TED Community » Justin Barth

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Technological advances that will help push our society towards a greener future. Anything that deals with polution or how to prevent polution is of interest to me.

Talk to me about

Anything technology related. I'm interested in technology that is revolutionary and can change how the world works. I'm also interested in education or lack of education or trends in education.

People don't know that I'm good at

Building systems.

My TED Story

I stumbled upon Justin Hall's talk about energy and how we have the technology now to fix our problems, but we just haven't done anything about it yet. Since then, I have been on TED talks regularly. Just thought I would join the community, since I'm becoming such a TED talk addict.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.20 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A reply on Talk: Jonathan Foley: The other inconvenient truth

  Apr 16 2012: Like you said, it is more than just education. Developed countries also have a much easier time controlling their birth rate. There are many forms of birth control options to fit various women's lifestyles.
  
  The problem with underdeveloped countries is that they have to prioritize other things above birth control or they have cultural differences that restrict birth control.

• A reply on Talk: Put the financial aid in the bag

  Apr 8 2012: I agree, but just like every other business, education is in it for the money. There is absolutely no reason why higher education should cost the amount it does unless it was meant to hold people back. Then finacial companies make it seem like they are helping by offering you the chance of taking loans for you classes.
  
  I was given absolutely zero financial support while I got my degree in business management, yet so many people can go to college on another's dime through grants or other forms of aid. The system itself supports inequality rather than equality. I grew up changing schools, adjusting my curriculum/class schedules, and reintegrating myself into the format that school used to teach their students. Not all schools teach the same. Don't tell me I was one of those that was privilleged. The whole point I'm making now is that the financial support isn't fair either.
  
  The college charges too much to prevent everyone from gaining access.
  Financial institutes that support college's crazy expenses further augment the unfair inequality that is seen in higher education.
  
  What is the fix? Lower the cost of higher education. I paid 1800 a class at my university. There was somewhere between 10-15 students per class. That means the college received 18,000 to 27,000 just for my class that semester. Check a college curriculum for any given semester and see how many classes are offered. Run a rough estimate on how much they are making per semester. That is way more than what is needed.

• A reply on Conversation: Technology doesn't create loneliness, it reveals it. Once revealed, technology can help alleviate isolation and spur connection.

  Apr 6 2012: I was never saying we should shun the traditional methods of communication (face to face). I'm simply saying that just because a new type of communication comes into the picture you are not comfortable using, doesn't make it less meaningful to others. I feel the benefits to online sharing and micro updates are great and I feel they have a place in communication.
  
  I just disagree that they are disconnecting us from face to face conversations. I feel they augment our face to face conversations.

• A comment on Conversation: Innovation - More worthy than fighting poverty?

  Apr 5 2012: You cannot fix poverty.
  
  Humanity strives to better itself. Some people are more successful because of physical ability or mental ability or pure chance falls upon them. These individuals who have the advantage see how it increases their comfort. They do what it takes to remain in an advantagous state. Using business in any aspect to further increase an individual's wealth is just common sense so the individual can sustain their current comfort levels. Inadvertently their success in the production of some product or service will make others poorer because the individual offering said product or service is trying to make a profit in order to sustain or increase their comfort level.
  
  Some people are so unlucky they are without the chance to even play the game and are many times unable to even use the land to survive because some individual somewhere owns it and has it protected. They protect their investment because that is what keeps them at their current status level and comfort level.
  
  Until you can convence the world and I mean everyone in the world to do things without profit and offer them to anyone who is interested without personal gain, you will not find a way to stop poverty. No level of innovation will fix poverty and no matter how many sick and starving people their are, there will always be those that only think about personal gain and comfort level.
  
  Plus, poverty isn't a bad thing. Poverty gives people the reason to innovate.
  
  Example:
  So and so figured out a way to do something at 1/3 the cost. They now have more money to live more comfortably because they have elevated themselves. Without the urge to save where ever they could in order to survive, they may not have discovered or invented a method of saving money.
  
  Poverty is a driving force. Whether you are in poverty fighting to get out or have money striving to stay away from poverty, it is still the motivation that pushes us to innovate.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Technology doesn't create loneliness, it reveals it. Once revealed, technology can help alleviate isolation and spur connection.

  Apr 5 2012: I don't see how technology creates loneliness at all. Twenty years ago if you were shy and couldn't communicate in person, you were forced to live a life alone. Today, many people who are too shy in person can have quite an online social life and a successful one. The idea that Sherry Turkle hold about us sacrificing communication for online sharing and a mere connection is wrong in my opinion.
  
  The whole idea of communication is to find connection. Just because she does not find the same level of connection as others do with online sharing doesn't make it worthless or have less meaning. To others this might actually be a better way to communicate.
  
  For example:
  I saw something that was funny on youtube and wanted to tell my friends about it. I could tell them when I see them in person or I could just link it directly to them since I can easily copy the link. Before the era of Internet sharing I would have been forced to talk about what I saw in a video and hope they understood just how funny it was, which coined the phrase, "You would have had to been there to understand." or "I guess you would have had to been there."
  
  Guess what, now we don't need to say that because we just linked the entire video directly to them. Now the communication was instant, and exactly how it was perceived by the original person. Now the conversation can go beyond just talking about what you saw into what you saw plus the shared connections of how it made you feel or what you got out of it or if it was genuinely funny for both of you.
  
  I'm sorry, I just don't see how sharing is not communicating. It in many cases is superior to just conversating about something.
  
  I grew up on games and the Internet and had next to no social life during my elementary days. When the Internet started to boom, my ability to communicate blasted through the roof. I'm now one of the center of the party social conversationalists. I didn't learn it from talking face to face. I learned it from the Internet.

• A comment on Conversation: Does more technology decrease a person's ability?

  Apr 5 2012: No, I can say with absolute confidence that more technology does not decrease a person's ability. The simple fact that tachnology makes things easier to accomplish tasks allows us to spend more time finding the next step rather than relearning the first step with each new generation. Just look at how fast we have developed since we started to document things.
  
  This leap frogging effect of benefitting from past generation development only becomes a bad thing if we stop documenting the steps or the steps are lost. Not documenting the steps of the discover will never happen. Now, let's pretend that in 30 years in the future the Internet crashes and all digital life is suddenly gone. Let's also pretend that for the last 20 years everything was documented digitally. The last 20 years of development is now lost forever unless you are one of the people who understood the development of the steps during the lost 20 year. In this situation, yes, technology decreased individual ability.
  
  So, what I'm saying is only in the event of lost technology is a person's ability hindered.