Inquisiciones, 1937–1952. 2. Arika Okrent, In the Land of Invented Languages, Spiegel & Grau (2009), pp. 212–13. 3.

The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter, and Live Better in a World Addicted to Speed
by Carl Honore
Published 29 Jan 2013

The bottom line here is clear: the quick fix is the wrong horse to back. On its own, no algorithm has ever solved a global health problem. No impulse buy has ever turned around a life. No drug has ever cured a chronic illness. No box of chocolates has ever mended a broken relationship. No educational DVD has ever transformed a child into a baby Einstein. No TED Talk has ever changed the world. No drone strike has ever killed off a terrorist group. It’s always more complicated than that. Everywhere you look – health, politics, education, relationships, business, diplomacy, finance, the environment – the problems we face are more complex and more pressing than ever before.

Picnic Comma Lightning: In Search of a New Reality
by Laurence Scott
Published 11 Jul 2018

NOTES Introduction: Augmented Reality 1 ‘the only authentic …’, Mavis Gallant, ‘Voices Lost in Snow’, in The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997). 2 ‘fiction is outperforming …’, Guillaume Chaslot interview in the Guardian, 2nd February 2018; ‘Falsehoods diffused significantly …’, Soroush Vosoughi et al., ‘The spread of true and false news online’, in Science, Vol. 359, Issue 6380, 9th March 2018. 3 ‘a coward in …’, Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols, trans. Duncan Large (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 [1888]). 4 ‘How the Real …’, ibid. 5 ‘best guess’; ‘prediction engine’; ‘The world we …’, see Anil Seth, ‘Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality’, TED Talk, April 2017. 6 ‘One example he …’, see Donald Hoffman interview with Amanda Gefter, ‘The Case Against Reality’, The Atlantic, 25th April 2016. 7 ‘perceptions will be …’; ‘the ultimate nature …’, ibid. 8 ‘A truth ceases …’; ‘That would be …’, transcript of the trial of Oscar Wilde, in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Volume 5: The Victorian Era, ed.

The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World
by David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt
Published 30 Sep 2017

Whatever you put in is exactly what you get back out – phone numbers, documents, photos – and this capacity often serves us better than our own memories. But the exactitude of computers is also why they’re so bad at, say, cracking a funny joke or acting sweet to get what they want. Or directing a movie. Or giving a TED talk. Or penning a tear-jerking novel. To achieve a creative artificial intelligence, we would need to build a society of exploratory computers, all striving to surprise and impress each other. That social aspect of computers is totally missing, and this is part of what makes computer intelligence so mechanical.

A Life Less Throwaway: The Lost Art of Buying for Life
by Tara Button
Published 8 Feb 2018

Sharpe, 2006). 7.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236848002_The_relationship_of_materialism_to_debt_and_financial_well-being_The_case_of_Iceland’s_perceived_prosperity. 8.Global umbrella survey results, Sunnycomb Tumblr, 1 July 2014, https://sunnycomb.tumblr.com/post/90373669845/global-umbrella-survey-results. 9.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/retail-therapy-shopping_n_3324972.html. 10.Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Verlag für Jugend und Volk, 1946; Simon & Schuster, 1963; Rider, 2004). 104 (1963 ed.). 11.Cited by Robert Waldringer, ‘What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness’, TED talk, November 2015. 12.Ibid. 13.Arthur Aron, et al., ‘The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23: 4 (1997), 363–77, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167297234003. 14.David Marjoribanks and Anna Darnell Bradley, You’re not alone: the quality of the UK’s social relationships (Relate, 2017), 14. 15.Ethan Kross, et al., ‘Facebook Use Predicts Decline in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults’, PLOS: One, 14 August 2013. 16.http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/10-012.pdf. 17.http://ggsc-web02.ist.berkeley.edu/images/application_uploads/norton-spendingmoney.pdf. 18.James Wallman, Stuffocation: Living more with less (Crux Publishing, 2013). 19.A.

Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence—and How You Can, Too
by Gary Vaynerchuk
Published 30 Jan 2018

His hope is that his audience will get addicted to the personalities and story lines just as they once did with shows like Seinfeld. Though his YouTube brand deals today outnumber those he does for Snapchat, his Snapchat following remains robust. In addition, he continues to accept speaking engagements, including a TED Talk. He is also working as a consultant helping brands to strategize, work with influencers, and put together strong social-media campaigns. In 2017, he announced that he’ll be creating branded content for Viacom, including Nickelodeon and MTV. And he recently launched a successful eSports organization with some of the number-one teams in the world.

This Book Could Fix Your Life: The Science of Self Help
by New Scientist and Helen Thomson
Published 7 Jan 2021

When other people watched the interviews afterwards, not knowing what pose the interviewees had adopted beforehand, they were more likely to hire those who had done the power poses prior to the interview. The interviewees’ bodies had changed their minds, and their minds had changed their behaviour. They were putting the best version of themselves out there. Cuddy’s 2012 TED talk on this subject has been viewed 56 million times. No wonder, with such a simple premise. Unfortunately, over the next few years, things went rapidly downhill – not just for Cuddy’s research but for psychology in general. A whole movement overtook the field, and a new statistical sophistication in methods of analysis raised the possibility that a huge amount of psychological research was unreliable.

Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-And What We Can Do About It
by Jennifer Breheny Wallace
Published 21 Aug 2023

Yes, that’s a problem, so what are you going to do about it? And how can I help you? The agency must be theirs, Kinsey says, or else it’ll just be us swooping in all the time. That approach—seeing a spark in her daughter and encouraging her to act—worked. Charlotte and her classmate explained to the school in a kind of TED Talk presentation that the consumption of meat is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. So now every week the school has Meatless Mondays, when vegetarian meals are served. The girls are quantifying Hewitt’s reduction of greenhouse gas emissions so they can see the difference one school is making.

A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend Them Back
by Bruce Schneier
Published 7 Feb 2023

Similarly, if I ask you to develop a technology that would turn things to gold on touch, you wouldn’t build it so that it starved the person using it. I wouldn’t have to specify that; you would just know. We can’t completely specify goals to an AI, and AIs won’t be able to completely understand context. In a TED talk, AI researcher Stuart Russell joked about a fictional AI assistant causing an airplane delay in order to delay someone’s arrival at a dinner engagement. The audience laughed, but how would a computer program know that causing an airplane computer malfunction is not an appropriate response to someone who wants to get out of dinner?

Uncomfortably Off: Why the Top 10% of Earners Should Care About Inequality
by Marcos González Hernando and Gerry Mitchell
Published 23 May 2023

Salverda, T. and Grassiani, E. (2014) Introduction: Anxiety at the top. Comparative Sociology, 13:1, 1–11. Sandbu, M. (2022) Why we need a wealth tax. Financial Times. 6 September. www.ft.com/video/6f73c51e-a1d8-48db-a8da892dbd53c08d Sandel, M. (2013) Why we shouldn’t trust markets with our civic life. TED talk. 7 October. www.ted.com/talks/michael_ sandel_why_we_shouldn_t_trust_markets_with_our_civic_life/ transcript?language=en Sandel, M. (2020) The tyranny of merit: What’s become of the common good? London: Allen Lane. Sauder M. (2020) A sociology of luck. Sociological Theory, 38:3, 193–216. Savage, M. (2021) The return of inequality: Social change and the weight of the past.

Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution
by Wendy Brown
Published 6 Feb 2015

These include family decisions arranged in the fashion of a stakeholder meeting, branding one’s family, and creating a family mission statement. The Week describes it as “acknowledging that things can go wrong and introducing a system to address those things works the same in business and at home.” See http://theweek.com/article/ index/252829/the-secrets-of-happy-families. Similarly, TED Talks describes Feiler as introducing “family practices which encourage f lexibility, bottom-up idea f low, constant feedback and accountability.” See http://www.ted.com/ talks/bruce_feiler_agile_programming_for_your_family.html. Thanks to Chantal Thomas for alerting me to Feiler’s work. For another example, see physician and author Reed Tuckson’s advice to patients to “become CEO of your own health.”

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel
by Tom Wainwright
Published 23 Feb 2016

Mazzitelli, “Mexican Cartels’ Influence in Latin America,” Florida International University, Applied Research Center, September 2011, at http://www.seguridadydefensa.com/descargas/Mazzitelli-Antonio-Mexican-Cartel-Influence-in-Central-America-Sept.pdf. 6. Peter Drucker, The Daily Drucker (New York: HarperCollins, 2004). 7. See Rodrigo Canales’s excellent TED talk on Mexican cartels, at http://www.ted.com/talks/rodrigo_canales_the_deadly_genius_of_drug_cartels/transcript?language=en. 8. In 2004, there were 539 murders; in 2014, there were 1,514. See http://secretariadoejecutivo.gob.mx/incidencia-delictiva/incidencia-delictiva-fuero-comun.php. 9. Charles G.

The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism
by Arun Sundararajan
Published 12 May 2016

Business executives seem resigned to the eventuality of persistent change, and especially change caused by digital technologies. Radical disruption, a concatenation of words that seems to suggest something quite avoidable in most situations, is a harbinger of wealth creation actively pursued by Silicon Valley investors. We have been nurtured by a steady diet of TED talks to expect bold claims about digital technologies being a catalyst for revolution, a panacea for the world’s big problems. I would therefore not be surprised if some readers met my assertion of impending transformation with weary skepticism. So let’s step back and start to understand what the sharing economy is by considering a small sample of these “new” behaviors.

Foolproof: Why Safety Can Be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe
by Greg Ip
Published 12 Oct 2015

,” NBER Working Paper no. 19920 (February 2014, available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w19920.pdf. 33 hitting one another with twice: Bertrand Frechede and Andrew McIntosh, “Numerical Reconstruction of Real-Life Concussive Football Impacts,” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 41, no. 2 (2009): 390–98. Chapter 5 1 One economist even speculates: Keith Chen, “Could Your Language Affect Your Ability to Save Money?,” TED Talks, June 2012, available at https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money?. 2 “Sell your islands”: Bild, October 27, 2010, accessed at http://www.bild.de/politik/wirtschaft/griechenland-krise/regierung-athen-sparen-verkauft-inseln-pleite-akropolis-11692338.html. 3 “Who would be prepared”: Quoted in Philip Coggan, Paper Promises (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012), 81. 4 British investors assumed: John J.

Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era
by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith
Published 17 Aug 2015

He noted, “I like to ask Siri on my iPhone questions like ‘solve x cubed plus two x plus one equals zero’ and back an answer comes from WolframAlpha way faster than I could do it; indeed, many students after years of math study could not find that solution at all. It’s sheer lunacy to make students compete with computers. Let them go further with the computing power in their pocket. Get them to take on harder and harder real-life problems—messy ones with hair—and use computer-based math to work out the answer.” Wolfram’s TED Talk “Teaching Kids Real Math with Computers” now has over a million views, but apparently few or none from U.S. curriculum and test designers. So we ask this not entirely rhetorical question: Should our students still be required to learn to use a slide rule? Grizzled slide-rule experts can provide great reasons for why it should still be part of mainstream math education: Using the device requires understanding math fundamentals.

The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion
by Virginia Postrel
Published 5 Nov 2013

The more I thought and read about the subject, and the more I contemplated glamorous objects, the more fascinated I became. Analyzing glamour appealed to my interest in artifice, in persuasion, in history, in beauty, and in commercial culture. My ideas have evolved a lot since that first essay (and the 2004 TED talk drawn from it), but I owe Joe and his SFMOMA colleagues Karen Levine and Greg Sandoval a big thanks for starting me on a fascinating journey. Thanks also to Chris Anderson of  TED. Before and after I embarked on the book, editors at a number of publications gave me the opportunity to develop glamour-related ideas in articles.

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
by Dan Lyons
Published 4 Apr 2016

Wingman actually looks like Cranium—round-faced, with short hair—and dresses like him, wearing a “business casual” uniform of jeans, sport coat, open-collar oxford shirt and white T-shirt. Penny makes some calls. Wingman, too, is nowhere to be found. “Maybe you should take a seat,” she says. I sit down on an orange couch and gaze up at a big flat-screen TV that shows TED talks on a loop. Orange is the official color of HubSpot, and it’s everywhere: orange walls, orange ductwork, orange desks. HubSpotters wear orange shoes, orange T-shirts, and goofy orange sunglasses. They carry orange journals and write in them with orange pens. They put orange stickers on their laptops.

The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community
by Marc J. Dunkelman
Published 3 Aug 2014

Peake, “Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Self-Regulatory Competencies From Preschool Delay of Gratification: Identifying Diagnostic Conditions,” Developmental Psychology 26, no. 6 (1990): 978–79. 4Mischel, Shoda, and Peake, “The Nature of Adolescent Competencies Predicted by Preschool Delay of Gratification,” 691. 5Sarah Zielinski, “Marshmallows and a Successful Life,” Smithsonian.com, August 11, 2009, http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2009/08/marshmallows-and-a-successful-life/. 6Mischel, Shoda, and Peake, “The Nature of Adolescent Competencies Predicted by Preschool Delay of Gratification,” 692. 7Joachim de Posada, TED Talk, February 2009. 8Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 2006). 9Terrie E. Moffit et al., “A Gradient of Childhood Self-Control Predicts Health, Wealth and Public Safety,” PNAS Early Edition 108, no. 7 (February 15, 2011): 1. 10Moffit et al., “A Gradient of Childhood Self-Control Predicts Health, Wealth and Public Safety,” 2. 11Moffit et al., “A Gradient of Childhood Self-control Predicts Health, Wealth and Public Safety,” 5. 12R.

Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars
by Samuel I. Schwartz
Published 17 Aug 2015

Depending on the last number of your license plate, four cars in ten were prohibited from Bogotá during peak travel times.e The former mayor is now the president of the board of directors of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, and is rightly regarded as one of the world’s most articulate promoters of transportation equity. In an interview after a talk at Canning House in London (and again in his TED talk), Peñalosa observed, in words that I’d be proud to have on my own tombstone, “An advanced city is not one in which the poor can get around by car, but one in which even the rich use public transport.” Penalosa’s goal is laudable but it’s a long way from assured. Although the revolutionary era that began when the first Millennials entered adulthood as car skeptics shows no signs of changing direction, and the pace of innovation in sustainable, active transportation is, if anything, accelerating, the road ahead is nonetheless still under construction, and some obstructions are predictable.

