TED Community » Axel Saffran

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• A reply on Talk: Stewart Brand: The dawn of de-extinction. Are you ready?

  Apr 21 2013: "I don't think that de-extinction is fixing the past. It is creating a new future."
  
  Very well put. I agree, that --with power structures that exist today-- where the Monsantos have the US government in their pockets, and to some extent ARE the government, have infiltrated it, this has the potential to become as ugly as you describe in your cynical-sounding past paragraph... with patented animals, lawsuits and lots of money to be made.
• +2

  A reply on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?

  Mar 3 2013: Opponent? That's your thinking.
  He is a scientist, describing... not accusing or explicitly fighting. After studying data, he is letting us know what he found, as scientists do.
  
  Please let us know who is responsible for "planning" the current international financial system, so people can try and get him, her or them in front of the Tribunal in The Hague.

• A reply on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?

  Mar 3 2013: Mr. Hoppe, thanks for those links. He connects things up beautifully clear and understandable.
  
  I think the shift in human consciousness and this newly emerging system are like the chicken and the egg, and it's hard to say which is which :-) Continuous feedback loops on every level while the world connects its different strata etc. into a new sustainable eco(nomic)system.
  
  I just wonder what will be lost by the time 'we' get there. The sixth mass extinction he mentions, is a reality too.
  http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Largest_mass_extinction_in_65_million_years_underway,_scientists_say
• +3

  A reply on Talk: Wade Davis: Gorgeous photos of a backyard wilderness worth saving

  Feb 27 2013: Enough info to get your blood cooking though. Numbers and statistics would hardly be appropriate in a talk like this. It is indeed more poetic than it is prosaic, and not the kind of stuff that will -directly- influence Shell policy, I guess.
  
  Anyway, spreading awareness is an essential part of the good fight, and coming from Wade Davis it carries weight. I wonder how many people out of the crowd he got aboard that day.
  
  How many people know at what scale these big, well organized money making machines (economically equivalent to mid-size countries) are moving into the last pristine wildernesses to pillage and ransack our natural capital (intricate ecosystems) in order to feed our addictions?

• A reply on Talk: Edi Rama: Take back your city with paint

  Feb 9 2013: I agree. A striking example of what you call 'soft power'.
  Another talk that comes to mind, also (partly) about the very real influence of carefully and creatively designed public spaces, is Bill Strickland's talk from 2002. Accompanied by Herbie Hancock playing in the background. A real treat: http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_strickland_makes_change_with_a_slide_show.html

• A reply on Talk: Jonas Eliasson: How to solve traffic jams

  Dec 7 2012: If it's good, what's the problem?

• A reply on Talk: Jonas Eliasson: How to solve traffic jams

  Dec 1 2012: Those are great suggestions!
  I really hope the right people read this, and make it so that the slides are offered with the video (especially if the camera/editing people at TEDx events left something essential out of view)
  
  When the speaker says "...this: " and people laugh about what he's showing them, and you still only see his face... that's clearly a major flaw.

• A reply on Talk: Tim Leberecht: 3 ways to (usefully) lose control of your brand

  Oct 9 2012: Now THIS is something I won't buy into. I understand where you're coming from, but I refuse to accept cynicism as a solution (or something inescapable).
  
  Companies are defined by the people who work there/own them. Please don't close of the possibility that somebody in charge actually makes a decision based on a different impulse than solely profit maximization. And if they also have the business sense to make it coincide with commercial success, all the better, not?
  
  The true intention behind something is usually very hard to see. But deciding that because of all the burnished crap that's dumped on consumers, true and beautiful impulses can't also exist in that same environment, to me seems not only too bleak to stomach... but also unrealistic.
  
  Most important: you don't make the illusion aspect go away by viewing EVERYTHING as an illusion, but by feeding what is REAL.
  
  just my two cents :)
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Sylvia Earle's TED Prize wish to protect our oceans

  Aug 1 2012: Gee, I wonder who knows better, you or she...
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Stephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South Bronx

  Jul 31 2012: I don't think I've ever used that word before, but that was an *epic* performance. Have to watch it again sometime, because I'm sure I missed a lot of what Mr. Ritz packed in there. This would be impressive, even if he had half of what he showed, to show for what he did. Some truly inspiring stuff is happening in the Bronx and spreading beyond!