TED Community » Spencer Ferri

About Me

How am I defined? Am I defined by my values, or my opinions? Or by my interests? By my accomplishments? By my psychological qualities? By my experiences? By my responses? By a bit of everything here? Or by nothing? I don't know. I do know that I have a great deal of empathy and little ambitious desire. I value empathy over desire. I value moral decisions over practical decisions. And I suspect this perspective is hard-wired in my DNA. I am highly altruistic, but do not believe that altruism is in itself necessary, despite my predisposition to it. I am naturally disdainful of selfish behavior, but I understand that self-consideration must be an equally important factor in living well. But I challenge all our societal structures. I challenge the validity of our political systems, of our economic systems. I challenge the validity of many critics of society as not applying creativity well enough to the problems we face. I challenge religious thinking, but do not challenge religious belief. I do challenge zealous behavior and believe many non-religious people behave zealously. I challenge the idea of "rational self-interest" as being subjective: who's to say what self-interest is rational? Is it so easy to determine the rationality of self-interest? Is it even easy to determine what is really in one's self-interest. Is it an assumption that people prefer to make choices in their best self-interest? Why do the leaders of our world make assumptions as what human nature is? Is there a 'human nature'? How can a selfish-gene push a human to procreate and spread their genes? Isn't this subjective? A gene doesn't know it's a gene. And I don't know I have genes. Could the instinct to breed be more abstract than it seems? Could we simply have an instinct to 'propagate that which we consider to be the center of us'? Is that the source of our desire to enforce our personal moral ideologies, or to survive through history? I don't know what's true or good. I only have the desire to pursue the ideas. I'm not entirely sure there is truth. I wonder if the very idea that philosophy must be broken down into logically intuitive scenarios is false. After all, quantum physics seems to indicate the fundamental parts of our structure behave counter-intuitively. Perhaps something is equally moral and immoral until the circumstance of moral issue is experienced? Why does anyone consider our society right now to be on the right track, if the 'right' is unsure? And how can anyone comfortably accept that there are few possible superior ideas to the ones which we hold on any topic at any point? Why is our society built upon ceaseless-action? Is it an assumption that ceaseless-action is good? Is there value in 'going slow'? Is there value to nations above all other possible forms of social-organizations? Why? Am I my questions? I don't know what or who I am. Why don't we discuss the question?

Location:
Canada, Barrie
Current organization:
and a talker!
Current role:
Just a thinker
Gender:
Male
Areas of expertise:
Philosophy, Jack of all Trades
Associations:
Tiered Democratic Governance, The Online Party of Canada
Universities:
Laurentian Univeristy
Member Picture

More About Me

I'm passionate about

So many things. I'm passionate about music and art and literature. I'm passionate about the immediate experience. I'm passionate about politics, science, economy, spirituality - and sci fi!

An idea worth spreading

Tiered Democratic Governance is not my idea, but it's an idea worth spreading. The creation of the idea came from the belief that radical change had to be implemented to the western democratic after a critical analysis of its own system was undertaken. Here is the Facebook summary of TDG: "Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG) is a bottom-up strategy designed to confront many of the limitations of modern western democracy. It eliminates the need for parties thus eliminating the need for campaigning, partisanship and arrogance in our political world." Look it up on Google. Cool stuff. Very radical. Very intelligent.

Talk to me about

Anything. I think all information is important! And challenge me. I do not hold the notion that my opinions are certainly the best, and only hold them because I've challenged my preceding beliefs.

People don't know that I'm good at

I don't know what people don't know I'm good at, partially because I'm not sure I know what I'm good at.

My TED Story

I'll write more about this once I've figured out what a TED story is.

Comments

  • TEDCred score: +3.40 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

  • +3

    A reply on Talk: iO Tillett Wright: Fifty shades of gay

    Jan 30 2013: The thing is, when greater society is already putting 'those people' in a box, the steps to fixing the problem is not on an individual level stopping any consideration of what 'those people' mean and who they are. That's where we want to get. But the problem is that the state of silence which we want to achieve can only be achieved once all people agree that it's not a very important consideration: people an all parts of the spectrum of sexuality are so equal that their sexuality shouldn't be considered. And the only way to achieve this state is to strike up a conversation with those who do not agree, and the only way to have a healthy conversation in that manner is to involve 'those people'.

    So while you attempt to critique her perspective as essentially hypocritical, it really isn't. It's realistic and it's strategic. We need to talk about it, and we need to talk about it loudly and dramatically in order to engage people. Then the conversation will hit a climax, a new statement will be struck unto the social contract we all more or less abide by and we will finally be able to stop talking about it.

    And it's interesting that you must critique the stimulation that comes from 'goodness'. We are a species which is motivated by stimulation, one kind or another, and to each of us is a unique blend of what does and does not stimulate us. Whether we are motivated by goodness, or hunger, or achievement, or conflict - we are stimulated. You can re-word your criticism to critique mostly everyone on earth. That would only lead to a hatred of humanity. Instead, do not be bothered by what stimulates people to motion... Only the quality of individual attempts at stimulation.

