TED Community Β» Michael Clancy

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About Me

Avid thinker, cult survivor (left Scientology as a child and spent years homeless wandering Chicago as a teen after being forced to disconnect from my parents), non religious, I see the world from a very high perspective - Some would say too high.

Married with two children. I work in information security and am an amateur beer brewer.

Location:
United States, Concord, CA
Current organization:
Lions Club
Past organizations:
Survival International
Gender:
Male
Areas of expertise:
Information Security, anthropology, Beer brewing, cognitive dissonance, cult recovery
I am:
Activist, Brainstormer, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Global soul, Idea generator, Job-seeker, Parent, Technologist, Web guru
Universities:
University of Illinois Chicago
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More About Me

I'm passionate about

Energy, Social justice, Equality that does not harm future generations.

An idea worth spreading

We must push our evolution if we are to survive. Long distance space travel and colonization will be impossible without it. If we don't, we will hit the limit of our planet and either parish or slip into an extended dark age until we do.

Talk to me about

Human behavior from a high perspective

People don't know that I'm good at

Billiards (great for meditating)

Comments

  • TEDCred score: +0.80 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

  • +1

    A reply on Conversation: What could be the most appropriate cause for non-profit organisations to invest in for a better future of humanity?

    Sep 28 2011: Your welcome. Two things we need right now... brutal honesty and humility.
  • +1

    A comment on Conversation: What could be the most appropriate cause for non-profit organisations to invest in for a better future of humanity?

    Sep 28 2011: I agree with education and the timing is great as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is putting billions into the effort. Any additional effort might be the tipping point that is needed.

    Disclosure: I have 2 kids so I am biased.
  • +1

    A comment on Conversation: “What view of religion might advance humankind’s psychological maturity?”

    Sep 28 2011: I have read most of the other conversations but must say some of them are stuck out on the metaphysical branches of the original thesis. Complicated subjects need to be kept simple when defining them and sometimes you have to stop thinking. Believe me I have "thought" myself into many corners. It wasn't until I looked back at my work and realized I had over-analyzed it.

    We discuss psychological development but I was referring to it on the macro level (millions of years). Societies behavior shapes itself around the behavior of those who are successful. Only time will tell whether or not non believers can be successful. The thing is... we aren't having enough kids. This means we will be leaving our children in a world run by delusion.

    My maturity didn't start until I looked at the clutter I filled my head with and started cleaning house.

    Bottom line... Delusion is a winning evolutionary strategy. You can't deny it. If you do then... That proves my point. hehe I crack me up.
  • +1

    A comment on Conversation: A website-based humanitarian L.A.R.P. (live action role playing) game.

    Sep 27 2011: A couple of ideas

    1 - It would have to become popular. Posting videos of the deeds (like planking) and encourage an unwritten rule to up-vote the videos to increase visability. It must become a meme.
    2 - include virtual charity like (my favorites) protein folding, planet hunting and galaxy zoo. We could form groups inside these communities with the Ted name on it (or whatever identity chosen).
    3 - discourage aggressive oneupsmanship. Its good to have competition but we don't want a toxic environment either. This probably won't happen in this community but the wider audience may get out of hand.
    4 - Make it about lots of small acts so people don't get discouraged.

    This is a great idea - I am on board
  • +1

    A reply on Conversation: “What view of religion might advance humankind’s psychological maturity?”

    Sep 27 2011: There are very specific reasons I use immeasurable over unprovable. Unprovable is to rigid of a word. Proof to an individual may be nothing more than the realization that religion serves the purpose of organizing individuals to share resources and offers us a reprieve from our distant view of evolution. Look throughout history and you will see that "proof" is as subjective as empathy.

    From the perspective of evolution, psychological development is no different than how your lip formed over millenia. Evolution only cares that it works.

    My viewpoint may be correct to me but its not a very efficient method of survival. Which is why we lose so many great minds to religion.

    To address the requirement of doctrine in your search. This seems to be a search through the prism of Abrahamic religions. I put superstition under the umbrella of religion and it has little to no doctrine, in fact it has only a memelike existance, but is familiar enough with those who engage in it to assist in the formation of human bonding.

    We need to be careful as non-believers not to use words like unprovable as the definition will be rejected by enough of the population to render it useless and may appear disengenuous to others.

    To address any deficiency, religion is simple enough to describe in one sentence. We must not fall into the trap of trying to include all the different flavors of religions and just define the word without trying to make a point.

    Another itteration...

    A formed group or identity based around immeasurable claims.

    This gives it the needed object.

  • A reply on Conversation: What is the future of libraries?

    Sep 27 2011: I believe this is already being done. Open source education. I will post when I find the school that started this. Its top tier schools that are doing this too.

    Edit
    MIT opencourseware
    Stanfords engineering everywhere
    Academic earth

    To name a few

  • A reply on Conversation: “What view of religion might advance humankind’s psychological maturity?”

    Sep 27 2011: Yes, I would say

    Any immeasurable claim that exerts influence on a group or society.

    I oversimplify this but sometimes a thing this complcated needs a simple definition.
  • +1

    A comment on Conversation: “What view of religion might advance humankind’s psychological maturity?”

    Sep 26 2011: I agree that empathy can defeats hate, but consider that empathy is subjective to the wider ideology of the group or society. Empathy is an evolutionary response with positive outcomes.

    As long as we have laugh tracks on TV shows while people are being hurt or humiliated, empathy will be limited in our society. There are many other reasons but this one is foremost in my mind.
  • +1

    A comment on Conversation: What is the future of libraries?

    Sep 26 2011: The primary purpose will be public access to the internet unless we socialize that access. There will still be buildings to store these books but it will be more like a warehouse than a library.

    Most forms of physical media will phase out which is why I collect books now.

  • A comment on Conversation: “What view of religion might advance humankind’s psychological maturity?”

    Sep 26 2011: Anything that requires the phrase "I believe" and has no definition in the physical world that we measure and observe.

    I enjoy the etymology of the word -

    The word can be traced back to an old Latin word religio meaning "taboo, restraint." A deeper study discovers the word comes from the two words re and ligare. Re is a prefix meaning "return," and ligare means "to bind;" in other words, "return to bondage." ~ Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
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