TED Community » David Scholz

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Science, Education, Languages, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Privacy Rights

Talk to me about

Anything but soccer, really.

People don't know that I'm good at

being modest.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +22.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +4

  A comment on Talk: Eric Whitacre: A choir as big as the Internet

  Apr 26 2010: Breathtakingly beautiful. I am absolutely in awe of this display of collaborative effort and the art piece it resulted in. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

• A comment on Talk: Philip K. Howard: Four ways to fix a broken legal system

  Feb 22 2010: A very emotional talk, and he's making a very valid point. It's happening everywhere, too. If only there were a way to counter greed and foster trust... *sigh* but I am straying from the issue.
  I have to admit I had to laugh very hard when I heard Philip's remark on the idiots. Hahaha. Sadly, that's so true.
  Thank you for sharing this, Mr. Howard.
  
  On a related note: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html Barry makes similar points... we have to wake up.

• A reply on Talk: David Cameron: The next age of government

  Feb 21 2010: I agree with the notion that this was rather distasteful.
  That's not to say there were no good points in this talk, but from my perspective, the huge amount of hypocrisy involved in that 'power to the people' statement made by a representative of a government (which, like other govs, is using the boiling frog strategy to strip the citizen of their last bit of privacy) disgusts me.
  
  Ironically it's this information revolution that exposes on a daily basis just how hypocritical these puppets, pardon, politicians are.
  
  Edit: @Peter: "do you really think everybody can decide whether for instance the war in afghanistan is a good plan?" See, the question is whether it's better to have those few who profit from it decide [e.g. the arms industry] or those who pay for it [i.e. the citizen]. Townhall meetings are attended by a small sample of the population, and a very select sample at that, so they're not representative. Besides, even less are hellbent on sending their children off to war.
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Jamie Heywood: The big idea my brother inspired

  Feb 16 2010: There was a column recently in our monthly faculty newspaper about the poor availability of data due to the researchers' unwillingness to share (only 16% did... I'll dig up the reference for anyone interested). If the patients themselves share...
  Of course there are some methodological issues with this way of doing things, but I think this is a wonderful step forward. The more information is made available to the public, the better. If only one company were to be able to see and get to play with the data, I'd worry about privacy issues, but this way people know what they're doing and receive immediate feedback. Thumbs up, Jamie.
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt

  Feb 11 2010: "Religion is not the only path to morality."
  I doubt religion is a path to morality.
  Either you adhere to certain moral or ethical standards, or you don't.
  At best, it's the community around you that en- or discourages this.
  
  I'll quote Christopher Hitchens and pose this challenge:
  
  "…can you name me a single moral action performed or moral statement uttered by a person of faith that couldn’t be just as well pronounced or undertaken by a civilian?"

• A comment on Talk: Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration

  Jun 16 2009: A very inspiring and clever talk. Even though I like his latest talk better, this one goes on my fav list, too. Just one thing irritates me a bit... he's the first person I ever heard to turn a spelling mistake into pronounced speech (Hwere, Hwat). ;)
• +5

  A reply on Talk: David Deutsch: Chemical scum that dream of distant quasars

  Jun 6 2009: No dinos needed on the ark, if there had been two individuals of every insect species, no matter how big the boat, it would have sunk. ;)
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Larry Burns on the future of cars

  Jun 3 2009: Maybe you should take biology and chemistry classes to fix your gaps in the understanding of the matter at hand... You're mixing up a whole lot of issues here. Firstly, you can produce hydrogen in a number of ways, water is just another compound (molecule) that partly consists of hydrogen that can be decomposed into its constituents. It's by far the most abundant of all elements, so we aren't going to run short of hydrogen anytime soon. Secondly, 'water shortages' have little to do with availability of water per se, it's the limited access to purified (drinking) water. Since you're Austrian, you can read up on the 'salt cycle' here http://www.rua.ch/rhein/Region03Destination08Salzvorkommen.htm .
• +4

  A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

  Jun 2 2009: Please explain to me your vision of intense business competition in the abortion and gay marriage sector, I am profoundly intrigued.

• A comment on Talk: Craig Venter: On the verge of creating synthetic life

  May 28 2009: Borg technology, at last! Just kidding. Pretty awesome stuff.