TED Community » Steve Golding

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Ideas. Each other. What's next. Interaction.

An idea worth spreading

We are what we are. Nothing more or less. If I can learn from you and you can learn from me the world is already a better place.

Talk to me about

Geek stuff. The whole vibe.

People don't know that I'm good at

Rhythm. Word association. One liners. Song lyrics.

Comments

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• +2

  A comment on Conversation: American Exceptionalism

  Feb 17 2012: If I may, I will answer with a parallel. In Australia, our patriotic (largely conservative) press likes to talk about "Australian Values" as if helping out a person in need is some exceptional quality that only exists in this nation. I quite often find myself reading about some national disaster like a flood or a cyclone, and hearing about how "the whole community showed amazing Aussie spirit" by pulling so-and-so out of the flood, thinking to myself "thank God they weren't somewhere like Africa or Asia, where the (un-Australian) people would have obviously left them to drown". People are people, and will do what people do. It is only when they let themselves be organised into nationalistic blocs that it becomes a "them-and-us" scenario. America just has more people, more conservative media (sorry about that) and more bombs.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Do we really need an entertainment industry any more?

  Feb 17 2012: Short answer, no. Entertainment has always been a personal, face-to-face transaction, at least for the first few millennia of human existence. It is only in the last century or so that it has become big business. I think technology like the internet, and particularly the social media that has evolved from it, will actually bring us back to a state where the performer performs for the benefit of those who will listen, much like the jesters and buskers of old. We never really needed suits in the middle, taking their cut, and now (give or take a few billion-dollar lawsuits) their days are numbered. There will always be a mass market willing to buy whatever they are told to buy, but the opportunities for people who simply want to make a living doing what they love are growing all the time. Bring it!