TED Community » George Garcia

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Ways to unify the human species without a price tag or inherent form of debt attached.

People don't know that I'm good at

Understanding complex systems and establishing patterns of intrinsic value.

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• TEDCred score: +20.90 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Conversation: In an individualistic world where autonomy is a requirement for human-involvement, should conversation be mandatory?

  Jun 14 2012: On one front, I think Nietzsche nails why with the famous quote "Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood". Fear of judgement is something that amplifies greatly the closer our relationship is with each other.
  
  On another front, it also seems to be a preferred outreach mechanism in our psyche. Our "real life" social networks tend to be much, much smaller than our potential online networks. The obvious limiting factor is geography - unless you have the means to travel, your localized social network is immediately limited by proximity and chance.
  
  From this I might develop 15 close personal friends, but only 1-2 of them will share in, say, a love for philosophy or even the same musical tastes. In some cases, I may literally find zero people in proximity that share in those areas of interest.
  
  From that, I think we subconsciously classify the people we know relative to our interests, and assign internal hierarchies to them. Then, when a social thought comes to mind, we internally decide if that information will be understood, or well received by any of the people in our immediate circles. If the answer is no...we look to other alternatives... a blog, a forum, twitter.. facebook... where the potential for finding people who will care and do care is much greater.
  
  If you remove technology from the equation for a moment - look at how pervasive things like keeping a personal journal or diary have been throughout time, you see a similar pattern. Not just for historical recording purposes - in many cases these were being used as an outlet for deeply personal or controversial thoughts ideas that they believed wouldn't be well received by their peers. In a sense, the diary represented a disconnected desire for the same basic need to be heard.
  
  Technology then seems to provide two services that are appealing - anonymity (even if people ridicule, it's not like you actually know them) and reach (hundreds share in my passion vs 1-2)

• A comment on Conversation: Will the Internet, Social Media and Digital Technology destroy the value of money?

  Jun 14 2012: The "value" of money has always been a subjective, but the "need" for money is a debatable concept for the future. Money (or some form of currency) was a necessary component for an early civilization that is trying to rise above a barter system.
  
  But all of it is based on the fundamental principals of supply and demand - it all first assumes that there is some "thing" that is not readily available, that must be produced or provided by a person or organization that exhibits the means to do so. The more more scarce the thing is, or the more difficult it is to produce, the higher the value.
  
  The most obvious examples can be found when looking at things that everyone needs, but don't have to pay for (yet, anyways). Air...sunlight.. these commodities have high intrinsic demand, but they are so abundant that no market exists for them to monetize on. A person's access to air exists regardless of their (nonphysical) means. Thus, it can be said that anything that can be sustained at abundance, and becomes ubiquitous, inherently diminishes the value (and ultimately the need) for money in that area.
  
  And while this might sound like a positive, Project Venus type pitch for an abundant future where everyone simply has access to everything, it's not.
  
  All that actually happens is that the need for currency shifts to the next concept. If I no longer have to pay for digital music, I will still retain my desire to see my favorite bands in person, and that requires occupying a seat at a stadium somewhere that is limited by capacity, and run by a proprietor who employs individuals to maintain it, and provide other services (food, drink, security)
  
  The other point to remember is that even in entirely virtual spaces, human beings retain their need to be compensated in "some way" for their participation. This is why online spaces - even games - all operate with some kind of virtual currency or reward system.
  
  We do things to get things, simple as.
• +3

  A comment on Conversation: What are 5 things you have learned that has completely changed your life?

  Jun 14 2012: 1. Learn how to learn. Everything else is just research.
  
  Learning how to learn involves first deciding what the important questions are, and then breaking those questions down into concepts. You then take those concepts and research them, and from that research, you can draw conclusions.
  
  2. From Religion to Science, there is no "truth". As Timothy Leary put it: Think for yourself, question authority.
  
  "Truths" are really just theories that have withstood some level of scrutiny without being disproven - yet every year we find a handful of things we were so certain to be true, changed before our very eyes in light of new evidence.
  
  But how do you prove to someone, blind since birth, that the sky is blue? The second part to remember is that even when there IS popular consensus - all the "truth" in the universe ends with your perception of it.
  
  3. Seek to learn concepts over facts....but do care about the facts.
  
  School tends to pressure people down the path of demonstrating knowledge via the memorization of facts - this is a horrible system. Einstein himself said that you should never memorize something that can be looked up. Rather than devoting so much brain power to the details - spend more time understanding the concepts and meanings behind WHY that thing exists and how it relates to the world around it. This goes hand in hand with #1 - understanding how things relate is a key component in understanding how to learn.
  
  Having said that, it's still important to spend time looking at facts so that the concepts you adopt aren't misguided. The world is filled with people who have blindly adopted concepts for which they have not personally vetted.
  
  4. Nothing bad in your universe is permanent.
  
  We really are masters of our own realities - some things may feel completely insurmountable, but dedication and effort can and will overcome them. Most of the time, it's just insecurity or ego that gets in the way.
  
  5. Spiral out - keep going.
  
  IMHO, the point of life..
• +5

  A comment on Conversation: Is autism, or some types of autism, an evolutionary effect.

  Jun 14 2012: Interesting; I happened upon this discussion in almost identical fashion - I started from the Enriquez talk "Will our kids be a different species", a piece that resonated with me as deeply related to recent philosophical discussions and personal writing topics. When he mentioned that the norm for human evolution is that you have multiple species sharing the same overlapping time windows, I began to look for evidence of this.
  
  Part of this led me down the path of looking at Autism, a condition that always struck me as being... different...a syndrome at most, but certainly not a true disorder. This is a very subtle difference in the realm of abnormal psychology that is often misunderstood, in that the study of *unusual* patterns & behaviors does not always lend itself to the diagnosis of a disorder or disease.
  