Frugal Innovation: How to Do Better With Less
by Jaideep Prabhu Navi Radjou
Published 15 Feb 2015

Tarcher/Putnam, 2000. 8Botsman, R. and Rogers, R., What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, HarperBusiness, 2010. 9Mulliez, V., CEO, Groupe Auchan, interview with Navi Radjou, October 8th 2013. 10McQuivey, J., Digital Disruption: Unleashing the next Wave of Innovation, Forrester Research, 2013. 2Principle one: engage and iterate 1“The History of Quicken”, www.intuit.com. 2Peters, T., Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, HarperBusiness, 1987. 3Strategy& (formerly Booz & Company), The 2014 Global Innovation 1000: Proven paths to innovation success (Media report), October 28th 2014. 4Hewitt J., Campbell J. and Cacciotti, J., Beyond the Shadow of a Drought, Oliver Wyman, 2011. 5Grogan, K., “Productivity of pharma R&D down 70% – study”, PharmaTimes, December 2nd 2011. 6Booz & Company, op. cit. 7Prabhu, A., innovation and insights director, Lion Dairy & Drinks, interview with Jaideep Prabhu, February 23rd 2014. 8Booz & Company, op. cit. 9The case study on Fujitsu’s work with farmers at Sawa Orchards in Wakayama, Japan, is based on interviews conducted by the authors with several senior executives at Fujitsu in the US and Japan. 10Booz & Company, op. cit. 11Ries, E., The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Crown Business, 2011. 12Mayhew, S., head of R&D strategy development, GSK, interview with Jaideep Prabhu, February 17th 2014. 13Cornillon, P., senior vice-president R&D, Arla Foods, interview with Jaideep Prabhu, February 28th 2014. 14Radjou, N., Transforming R&D Culture, Forrester Research, March 20th 2006. 15Scott, M., “The Payments Challenge for Mobile Carriers”, New York Times, February 26th 2014. 16Comstock, B., “We’ve learned these four lessons from startups, and we’re using them to transform GE”, LinkedIn, December 10th 2013. 17Most of the material used in this case study comes from Radjou, N. and Prabhu, J., “Beating Competitors with High-Speed Innovation”, Strategy+Business, December 18th 2013 (www.strategy-business.com). 3Principle two: flex your assets 1Anand, N. and Barsoux, J-L., Quest: Leading Global Transformations, IMD International, 2014. 2Trout, B.L., director of the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing, interview with Navi Radjou, May 9th 2014. 3“RAF jets fly with 3D printed parts”, BBC News, January 5th 2014. 4“Peter Weijmarshausen: 3D Printing”, etalks, April 2nd 2013. 5This quote from Gérard Mestrallet, CEO of GDF-Suez, is slightly adapted from its original version that appeared in his interview with a French magazine, L’Expansion, in December 2013. 6Dugan, J., Caterpillar to Expand Manufacturing and Increase Employment in the United States with New Hydraulic Excavator Facility in Victoria, Texas, Caterpillar press release, August 12th 2010. 7Wong, H., Potter, A. and Naim, M., “Evaluation of postponement in the soluble coffee supply chain: A case study”, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 131, Issue 1, May 2011, pp. 355–64. 8O’Marah, K., chief content officer, SCM World, and senior research fellow at Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum, interview with Navi Radjou, March 11th 2014. 9Beasty, C., “The Chain Gang”, Destination CRM, October 2007. 10Morieux, Y., “As work gets more complex, 6 rules to simplify”, TED Talk, October 2013. 11Lopez, M., CEO, Lopez Research, interview with Navi Radjou, March 28th 2014. 12O’Connell, A., “Lego CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp on leading through survival and growth”, Harvard Business Review, January 2009. 13“The Return to Apple”, All About Steve Jobs: http://allaboutstevejobs.com/bio/longbio/longbio_08.php. 14O’Connell, op. cit. 15Francis, S., CEO, Flock Associates, and former head of Aegis Europe, interview with Jaideep Prabhu, January 27th 2014. 16This case study is adapted from an original version that appeared in French in L’Innovation Jugaad, published by Diateino in 2013.

The Art of Statistics: How to Learn From Data
by David Spiegelhalter
Published 2 Sep 2019

Figure 2.10 Infographic based on data from the third UK National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3)—the lesson from the data is pointed out both visually and verbally. Even more advanced are dynamic graphics, in which movement can be used to reveal patterns in the changes over time. The master of this technique was Hans Rosling, whose TED talks and videos set a new standard of storytelling with statistics, for example by showing the relationship between changing wealth and health through the animated movement of bubbles representing each country’s progress from 1800 to the present day. Rosling used his graphics to try to correct misconceptions about the distinction between ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ countries, with the dynamic plots revealing that, over time, almost all countries moved steadily along a common path towards greater health and prosperity.*9 This chapter has demonstrated a continuum from simple descriptions and plots of raw data, through to complex examples of storytelling with statistics.

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
by Kai-Fu Lee
Published 14 Sep 2018

My wife was rushed off to an operating room with me in tow, and within an hour Shen-Ling and I were holding our baby daughter. We all had some time together, and with little time left to spare, I took off for the presentation. It went extremely well. Sculley both greenlighted the project and demanded a full-on publicity campaign around what I had created. That campaign led to a high-profile TED talk, write-ups in the Wall Street Journal, and an appearance on Good Morning America in 1992, with John Sculley and I demonstrating the technology for millions of viewers. On the program, we used voice commands to schedule an appointment, write a check, and program a VCR, showcasing the earliest examples of futuristic functions that wouldn’t go mainstream for another twenty years, with Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.

Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America
by Alissa Quart
Published 25 Jun 2018

Concern about the rise of the robots has become widespread, the stuff of trend pieces and hand-wringing remarks by famed techno-positiveists like Elon Musk and Bill Gates. (Gates, for instance, thought that governments could tax companies that use robots as a way to generate alternative funds for displaced human workers and pay for training in jobs that won’t be replaced.) However, I’ve been encountering robots less as a TED Talk abstraction than as the literal professional rivals to the middle-class people I have met for Squeezed, whose jobs may be, will be, or have been replaced by automation. Until now, many of the jobs lost have been in the automobile industry and on the factory floor. Now automation is moving into areas like nursing and truck driving.

Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition That Is Shaping the Next Economy
by Nathan Schneider
Published 10 Sep 2018

For an overview of similar responses to precarious work, see Pat Conaty, Alex Bird, and Cilla Ross, Working Together: Trade Union and Co-operative Innovations for Precarious Workers (Co-operatives UK, 2018). 15. The organization’s internal documentation is public at handbook.enspiral.com. 16. Alex Burness, “At Long Last, Boulder Approves New Co-op Housing Ordinance,” Daily Camera (January 4, 2017). 17. James Howard Kunstler, “The Ghastly Tragedy of the Suburbs,” TED talk (May 2007). Chapter 4: Gold Rush 1. See John T. Noonan Jr., The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Harvard University Press, 1957); Jacques Le Goff, Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages (Zone Books, 1988). 2. See Nathan Schneider, “How a Worker-Owned Tech Startup Found Investors—and Kept Its Values,” YES!

The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity
by Byron Reese
Published 23 Apr 2018

A hunter-gatherer is much harder to build a computer replacement for than an X-ray technician, because the technician does just one narrow thing. Ken Jennings, who was famously beaten on Jeopardy! by IBM’s Watson, explains that during that whole experience, the folks at IBM maintained a line graph that showed Watson’s progress on its quest to the dot labeled “Ken Jennings.” Every week, Watson kept inching ever closer. In his TED talk, Jennings explains how it all made him feel: And I saw this line coming for me. And I realized, this is it. This is what it looks like when the future comes for you. It’s not the Terminator’s gunsight; it’s a little line coming closer and closer to the thing you can do, the only thing that makes you special, the thing you’re best at.

Who Is Rich?
by Matthew Klam
Published 3 Jul 2017

And they come up after and hug me and take pictures, and I wonder, How am I supposed to survive this? Like, how do you go back to work when people are hanging on your every word and pleading with you for whatever it is they want? Or they haven’t even read the book, just read about it and show up at signings and expect some kind of TED talk, something inspiring. Or they don’t care what it’s about, they want to debunk it, catch me in a lie, did it really happen this way, is it true, oh my God. Or, Hey, can you come to my fundraiser, for nothing, tomorrow at six? I get grumpy after five minutes, and every night there’s this huge line and I have to sit there and listen.

Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Changed Our World
by Andrew Leigh
Published 14 Sep 2018

Some people mistakenly jump from the fact that the brain is four-fifths of its full size by age three to conclude that all early years programs are great value for money. One shocking brain scan showing the underdeveloped brain of a three-year-old pops up frequently in PowerPoint presentations and TED talks by advocates, but no one seems to know where the image comes from, let alone the circumstances of the child’s upbringing. In Europe, the ‘1001 critical days’ movement has argued that this period determines how a child functions throughout life – sometimes going so far as to claim that ‘age two is too late’.22 The movement would do better to focus on rigorously analysing what works, rather than alleging that it’s ‘game over’ once a child becomes a toddler.

Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead
by Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman
Published 22 Sep 2016

Yann LeCun, Léon Bottou, Yoshua Bengio, and Patrick Haffner, “Gradient-Based Learning Applied to Document Recognition,” Proceedings of the IEEE 86, no. 11 (1998): 2278–2324, doi:10.1109/5.726791. 5. “What Happens on the Internet in 60 Seconds,” BuzzFeed Videos, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uiy-KTbymqk 6. Fei-Fei Li, TED Talk, “How We’re Teaching Computers to Understand Pictures,” March 23, 2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/fei_fei_li_how_we_re_teaching_computers_to_understand_pictures?language=en 7. ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge 2010 results, http://www.image-net.org/challenges/LSVRC/2010/results 8.

The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State
by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
Published 14 May 2014

Why pay thousands of dollars a year to go to a college to listen to second-rate lectures when you can watch a video of a global superstar for nothing? In America a tenth of university students now study exclusively online and a quarter do so some of the time. Harvard University has seen students spontaneously organizing study groups in which they watch TED Talks and discuss them among themselves. Leading universities such as MIT, Stanford, and the University of California at Berkeley are already putting their lectures and course materials online. The University of the People offers free higher education (not counting the few hundred dollars it costs to process applications and mark exams).

There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years
by Mike Berners-Lee
Published 27 Feb 2019

We all recognise that happiness, meaning, and thriving depend on far more than material consumption.’ 22 BT’s procurement guidelines in regards to climate change can be found here: https://groupextranet.bt.com/selling2bt/ working/climateChange/default.html They also outline their environmental principles here: https://www.btplc.com/Purposefulbusiness/Ourapproach/ Ourpolicies/Environmental_Policy.pdf 6 People and Work 1 See, for example, the late Swedish statistician Hans Rosling’s entertaining and striking TED talks on population, health 268 NOTES TO PAGES 150–154 and wealth trends. Highly recommended, if you haven’t seen them already. Very sadly he died in 2017. https://tinyurl .com/roslinghans 2 Stewart Wallis, former head of the New Econmomics Foundation, and before that International Director of Oxfam, estimates that this alone can cut the fertility rate by a massive 60%, making it, in his view one of the world’s most critical investments on three simultaneous fronts: morally, socially and environmentally.

The Art of Statistics: Learning From Data
by David Spiegelhalter
Published 14 Oct 2019

Figure 2.10 Infographic based on data from the third UK National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3) – the lesson from the data is pointed out both visually and verbally. Even more advanced are dynamic graphics, in which movement can be used to reveal patterns in the changes over time. The master of this technique was Hans Rosling, whose TED talks and videos set a new standard of storytelling with statistics, for example by showing the relationship between changing wealth and health through the animated movement of bubbles representing each country’s progress from 1800 to the present day. Rosling used his graphics to try to correct misconceptions about the distinction between ‘developed’ and ‘undeveloped’ countries, with the dynamic plots revealing that, over time, almost all countries moved steadily along a common path towards greater health and prosperity.fn149 This chapter has demonstrated a continuum from simple descriptions and plots of raw data, through to complex examples of storytelling with statistics.

More From Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources – and What Happens Next
by Andrew McAfee
Published 30 Sep 2019

So the total increases in educational spending are quite large. CHAPTER 11 Getting So Much Better Once you have these tools, you can’t not use them.… You can delete the clichéd image from your brain of supplicant impoverished people not having control of their own lives. That’s not true. —Bono, TED Talk, 2013 Max Roser’s Our World in Data is one of my favorite websites, for two reasons. The first is that it contains a lot of valuable information. The second is that it tells an invaluable story—an optimistic and hopeful one. The evidence presented in Our World in Data and in books like Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource, Bjørn Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist, Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now, and Hans Rosling’s Factfulness shows clearly that most of the things we should care about are getting better.

Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed With Early Achievement
by Rich Karlgaard
Published 15 Apr 2019

Here I speculate, but I don’t think so—or at least she didn’t start out that way. I think her fatal flaw was an obsession with early success and the impatience that goes with it. When Theranos didn’t succeed on her magical schedule, she didn’t stop to fix the technology but rather doubled down on her young genius narrative, her TED talks, her private jet trips, and her legal threats to doubters. Is Elizabeth Holmes a bad person? Millions think so. I’m guessing her actions are more complicated, not so black-and-white. More likely she got trapped by her own story of early achievement—a story that was cheered in a society that promotes a narrow view of success

Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
by Rory Sutherland
Published 6 May 2019

‘. . . for leather car seats than for books on tape.”, Daniel Kahneman, ‘Focusing Illusion’, Edge (2011). About the Author RORY SUTHERLAND is vice chairman of Ogilvy. A columnist for The Spectator, he is former president of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the professional body for advertising, media, and marketing communications agencies in the United Kingdom. His TED Talks have been viewed more than 6.5 million times. He lives in London. Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com. Copyright ALCHEMY. Copyright © 2019 by Rory Sutherland. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen.

Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do
by Jeremy Bailenson
Published 30 Jan 2018

Andrea Stevenson Won et al., “Automatically Detected Nonverbal Behavior Predicts Creativity in Collaborating Dyads,” Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 38 (2014): 389–408. 13. Scott S. Wiltermuth and Chip Heath, “Synchrony and Cooperation,” Psychology Science 20 (2009): 1–5. 14. Philip Rosedale, “Life in Second Life,” TED Talk, December 2008, https://www.ted.com/talks/the_inspiration_of_second_life/transcript?language=en. 15. “Just How Big is Second Life?—The Answer Might Surprise You [Video Infographic],” YouTube video, 1:52, posted by “Luca Grabacr,” November 3, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55tZbq8yMYM. 16.

Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
by Sabine Hossenfelder
Published 11 Jun 2018

Boston: Birkhäuser, p. 143. 17. Zee A. 1986. Fearful symmetry: the search for beauty in modern physics. New York: Macmillan. 18. Lederman L. 2006. The God particle. Boston: Mariner Books, p. 15. 19. The quark model was discovered independently at almost the same time by George Zweig. 20. Gell-Mann M, in a TED talk filmed March 2007. www.ted.com/talks /murray_gell_mann_on_beauty_and_truth_in_physics. The version I quoted is what is written on his slide. What he says is: “We have this remarkable experience in this field of fundamental physics that beauty is a very successful criterion to choose the right theory.” 21.

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters
by Abigail Shrier
Published 28 Jun 2020

presents is a child’s feelings as an infallible indicator of gender: “You are who you say you are, because YOU know best,” the book coos. A hell of a thing, really, telling small children they know best. Parents must listen to their children, the book insists; but what it really seems to mean is that parents must agree with them. In a TED Talk Amer explains: “I make queer media for kids because I wish I had this when I was their age. I make it so others don’t have to struggle through what I did, not understanding my identity because I didn’t have any exposure to who I could be.” MIDDLE SCHOOL Positive Prevention PLUS is among the most highly respected health curricula in use in schools that employ gender-identity instruction.

Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn From the Strange Science of Recovery
by Christie Aschwanden
Published 5 Feb 2019

But, Wardian says, “it made me calmer, and it felt like maybe my body was better able to heal itself.” He likes the way meditation makes him feel, so he’s stayed with it. He does it every few days, usually before bed, but sometimes in the morning before getting out of bed for a run. Headspace has received lots of attention. Its British founder, Andy Puddicombe, a Tibetan monk turned TED Talk guru, has been profiled in the New Yorker and elsewhere. I’ve talked to several coaches who have encouraged their players to try the app. It’s apparently popular among some NFL players, and a recent ad campaign (yes, meditation is now an advertised product) featured a power lifter who says, “I meditate to crush it.”8 Puddicombe’s breezy meditations weren’t for me, but I wasn’t ready to dismiss meditation yet.

