TED Community » Nikhil Sheth

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Environment, using new ideas to solve our old problems, togetherness, innovation

People don't know that I'm good at

public speaking, explaining complex things in simple ways, creative problem solution

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.60 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: Plural Marriage

  May 21 2012: I don't know about Australia, but social acceptance of more than one husband for a woman is the need of the hour in countries like India where decades of sex selection has created a social crisis : There are way too many men and way too less women for a standard 1:1 pairing. Already this has started in a sick manner - brides are being brought in to families of multiple brothers and are forced to have sex with all the brothers. Women are being commoditized and bought and sold. We need to overturn centuries of discrimination and give women an equal footing. The option of having more than one husband would go a long way - it would most importantly knock men off of this ownership mentality.

• A comment on Talk: Bart Knols: Cheese, dogs and a pill to kill mosquitoes and end malaria

  May 20 2012: I want to see that pill available at all chemist shops in India for really really cheap. Now please dont tell me this pill is only for the rich - they dont have a mosquito problem!!

• A comment on Conversation: What's one thing you wish you had learned in school?

  Nov 4 2011: I wish I'd been taught hands-on how to grow my own food, and how to use basic tools and do rudimentary repairs when things broke. Schools think parents will teach that and parents think schools will teach that and then nobody teaches it. (Indian education system)
  Oh, and sex ed as well. And understanding the opposite sex. Would have saved me from a whole lot of trouble and guilt complexes and confusion ;)

• A comment on Conversation: Why don't people believe the fact of evolution?

  Apr 14 2011: Sharing an interesting experience... in another discussion group, someone confidently gave me the link to an ebook and told me that it conclusively disproves evolution using scientific data. I opened it up and the central point around which the whole book revolved was this : With the discovery of living fossils - ie, species whose imprints have been found in fossils but have also been found to be thriving to this day - evolution was disproved. It claimed that according to the evolution theory, EVERY fossil MUST be of an extinct animal. The author had taken care to mention a religious figure's name at every alternate sentence to lend himself some credibility. I had trouble controlling my laughter, then had to explain to my friend to please resist shoving lies down people's throats : There was no co-relation between fossils and extinction; no "evolutionist" ever said anything like that; and if that were to be believed then a simple human skeleton found in a cave would lead one to believe humans have gone extinct! :P
  So they pretty much float on hot air - it can get a little difficult to find out how to puncture the balloon but it sure makes for great entertainment.

• A comment on Conversation: Why don't we use technology to have a real Direct Democracy?

  Mar 22 2011: Julian, thanks for starting this thread. This movie (released publicly on the web, FYI) "Us Now" really summed it up. A leaderless society where everybody is a part of the decision making process, and one where the best decisions can emerge out of seeming chaos, is possible.
  http://www.usnowfilm.com/
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: Why don't we use technology to have a real Direct Democracy?

  Mar 22 2011: Laurence, I disagree with you. Please don't think every human on the planet is an American.
  Upon deep conversation, I've seen true wisdom and real solutions come from average on-the-street people in my country, India. The dumb ones are the people sitting in air-conditioned homes and offices, unfortunately they're the ones making the decisions.
  
  If we REALLY used technology, ex: extended internet access to every citizen, then I'm sure we'd have a much better managed society. A billion interconnected heads are always better than a small coterie.
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Dianna Cohen: Tough truths about plastic pollution

  Nov 24 2010: Has anyone here seen this video?
  A man in Japan as created a machine that converts plastic to oil.
  http://www.flixxy.com/convert-plastic-to-oil.htm
  Here's a description: The machine produced in various sizes, for both industrial and home uses, can easily transform a kilogram of plastic waste into a liter of oil, using about 1 kilowatt of electricity but without emitting CO2 in the process. The machine uses a temperature controlling electric heater instead of flames, processing anything from polyethylene or polystyrene to polypropylene (numbers 2-4). Comment: 1 kg of plastic produces one liter of oil, which costs $1.50. This process uses only about 1 kilowatt of electricity, which costs less than 20 cents!

• A comment on Talk: Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education

  Sep 8 2010: Brilliant With this idea, we can get rid of the biggest hurdle facing education today - lack of teachers. Who'd have thought that the answer lay in getting rid of the idea of teachers entirely! It's like suddenly switching from landlines to cell phones - we just realized we never really needed to keep those things tied down!
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves

  Jul 22 2010: Definitely, this will be a great boon for so many people like and including Hawking. But for me, I seriously want to put one of these on and Surf the net, switch between applications, type in chat and do what not, and be doing regular physical chores at the same time!