TED Conversations

Truong Thanh Chung

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TED Conversations should be social-oriented

Many TED conversations are pure science question. I don't think TED is the appropriate platform to answer/debate this type of question. A forum about physics is right place to put these questions, e.g. http://www.physicsforums.com/

Simple reason: no one with such knowledge will join these conversations or join with seriousness. Not worth it since among noisy and irrelevant opinions, very few people with such narrow expertise to discuss about the subject.

TED Conversations should be social-oriented. If you want to hear people's opinions, you will get it here.

Topics: TED TED Conversations
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    Chetan Somani

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    Aug 17 2012: TED Conversations are Knowledge-Oriented!!
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    Jedrek Stepien 10+

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    Aug 14 2012: you are darn right!
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    Anne Dagen 10+

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    Aug 13 2012: The T in TED does stand for technology.
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    James Zhang 30+

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    Aug 13 2012: I think that Ted is a platform for spreading ideas and different viewpoints on a ton of real-world issues or intellectual topics or just very curious thoughts. Science by its nature is a result of such curious thoughts. However, Ted is not a platform for super-indepth technical discussions.

    The way the platform is designed, we can have a good debate, but not a super in-depth debate on discussions. And the debate will be buried after a few days by newer topics. Not to mention, you can only have 3 levels of nested replies, and the 3rd nested level can not be reply-able. This design supports the spread of new ideas and making sure all ideas are heard at least, but it makes it hard to keep the conversation going. There was a thread I tried to keep up with David Hamilton, but it was hard to because I had to scroll all the way up to his root post to reply him and make a new post.

    So I think Ted does a very good job of spreading cool ideas and getting different viewpoints on the subject matter. Whether this is as a result of the design of the platform or the community it has attracted, I don't know 100%...
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    Fritzie Reisner 100+

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    Aug 13 2012: I very much do not agree with this idea. I think there are many places online, social networks large and small, where people express their opinions and feelings about a whole range of things, chat, and so forth.
    What I appreciate about TED is that it is different from the many forums that meet your criteria. Here the focus is on a more thoughtful, analytical, and critical sort of discourse about ideas across the range of topics that appear in the TED talks.
    Where I do agree with you is that a general discourse site like TED is not typically the best place to get the answer to a particular question of fact. To get an answer to a question of fact or to find evidence of specific research on a question, an internet search is probably more efficient.
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      Truong Thanh Chung 50+

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      TED Translator
      Aug 13 2012: If public education is the object of TED Conversations, then my request might irrelevant. TED simply evokes people do the thinking, whatever the topic about.

      Still, I think some degree of focus is beneficial for all.
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