The Future Is Analog: How to Create a More Human World
by David Sax
Published 15 Jan 2022

Over the past decade, digital technology, especially the online services that bring music, television, and film to our homes, has begun delivering on the ultimate promise of our culture’s future. “We already see this happening with cooking, with singing—we even see people streaming welding. And all of this stuff is going to happen around the metaphorical campfire,” said Emmett Shear, the founder of streaming video game platform Twitch, in a 2019 TED Talk. “There’s going to be millions of these campfires lit over the next few years. Games, streams, and the interactions they encourage are only just beginning to turn the wheel back to our interactive, community-rich, multiplayer past.” Concerts and comedy shows would increasingly be streamed, Netflix releases would supplant movies in theaters, and augmented reality–enabled Broadway shows would overtake traditional plays.

The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter
by David Sax
Published 8 Nov 2016

What emerges is a vibrant, multibillion-dollar market in education technology (ed tech, as it’s commonly known) that promises nothing less than a radical rethinking of education. Here is where the utopianism and manifest destiny of Silicon Valley meet your child’s elementary school, and where pedagogy and philosophy intersect with politics and business. Attend a presentation of an ed tech company, watch a TED talk about education, or listen to a school superintendent talk breathlessly about the new virtual-reality goggles she just bought for your kid’s school, and the future is bright indeed. It is a future where every child has the ability to learn at their own pace, in the most stimulating way possible, from wherever and whenever suits them best, at a lower cost but with greater accountability and results.

Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives
by Tim Harford
Published 3 Oct 2016

Emily Eakin, “Bacteria on the Brain,” The New Yorker, December 7, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/bacteria-on-the-brain. 8. This study was done by researchers at the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon. See Jessica Green, “Are We Filtering the Wrong Microbes?” TED Talks, 2011, http://www.ted.com/talks/jessica_green_are_we_filtering_the_wrong_microbes/transcript?language=en. 9. Alanna Collen, “‘Microbial Birthday Suit’ for C-Section Babies,” BBC Magazine, September 11, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34064012. 10. Blaser, Missing Microbes. 11.

Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World
by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Published 3 Feb 2015

Along these lines, in March 2013, I stood on stage at TED, alongside TED curator Chris Anderson, and announced our intent to join forces and design an AI XPRIZE.28 “Here’s the concept,” said Anderson. “An XPRIZE for TED to be awarded to the first artificial intelligence to appear on this stage and present a TED talk so compelling that it commands a standing ovation from you the audience.” This concept demands that a key number of AI’s abilities either equal or surpass human abilities. When this will happen has been a famous and longstanding debate. Kurzweil himself has pegged the date when AIs will do everything better than humans at 2029.29 (As explained in Abundance, his predictions are based on exponential growth curves and have an amazing track record for accuracy.)

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
by James Nestor
Published 25 May 2020

Pal, “Effect of Alternate Nostril Breathing Exercise on Blood Pressure, Heart Rate, and Rate Pressure Product among Patients with Hypertension in JIPMER, Puducherry,” Journal of Education and Health Promotion 8, no. 145 (July 2019). negative emotions: Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor offers an emotional and astonishing primer of the functions of right and left brain in her 2008 TED Talk, “My Stroke of Insight,” which, as of this writing, has been viewed more than 26 million times. View it here: https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight?language=en. researchers at the University of California: David Shannahoff-Khalsa and Shahrokh Golshan, “Nasal Cycle Dominance and Hallucinations in an Adult Schizophrenic Female,” Psychiatry Research 226, no. 1 (Mar. 2015): 289–94.

The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
by Kathryn Paige Harden
Published 20 Sep 2021

But the “non” in “non-cognitive” serves to emphasize what these motivational, behavioral, and emotional traits are not—they are not synonymous with performance on standardized tests of cognitive ability or academic achievement. Psychological research on non-cognitive skills was popularized by books like How Children Succeed and Angela Duckworth’s Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (both New York Times bestsellers), and by TED talks such as Dr. Carol Dweck’s on mindset (viewed more than 12 million times).19 As words like “grit” and “growth mindset” entered the popular lexicon, conjecture about the role of genetics in their development quickly outpaced science, with many commentators quick to position such skills in opposition to genetics.

Lessons from the Titans: What Companies in the New Economy Can Learn from the Great Industrial Giants to Drive Sustainable Success
by Scott Davis , Carter Copeland and Rob Wertheimer
Published 13 Jul 2020

Those who worked at big banks came from wealthy places like Greenwich, Connecticut, while those who managed mutual funds hailed from the leafy suburbs of Boston. They favored leaders who played the game and looked the part: tall, athletic build, CEO hair, a good golf game, and custom suits. This was long before CEOs outside of Silicon Valley wore blue jeans and T-shirts and hosted TED Talks. Cote favored hunting and fishing over golf. He drank diet soda and beer from a can and ate fast food, Kentucky Fried Chicken I recall being his favorite. He liked to ride his motorcycle on weekends and smoke cigars. Years later, he visited my home for an event I was hosting and introduced himself to my wife by saying, “Hi, I’m Dave.

Uncharted: How to Map the Future
by Margaret Heffernan
Published 20 Feb 2020

Her third book, Wilful Blindness, was a finalist for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award, and her fourth, A Bigger Prize, was awarded the Transmission Prize. She advises senior executives around the world, is a professor at the University of Bath, and writes for the Financial Times and HuffPost. Her TED talks have been seen by over 9 million people. www.mheffernan.com We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook. Join our mailing list to get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read.

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
by Jia Tolentino
Published 5 Aug 2019

(She had a lifelong fear of needles: this was central to her personal myth.) She founded Theranos in 2004, raised $6 million by the end of the year, and began stacking her board of directors with big names: Henry Kissinger, James Mattis, Sam Nunn, David Boies. She had Rupert Murdoch and Betsy DeVos as investors. Her TED Talk went viral. She got a New Yorker profile and a Glamour Woman of the Year award; she spoke at Davos and the Aspen Ideas Festival; Forbes labeled her the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. And then, in 2015, John Carreyrou published an article in The Wall Street Journal exposing Theranos as a shell game.

WEconomy: You Can Find Meaning, Make a Living, and Change the World
by Craig Kielburger , Holly Branson , Marc Kielburger , Sir Richard Branson and Sheryl Sandberg
Published 7 Mar 2018

The WEconomy shows what can be achieved if we put self-interest and fear behind us and strive for the change that embracing purpose can bring to all aspects of our lives. Positive change is already happening all around us. The role you play, within the businesses you work for or run, is driving that change. You may not read much about the WEconomy yet in HuffPost or on TMZ. But talk to your friends, your neighbors, check out TED Talks online, discuss the themes in this book with everyone you know, and you'll see that the lines between business and charity are blurring more and more each day. Agitate the companies you work for and with, from without and within, to embed purpose into their very DNA. You will be the generation to nurture and grow the WEconomy for generations to come.

Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
by Bill McKibben
Published 15 Apr 2019

The stakes feel very high, and the odds very long, and the trends very ominous. So, I have no doubt that there are other books that would offer readers a merrier literary experience. I know, too, that this bleakness cuts against the current literary grain. Recent years have seen the publication of a dozen high-profile books and a hundred TED talks devoted to the idea that everything in the world is steadily improving. They share not only a format (endless series of graphs showing centuries of decreasing infant mortality or rising income) but also a tone of perplexed exasperation that any thinking person could perceive the present moment as dark.

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
by David Wallace-Wells
Published 19 Feb 2019

It sold millions of copies and was translated into dozens of languages, and it casts a shadow over nearly every project of popular, long-view history undertaken since, from Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. Sapiens: That this kind of total skepticism won Harari such an admiring audience among so many leading avatars of technocratic progress is one of the curiosities of the TED Talk age. But the skepticism also flatters, especially those inclined by their own sense of accomplishment to contemplate the longest sweeps of history. Inviting you to contemplate that history, Harari also seems to pull you beyond or outside it. In this way, he shares strains of lecturesome DNA not just with Diamond but with Joseph Campbell and even Jordan Peterson.

Amazon: How the World’s Most Relentless Retailer Will Continue to Revolutionize Commerce
by Natalie Berg and Miya Knights
Published 28 Jan 2019

Also opening in 2019 in Las Vegas is Area15, another new shopping mall concept that is being billed as a ‘21st-century immersive bazaar’. The 126,000-square-foot hybrid retail-entertainment complex is expected to offer attractions like escape rooms and virtual reality, art installations, festivals, themed events and live events (everything from concerts to Ted talks). Catering to pint-sized customers No one is better positioned to embrace the fun factor than high street toy retailers. The problem is these are few and far between these days. Over the past decade, we’ve seen the famous FAO Schwarz store close on 5th Avenue, in addition to the demise of entire chains like KB Toys and, more recently, the iconic brand Toys R Us.

Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans
by Melanie Mitchell
Published 14 Oct 2019

but Ken Jennings, known for his dry wit, conceded Watson’s inevitable victory by adding a pop-culture reference to his answer card: “I for one welcome our new computer overlords.”7 Ironically, Watson didn’t get the joke. Jennings later quipped, “To my surprise, losing to an evil quiz-show-playing computer turned out to be a canny career move. Everyone wanted to know What It All Meant, and Watson was a terrible interview, so suddenly I was the one writing think pieces and giving TED Talks.… Like Kasparov before me, I now make a reasonable living as a professional human loser.”8 During its televised Jeopardy! games, Watson gave viewers, including me, the uncanny impression that it could effortlessly and fluently understand and use language, interpreting and responding to tricky clues with lightning speed on most of the topics thrown to it.

Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car
by Anthony M. Townsend
Published 15 Jun 2020

This scene is animated by a more familiar phantom force. “Highways will be made safe—by electricity!” Bold promises delivered through automation, by now familiar to you, are in store. “No traffic jams . . . no collisions . . . no driver fatigue.” In recent years this old ad has enjoyed a renaissance—in blog posts, TED talks, and startup pitch decks. It’s a favorite of those looking to speed self-driving technology along. Yet for all the nostalgia it evokes, this is a picture of a future that never existed and never will. In this imaginary world of tomorrow there are no trucks—and no commerce of any kind, for that matter.

Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming
by Mckenzie Funk
Published 22 Jan 2014

“This stuff is sort of pro bono, but some of it, I think, will have a very profitable spin-out—we’ll do well by doing good.” At Microsoft, Myhrvold had been Gates’s in-house futurist and chief technology officer. At Cambridge, he had been a theoretical physics researcher under Stephen Hawking. He was a subject of Malcolm Gladwell profiles, darling of TED talks, and author of a 2,438-page, fifty-two-pound “modernist” cookbook—a man both celebrated and feared in tech circles. The grand opening of this lab, those of us following the tour understood, was meant to be a retort to critics of his post-Microsoft business, a $5 billion investment firm called Intellectual Ventures (IV).

We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds
by Sally Adee
Published 27 Feb 2023

In 2005, he told Wired that his eventual plan was to “hook BrainGate up to stimulators that can activate muscle tissue, bypassing a damaged nervous system entirely.”63 It was ambitious and very exciting (if a bit Frankenstein): instead of trying to heal the spinal cord injury that had disconnected the limbs from the brain, the BrainGate implant would beam the electrical signals that drove intent to their intended endpoint directly, and so reanimate the limbs. The idea was called a neural bypass, and within a decade, it was being demonstrated in a TED talk.64 “The idea is to take signals from a certain part of the brain and reroute them around the injury—whether that injury is to the brain or the spinal cord—and then reinsert those signals back into the muscles to allow them to regain movement,” Chad Bouton told the audience, pacing the stage like a TV-handsome talk show host.

Practical Doomsday: A User's Guide to the End of the World
by Michal Zalewski
Published 11 Jan 2022

Whenever science, religion, and politics blend together with our underlying anxieties, from the primordial soup emerge prophets of doom: charismatic leaders who not only believe that bad things can happen to people, but are convinced that the end is nigh. From ancient religious treatises to modern-day TED talks, the formats of their prophecies keep changing, but the track record remains constant: none of the thousands of apocalyptic predictions that have animated the masses throughout the ages has ever come to pass. Perhaps, in time, one will; but until then, buying into their narratives begets nothing but misery.

We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation
by Eric Garcia
Published 2 Aug 2021

a reason she can be so strident: Charlotte Alter, Suyin Haynes, and Justin Worland, “Person of the Year: Greta Thunberg,” Time, December 2019, https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/. climate change in primary school: Greta Thunberg, “The Disarming Case to Act Right Now on Climate Change,” Ted Talks, January 28, 2019, https://www.ted.com/talks/greta_thunberg_the_disarming_case_to_act_right_now_on_climate_change/transcript?language=en. 8. “Say It Loud” behavioral aide of Arnaldo Rios-Soto: Aneri Pattani and Audrey Quinn, “What Happened Next to the Man with Autism Whose Aide Was Shot by Police,” Washington Post, June 22, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/06/22/what-happened-next-to-the-man-with-autism-whose-aide-was-shot-by-police/.

MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them
by Nouriel Roubini
Published 17 Oct 2022

Under intense pressure, with the speed of a Google search, he named, for instance, the leader whose brother is believed to be the first known European to have died in the Americas and the disease that prompted US surgeon general Walter Wyman to establish a hospital in Hawaii in 1901 (answers: “Who is Leif Erikson?” and “What is leprosy?”). Jennings, though, was no match for AI. By his own account in a 2013 TED Talk, IBM’s Watson defeated him handily. He commiserated with Detroit factory workers who became obsolete when robots took their jobs. “I’m not an economist,” Jennings said. “All I know is how it felt to be the guy put out of work and it was freaking demoralizing. It was terrible,” he recalled. “Here’s the one thing that I was ever good at and all it took was IBM pouring tens of millions of dollars and its smartest people and thousands of processors working in parallel and they could do the same thing.

The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy
by Nick Romeo
Published 15 Jan 2024

He once tried to buy a copy of the complete US legislation governing water supply systems to use as a prop in conversations. It wasn’t possible: the material was so vast it had been split into multiple volumes. Rowan and his nonprofit have consulted with national, state, and local governments around the world. He has given a TED Talk, helped launch pilot programs, and advised powerful philanthropists and politicians. When Uber launched in 2009, he had articulated a detailed, expansive, and prosocial theory of what gig-work markets could become more than a decade before. From his perspective, the business models of such platforms were not dazzling innovations; they were predictable attempts to profit from the absence of essential public infrastructure.

Not the End of the World
by Hannah Ritchie
Published 9 Jan 2024

The world we are building, with better health care, technology, connectivity and groundbreaking innovations, rests on the power of education and learning. In 1820, just 10% of adults in the world had basic reading skills.15 This changed rapidly over the 20th century. By 1950, more adults in the world could read than couldn’t. Today, we’re closing in on 90%. In his 2014 TED Talk, one question that had Hans Rosling’s audience stumped was ‘In all low-income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school?’ Most people thought the answer was 20%. The correct answer was 60%. By 2020, this figure had increased to 64%. The share of boys in low-income countries that complete primary school was higher, at 69%.

European Founders at Work
by Pedro Gairifo Santos
Published 7 Nov 2011

So, when I was still back at that mobile internet company that I mentioned to you earlier, one of the projects I was working on was to make these videos available on your mobile phone. It was really some of the most valuable content that exists still today on the web. Actually, the format is quite good for the mobile phone, too. The lectures are not too long. If you're in the subway and you have a fifteen-minute ride, you can more or less go through one of the TED talks. Because of that, I had contact with one guy who helped me to figure out how to make these videos available also in a mobile format. When I joined Prezi my first thought was that they should really take a look at Prezi because it would be just a more engaging way of doing the presentations. When I moved down to Budapest I sent over an e-mail to my contact mentioning, “Hey, by the way, I just joined this incredibly cool company.

Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations
by Nicholas Carr
Published 5 Sep 2016

The Valley guys are a little nervous about the optics of their pastime—“Try to tone down the rich guy hobby thing,” angel investor and ex-Googler Joshua Schachter instructs Manjoo—but the “visceral thrill” of driving has nevertheless made it “the Valley’s ‘it’ hobby.” The Valley guys are rushing to rent out racetracks and strap themselves into Ferraris at the very moment that they’re telling the rest of us how miserable driving is, and how happy we’ll all feel when robots take the wheel. Jazzed by a Googler’s TED Talk on driverless cars, MIT automation expert Andrew McAfee says that the Googlemobile will “free us from a largely tedious task.” Writes Wired transport reporter Alex Davies, “Liberated from the need to keep our hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, drivers will become riders with more time for working, leisure, and staying in touch with loved ones”—in other words, they’ll be able to spend more time on their phones.

The End of Illness
by David B. Agus
Published 15 Oct 2012

Science Translational Medicine 3, no. 70 (February 16, 2011): 70ra13. Haldane, J.B.S. Daedalus, or Science and the Future. A paper read to the Heretics, Cambridge, UK, February 4, 1923. Transcribed by CR Shalizi, April 10, 1993, Berkeley, CA. Source: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/daedalus.html. Hillis, D. TED talk, 2010. Understanding Cancer through Proteomics. Accessed on October 18, 2011. http://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_two_frontiers_of_cancer_treatment.html. Jablonski, N.G., and G. Chaplin. Colloquium Paper: Human skin pigmentation as an adaptation to UV radiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, Suppl. 2 (May 11, 2010): 8962–68.

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
by Kevin Kelly
Published 6 Jun 2016

In this accounting, the music is free, the bodily performance expensive. Indeed, many bands today earn their living through concerts, not music sales. This formula is quickly becoming a common one for not only musicians, but even authors. The book is free; the bodily talk is expensive. Live concert tours, live TED talks, live radio shows, pop-up food tours all speak to the power and value of a paid ephemeral embodiment of something you could download for free. PATRONAGE Deep down, avid audiences and fans want to pay creators. Fans love to reward artists, musicians, authors, actors, and other creators with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect with people they admire.

The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy
by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley
Published 10 Jun 2013

NorTech’s Bagley suggested that they are getting close: “The clarity of focus helps to engage networks,” but once there is a common goal and strategy, “everybody goes off and [works] opportunistically.” Too many metropolitan areas are still looking for the next Bill Gates, Michael Dell, or Mark Zuckerberg, the next hero. But there is a growing appreciation of the power of networks. In his 2012 TED talk, “Be the Entrepreneur of Your Own Life,” the venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn, extolled the power of “network literacy,” which is, he said, “absolutely critical to how we’ll navigate the world.” He continued, “In a networked age, identity is not so simply determined. Your identity is actually multivariate, distributed, and partly out of your control.

Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane
by Brett King
Published 5 May 2016

He is Adjunct Professor at the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. In addition, he is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and Venture Partner at Anthemis. Rangaswami is a popular keynote speaker, having given a popular TED Talk—Information Is Food, and can be found blogging at ConfusedofCalcutta.com.

Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction
by Derek Thompson
Published 7 Feb 2017

“semiotically nourished authors”: Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality (Orlando: Mariner Books, 2014). Chapter 5: The Myth-Making Mind II For their respective work on the dark side of stories, I’d like to thank Maria Konnikova, the author of a great book, The Confidence Game (New York: Viking, 2016), and Tyler Cowen, who delivered a 2009 TED talk, “Be Suspicious of Simple Stories.” popular universal myths in the world: Paul Barber, Vampires, Burial, and Death (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988). sarcastic entry in Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary: Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, Part 5, 1764, translated by William F.

The Industries of the Future
by Alec Ross
Published 2 Feb 2016

Infrared, 3D imaging, an advanced GPS system, and wheel sensors are also being incorporated. But why would Google get into the car-making business in the first place? It stems from several important motivations for many of those involved. And it turns out that the development of a driverless car is deeply personal. As Sebastian Thrun explained in a TED talk, his best friend was killed in a car accident, spurring his personal crusade to innovate the car accident out of existence: “I decided I’d dedicate my life to saving 1 million people every year.” Google has hired the former deputy director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Ron Medford, to be its director of safety for self-driving cars.

The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us
by Diane Ackerman
Published 9 Sep 2014

She and the World Wide Web pioneer (and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google) Vent Cerf, Peter Gabriel, and Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, are combining their wide-ranging talents to launch a touchscreen network for cockatoos, dolphins, octopuses, great apes, parrots, elephants, and other intelligent animals to communicate directly with humans and each other. When the four introduced the idea to the world at a TED Talk, Gabriel said: “Perhaps the most amazing tool man has created is the Internet. What would happen if we could somehow find new interfaces—visual, audio—to allow us to communicate with the remarkable beings we share the planet with?” He told of his great respect for the intelligence of apes, and how, growing up on a farm in England, he used to peer into the eyes of cattle and sheep and wonder what they were thinking.

Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins
by Andrew Cockburn
Published 10 Mar 2015

The challenge of landing on a pitching, rolling deck, something that requires intense training for humans to accomplish, has yet to be faced. Nevertheless, the supposed imminence of robotic systems endowed with the ability and power to make lethal decisions has become a recurring topic of concern among human rights activists, complete with TED talks about the near-term probability that “autonomous military robots will take decision making out of the hands of humans and thus take the human out of war, which would change warfare entirely.” In November 2012, Human Rights Watch called for a “preemptive ban on the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons.”

The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth
by Jonathan Rauch
Published 21 Jun 2021

Monmouth University, “Impeachment Support Up Slightly but Trump Job Rating Steady,” October 1, 2019, www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_100119/. 19. Lilliana Mason, “Ideologues without Issues: The Polarizing Consequences of Ideological Identities,” Public Opinion Quarterly 82 (special issue, 2018). 20. Jonathan Haidt, “The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives,” TED talk (2008), www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind/transcript. Haidt speaks of moral beliefs and statements, as opposed to identity-defining ones; I take the concepts to be similar. 21. See Dominic Abrams and John Levine, “The Formation of Social Norms: Revisiting Sherif’s Autokinetic Illusion Study,” in J.

Women Talk Money: Breaking the Taboo
by Rebecca Walker
Published 15 Mar 2022

CAMERON RUSSELL Cameron Russell is a model, organizer, and writer whose work leverages creative collaboration and collective storytelling to facilitate evolution. She has spent the last seventeen years working as a model for clients like Prada, Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, H&M, Vogue, and Elle. With more than 37 million views and counting, she gave one of the top ten most popular TED talks of all time, on the power of image. She’s currently finishing work on a book about fashion, intuition, and power. In 2012, she graduated with honors from Columbia University with a degree in economics and political science and wrote a thesis about grassroots cultural workers and political power.

The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History
by Kassia St Clair
Published 3 Oct 2018

B., ‘The Remains of Tutankhamun’, Antiquity, 46 (1972), 8–14 Hastie, Paul, ‘Silk Road Secrets: The Buddhist Art of the Magao Caves’, BBC, 23 October 2013, section Arts and Culture <http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/0/24624407> [accessed 4 August 2017] Havenith, George, ‘Benchmarking Functionality of Historical Cold Weather Clothing: Robert F. Scott, Roald Amundsen, George Mallory’, Journal of Fiber Bioengineering and Informatics, 3 (2010), 121–29 Hayashi, Cheryl, The Magnificence of Spider Silk, Ted Talk, 2010 <https://www.ted.com/talks/cheryl_hayashi_the_magnificence_of_spider_silk> [accessed 6 December 2016] Hegarty, Stephanie, ‘How Jeans Conquered the World’, BBC News, 28 February 2012, section Magazine <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17101768> [accessed 23 March 2018] Heitner, Darren, ‘Sports Industry To Reach $73.5 Billion By 2019’, Forbes, 19 October 2015 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenheitner/2015/10/19/sports-industry-to-reach-73-5-billion-by-2019/> [accessed 13 January 2018] Helbaek, Hans, ‘Textiles from Catal Huyuk’, Archaeology, 16 (1963), 39–46 Heppenheimer, T.

The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos
by Christian Davenport
Published 20 Mar 2018

But by early 2003, with sales in every major segment growing by double digits, Bezos was as confident as ever in the company’s approach. “It’s working,” he said. “It’s the right investment to make, and it’s in the long-term best interest of shareholders and our customers.” The iPhone was still four years away from its debut, but he was confident that the Internet was really only just getting started. In a TED Talk weeks before the West Texas helicopter crash, he compared it to the early days of the electrical industry. The web in 2003 was about where the electrical industry was in 1908, he argued, when the electric socket hadn’t yet been invented and appliances had to be plugged into light sockets. “If you really do believe it’s the very, very beginning,” he said, “then you’re incredibly optimistic.

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language
by Gretchen McCulloch
Published 22 Jul 2019

Internet linguistics isn’t just a study of the latest cool memes (though we’ll get to memes in a later chapter): it’s a deeper look into day-to-day language than we’ve ever been able to see. It brings new insight to classic linguistic questions like, How do new words catch on? When did people start saying this? Where do people say that? * * * — Now, I like me a good book. I’ve watched a few TED Talks in my time. I’m very aware of the hours of craftwork that go into making ideas flow gracefully through formal language, and there’s much to be admired there. But there’s already plenty of admiration for literature and oratory. As a linguist, what compels me are the parts of language that we don’t even know we’re so good at, the patterns that emerge spontaneously, when we aren’t really thinking about them.

The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and Its Solutions
by Jason Hickel
Published 3 May 2017

Gates himself published a public letter in 2014, opening with the words: ‘By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been.’ And the Swedish academic Hans Rosling continued to make his earnest presentations with shiny visual gimmicks illustrating how the plight of the poor keeps improving. Rosling’s TED Talk, ‘The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen’, has been viewed more than 10 million times. The UN’s poverty-reduction figures quickly became some of the most repeated statistics in the world. This is what I call the ‘good-news narrative’ about poverty. It is a comforting story, a welcome contrast to the depressing tales that often fill the daily news cycle.

Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media
by Tarleton Gillespie
Published 25 Jun 2018

Say 99.999 percent of tweets pose no risk to anyone. There’s no threat involved. . . . After you take out that 99.999 percent, that tiny percentage of tweets remaining works out to roughly 150,000 per month. The sheer scale of what we’re dealing with makes for a challenge. Del Harvey, vice president of Trust and Safety, Twitter, in a TED talk, “Protecting Twitter Users (Sometimes from Themselves),” March 2014 The problem of moderation is not new. Broadcasters, booksellers, publishers, and music labels have all grappled with the problem of being in the middle: not just between producer and audience, but between providing and restricting, between audience preference and public propriety.

Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM
by Sarah Berman
Published 19 Apr 2021

“Thinking of you while reviewing my shopping cart,” Maja Miljkovic messaged Allison Mack during the same V-Week, attaching a photo of a sparse-looking grocery haul consisting of two heads of cauliflower, two squashes, a tub of greens, sweet corn, yogurt, and soy milk. “Aw!!” Mack wrote back. V-Week was in full swing, and Miljkovic wasn’t there for that year’s mix of poetry classes, nature walks, TED Talk–like lectures, and a cappella performances. The two women traded “I miss yous” charged with exclamations and terms of endearment: love, baby, muffin, amiga. “Wish wish wish you were here!!!” Like Camila and many others, Mack was becoming obsessed with setting and achieving food and exercise goals.

Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization
by Edward Slingerland
Published 31 May 2021

Chapter Five will delve into the dangers that alcohol and alcohol-driven behavior present to both individuals and society, especially in a world awash in distilled liquors and bereft of traditional social controls. Here, though, I would like to make the case that alcohol and other intoxicants have not outlived their usefulness. The difficulties involved in being the creative, cultural, and communal ape have not disappeared simply because we now have access to TED talks, Zoom, and (at least in Canada) universal health care. It is still hard being human. This means that, despite the trouble he inevitably brings in his wake, we still need Dionysus to play a role in our lives. Whiskey Rooms, Saloons, and the Ballmer Peak We’ve seen that contemporary cognitive science and psychology suggest that the link between intoxication and creativity is no myth.

The Key Man: The True Story of How the Global Elite Was Duped by a Capitalist Fairy Tale
by Simon Clark and Will Louch
Published 14 Jul 2021

K., 45–46, 203 Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship, 74–76, 78, 81 PricewaterhouseCoopers, 93, 262, 263, 294 Pritzker, Penny, 263–64 Pritzker family, 87 private equity Abraaj Group as model of, 35, 39, 43, 139–40, 143, 192, 199 emerging markets and, 92–93 executive compensation and, 112 “first close” and, 178 industry rules of, 151, 293 investment firms involved in leveraged buyouts, 22–23 Arif Naqvi on, 106, 135, 147, 149, 193, 218–19 positive social change and, 69 reputation of, 23 secrecy surrounding deals, 126, 293 Project Dido, 192 Project Uzima, 170 Proparco, 182, 226–27, 232 Public Institution for Social Security (Kuwaiti government pension fund), 35, 195, 225, 260 Qatar, 159 Raasta (superyacht), 3, 144–45, 242 Rajaan, Fahad al-, 35 Rajaratnam, Raj, 95, 110 Ramamurthy, Pradeep, 81 Rania (queen of Jordan), 35, 78, 137 Rasmala Partners, 27–29, 31–34, 47, 51, 187 Ratanasuwan, Burachat, 138 Rawalpindi, Pakistan, 58–59 Razak, Najib, 110, 255 Reuters, 244 Riyada Ventures, 73, 78, 79 Roberts, George, 23 Rockefeller, John D., 41, 85–86, 89, 101 Rockefeller Foundation, 85–88, 91 Rostand, Tom, 226–27 Rottenberg, Linda, 100 Royal Philips Electronics, 172, 178, 180 Rubenstein, David, 23, 208 Rudd, Amber, 239 Rudd, Roland, 239 Sacks, Michael, 264 Saham Finances, 159, 160, 162, 188, 192 Saraf, Shirish Abraaj Group and, 34–38, 50–51, 53, 59, 60 EFG Hermes deal and, 49, 50 encounter with angry mob, 47 Memo Express and, 23, 38 Arif Naqvi’s Aramex deal and, 27–29, 31, 34 Arif Naqvi’s friendship with, 23–24, 32–33, 36, 50, 51 success of, 283 Sarmaya, 268 Saudi Arabia, 16–17, 27, 59, 74, 209 Sawiris, Naguib, 79–80, 83 Sawiris, Nassef, 53 Sawiris family, 48, 53, 80 Schechman, Paul, 281 Schmidheiny, Thomas, 104, 229, 263, 289 Schmitt, Georg, 180 Schwab, Klaus, 44, 78, 199, 291 Schwarzman, Stephen, 23, 27 Sender, Henny, 208–9 September 11, 2001 attacks, 4, 26, 71, 108, 216, 271 Sewing, Christian, 236 Shafi, Meesha, 190 Shah, Raj, 75 Shakespeare, William, 10, 24, 36, 134 Shanghai Electric, 186–88, 267, 269–70 Shankar, Viswanathan, 137 Sharif, Nawaz, 6, 152–54, 186–87, 190–91, 194, 209, 254, 265 Sharif, Shehbaz, 152, 153, 154, 186, 254 Shihabi, Ali, 27–29, 31–34, 37, 47–48, 51, 187–88, 274, 291 Shinawatra, Thaksin, 51 Shred It, 267 Shroff, Firoz, 15–16 Siberell, Justin, 64–65 Sicre, Fred, 45 Siddique, Waqar (brother-in-law of Arif Naqvi) accounting at Abraaj and, 54, 158, 159, 162, 185, 246 Bisher Barazi and, 245, 246 Andrew Farnum and, 228 indictment of, 281 loyalty to Arif Naqvi, 106 Arif Naqvi’s cash payments to, 286 relationship to Arif Naqvi, 211, 246 risk management at Abraaj and, 50 on valuations, 210 Siemens, 59 Silverline, 152, 159, 195, 279, 285 Simkins, 260–61 Sisi, Abdel Fattah el-, 128 Skoll, Jeff, 87, 88, 129–36, 292, 294 Slaughter, Anne-Marie, 81 social entrepreneurship, 87, 129–36 Société Générale, 244, 285–86 SoftBank, 194 Soros, George, 87 Sorrell, Martin, 132 South Africa, 174 Southern District of New York, 270 Speechley, Tom, 73, 94, 96, 128, 224–25 Spicher, Edouard, 124–26 Standard Bank, 225–26 Standard Chartered, 137, 285 Stefanel, Matteo, 109, 119 Stengel, Richard, 98 Stock, Jürgen, 142 Sunderland, Julie, 172, 178–79, 217 Supperstone, Michael, 279–81 sustainable-development goals (SDGs), 149 Suzman, Mark, 180 Sweden, 96, 98 Swiss government, 98 Syria, 82–83 Tabaza, Khaldoon, 73, 78–80 Takenova, Ermina, 138 Taliban, 59, 153 Taylor, Elizabeth, 283 Teacher Retirement System of Texas, 288 Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana, 213 TED talks, 92 Temasek, 179 Teshkeel Media Group, 79 Texas Retirement System, 213 Thatcher, Margaret, 14 Thomson Medical, 179 Thorne, David, 200 Time magazine, 98 TPG, 143, 179, 211, 216, 218, 263, 294 Trump, Donald, 197, 200–202, 231, 261, 288 Tunisia, 82–83, 192 Tunisie Telecom, 192 Turkey, 45, 55, 74, 117–22, 126, 195, 210 Turkson, Peter, 89–90 Turner, Tina, 42, 248 UBS, 285 U.K. government Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund and, 4, 182, 229, 265 as Abraaj investor, 3, 291 development finance institutions of, 98 Arif Naqvi’s association with, 116 National Health Service of, 166, 168, 177 Umar, Asad, 268 United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Smart Wife: Why Siri, Alexa, and Other Smart Home Devices Need a Feminist Reboot
by Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy
Published 14 Apr 2020

