TED Community » Timothy Campbell

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Memetics, Evolutionary Psychology

An idea worth spreading

There are plenty of ideas worth spreading. Alas, many of the best mutate into ideas worth forgetting.

Talk to me about

Memetics from a global systemic perspective, especially as it relates to the illusion of self and the defenses for that illusion.

People don't know that I'm good at

Not getting eaten by lions. I cannot take credit for this skill, however, since I obviously inherited it.

My TED Story

I saw a TED video. I enjoyed it. I saw another. I enjoyed it. I saw yet another. I enjoyed it. (500 sentences removed to save space.) And now I'm here!

Comments

• TEDCred score: +6.80 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Talk: Justin Hall-Tipping: Freeing energy from the grid

  Dec 4 2012: When he was talking about beaming power from one skyscraper to another, I couldn't help but form a mental image of flash-fried (and surprised) birds dropping from the sky.
  
  Apart from that (possibly invalid) objection, I'm impressed by the notion that we can create electricity ourselves. I note, though, that at one point he says that we could consider this “MY energy” and would no longer need power grids. There are going to be a lot of very Very VERY rich people who will not like this line of research, so we can expect to start hearing that it's going to flash-fry everybody.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Avi Rubin: All your devices can be hacked

  Dec 4 2012: He didn't mention airplanes and trains, computers in nuclear power plants, traffic control (e.g. lights, signs), and so on and so on.
  
  Almost any device that isn't powered off, encased in concrete and buried underground will be exposed to attempts at hacking. All that is needed is motivation, and that can come from greed, ideology, malice, anger or curiosity.
  
  I think I'm going to go hide in my non-digital bathtub.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Roger McNamee: Six ways to save the internet

  Mar 20 2012: “... creative people will invents 1.0 things while braggers will talk about the 5.0 version of the old things...”
  
  Wow, this is one the best things I've read this week.

• A reply on Talk: Roger McNamee: Six ways to save the internet

  Mar 20 2012: Thank you for stating this issue so concisely. New technology can make the internet glitzier and more convenient, but can it make it “better?” Different people will define “better” in different ways. In my view, the fewer barriers there are between the individual and other individuals, the better the net. If I was an investor, though, I would see things differently.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Lisa Harouni: A primer on 3D printing

  Feb 11 2012: Hmm. How long before some guy, accompanied by a team of lawyers, attempts to patent the sphere?

• A reply on Talk: Scott Rickard: The beautiful math behind the ugliest music

  Jan 21 2012: Actually, I'm rather pleased that people nowadays don't fight duels.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Scott Rickard: The beautiful math behind the ugliest music

  Jan 21 2012: My review of the musical piece:
  
  It didn't have a good beat, and it wasn't easy to dance to.
  
  I was intrigued by the way they eradicated detectable pattern. It wouldn't have been obvious to me to use that "multiply by a prime, modulo 88" technique. I'd be looking for something more arcane than that, like pulling digits off Pi or something.

• A comment on Talk: Ben Katchor's comics of bygone New York

  Oct 24 2011: I've watched maybe 100 TED videos. When possible I rate them. This is the FIRST time I've marked even ONE negative rating (let alone three).
  
  This video seemed concerned with unimportant minutiae. I don't come to TED for a "show about nothing". I don't care if somebody considers the sound of a light switch ever so slightly gauche.
  
  This post and my votes can, of course, be swamped by those of others. So if nobody else feels the same way, it's no big deal.

• A reply on Conversation: China's communist party , have invited china's richest person to join its Central Committee, is this the first step towards democracy?

  Oct 4 2011: I do not disagree with what you say. If you read the precise wording of my original reply, you'll see that it isn't a blanket condemnation of the rich.
  
  Incidentally, one of my best friends was rich once. He's very nice. He actually does care about people, provided they aren't customers. Customers occupy a different mental space for him.
  
  Money is a weird thing.
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: How to Stop the robbery?

  Oct 3 2011: No, giving something a name does not automatically make it okay. What I wrote was mostly a joke, though it does have a serious side.
  
  A rich man might pay law enforcement officers to keep people away from his property. Or he can be taxed in the name of social welfare. Either way he pays, and either way there is a reduced incentive to steal his possessions. But which way costs less in the long run?
  
  Different people have different beliefs about that.