TED Community » Sarina Hannon

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Understanding happiness. Empathy. Failing REALLY well. Social evolution

An idea worth spreading

I want to combine neuroscience and cognitive science with social networking.

Talk to me about

Your passions. Life questions. I would appreciate anything controversial and intelligent.

My TED Story

Who watches TV anymore? I watch TED! Here is my pact- TED Conference 2020. I'm going to be there.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +3.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Talk: Raghava KK: What’s your 200-year plan?

  Jul 5 2012: Lots of hidden gems here :) I loved this talk.

• A reply on Conversation: What's one lesson you find super compelling?

  Apr 23 2012: I'm not so sure about this study. Niceness of a car is really a show of wealth. Maybe it is better explained by narcissism, or the need to show you are 'better' than someone else.
  The second part, about watching the kids with cancer may be explained by a difference in dealing with conflict. Perhaps they are more pragmatic, instead of empathetic. That doesn't necessarily mean they care less.
  
  I'm not saying it isn't accurate, but I'm not totally convinced by this. It is interesting though :)

• A reply on Conversation: Are children ready to make decisions like adults?

  Apr 2 2012: That's a good point. Sometimes I think kids are more apt to make up their own answers perhaps seeing the situation more simply than adults do.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Are children ready to make decisions like adults?

  Apr 2 2012: I would say some certainly can. From the age of 11 I don't think my decision making has changed very much. In fact I would trust my young self with most all of my adult decisions.
  I would venture that given responsibility, people will rise to the occasion.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Is History an important subject in school? Or should we be focusing on the future?

  Apr 2 2012: I think history is presented wrong. 90% of it is dates and titles in most schools. This to me is 100% useless. In good history, you could change all the dates, and all the names and it would be just as useful and interesting. Why? because it teaches a lesson. It shows a discovery. When I was in history class, I would take a boring sentence out of my textbook and go to my dad. He would say something like "That's ALL they said??" and he would toss away the textbook and give me context. He would tell me about what people expected would happen, why they believed what they believed, and how their perceptions were changed, how they felt. Who was starving and who empowered them. He would talk about what made these people famous, how they came to power, how they were thrown down from power. Going into school I was astounded to hear these vibrant incredible people consolidated into names and dates. History is a predictor, but only if you learn it in a way that means something to you in your context.
  tl;dr It is very useful, but only if done right, in a way that is applicable to the future.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Does society need more interdisciplinary work? Or more well-rounded individuals working together?

  Apr 2 2012: My grandfather used to joke 'we are becoming more and more specialized. It used to be that everyone had to know a little bit of everything. Then people began to know more and more about narrower and narrower fields. Soon people will know everything about nothing.' not sure where he got that, but I like it :)
  I like the interdisciplinary. I have never understood why specialists stay around specialists who are like them. Making new ideas from old ones works like evolution. It happens faster when you have diversity in the gene pool! That's my opinion. Woo!

• A comment on Conversation: Deception in Dating and Relationships

  Apr 2 2012: I am extremely good at games. haha :) I don't play them because I don't believe in them. I don't like the seriousness and the meanness of most of these 'games.' They are literally trying to trick, not like a magic show where you suspend reality... just a person bending reality without your permission. These games are at your expense. Duping someone or being duped gives a very visceral sense of where the power lies. There is the principle of power and sexuality. It could explain a lot, but I don't know much about it to be honest.
  
  I do think there are other types of games. One person I dated would lie to me about unimportant things (tell me his birthday was one date, and later say it was another), and it literally was a game. He did not have anything to gain, and he liked when I figured him out, and I liked when he tricked me. I'm sure other people have similar games with different parameters that are not REALLY meant to be deceptive.
  
  Then again, some people like any and all games just for the challenge.

• A comment on Conversation: Can we "engineer" our own interests through repeated exposure?

  Apr 2 2012: I have tried to engineer my interests, and have done quite a bit of experimentation which eventually totally worked. Best result: finding someone who loves whatever it is I want to love, and just talking with them about it! I would inevitably start to share their perspective. And really it stuck! I had no desire to go back to my original opinion. In that sense it was a very 'one person only, one event' type of thing.
  
  (What didn't work: repeat exposure, talking to someone who was really good at it but didn't love it. It sometimes worked to just put a good effort into liking it. ie smiling while I was doing it, being optimistic, looking for good things etc)

• A reply on Talk: Spencer Wells builds a family tree for humanity

  May 12 2011: So cool!!!!

• A reply on Talk: Isabel Behncke: Evolution's gift of play, from bonobo apes to humans

  May 11 2011: Gotcha David. And agreed, it's definitely something worthy of debate! : )