Sherry Turkle, The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985). 92. Richardson, Anthropology of Robots, 71. 93. Darling, “Extending Legal Protection to Social Robots.” 94. Cynthia Breazeal, “The Rise of Personal Robots,” in 21st Century Reading Student Book 1: Creative Thinking and Reading with TED Talks, by Robin Longshaw and Laurie Blass (Boston: National Geographic Learning / Cengage Learning, 2015), 157. 95. Richardson, Anthropology of Robots, 15. 96. Meredith Broussard, Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018). 97. Robertson, “Gendering Humanoid Robots.” 98.

You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All
by Adrian Hon
Published 14 Sep 2022

At the DICE conference, Jesse Schell, a video game designer and professor of entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon University, presented a future where every action we take would be rewarded and punished with points, from brushing our teeth to watching TV commercials to practicing the piano.27 Schell admitted that “it could be that these systems are just all crass commercialization and it’s terrible” but concluded that “it’s possible that they’ll inspire us to be better people if the game systems are designed right,” like a modern-day B. F. Skinner. Many commentators were appalled by the talk, which was syndicated by the TED Foundation, but the overall reaction was one of fascination. Another TED talk, this time at its main conference in California, was far sunnier: gaming can make a better world, argued Jane McGonigal, an ARG designer.28 McGonigal said that while people spent three billion hours a week playing online games, “if we want to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, obesity, I believe that we need to aspire to play games online for at least 21 billion hours a week, by the end of the next decade [i.e., by 2020].”

Gene Eating: The Science of Obesity and the Truth About Dieting
by Giles Yeo
Published 3 Jun 2019

HUMANS EVOLVED TO EAT MEAT The ‘Paleo lifestyle’ prescribes a diet high in protein, mostly from lean ‘wild’ or game meat and seafood, so the pork ‘brontosaurus’ ribs at my May BBQ, which I will attest do not fall into the ‘lean’ category, might not exactly fit the bill. However, there is a clear belief amongst the Paleo community that humans were evolved to eat primarily meat. Christina Warinner, an archeological scientist, gave an informative and revealing TED talk in 2013,17 where she asserted that humans have few adaptations, genetic or otherwise, for meat consumption, but are actually physically adapted for plant consumption. These adaptations include a long digestive tract for plant digestion and the inability to produce vitamin C (not an asset, but evidence for the importance of plant consumption nonetheless).

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
by Christopher McDougall
Published 5 May 2009

Before I could make my way off the bus in Creel, I could hear a voice outside booming away like a siege gun. “YOU’RE Caballo! THAT IS SO COOL! You can call me MONO! THE MONKEY! That’s ME, the MONKEY. That’s my spirit animal—” When I stepped through the door, I found Caballo staring in appalled disbelief at Barefoot Ted. As the rest of us had discovered during the long bus ride, Barefoot Ted talked the way Charlie Parker played the sax: he’d pick up on any cue and cut loose with a truly astonishing torrent of improvisation, seeming to breathe in through his nose while maintaining an endless flow of sound out of his mouth. In our first thirty seconds in Creel, Caballo got blasted with more conversation than he’d heard in a year.

Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
by Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna
Published 23 May 2016

In China, Hollywood blockbusters and hit HBO television series are available online within a day of their US release, complete with Mandarin subtitles (the latter having been added by avid fans practicing their English). Khan Academy, an online education portal, has seen most of its 6,000 instructional videos subtitled into one or more of 65 languages by volunteers. TED, another online portal, has attracted more than 22,000 volunteers to translate over 80,000 “TED Talks” into more than 100 languages. Altogether in 2015, we estimate that the global pool of volunteer translators totaled some 2 to 4 million people, who in a single year gave humanity 25–50 million hours of free translation service in areas such as entertainment, education, news and disaster relief (e.g., by translating victims’ Tweets in real time for emergency responders).

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge
by Matt Ridley

On Swedish schools, Stanfield, James B. 2012. The Profit Motive in Education: Continuing the Revolution. Institute of Economic Affairs. On MOOCs, Brynjolfsson, E. and McAfee, A. 2014. The Second Machine Age. Norton. On Minerva College, Wood, Graeme. The future of college?. The Atlantic September 2014. Sugata Mitra’s TED talks are available at TED.com. His short book is Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning. TED Books 2012. On environmental indoctrination, Montford, A. and Shade, J. 2014. Climate Control: brainwashing in schools. Global Warming Policy Foundation. On Montessori schools, Sims, P. 2011.

Together
by Vivek H. Murthy, M.D.
Published 5 Mar 2020

According to Waldinger, the Harvard data showed that inner-circle relationships were better predictors of health and happiness throughout life than IQ, wealth, or social class. Having someone you can call for help at three a.m. can be a buffer against mental and physical decline. “The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age fifty,” Waldinger said in his TED talk about the study, “were the healthiest at age eighty.”5 These close relationships also are our primary defense against intimate loneliness. As comforting and healing as these relationships are, they are rarely conflict-free. In fact, we challenge our closest friends and intimate partners more than any others.

Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow
by Tim Jackson
Published 8 Dec 2016

Mean years of schooling are taken from the Human Development Indicator database; GDP per capita from the World Development Indicators database (see Chapter 1, note 13). 22 There are some wonderful recent developments in this field of study, in particular Hans Rosling’s interactive GAPMINDER project, online at www.gapminder.org. See also Rosling’s TED talk, online at www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen (accessed 25 January 2016). 23 See Stuckler and Basu (2014) for a thorough exploration of the health implications of different responses to economic hardship. 24 Time series data on life expectancy for individual countries are from the World Development Indicators database (series SP.DYN.LE00.IN). 25 Franco et al. (2007: 1374). 26 Stuckler and Basu (2014: 108 et seq.). 27 In the conventional model, resources are often excluded from the equation and the main dependencies are thought to be on labour, capital and technological innovation. 28 Aggregate demand refers to the ‘expenditure’ formulation of the GDP, namely the sum of private and public consumption plus business investment.

Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America
by Cass R. Sunstein
Published 6 Mar 2018

Part of the problem may be that the way science is portrayed in the media—with its focus on bold claims, exciting breakthroughs, and sudden flashes of genius—is quite unlike the frustratingly slow and incremental reality (contrary to every movie involving mathematicians, very little useful science is conducted while scribbling equations furiously on a blackboard or a window). But even when scientists themselves try to reach the public directly, the pressure to tell an easily digestible and engaging story invariably influences what they say and how they say it. Not every idea lends itself equally to a seventeen-minute TED talk. Not every argument can or should be made using cute analogies, seven-point lists, or personal anecdotes. And the grander and more sweeping a claim is, the less likely it is to be true. In other words, both for the journalists who cover science and for scientists themselves, communicating with the public presents an unavoidable conflict between engaging one’s audience and accurately conveying the careful, systematic nature of science.

Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love
by Simran Sethi
Published 10 Nov 2015

Midges, the primary pollinator of cacao’s tiny orchid-like flowers, are what keep the ecosystem flourishing. They, along with mosquitoes, were relentless, buzzing near my eyes, biting through my clothes, attaching themselves to any spot of skin that hadn’t been sufficiently doused in DEET. Relentless—and essential. Essential because, as biologist Sara Lewis explained in her TED talk on the magic of fireflies, “every time a species is lost, it’s like extinguishing a room full of candles one by one. You might not notice when the first few flames flicker out, but in the end, you’re left sitting in darkness.”30 The same can be said for pollinators. In the case of midges, this is the result of their loss of habitat.

Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream
by Nicholas Lemann
Published 9 Sep 2019

These included the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland; two annual conferences, one in Sun Valley and one in Tucson, put on by Allen & Company, an investment firm; Bilderberg, the venerable international-relations conference in Europe; dialog, in Utah, which Peter Thiel cohosts every other year; an annual get-together in Montana hosted by Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google; TED, an annual conference whose initials stand for Technology, Entertainment, and Design; and FOO, which stands for Friends of O’Reilly, staged by Tim O’Reilly, a technology guru and publisher based in San Francisco. In the aggregate, these conferences comprised an enclosed environment where well-known people from a range of fields could discuss the great issues of the day in a strictly delimited form that privileged a combination of confidence and simplicity. TED Talks were limited to eighteen minutes; sometimes at a FOO the participants would be asked to introduce themselves using only three words. One could explain all this activity by saying that people are motivated to do what is in their interest to do. The business of Hoffman’s Silicon Valley was necessarily anti-provincial and dependent on the occasional dramatic breakthrough that pays for everything else, so it made sense to circulate as widely—and to traffic in ideas as rapidly and on as high a conceptual plane—as possible.

Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought
by Barbara Tversky
Published 20 May 2019

But beware the First Law of Cognition, benefits come with costs. The beloved physician and professor of global health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, Hans Rosling, was dismayed by the many misconceptions people, even distinguished political and economic leaders of the world, had about the state of the world. His TED talk, telling the dramatic story of world economic development in recent times as if it were an ongoing tight soccer match, went viral. Many of the misconceptions that people held about economic and social development came from categorical thinking, especially dividing the world into rich and poor. Poor countries had no electricity, education, clean water, or health care.

Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity From Politicians
by Joe Quirk and Patri Friedman
Published 21 Mar 2017

We’re running out of land. We have no other option but to move out onto the ocean.” Bob has had a long and storied career of transforming visionary ideas from science fiction into mundane aspects of science fact, and he says the final task of his life is to colonize the ocean. Here is how he concluded a TED Talk he gave that was seen by more than a million people: “And my final question: Why are we not looking at moving out on to the sea? Why do we have programs to build habitation on Mars, and we have programs to look at colonizing the moon, but we do not have a program looking at how we colonize our own planet?

The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
by Sonia Shah

(Thompson), here White Wilderness (Disney documentary) Academy Award for, here on lemming mass suicide, here, here, here Wikelski, Martin, here, here, here, here Wilson, Allan, here World War II anti-rat campaigns in Britain, here discovery of bird migrations using radar, here and lemming metaphor, here postwar revival of overpopulation fears, here U.S. rejection of Jewish refugees from, here xenophobia, here conditions causing, here dissipation with assimilation, here and exaggeration of threat, here fear of disease and, here origins of concept, here, here, here persistence despite evidence, here, here as vestigial impulse, here Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative, here Zero Population Growth (ZPG), here, here, here, here A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR Sonia Shah is a science journalist and the prizewinning author of Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the National Association of Science Writers’ Science in Society Award. She has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many others. Her TED talk, “Three Reasons We Still Haven’t Gotten Rid of Malaria,” has been viewed by more than one million people around the world. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING, and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States 2020 Copyright © Sonia Shah, 2020 Maps © Philippe Rivière and Philippe Rekacewicz of Visionscarto, 2020 All rights reserved.

Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old
by Andrew Steele
Published 24 Dec 2020

DOI: 10.1038/366461a0 ageless.link/yxdvef Worms carrying [age-1(mg44)] live … 150 days Srinivas Ayyadevara et al., ‘Remarkable longevity and stress resistance of nematode PI3K-null mutants’, Aging Cell 7, 13–22 (2008). DOI: 10.1111/j.1474-9726.2007.00348.x ageless.link/3faznm Cynthia Kenyon … ‘the grim reaper’ … Kenyon calls daf-2 ‘the grim reaper’ in her TED Talk, which is a nice brief summary of her work. Cynthia Kenyon, ‘Experiments that hint of longer lives’ (TEDGlobal, 2011) ageless.link/nzovin These include the Laron mouse … Holly M. Brown-Borg and Andrzej Bartke, ‘GH and IGF1: Roles in energy metabolism of long-living GH mutant mice’, J. Gerontol.

