TED Community » Thomas Schmall

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Philosophy, Art, Games, Biology/Evolution

An idea worth spreading

I personally like to think a lot about the idea of what "me" really is. I think that we cannot just restrict it to our body - our body might change. But our "me" is also our environment - since it influences us, and we influence it. There is no big difference to lets say our arm - which we just naturally accept as part of ourselves. That's just a little thought experiment I started, but it has quite some interesting applications... I think... I'm just rambling here...

Comments

• TEDCred score: +26.60 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +2

  A comment on Talk: Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism

  Jun 5 2013: First he mentions how rationally guided our moral compass should be - and then he praises Gates and Buffet as the most effective altruists? Shouldn't he use some rationality here and praise people by there effort based on what they can do, and not just on their numerical output? Or is it by pure coincidence that the two richest people in the world are the most effective altruists?
  
  The whole talk solely provides Harvard/Princeton/Oxford/Yale graduates as examples. Sure that this is that this is much of the target group? Whats goin on here?
  
  And who knows how many people Buffett first killed by making all his fortune by investing in McDonalds, CocaCola and Co?
  And thats not even just implied, but said: to be a good altruist, you first have to become part of the system that led to the problem (best of all irony - ideally become a banker).
  Heck, why not become a drug tycoon then? Maybe you make even faster money and can order 500 workers to Africa to help children.
  
  And so you replace the treadmill of "boring job >> feelgood consumer goods" with "boring job >> feelgood altruism-spending". Because it's mathematically better?
  
  Oh and then: let kids stay blind to invest in Asteroid prevention! Really?
  None of this seems to add up. I sure hope there is some alternative to this rational altruism out there.

• A reply on Talk: Hendrik Poinar: Bring back the woolly mammoth!

  Jun 4 2013: >> But really to return Woolly Mammoths is I think a nonsensical idea, if only because the landscape they needed and required has massively changed.
  
  Did you watch the talk? Because the speaker mentions twice that mammoths lived in diverse areas over strongly changing climate periods. I doubt the last 3000 years are all that different - especially in Siberia and such.
  
  Besides - why not put it in a zoo? Works for elephants.
• +3

  A comment on Talk: Ji-Hae Park: The violin, and my dark night of the soul

  May 28 2013: Just kinda missing the information that seems to be the most pivotal: Why did the music suddenly save her life, when she must have played all those pieces a 1000 times just as she fell into the depression?
  
  Would have been interesting. But doesn't take away from the great performance. And great to hear she's doing fine now.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: David Pogue: 10 top time-saving tech tips

  Apr 28 2013: Also good: When writing text, you can use the arrow keys to move the cursor (not the new part yet)... but with ctrl you can jump whole words. Hold shift and use the arrow keys to select the parts (again, with ctrl it's whole words).
  
  And: Shift-Tab moves backwards through forms.
  
  For scrolling I rather use the middle-mouse click. It brings up an arrow - neat for long pages... even kinda lets you scroll automatically at reading speed.

• A reply on Talk: How much does a video weigh?

  Apr 28 2013: Yeah, and I'm also skeptical about the mirror part. Glass is green - as one can see if there is a stack of glass. So naturally if the light bounces between two, it'll turn more green.
  The video question seems nonsense on the face of it, and it didn't get better with the explanation. Asking questions is cool - but maybe there are just some questions that are too stupid to really answer.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Keller Rinaudo: A mini robot -- powered by your phone

  Apr 17 2013: "Sorta like the one-computer-per-child-concept for robots."
  
  Sure, just like that - only 700$ more expensive.
  
  "Imagine a swarm of them demonstrating emerging behavior, what then?"
  
  I'm not arguing against robotics. There are lots of way cheaper alternatives out there, that have the same or more capabilities than shown here. And with Arduino for example it's actually more customizable... and open source.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Keller Rinaudo: A mini robot -- powered by your phone

  Apr 17 2013: For all I saw there was no unique or world-changing technological advance shown. It's a product that is highlighted - and hyped with buzzwords.
  If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck.
• +7

  A comment on Talk: Keller Rinaudo: A mini robot -- powered by your phone

  Apr 16 2013: Really? Cheap commercials like this are now the use of TED? But talks that criticize rich people are banned because they're controversial?
  
  Not "everyone loves the Iphone". Nor do I need to express myself through the emotions of a cartoon face. I can use my own.
  I would even think there are better toys out there - and more interactive ones.

• A reply on Talk: Keith Chen: Could your language affect your ability to save money?

  Mar 28 2013: Hard to know what your friend meant without the specific examples. But in German one would commonly say "Ich geh duschen". Which has the equivalent of "going" in there.
  Then again in English I could also say "I'll take a shower", which doesn't (but has the will).
  
  The more I think of it, the more skeptical I get. I mean, it's not that Germans have no idea of what future means - nor do they lack words to express it. It's merely that most verbs in some forms do not specifically express it. Not a very strong case.

• A comment on Talk: Keith Chen: Could your language affect your ability to save money?

  Mar 28 2013: I dunno - I remain a bit skeptical. People in Belgium speak usually both French and Dutch fluent. Most Africans grow up with several more languages, since they have so many there.
  Germans are also considered very frugal and forward planning. Which contradicts his notion.
  In fact, that the data of the presentation seems all so perfect and neat with no deviations. Which makes me even more suspicious... when does that ever happen in the real world?