TED Community » Tyler Hopkins

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• A reply on Talk: Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim

  Apr 6 2013: I'd Like To See An Online Public Forum Installed Where All ElEction Information Is Posted, Sort Of Like A Public Notice. The Huge Problem With This Is People Who Have No Affiliation With The candidates Will Start To Campaign Indirectly. They Run An Ad In Favor Of Something with Out Mentioning A Candidate, How Do You Stop That With Out Getting Stream Rolled In Court for First Amendment Violations? I Don't Know Why My Phone Put This On Caps....
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  A comment on Conversation: How can we best engage college students in the idea of learning instead of just getting a degree?

  Mar 17 2013: YES!!! I'm a little crazy about this question because I'm still stuck in the middle of it so I admit that is a bias. IMHO I think the problem in general is that school gets in the way of learning instead of facilitating it. There are three suggestions I have.
  
  1. Adopt technology. Its just the way we think and work and it will facilitate everything else we need to do.
  
  2. Allow more flexibility. Yes there are a lot of interesting things in the world but I only have so much time and so maybe I want to spend more time learning about genetics and a lot less thinking about something someone else thinks is a worthy subject. If you do this people will be more interested because they can tailor their individual major and it would be even better to be able to tailor individual classes.
  
  3. Focus on skills. In the end the biggest thing I want from college is the ability to actually do something. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off if I could have just gotten an internship or apprenticeship that would have actually taught me an actual skill. Even complicated things can picked up in this manner. The most useful experience I had was volunteering in a research lab.
  
  I'm not sure about the details but I do know that I feel like college sucks the excitement out of learning, even subjects that I love. This needs to change and I'm willing to make a big push for this.

• A reply on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 17 2013: Ok, I like that. Now I'm mad that we don't have that! I really can't find another big hole in it. I wonder if something close to this has been tried? doubtful. Anyways, thank you for the very interesting convo, but now I have to get back to working on my thesis! Thanks again!

• A reply on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 17 2013: Ok, I'm still trying to think about that. What do you mean by human dignity? What about saying....Justice is the most important law and it's absolute, and that mercy is encouraged but we can't force it? This is basically straight frederick bastiat and I'm not even sure if I LIKE the way that's phrased or if I completely understand it.

• A reply on Conversation: Are science & spirituality one and the same?

  Mar 17 2013: haha, interesting stuff. I was looking at it from a sort of, technical how-to aspect. Does that make sense? I've always felt like when I step into my lab (i do nutritional research) or when I'm trying to understand...happiness/spirituality. I'm basically using the same procedures. Here's an exercise: Try putting the scientific method into spiritual terms. It really blew me away! Tell me what you think!

• A reply on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 17 2013: Larry, Ok that clicks now. I agree with you on most of this stuff now, especially the point on corruption and how it's something common to all of us, That definitely turned on the light.
  
  Now my only concern is, and maybe I'm just not getting it yet, how would you make the local leader accountable to me and you? Or for example, I'm pretty out there and I'm sure most people wouldn't agree with my way of thinking on things. So if a guy like me got drawn, I might tick everybody off? What about drawing more than one? That way if you got a crazy like me, the other 2 or so people in the executive position could at least keep me from doing anything...tooo obnoxious?

• A reply on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 17 2013: haha, ok, I'm not sure what I think of Ayn rand specifically, but putting that aside. I would agree with you that there is no true capitalism as in a free market. And I agree that I can't give you an example of a pure free market. I admit my ideas are fairly rare and not enough people agree with me for us to have an example worth talking about. I agree that the world does see us as capitalists and we've done very little to make them impressed with capitalism, altough we are a very strong nation in many respects despite our stupidity. I also agree that there is more to the economic world than the profit motive. I said earlier that a true capitalist is the one who works hard to achieve his dream with his own resources, I didn't mean to imply that those dreams were all monetary. For example I dream about starting a non profit school, but I don't want to force other people to help me do it
  
  I also agree there's a lot of corruption and capitalism (even the kind that i want) has problems. But then again most governments are. What do you think about establishing a more...I'm not sure how to put this...effective court system where people who have been wronged can receive justice?
  
  I didn't mean to imply that I want to throw out the book of regulations (it's actually a pile), We need a lot for sure, I would just like to see them become easier to understand so that one man businesses and lay people can follow them. I know that's not possible in every sense but would you agree we could simplify things? I believe that would give smaller outfits a fighting chance to compete

• A reply on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?

  Mar 17 2013: All right, I like where you're going with this and I promise I won't mumble anything like that! I especially like the idea of term limits and eliminating the career politician. My only concern with the guy who got drawn out of the hat is accountability and making sure that he answers to most of us. How would you address that? I agree with you on the foreign wars too. Every time I hear politicos talking about their justification for their various boondogles it drives me nuts.
  
  Ok, here's another idea that I like: The government closest to you should be the government with the most power (talking about state, city, federal here) What if we said that individual cities got a lot more lee way in deciding how things got done? That way my vote and your vote matter a whole lot more, it's easier to have a face to face with people in charge and we could have more diversity of governments and allow more people to decide how THEY wanted to live. Thoughts?

• A reply on Talk: Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud

  Mar 16 2013: ok, that's an interesting point but what form does that need to be? I'm serious, this is a very big question to me. What about a mixture?

• A reply on Talk: Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud

  Mar 16 2013: Good point, we need a better phrase for that!