  The problem is that terms like "abnormal" and "syndrome" carry with them a negative connotation - so the entire language of discussion has the propensity towards a feeling that there is a defect in play - some underlying pathology that must be identified and later "corrected". I've always found issue with this because, as history shows, the observation of "normal" vs. "abnormal" is a slippery, slippery slope. Regardless, Autism is currently classified as developmental disorder - a problem that begs prevention and treatment.
  
  Ami Klin's talk "A new way to diagnose autism" struck a chord towards the end when he mentions that the goal is not to cure autism - and that, in fact, individuals with autism have a unique perspective on life. This is the point that sticks with me along the lines of a potential evolution that is simply not well understood or in the early developmental stages.
  
  A simple hypothesis - what if, as humans grow closer and closer to global interdependence, nature is simply selecting for cognitive specialization? To me then, something like Autism could instead be viewed as an efficient, pattern-based organizational behavior *advantage*.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty

  Nov 17 2010: This was decent, but really didn't do the topic justice. It's so much more than just innate recognition of a familiar shape - there's other aspects of beauty that are rooted in how we perceive reality with all the senses. I mean look up the Golden Ratio - there is a LOT of science tied to how we appreciate aesthetic beauty simply because a subjects *proportions*. Or look at Harmonics and musical structure/arrangements - these are things that we audibly find pleasing because they fit a particular pattern that resonates within us.
  
  I don't mean to take away from what Dutton is describing here, but the full reality is so much richer and worth learning about :)
• +3

  A reply on Talk: Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love

  Nov 9 2010: Is it irrational? Or an exercise in common sense and critical thinking?
  
  The point is there is a *reason* why these headlines mirror almost verbatim the headlines other advanced, industrialized nations have, and that's because the problems follow the disease, not the patients. Places like the US aren't screwed up because there's something unique to the US, it's just that we got to this point faster than everyone else and the only way to keep the machine running is to spread to "emerging markets".
  
  But like I mentioned in a different comment: How long before the altruism burns away and all that's left is the institution? And to what cost? Is it worse to simply be 0, or be *less* than zero because you owe some foreign interest a debt that must be repaid, with interest?
  
  The only irrational thing I see here is people believing that this exercise exists to improve quality of life for the poor. I shouldn't be able to figure out within 30 seconds that, ultimately, it's a business.
• +3

  A reply on Talk: Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love

  Nov 9 2010: Your link actually illustrates exactly the ideas that should terrify everyone. I mean look at the headlines on this page:
  
  "In an effort to head off a potential crisis in the fast-expanding microfinance industry, its leaders are adopting global truth-in-lending standards and creating a system for comparing loan terms offered by competing lenders"
  
  "Lenders to the world's poor should disclose how much they charge their borrowers, a global network of microcredit agencies said on Monday, urging more transparency and greater protection of the poor. The proposal is backed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus."
  
  I mean really? No one saw this coming? You're taking ideas borrowed from a debt system that has spent hundreds of years perfecting the craft of profit and exploitation and expect it to play nice just because we're dealing with poor farmers in Tanzania? Wake up people.
• +3

  A reply on Talk: Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love

  Nov 9 2010: There is a great sadness that hits me when I read altruistic comments like yours. I've been torn as to the extent in which Jessica is either putting on the best sales pitch, or what's more likely, that she is ultimately a pawn that is held up - a self appointed guardian of belief - that planners love to use to garner the interests and votes of the people.
  
  You see, in the propaganda game, they realized a long long time ago that for things like this, you can't just pay someone off the street to pretend like they care about X, Y or Z - it's *always* better to get someone who is genuinely passionate about them, and use them as a torch to light the path of progress.
  
  But make no mistake. These are loans, and they are a system of debt, which always leads to a system of control. How many years do you suppose it will take to cast off the shroud of optimism and turn this into an institution with mixed feelings, like welfare or unemployment?
  
  I can't stress it enough people... follow the money.
• +5

  A reply on Talk: Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love

  Nov 9 2010: The defeatist idea that nothing can be accomplished without monetary gain is both a sad and completely relevant argument. You see, that's exactly what's wrong with this presentation.
  
  The entire thing was pitched from a christian moral foundation that, last time I checked, pretty clearly describes helping the poor even when you know there is nothing to gain from it - and then flipping around and mentioning that these are *loans*, much less that there's *profit* ? That my friend is a pretty shady segue.
  
  Secondly, it creates this fantasy of helping people in these far off magical places where everyone's a hard worker that just needs a shot to get on their feet and contribute - except that guess what, we have plenty of situations like that *right in our very back yards* so why is it this only applies to Tanzania?
  
  Call a spade a spade is the point. Don't pass this off as something it isn't and most of all, be willing to see and accept the inevitability this will bring to those areas.
• +4

  A comment on Talk: Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love

  Nov 8 2010: Anyone else find these concepts completely terrifying? I don't mean to sound all "Alex Jones" but really? The better solution is to strengthen and in some cases introduce people to our own messed up system of debt?
  
  And...why is it that people like this always want to help the poor in far off foreign countries? You don't have to move to Tanzania, you can move to Camden New Jersey and see how these programs work out - or don't.
  
  It's one thing to be poor because your net worth is 0, and entirely another when your net worth is negative because you're tied up in debt. This entire system proposed here just seems to be one giant psychological pre-wire to the american way. Let's say one of these micro loans turns out REALLY well for a local who has an AWESOME idea - you're telling me there's no one reviewing the books and looking for commercial investment opportunities to harvest out of them? C'mon.
  
  Same rule applies: Follow the money.