TED Community » Keith Whittingham

Comments

• TEDCred score: +22.20 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Talk: Meg Jay: Why 30 is not the new 20

  4 days ago: I'm kinda surprised that the realization the the 20's are important for the development of a person came as an epiphany...
  
  Looking back, the most defining stage of my life was between 13 and 27, starting well before 20.
• +3

  A comment on Talk: Angela Lee Duckworth: The key to success? Grit

  May 11 2013: This all seems kinda obvious to me. For example, what is the chance of 'success' in any long term task when someone does not persevere?

• A reply on Talk: Jason McCue: Terrorism is a failed brand

  Oct 4 2012: I don't think you can say that we are also consumers. A victim of a gun shot is not the consumer of the gun. The person that buys the gun is the consumer. To buy into terrorism is to start using or advocating it.
  
  There was a talk a year back or so by a woman who explained that, within a terrorist organization, only a few of the group really understand what the issues are. The vast majority don't but these are the ones that do the dirty deeds: the 9/11 and 7/7 bombers, not the big wigs back in *istan. That's what the rebranding is about.

• A reply on Talk: Hans Rosling: Religions and babies

  May 30 2012: Oh you can argue anything with pure data, anything you choose. You just have to be selective about the factual data you use, how you structure it and present it well.
  
  Even with the truth, *the whole truth*, and *nothing but the truth* you can still have spin, emphasis and all kinds of other oratory devices.

• A reply on Talk: Hans Rosling: Religions and babies

  May 30 2012: I agree with all that you say. Where people, and particularly women, are well educated there is a negative growth in population with fertility rates well less than 2. The problem is in the Indian and Africa continents where life expectancy improvement has the greatest potential.
  
  Well educated & capable of educating children population: decreasing
  
  Badly educated & incapable of educating children population: increasing
  
  I smell a problem in the making
  
  WRT religion. It has the biggest effect on the uneducated and poor - and it's not helping. How relevant is it? Not very perhaps so blame Hans R for making it an issue.
• +1

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

  May 30 2012: The amount of sun per m2 is finite. The amount of wind per m2 is finite. Computing, so far, follows Moore's law so you can't really equate one with the other. The only technological breakthrough that could make a significant difference is nuclear fusion but that doesn't work now and it's always around 30-50 years away from being deployable - it's not getting any closer. You can't depend on something that isn't there

• A reply on Talk: Hans Rosling: Religions and babies

  May 27 2012: Yep, I wondered whether my thoughts were because I wanted religion to be a culprit. I'm certainly no fan of religion. But no, I don't think so. There are good reasons to believe that population won't stabilize at 10B unless one of three things happen:
  
  1) Some very positive action is taken right now
  
  2) Something terrible happens
  
  3) A new solution appears that resolves all the problems tied to over population (global warning, shortage of fossil fuels, water, ...)
  
  We are collectively doing 3) and the moment. So far, so good.

• A comment on Talk: Hans Rosling: Religions and babies

  May 27 2012: I watched this a couple of days ago and have felt uncomfortable about it. I have the feeling of being duped, a bit like you do after a chinese meal.
  
  HR tells us
  *There is no correlation between religion and childbirth
  * The world population will peak at 10B
  
  I would argue
  * Religions are obsessed with reproduction, e.g. Monty P's "Every Sperm is Sacred"
  * Female education has a strong correlation with birthrate. Many (most?) religions do not espouse equality
  * The explosion in population growth happened despite birthrate going down - life expectancy 'coupled with' birthrate is the problem and life expectancy will continue to increase
  
  The framework for the arguments in this presentation is very shaky: countries with > 50% is not a good measure, nor is the number of countries statically relevant.
• +4

  A comment on Talk: Hans Rosling: Religions and babies

  May 23 2012: It would be interesting to see where atheists would fit into this graph...
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Hans Rosling: Religions and babies

  May 23 2012: Sorry the sequence is 2, 8, 32, 128, ... but the point is that it's exponential and clearly not sustainable and not a good idea to promote it.