  • A reply on Conversation: Is the universe a computer simulation

    Dec 17 2012: That is, if. Statistically speaking we only know of one planet which is inhabited, which doesn't make for very good statistics. We know there are many planets, and that it's not altogether rare for planets to be within the habitable ring, and that organic matter can occur outside of the earth. There's also signs that moons could possibly be habitable. But still only one planet with signs of life ever having existed!

  • A comment on Conversation: I've grown tired of TED Conversations in just one month. Why?

    Dec 4 2012: Dear Mike, do you believe that the world is going to end this month? And what about the economy!?!?

    I'd been pushed off these forums temporarily for the same reasons. But there are redeeming qualities to this forum that don't exist in others.

    Listen, if you run from every open communication social forum like this 'cause 'pop party lines' are proportionately represented, you're only going to chase yourself into the dark and esoteric corners of paranoid speculation which shadow the 'pop internet'. What sets this forum apart from others is not the quality of the average conversation, it's the potential for interesting conversation to succeed in rivalry. Just persist in ignoring those conversations which aren't relevant and bring up other conversation points.

  • A reply on Conversation: Why does the American government meddle in everything?

    Dec 4 2012: I'm from Canada, but as I understand it America and Canada don't differ greatly when it comes to education systems. If they're anything like us, then only a small amount of ancient history is objectively taught in mandatory classes throughout a persons education. Mostly only Western history is touched on, modern history in secondary school. But if other history courses are taken, other histories are learned. I took an ancient civilizations course, for example, which was about: Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Byzantines, Rome, Japan and Arab ancient histories. It was only a precursor course to larger courses going more indpeth in ancient, foreign history.

    It's not that it's ignored, only that it's not mandatory knowledge.

  • A reply on Conversation: Is Social Business the future of capitalism ?

    May 28 2012: You've read my mind, friend. Please check out my short essay on "Scientific Positivism". Your primary points are all repeated in different words and expanded, even as it alludes to future writings.

    http://www.wattpad.com/4828470-scientific-positivism-a-new-philosophy
  • +1

    A comment on Talk: David MacKay: A reality check on renewables

    May 27 2012: I'm no mathamatologist, but isn't there more to math and economy than described in his equation used at about 3 minutes in?

    Ok, so, one hectare of plantation grows 1200 liters of biofuel, which is about 317 gallons per year. 30m per gallon, so 317 galons is good for 10 miles and change. I made some crude assumptions: thirty-five million groups of Canadians across the nation needing to drive for various reason amounting to ten hours a week. There are a million variables which could be accounted for, but I'm only trying to figure out some quick and dirty math. Ten hours of driving 60 km/h is something like 1.45 billion miles driven a year. If 317 gallons is produced by each hectare, we need almost 2 million hectares of bio fuel plantation, which is something like 20'000 square kilometers of plantation to sustain thirty-five million driving Canadians yearly.

    Isn't this a more logical mathematical process to determine whether or not we could sustain driving needs with biofuels? For pessimism sake could triple my usage expectation and still manage 60'000 Km's of plantation yearly, couldn't we?

  • A reply on Conversation: "If you can't win, change the rules." this is what we should do with financial crisis.

    Apr 24 2012: I read your book. I wanted to learn about your utopia - but now I see it's more of a Fruitopia...

    ;)

    Just kidding - I'm in the mood for Simpsons references.

    So, your Fundament is like an closed bubble-economy dealing strictly with energy-products, the relationship between those products and its monetary value, and the printing/distribution of that money to employees of the Fundament (assumably farmers, educators, miners, et. al.) and to the general people. The people then use the currency to spend the energy produced/stored/distributed by the Fundament in an open market system which deals with all matters of art and luxury (non-energy-products). It's like a relationship between a "socialist" economic bubble (only in the sense that it is a centralized and unrivaled organization, I understand that it's not controlled by the government) dealing with energy-products, and a capitalist market dealing with all art/culture/luxury. Or have I misread?

  • A comment on Conversation: Would you translate (or spread) a TED talk if you didn't agree with it's topic or the speaker's point of view?

    Apr 23 2012: ALL arguments deserve to be heard, so long as they who express are open to criticism which matches their expression. I don't often share articles which I disagree with, but not because I'm unwilling. Indeed, were I to volunteer to translate a talk and got one here I didn't agree with I would certainly translate it. We must have an honest, open conversation! All should be willing to discuss any topic!
  • +2

    A comment on Conversation: What would be your question if you've been granted to ask a single one from Almighty & if you are sure that will be answered correctly"

    Apr 4 2012: What episode of Star Trek is the best episode?
  • +2

    A comment on Conversation: How have you benefited from TED?

    Mar 31 2012: Truly? TED keeps me from losing faith in humanity. Individuals with widely different political/social/philosophical views openly discussing such topics respectfully. Such an amazing phenomenon.

    I think TED's biggest potential is in support of the Open Source movement, which can drastically (and imo positively) change many, many industries.
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