Head, Hand, Heart: Why Intelligence Is Over-Rewarded, Manual Workers Matter, and Caregivers Deserve More Respect
by David Goodhart
Published 7 Sep 2020

Keynote Address, Tri-Nuffield Conference, May 16, 2019, https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/why-is-democratic-capitalism-failing-so-many-sir-angus-deatons-keynote-lecture-to-the-tri-nuffield-conference. 10 Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (London: Penguin, 2005). 11 David Brooks, “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake,” Atlantic, March 2020. 12 Ibid. 13 Harry Benson, Family Stability Improves as Divorce Rates Fall (Marriage Foundation, January 2019) 14 Why Family Matters, Centre for Social Justice, March 2019, 5. 15 Health Survey for England 2016: Well-Being and Mental Health, ONS/NHS Digital, December 13, 2017. 16 Antidepressants Were the Area with Largest Increase in Prescription Items in 2016, NHS Digital, June 29, 2017. 17 Mental Health Bulletin 2017–18 Annual Report, NHS Digital, November 29, 2018. 18 NatCen, University of Leicester, Department of Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing in England: Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2014, NHS Digital, September 2016. 19 Edmund S. Higgins, “Is Mental Health Declining in the U.S.?,” Scientific American, January 1, 2017. 20 The State of Mental Health in America 2019, Mental Health America, https://www.mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america. 21 Stephen Ilardi, “Depression Is a Disease of Civilisation,” Ted Talk, May 2013. 22 “An Epidemic of Loneliness,” Week (US), January 6, 2019. 23 Louise C. Hawkley, Rebeccah Duvoisin, Johannes Ackva et al., Loneliness in Older Adults in the USA and Germany: Measurement Invariance and Validation, NORC Working Paper Series WP-2015-004, 2016. 24 Kantar Public, “Trapped in a Bubble: An Investigation into Triggers for Loneliness in the UK,” British Red Cross/Co-op, December 2016. 25 The Forgotten Role of Families, Centre for Social Justice, 2017. 26 David Brooks, “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake,” Atlantic, March 2020. 27 Harry Benson, The Myth of “Long-term Stable Relationships” Outside Marriage, Marriage Foundation, May 2013, https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/MF-paper-Myth-of-long-term-stable-relationships-outside-marriage.pdf. 28 Branko Milanovic, Capitalism, Alone (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019). 29 Madeleine Bunting, Labours of Love: The Crisis of Care (London: Granta, 2020 [forthcoming]). 30 Interview with the author. 31 Tom De Castell, “Rise in Nurse Vacancy Rate in England Prompts Fresh Warnings,” Nursing Times, September 12, 2018; Stephanie Jones-Berry, “Why as Many as One in Four Nursing Students Could Be Dropping Out of Their Degrees,” Nursing Standard, September 3, 2018; “What Are the Vacancy Trends in the Public Sector?”

Life on the Rocks: Building a Future for Coral Reefs
by Juli Berwald
Published 4 Apr 2022

As I scanned the program, an entry caught my eye: at 11:50 a.m., a block of fifteen minutes was scheduled for a “Special Announcement!” What could that be? Back on the stage a man named Tom Moore, the other co-chair of the Coral Restoration Consortium, was being introduced. Dressed in sleek black, he looked much more TED Talk than lab-coated scientist or blue-jeaned field biologist. He had an engaging and ebullient energy that radiated off the stage into the audience. Tom began by recounting many of the benefits of coral reefs, their outsize influence on marine ecosystems, their ability to protect those of us on land, their contribution to tourism, the spiritual and cultural contributions, and the untapped biochemical richness.

Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
by Chrystia Freeland
Published 11 Oct 2012

Herb Allen’s Sun Valley gathering is the place for media moguls, and the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival is for the more policy-minded, with a distinctly U.S. slant. There is nothing implicit, at these gatherings, about the sense of belonging to a global elite. As Chris Anderson, the curator of the TED talks, told one gathering: “Combined, our contacts reach pretty much everyone who’s interesting in the country, if not the planet.” Recognizing the value of such global conclaves, some corporations have begun hosting their own. Among these is Google’s Zeitgeist conference, where I have moderated discussions for several years.

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Story of Anonymous
by Gabriella Coleman
Published 4 Nov 2014

While TED’s online videos reach a popular audience of millions, the conference itself is primarily attended by wealthy elites—with the exception of some of the speakers, such as myself, and select attendees who receive financial aid from TED. The privilege of attending TED costs roughly $7000. Of course, one has to be chosen first (you have to apply). This does not include the costs of travel or accommodations, but it does grant access to some fancy parties with limitless food and drink, concerts, highly curated TED talks, and the opportunity to converse with some famous and fascinating people (or their assistants, at least). After my talk, Will Smith’s personal assistant struck up a conversation with me, making a vigorous attempt to convince me that his boss, who is rumored to be a Scientologist, is actually an avid fan of Scientology’s nemesis, Anonymous.

Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots
by John Markoff
Published 24 Aug 2015

In yet another refinement, the system would add the ability to recognize the particular skills of different human participants and leverage them appropriately. Galaxy Zoo 2 was able to automatically categorize the problems it faced and knew which people could contribute to solving which problem most effectively. At a TED talk in 2013, Horvitz showed the reaction of a Microsoft intern to her first encounter with his robotic greeter. He played a clip of the interaction from the point of view of the system, which tracked her face. The young woman approached the system and, when it told her that Eric was speaking with someone in his office and offered to put her on his calendar, she balked and declined the computer’s offer.

Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change From the Cult of Technology
by Kentaro Toyama
Published 25 May 2015

Political scientist Robert Dahl (1971) focuses on eight institutional requirements for democracy, among which are political parties, the right to run for office, a free press, associational autonomy, the rule of law, and an efficient bureaucracy. 22.See, for example, Achebe’s (1977) takedown of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. 23.Achebe (2011). 24.Atlantic (2012). 25.Porter (2013) reports that women of prime working age earn only about 80 percent of what their male peers earn. 26.The laptop-as-vaccine statement was made by Negroponte (2008) at a TED talk about One Laptop Per Child. He repeated the same claim when he and I were on a panel at MIT (Boston Review 2010). He must have felt that the analogy resonated. 27.From the Global Polio Eradication Annual Report (World Health Organization 2011). It’s understandable that polio eradication efforts go poorly in areas with open conflict, such as Afghanistan or Nigeria.

The Innovation Illusion: How So Little Is Created by So Many Working So Hard
by Fredrik Erixon and Bjorn Weigel
Published 3 Oct 2016

Montgomerie, Tim, “What the World Thinks of Capitalism: YouGov’s Seven Nation Opinion Poll for the Legatum Institute.” Shorthand, Nov. 2015. At https://social.shorthand.com/montie/3C6iES9yjf/what-the-world-thinks-of-capitalism. Moore, Wilbert E., The Conduct of the Corporation. Random House, 1962. Morieux, Yves, “How Too Many Rules at Work Keep You from Getting Things Done.” TED Talk transcript, Aug. 2015. At https://www.ted.com/talks/yves_morieux_how_too_many_rules_at_work_keep_you_from_getting_things_done/transcript?language=en. Morieux, Yves, “Smart Rules: Six Ways to Get People to Solve Problems Without You.” Harvard Business Review, Sept. 1, 2011. At https://hbr.org/2011/09/smart-rules-six-ways-to-get-people-to-solve-problems-without-you.

What to Think About Machines That Think: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence
by John Brockman
Published 5 Oct 2015

But eGaia is already partly here, at least in the developed world. This distributed nerve-center network, an interplay among the minds of people and their monitoring electronics, will give rise to a distributed technical-social mental system the likes of which has not been experienced before. THE HIVE MIND CHRIS ANDERSON Curator, TED conferences, TED talks Thinking is our superpower. We’re not the strongest, fastest, largest, or hardiest species. But we can model the future and act intentionally to realize the future we model. Somehow it’s this power, not the ability to fly high, dive deep, roar loudly, or produce millions of babies, which has allowed its lucky recipients to visibly (as in literally visible from space) take over the planet.

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
by Merlin Sheldrake
Published 11 May 2020

Others might take a week to riffle through the bunch of keys, trying different ones until they get lucky. McCoy, like many in the DIY mycology movement, received his first shot of fungal zeal from Stamets. Since his influential work on psilocybin mushrooms in the 1970s, Stamets has grown into an unlikely hybrid between fungal evangelist and tycoon. His TED Talk—“Six Ways that Mushrooms Can Save the World”—has been viewed millions of times. He runs a multimillion-dollar fungal business, Fungi Perfecti, which does a roaring trade in everything from antiviral throat sprays to fungal dog treats (Mutt-rooms). His books on mushroom identification and cultivation—including the definitive Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World—continue to provide a crucial reference for countless mycologists, grassroots or otherwise.

The Job: The Future of Work in the Modern Era
by Ellen Ruppel Shell
Published 22 Oct 2018

Meanwhile, many forward-thinking reformers argued that education was not about turning children into industrial fodder but about guiding them across a threshold of independent thought. And yet, the myth of the school as factory remains. The charge that American schools did once and continue to treat students like so many widgets on an assembly line has become the stuff of rousing TED talks and the basis for public policy on both sides of the aisle. Here’s the view of Obama administration secretary of education Arne Duncan: “Our K–12 system largely still adheres to the century-old, industrial-age factory model of education. A century ago, maybe it made sense….But the factory model of education is the wrong model for the 21st century.”

Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again
by Brittany Kaiser
Published 21 Oct 2019

The start of his pitch included much the same material he covered when Chester and I visited the SCL office back in October—the same slides with pictures of beaches and signs about sharks, the same points about Mad Men, the same top-down-versus-bottom-up creativity and blanket versus targeted advertising based on scientific and psychological research, but it felt more fluid, theatrical, and persuasive now. It seemed effortless, as perfectly managed and choreographed as the best TED Talk. With the small remote control firmly in his hand, Alexander, it seemed to me, had his finger on a button that had the potential to control the world. The billionaires’ representative was rapt, and he leaned in, as did the prince, and nodded from time to time approvingly. And when Alexander got to the part of the presentation about how the company had the ability to, as he put it, “address individual villages or apartment blocks, even zoom right down to particular people,” their eyes widened.

Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live
by Nicholas A. Christakis
Published 27 Oct 2020

In some ways, our response to the pandemic can even be seen through the lens of psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous stages of coping with death.58 Americans began with denial and anger, moved on to bargaining and depression, and will end with acceptance, which will mark the final, sociological end to the pandemic. * * * In 2015, Bill Gates released a popular TED Talk entitled “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready” in which he articulated the serious threat posed by pandemics; it has been viewed over thirty-six million times. The CDC has, for many years, maintained information on its websites and released many dozens of reports on pandemic preparedness, as have other governmental bodies.

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
by Tony Fadell
Published 2 May 2022

* If you’re interested in more about design and the storytelling behind it, I’d recommend finding my conversation with Peter Flint on his NFX podcast. * If you’re still struggling to decide whether to pursue an idea or not, I spoke more about this topic on the Evolving for the Next Billion podcast. * I did a whole TED talk about habituation, if you’re interested in digging in further. You can watch it online. * Take a look at www.gapminder.org/dollar-street to see how much people around the world make in a month and what their lives look like. It’s an incredible resource to learn how different or similar we all can be.

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
by Steven Pinker
Published 14 Oct 2021

Often the expression is more genteel but no less fallacious. “We don’t have to take Smith’s argument seriously; he is a straight white male and teaches at a business school.” “The only reason Jones argues that climate change is happening is that it gets her grants and fellowships and invitations to give TED talks.” A related tactic is the genetic fallacy, which has nothing to do with DNA but is related to the words “genesis” and “generate.” It refers to evaluating an idea not by its truth but by its origins. “Brown got his data from the CIA World Factbook, and the CIA overthrew democratic governments in Guatemala and Iran.”

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom
by Evgeny Morozov
Published 16 Nov 2010

This is hardly a promising environment for fighting the authoritarian chimera. All potential revolutionaries seem to be in a pleasant intellectual exile somewhere in California. The masses have been transported to Hollywood by means of pirated films they download from BitTorrent, while the elites have been shuttling between Palo Alto and Long Beach by way of TED talks. Whom exactly do we expect to lead this digital revolution? The lolcats? If anything, the Internet makes it harder, not easier, to get people to care, if only because the alternatives to political action are so much more pleasant and risk-free. This doesn’t mean that we in the West should stop promoting unfettered (read: uncensored) access to the Internet; rather, we need to find ways to supplant our promotion of a freer Internet with strategies that can engage people in political and social life.

Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World
by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott
Published 9 May 2016

Termen discovered that, if he infused this void with gas, he could gauge the gas’s electrical properties. His design was brilliant: he substituted headphones for dials so that he could take acoustic rather than visual readings, monitoring the pitch of the signal that each gas produced. It was way ahead of its time, the stuff of Dr. Emmett Brown’s garage in Back to the Future. Devotees of TED talks and students of technological history already know the end of this story: Termen stumbled upon a means of making music out of thin air. Whenever he put his hands near the metal terminals, the pitch of the signal changed. He learned that he could manipulate the pitch by the precise position and motion of his hands.

Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
by Sam Quinones
Published 20 Apr 2015

And he ignored that very advice. Cahana came to Seattle at 260 pounds, and gained forty-five more over the next five years as, stressed and overworked, he battled to rebuild the historic clinic. The clinic won numerous awards, was highlighted as a model. He was on CNN and in People magazine, gave a TED talk, and testified before the U.S. Senate on overprescribing in medicine. He grew fatter all the while. He was taking medications for hypertension, cholesterol, and then more for the side effects from the medication—nine pills a day, fifteen hundred dollars a month in co-pays. “I couldn’t walk two flights of stairs without huffing and puffing,” he said.

Advertisers at Work
by Tracy Tuten
Published 28 May 2012

She said that by doing so, we didn’t allow companies the chance to be progressive and contemporary in their approach.2 I took her advice to heart and that was a major reason I asked Mullen to consider my work schedule proposal. It’s working for me and for Mullen and for my family. My kids and my husband and my family are my biggest cheerleaders. There’s one other thing that comes to mind. This is from another TED talk. It was a talk by Madeleine Albright [former US Secretary of State]. She said, “Guilt is every woman’s middle name. Plenty of women asked me why I wasn’t in the carpool lane or told me I wasn’t prioritizing my kids. Is the carpool lane the only way to show I care? I believe there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”3 Tuten: What’s a typical day for you like, if there is one?

Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand
by John Markoff
Published 22 Mar 2022

The event, held in a hotel conference center in Monterey in February of 1984, was a little-noticed affair attended by a relatively intimate group (compared to later conferences) of 250 artists, writers, musicians, corporate execs, and scientists united by their “faith in the computer.”[18] IBM mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and Megatrends futurist John Naisbitt both spoke, but it was Negroponte who stole the show. Dressed in a dapper gray suit and tie and with a rich mane of longish hair, he showed off in his “TED Talk” (the term had yet to become a marque—and, in some quarters, a pigeonhole) a variety of futuristic technologies for interacting with computers, including touch screen manipulation, which would not become commonplace until a quarter century later with the introduction of the iPhone. Negroponte was an uncompromising digital utopian.

The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power
by Max Chafkin
Published 14 Sep 2021

He threw himself more deeply into another interest, funding technologies and research that might allow him to live forever. He continued to put money into the Methuselah Foundation and a spinoff, the SENS Research Foundation, which was dedicated to anti-aging research. The two organizations had been created by Aubrey de Grey, a Cambridge-trained academic with a wild beard, who’d given a TED Talk in 2005 that suggested old age could be reversed. Thiel donated more than $1 million in 2007 and 2008, and another $2 million in 2010. In 2008, Founders Fund had invested around $500,000 into Halcyon Molecular, a startup founded by William Andregg, who’d started the company with his brother Michael when he was just nineteen, with a modest plan of developing inexpensive genomic sequencing technology in order to cure aging.

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
by Michael Shellenberger
Published 28 Jun 2020

When CPUC chairman Peevey proposed his scheme to shut down SONGS, he specifically asked that Geesman be part of the effort. 83 7. Bigger than the Internet By 2006, when An Inconvenient Truth won Al Gore an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, renewables were becoming big business. That same year, the venture capitalist John Doerr, an early Google and Amazon investor, cried while giving a TED Talk about global warming. “I’m really scared,” Doerr said. “I don’t think we’re going to make it.” But the upside of crisis was opportunity. “Green technology—going green—is bigger than the Internet,” Doerr said. “It could be the biggest economic opportunity of the twenty-first century.”84 As I mentioned, I cofounded a progressive Democratic, labor-environment push for a New Apollo Project, the predecessor to Rep.

Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges and Leaderboards
by Yu-Kai Chou
Published 13 Apr 2015

If not, the Feedback Mechanics become empty signals that do not trigger towards any Desired Actions. Jane McGonigal’s Theories As the final touchstone of this chapter, we will look at Jane McGonigal’s theories. McGonigal is a game designer and author of the book Reality is Broken26. She’s most known for two TED talks on the power of games within the real world. McGonigal describes the four components behind how games make people better and more resilient: Epic Meaning, Urgent Optimism, Blissful Productivity, and Social Fabric. There are a few components that we can easily match with Octalysis. Epic Meaning of course echoes Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling - something that makes you feel like you’re changing the world.

Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood
by Rose George
Published 22 Oct 2018

Also www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/.     2. I weigh 65 kilograms (143 pounds). Eight percent of 65 kilograms is 5.2 kilograms. Converting kilograms to pints (though it’s mass to liquid) gets 9.15 pints. Dr. Harvey Klein, chief of transfusion medicine at the US National Institutes of Health, backed me up on this. “I’ve seen your TED talk. Yes, I’d say about nine pints.”     3. When mixed with additives, red blood cells are allowed to be kept and used for twenty-one days in Japan, thirty-five days in the UK, forty-two days in the United States, Canada, China, and many other countries, and between forty-two and forty-nine days in Germany, depending on the additive used.

People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Published 22 Apr 2019

Big Data is increasing these asymmetries, and thereby potentially making resource allocations less efficient. 19.Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Jeremy Singer-Vine, and Ashkan Soltani, “Websites Vary Prices, Deals Based on Users’ Information,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 24, 2012. 20.To use the colorful language of Nobel Prize winners George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, to “phish for phools.” See Akerlof and Shiller, Phishing for Phools. 21.See Tüfekçi’s TED talk, “We’re Building a Dystopia Just to Make People Click on Ads,” Oct. 27, 2017. 22.Others joined in the suit against Myriad, including the University of Pennsylvania and researchers at Columbia, NYU, Emory, and Yale. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation provided legal representation for the plaintiffs.

The Human Cosmos: A Secret History of the Stars
by Jo Marchant
Published 15 Jan 2020

“local spots and patches”: William James, “Lecture VIII, Pragmatism and Religion,” in Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (New York: Longman, 1907). “stuff of the world”: Amanda Gefter, “A Private View of Quantum Reality,” Quanta, June 4, 2015, https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-bayesianism-explained-by-its-founder-20150604/. “We are not machines”: Chris Hadfield, “What I Learned from Going Blind in Space,” TED talk, March 19, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo62S0ulqhA. EPILOGUE In “Nightfall”: Isaac Asimov, “Nightfall,” Astounding Science Fiction, September 1941. The story was later expanded into a novel, with the planet renamed “Kalgash”: Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, Nightfall (New York: Doubleday, 1990).

The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World
by Max Fisher
Published 5 Sep 2022

“The Muslim Cyber Army: What Is It and What Does It Want?” Damar Juniarto, Indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au, 2017. 16 “This revolution started”: “Social Media Sparked, Accelerated Egypt’s Revolutionary Fire,” Sam Gustin, Wired, February 11, 2011. 17 “The same tool”: “Let’s Design Social Media That Drives Real Change,” Wael Ghonim, TED Talk, January 14, 2016. 18 “I feel tremendous guilt”: “Former Facebook Exec Says Social Media Is Ripping Apart Society,” James Vincent, The Verge, December 11, 2017. 19 launched zero-rated services: Free Internet and the Costs to Media Pluralism: The Hazards of Zero-Rating the News, Daniel O’Maley and Amba Kak, CIMA digital report, November 8, 2018. 20 “As the usage expands”: Facebook: The Inside Story, Steven Levy, 2020: 435. 21 “The history of progress”: Zero to One, Thiel and Masters, 2014: 32. 22 a 6,000-word essay: “Building Global Community,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.com, February 16, 2017.

Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions
by Toby Segaran and Jeff Hammerbacher
Published 1 Jul 2009

At the research level, articles in political science journals are starting to make use of graphical techniques for discovery and presentation of results. And online tools ranging from NationMaster.com to the Name Voyager (http://www. babynamewizard.com/voyager) are becoming increasingly accessible, with data dumps such as Hans Rosling’s TED talk (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_ stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html) becoming cult favorites. We expect statistical visualization to become more important and more widespread in political analysis. References Bertin, J. (1967). Semiology of Graphics. Translated by W. J.

Why We Can't Afford the Rich
by Andrew Sayer
Published 6 Nov 2014

See also Russell Keat’s introduction to this edited collection. 146 It might be argued that where the capitalist has to arrange the financing of production, as distinct from merely owning it, some work is involved in doing this. 147 ‘Rent seeking, often via activities such as litigation and takeovers, and tax evasion and avoidance efforts seem now to constitute the prime threat to productive entrepreneurship’: Baumol, W.J. (1990) ‘Entrepreneurship: productive, unproductive, and destructive’, The Journal of Political Economy, 98(5), Part 1, pp 893–921, at p 915. 148 Krugman, P. (2012) End this depression now!, New York: W.W. Norton, pp 78–9. 149 Alperovitz, G. and Daly, L. (2008) Unjust deserts, London: The New Press, pp 68–9. 150 Mazzucato, M. (2012) The Astellas innovation debate, Royal Society, London, 20 November; see also her 2013 TED talk, ‘Government – investor, risk-taker, innovator’, http://www.ted.com/talks/mariana_mazzucato_government_investor_risk_taker_innovator.html. 151 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jan/12/who-was-steve-jobs/?pagination=false. We also need to look at their business models, including, in the case of Apple, the domination of supply chains to take advantage of cheap, super-exploited workers in China. 152 It’s normal in information industries for employees to have to sign away intellectual property rights to their employer. 153 Redwood, J. (2012) 18 August, http://politicsactive.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/difference-is-means-and-why.html. 154 New Economics Foundation (2009) A bit rich, London: NEF, p 22. 155 John Redwood, Conservative MP, Guardian, 18.

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
by Parag Khanna
Published 18 Apr 2016

Indeed, the AIIB’s creation provoked Western countries to adapt to it rather than the reverse: Britain, Germany, Australia, and South Korea have joined the AIIB.2 Even Japan’s announcement of a separate $110 billion infrastructure fund for Asia to rival the AIIB will actually accelerate the smoothing of more Asian bottlenecks for China’s benefit. Japan’s investments enhance mainland Asia’s connected destiny. “MINE-GOLIA”: WHERE (ALMOST) ALL ROADS LEAD TO CHINA For a brief moment in 2009, I was the most hated man in Mongolia. In June of that year, I gave a TED talk titled “Invisible Maps” in which I referred to the landlocked and sparsely populated nomadic country as “Mine-Golia.” I argued that its landlocked geography, rich natural resources, and export-dependent economy made it a sitting duck in a supply chain world. Perhaps I could have better sugarcoated the punch line: “China isn’t conquering Mongolia; it’s buying it.”

Economic Dignity
by Gene Sperling
Published 14 Sep 2020

Executive Office of the President, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy (Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President, 2016), 17, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/documents/Artificial-Intelligence-Automation-Economy.PDF. 12. Martin Ford, “Martin Ford: How We’ll Earn Money in a Future without Jobs,” Ted Talk, video, 14:38, April 2017, https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_ford_how_we_ll_earn_money_in_a_future_without_jobs. 13. Brett Milano, “The Robots Are Coming, but Relax,” Harvard Gazette, September 22, 2017, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/09/as-ai-rises-youll-likely-have-a-job-analysts-say-but-it-may-be-different/; and Jason Furman and Robert Seamans, “AI and the Economy,” Innovation Policy and the Economy 19 (2019): 162, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/699936. 14.

Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth
by Elizabeth Williamson
Published 8 Mar 2022

The social platforms scurried to remove what little malicious Sandy Hook content appeared, to avoid another public drubbing. In a segment of This American Life, radio producer Miki Meek equated Lenny to Walter White in Breaking Bad, calling him “the one who knocks.” Lenny loved that. Merrell had been nudging Lenny toward his next chapter. Should he unmask himself, become a TED Talk sensation? Share his expertise at the ubiquitous misinformation conferences? Work for one of the social media companies, shaming them for pay? We meandered together through what lay ahead in the lawsuits, and Jones’s bizarre past maneuvers. Lenny didn’t care. Like the big platforms, he had kicked Alex Jones to the curb.

Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
by Maya Dusenbery
Published 6 Mar 2018

“I actually cried when I heard that—and not happy tears,” she remembers. “If it wasn’t stent failure, what the hell was causing these debilitating symptoms?” Thankfully, her doctor was familiar with CMD and suspected it might be the culprit. Many others aren’t so lucky. As Bairey Merz, who is lead investigator for the WISE study, said in a 2011 TED talk, “We’ve been working on this for fifteen years, and we’ve been working on male-pattern disease for fifty years. So we’re thirty-five years behind.” That thirty-five-year knowledge gap means awareness of “female-pattern” abnormalities like CMD in the medical community is currently variable. “I think more physicians are paying attention to it.

If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities
by Benjamin R. Barber
Published 5 Nov 2013

Time Magazine, May 2005; Time’s list included, along with Hickenlooper, Chicago’s Richard Daley, Atlanta’s Shirley Franklin, Baltimore’s Martin O’Malley, and New York’s Michael Bloomberg. 25. Inaugural Address, 2011, cited in the official website of Governor Hickenlooper, http://www.colorado.gov/governor/. 26. Mayor Paes in a TED talk, February 2012, http://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_paes_the_4_commandments_of_cities.html. 27. Christopher Dickey, Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009, p. 2. 28. Boris Johnson, Johnson’s Life of London, London: Harper Press, p. 1. 29.

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
by Michael Pollan
Published 30 Apr 2018

His extravagant claims for the powers of mushrooms and eyebrow-elevating boasts about his mushroom work with institutions like DARPA (the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and NIH (the National Institutes of Health) are bound to set off a journalist’s bullshit detector, rightly or—as often happens in his case—wrongly. Over the years, we’ve found ourselves at some of the same conferences, so I’ve had several opportunities to hear his talks, which consist of a beguiling (often brilliant) mash-up of hard science and visionary speculation, with the line between the two often impossible to discern. His 2008 TED talk, which is representative, has been viewed online more than four million times. Stamets, who was born in 1955 in Salem, Ohio, is a big hairy man with a beard and a bearish mien; I was not surprised to learn he once worked as a lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest. Onstage, he usually wears what appears to be a felt hat in the alpine style but which, as he’ll explain, is in fact made in Transylvania from something called amadou, the spongy inner layer of the horse’s hoof fungus (Fomes fomentarius), a polypore that grows on several species of dead or dying trees.

Track Changes
by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
Published 1 May 2016

References to Sumerian cuneiform or monks in scriptoria or Gutenberg’s printing press suddenly abounded in the computer industry. “Thousands of years ago, people put their thoughts down on clay tablets,” began Byte magazine’s December 1984 review of WordPerfect. “Modern authors have the word processor.”2 These contemporary descriptions sound a lot like today’s TED Talks and other Silicon Valley disruption scenarios: “A word processor is, quite simply, the most amazing thing that has happened to writing in years,” begins the author of a column in the August 1983 issue of Writer’s Digest.3 Ray Hammond, just one year later in the preface to a handbook about word processing addressed specifically to literary authors and journalists, agrees: “The computer is the most powerful tool ever developed for writers.”4 The freedom and flexibility that word processing apparently afforded—what Michael Heim experienced as bliss—seemed so absolute that it was hard to conceive of the technology as even having a history apart from the long series of clearly inferior writing utensils leading up to the present-day marvel.

Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World
by Clive Thompson
Published 26 Mar 2019

lang=en. for a predictable income: Corky Siemaszko, “In the Shadow of Uber’s Rise, Taxi Driver Suicides Leave Cabbies Shaken,” NBC News, June 7, 2018, accessed August 18, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/shadow-uber-s-rise-taxi-driver-suicides-leave-cabbies-shaken-n879281. she once joked: TED× Talks, Do You Like Me? Do I? | Leah Pearlman | TED xBoulder, YouTube, 12:21, October 31, 2016, accessed August 18, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nwSjRA3kQA. “required was so low”: Stanford eCorner, Justin Rosenstein: No Dislike Button on Facebook, YouTube, 1:33, May 13, 2013, accessed August 18, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?

The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
by Daniel Yergin
Published 14 Sep 2020

“Sechin: Low Oil Prices,” Interfax, March 20, 2020; Joshua Yaffa, “Russian-Saudi Oil War Went Awry,” The New Yorker, April 15, 2020 (“strategic threat”). 3. Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project (December 2004); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Bill Gates Ted Talk, April 3, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Af6b_wyiwI. 4. Alexander Novak interview, Ekho Moskvy Radio, April 2, 2020. 5. Interview (“dire”); interview with Don Sullivan; March 13, 2020, letter to Crown Prince; March 25, 2020, letter to Honorable Mike Pompeo; Tucker Higgins, “Ted Cruz, Other Senators, Warn Saudis,” CNBC, March 30, 2020 (“economic warfare”); Lutz Kilian, Michaal D.

Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To
by David A. Sinclair and Matthew D. Laplante
Published 9 Sep 2019

Eventually the lung gave out.10 In another way of thinking, though, my mother was very lucky—she had the come-to-God moment that many smokers need to go to battle with the tremendously powerful forces of addiction in time to save herself, and she spent another two decades on this planet. She traveled the world, visiting eighteen different countries. She met her grandchildren. She saw me give a TED Talk at the Sydney Opera House. For this we must certainly credit the doctors who removed her cancerous lung, but we should also acknowledge the positive impact of her age. One of the best ways to predict whether someone will survive a disease, after all, is to take a look at how old he or she is when diagnosed—and my mother was, relatively speaking, very young.

Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire
by Brad Stone
Published 10 May 2021

That October, he introduced a new Amazon wind farm in Texas by smashing a bottle of champagne atop a windmill and tweeting the aerial video. The next month, he was interviewed at an event called Summit LA by the gentlest of interlocutors: his younger brother, Mark, an investor and Blue Origin advisor who once gave a TED talk about being a volunteer firefighter. They chatted about craft cocktails, space exploration, their grandparents, and how Jeff and MacKenzie left New York City and drove across the country to start Amazon in Seattle. While they would never publicly admit it, Amazon’s senior leaders were happy to operate with more independence, and with fewer of the founder’s impossibly probing questions and demanding ambitions.

The Price Is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet
by Brett Christophers
Published 12 Mar 2024

And because the loan financing of the facilities incorporated an element of interest-rate risk, the IFC provided rate swaps to mitigate that risk.68 More valuable still than Emery’s documentation of the various forms of support afforded the 2016 Zambian solar developments was his analysis of how the case was presented to the wider world, not least by the World Bank. As we saw, the Bank’s Gevorg Sargsyan insisted there were no subsidies; ‘other official messaging’, Emery found, then ‘parroted this zero-subsidy narrative’.69 Such concordant messaging included, most notably, a TED talk praising the inaugural Scaling Solar project by the former World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, which has been viewed more than 100,000 times. If we want to understand why Scaling Solar subsequently stalled, Emery has maintained, it is essential to recognize the counterproductive impact of this messaging.

Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing
by Kevin Davies
Published 5 Oct 2020

The dystrophin mutation was first observed in a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, then bred into a line of beagles, which provide a better physiological match to humans. CHAPTER 13 PATENT PENDING “A few years ago with my colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, I invented a new technology for editing genomes. It’s called CRISPR-Cas9.”1 Doudna raised a few eyebrows with that offhand remark during a TED talk in London in 2015, which made light of a billion of years of evolution, not to mention the competing efforts of a few other investigators. But it is fairly ingrained in the popular culture. In November 2019, Alex Trebeck read a question on Jeopardy: JENNIFER DOUDNA & EMMANUELLE CHARPENTIER ARE CO-INVENTORS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TOOL CRISPR TO EDIT THESE IN THE BODYI Lest we forget, bacteria clearly invented CRISPR many hundreds of millions of years ago.

Alpha Trader
by Brent Donnelly
Published 11 May 2021

You have to drop the idea that you are a certain way and embrace positive change. You don’t need to take radical action; make continuous small changes. Start small and keep improving every day. Another hot topic in the world of education is grit. Grit, perseverance, mental endurance If you have kids, you have probably been bombarded with articles and parent coffees and TED Talks about building grit in your children. Fail early and fail fast and fail often and the marshmallow test and all that. Here is how Angela Duckworth, who popularized the term “grit”, defines it50: Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals. One way to think about grit is to consider what grit isn’t.

The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth
by Michael Spitzer
Published 31 Mar 2021

By contrast, a Johann Sebastian Bach, whether or not he was a ‘machine’, ranged over a world of experiences, including the New Testament and Lutheran theology, whether or not those texts are ‘algorithms’, not to mention the enjoyment of a walk in the country, the feeling of sunshine and rain on his face, the taste of good food, getting his hands on a fine harpsichord and the love of two wives and twenty children. The real threat posed by AI is that, caught up in the glamour and excitement of futurology, we are asked to admire music that is – putting it as tactfully as possible – too simple. Such appeals are the stuff of TED talks. In one (April 2018), the entrepreneur and computer scientist Pierre Barreau tells us how, inspired by Samantha the AI personal assistant in the 2013 film Her, he created AIVA, the Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist. AIVA is trained on 30,000 scores of Western music, and can create music through deep neural networks.43 At the end of his presentation, Barreau performs a piece that AIVA specially wrote for the audience, ‘The Age of Amazement’ (the screen cuts to a shot of exploding fireworks).

Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future
by Jean M. Twenge
Published 25 Apr 2023

Audrey Mason-Hyde (b. 2005) was assigned female at birth but likes wearing bow ties and other male clothing (in interviews, Audrey has said female pronouns are fine, though she doesn’t like to be referred to as a girl or a boy). For a while, Audrey identified as a tomboy, but didn’t feel that captured who she really was. At 12, Audrey gave a TED talk about being nonbinary. “For me, gender is a spectrum. My gender identity and expression is entirely about me, and not about how other people perceive me. I don’t know how we deal with that in a world so desperate to define by gender,” she said. In a later interview, she shared, “Now, being nonbinary, I feel so comfortable to just be that, and so uncomfortable to be a girl or a boy—it’s just not who I am.”

The Survival of the City: Human Flourishing in an Age of Isolation
by Edward Glaeser and David Cutler
Published 14 Sep 2021

Bush administration got lucky that the 2005 avian flu was mostly contained to Asia. The Obama administration got lucky three times: the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 was not as deadly as it might have been, the MERS outbreak of 2012 remained largely in Asia, and the Ebola outbreak of 2014–15 was contained in West Africa. Bill Gates of Microsoft fame gave a TED talk in 2014 arguing that the United States was not ready for a pandemic. The talk has been viewed nearly forty million times. Reflecting their experiences, both the Bush and Obama administrations created playbooks to reduce the risk of pandemic. Both administrations also simulated responses to virus outbreaks that were eerily similar to COVID-19.

The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI
by Ray Kurzweil
Published 25 Jun 2024

BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 12 For Chalmers’s in-depth views on zombies, panprotopsychism, and philosophical zombies, see David J. Chalmers, “Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism,” in Panpsychism, ed. Godehard Bruntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), http://consc.net/papers/panpsychism.pdf; David Chalmers, “Panpsychism and Explaining Consciousness,” Oppositum, TED Talk, YouTube video, January 18, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiYfN7-gaLk; David Chalmers, “How Does Panpsychism Fit in Between Dualism and Materialism?,” Loyola Productions Munich, YouTube video, November 8, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSmfhc_8gew. BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 13 Nobel Prize–winning physicist Sir Roger Penrose has developed, along with physician Stuart Hameroff, a provocative theory called orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR), which attempts to explain consciousness as arising from quantum processes within molecules inside neurons called microtubules.

Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
Published 24 Oct 2011

more than 450,000 responses: Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, “High Income Improves Evaluation of Life but Not Emotional Well-Being,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (2010): 16489–93. worse for the very poor: Dylan M. Smith, Kenneth M. Langa, Mohammed U. Kabeto, and Peter Ubel, “Health, Wealth, and Happiness: Financial Resources Buffer Subjective Well-Being After the Onset of a Disability,” Psychological Science 16 (2005): 663–66. $75,000 in high-cost areas: In a TED talk I presented in February 2010 I mentioned a preliminary estimate of $60,000, which was later corrected. eat a bar of chocolate!: Jordi Quoidbach, Elizabeth W. Dunn, K. V. Petrides, and Moïra Mikolajczak, “Money Giveth, Money Taketh Away: The Dual Effect of Wealth on Happiness,” Psychological Science 21 (2010): 759–63. 38: Thinking About Life German Socio-Economic Panel: Andrew E.

The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era
by Craig Nelson
Published 25 Mar 2014

Society of Nuclear Medicine. “History of Nuclear Medicine.” http://interactive.snm.org/index.cfm?PageID=1107&RPID=924. Socolow, Robert. “Reflections on Fukushima: A time to mourn, to learn, and to teach.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 21, 2011. Sorensen, Kirk. “Can Thorium End Our Energy Crisis?” TED Talks, April 22, 2011. Sorensen, Ted. Counselor. New York: Harper, 2008. Southern, Terry. “Check-Up with Doctor Strangelove.” Filmmaker, Fall 2004. Soviet Archives, Library of Congress. Sparberg, Esther. “Study of the Discovery of Fission.” American Journal of Physics 32 (1964). Specter, Michael.

Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations
by Thomas L. Friedman
Published 22 Nov 2016

But that revolution in the end got derailed by the failure of the progressive forces to unite, the desire by the Muslim Brotherhood to divert it into a religious movement, and the Egyptian Army’s ability to exploit the weakness of all these civil groups in order to maintain its grip on both the Egyptian deep state and its economy. In December 2015, Ghonim, who has since moved to Silicon Valley, posted a TED talk that I wrote about in a column. In the talk, he asked what went wrong—squarely addressing this question: Is the Internet better for creating freedom from than freedom to? This is the essence of what he concluded: “I once said, ‘If you want to liberate a society, all you need is the Internet.’ I was wrong.

The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet
by Nina Teicholz
Published 12 May 2014

Brody, Jane Brody’s Good Food Book: Living the High Carbohydrate Way (New York: Norton, 1985). Group Four foods: “The Proven Lifestyle,” Preventive Medicine Research Institute, last accessed April 2009, http://www.pmri.org/lifestyle_program.html. “tired, depressed, lethargic and impotent”: Dean Ornish, “Healing through Diet,” TED Talks, Monterey, CA, October 2008, last accessed February 13, 2014, http://www.ted.com/talks/dean_ornish_on_healing.html. as Frank Sacks . . . found: Quoted in Gina Kolata, “Dean Ornish: A Promoter of Programs to Foster Heart Health,” New York Times, December 29, 1998, F6. “It’s hard to do a lot of things”: Quoted in George Epaminondas, “The Battle of the Diet Gurus,” The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia), February 23, 2003.

How Emotions Are Made: The New Science of the Mind and Brain
by Lisa Feldman Barrett
Published 6 Mar 2017

LeDoux’s theoretical shift is just another example of the new scientific revolution of the mind and brain, steering the field toward a more scientifically defensible theory of emotion.49 Although LeDoux and other like-minded scientists have made the shift, you can still easily find the mental inference fallacy in YouTube videos and TED talks by other researchers who study emotion in animals. The speaker shows you a compelling movie or a picture of an animal engaging in some behavior. See how the rat is happy when you tickle it; see how sad the dog is when he whimpers; see how afraid the rat is when she freezes. But remember, emotions are not observed, they are constructed.

Architects of Intelligence
by Martin Ford
Published 16 Nov 2018

MARTIN FORD is a futurist and the author of two books: The New York Times Bestselling Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (winner of the 2015 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award and translated into more than 20 languages) and The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future, as well as the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm. His TED Talk on the impact of AI and robotics on the economy and society, given on the main stage at the 2017 TED Conference, has been viewed more than 2 million times. Martin is also the consulting artificial intelligence expert for the new “Rise of the Robots Index” from Societe Generale, underlying the Lyxor Robotics & AI ETF, which is focused specifically on investing in companies that will be significant participants in the AI and robotics revolution.

Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World
by Timothy Garton Ash
Published 23 May 2016

Wishing to suggest to Och that we split the cost of dinner, or ‘go Dutch’ as we say in British English, I tried out ‘go Dutch’ in Google Translate. The results were mixed, including ‘Ga Nederlands’ in Dutch, ‘iru Nederlanda’ in Esperanto and ‘vade Dutch’ in Latin 81. see ‘TED Open Translation Project’, TED, http://perma.cc/AN28-YBBG 82. TED Talks, ‘Luis von Ahn: Massive-Scale Online Collaboration’, http://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html and ‘Duolingo now translating BuzzFeed and CNN’, duolingo, http://perma.cc/4MQA-B8B2. Whether it has a sustainable business model is unclear. Ronald Barba, ‘Duolingo Now Valued at Nearly Half a Billion Dollars’, Tech.Go, 10 January 2015, http://tech.co/duolingo-raises-45-million-google-capital-2015-06 83. see our web developer’s account: Simon Dickson, ‘From Babel to Babble’, Free Speech Debate, http://freespeechdebate.com/en/2013/11/from-babel-to-babble/ 84. photo by Nick Ut, Washington Times, 8 June 1972, http://perma.cc/FV3Y-EAC9 85.

The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
by Margaret O'Mara
Published 8 Jul 2019

Here was the public-sector push that the green-tech sector needed: just like with the integrated circuit and the Apollo program, government spending would allow an expensive and cutting-edge product to scale to market-altering proportions. In the spring of 2007, Doerr went public with his new crusade, giving a heart-on-his-sleeve TED talk titled “Salvation (and profit) in greentech.” The industry “is bigger than the Internet,” he declared. “It could be the biggest opportunity of the twenty-first century.” By November, Gore was talking an even bigger game about its potential impact. “What we are going to have to put in place is a combination of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo project, and the Marshall Plan,” the former veep explained.

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
by Patrick Radden Keefe
Published 12 Apr 2021

Kaiko had a PhD: Biography of Robert Kaiko, PhD, Scientific Advisory Board, Ensysce. “Pain is the most common symptom”: Richard Sackler Deposition in Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Purdue Pharma LP et al., Aug. 28, 2015 (hereafter cited as RDS 2015 Deposition). Bonica was a colorful figure: Latif Nasser, “The Amazing Story of the Man Who Gave Us Pain Relief,” TED talk, March 2015. Bonica arrived in the United States in 1927, according to The New York Times; some other sources suggest that he came in 1928. “John J. Bonica, Pioneer in Anesthesia, Dies at 77,” New York Times, Aug. 20, 1994. published a seminal book: “John Bonica Devoted His Life to Easing People’s Pain,” University of Washington Magazine, Dec. 1, 1994; John J.

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty
by Benjamin H. Bratton
Published 19 Feb 2016

See Patrik Schumacher's evolving parametricist manifestos that list many of his key claims on behalf his understanding of this design methodology: “Parametricism as Style—Parametricist Manifesto,” 2008, http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/Parametricism%20as%20Style.htm. 21.  Keller Easterling discusses this consultant-driven urbanism in The Action Is the Form: Victor Hugo's TED Talk (London: Strelka Press, 2012). 22.  We are left to wonder who the real architects of the architecture actually are: Zaha Hadid, Cisco, or McKinsey? Shall we now acknowledge the collaborations with more transparency, and in doing so expand the landscape of parameters that can be admitted into a Luhmannian design strategy?

Wanderers: A Novel
by Chuck Wendig
Published 1 Jul 2019

We’re in a plane plunging toward the ground. Eventually we’ll pull up—right at the last minute! We’ll figure out something with horizontal gene transfer or bacteriophages or polymer nanotech. We won’t crash. But we’ll come real, real close. We always do. That’s the American way. —science writer Afzad Kerman in his TED Talk, “Chaos and Crisis: The Accidental Ingenuity of the Almost-Apocalypse” JUNE 21 Cloverdale, Indiana THE FLOCK GREW OVERNIGHT, AS it did every night. And it would grow today, as it did every day. More flock meant more shepherds. More shepherds meant more cops. And more media. Shana felt overwhelmed by it.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
by Shoshana Zuboff
Published 15 Jan 2019

A person who prefers to be surrounded by groups of friends is likely to score high on extraversion, and so on. Similarly, Kosinski and his coauthors point out the close association between Facebook “likes” and the five trait dimensions: “Participants with high openness to experience tend to ‘like’ Salvador Dali, meditation, or TED talks.…” These correlations are obvious and thus easy to score, program, and scale. Human judges cannot compete on scale, but they exceed the machines in scope. Kosinski and his colleagues know this, acknowledging that human perception is “flexible” and “able to capture many subconscious cues unavailable to machines.”

Seveneves
by Neal Stephenson
Published 19 May 2015

Raised in a dodgy part of London, she’d gone to a posh school on scholarship and went on to earn a biology degree at Oxford. She had gone to Harvard for her Ph.D., working with a project there on de-extinction. Her general charisma, and an accent that Americans found charming, had made her into the most well-known spokesperson for that project. She had done TED talks and other public appearances describing her lab’s efforts to bring the woolly mammoth back to life. After a brief sojourn in Siberia, working with a Russian oil billionaire who wanted to create a nature preserve stocked with formerly extinct megafauna, she had returned to the UK and begun postdoctoral work with Clarence.

Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy
by Irvin D. Yalom and Molyn Leszcz
Published 1 Jan 1967

This may be an important theme that should be examined in future meetings. People forget different things at different rates. Irv attempted to bring Ted into the meeting because everyone has been aware that Ted has been withdrawn and silent in the meetings, and his participation has been much missed. Ted talked, once again, about feeling that the group was unsafe and feeling fearful of talking because he keeps being attacked for almost anything he says. But not so, the group said! We then talked about the fact that, as Laura pointed out, when he talked about issues that were personal and close to himself—like his loneliness or his difficulties making friends—then, indeed, there was no attack at all.

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World
by Deirdre N. McCloskey
Published 15 Nov 2011

His descendants at length started polishing it into the beautiful objects of the Late Stone Age. But until then the axe was accumulation without any betterment at all. What is unique about the past two centuries, I say yet again, is the gigantic betterment, not the routine capital accumulation that the betterment made profitable. Ridley in his books and TED Talks puts a picture of the axe and the computer mouse side by side. They are strikingly similar, because both are designed to fit snuggly into a human hand. But one was a technology frozen for 1.3 million years. The other is pure betterment, invented in 1963 and then creatively destroyed for our benefit after a mere fifty years, when motions of the hand over a watchful screen began to take its place.