TED Community » Alyssa McCarthy

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• A reply on Conversation: What is the most important thing you've learned on your own?

  Mar 10 2013: "3. I learnt that most successful people are college dropouts. No point in studying books. I think one should study Life."
  
  How are you defining "successful?" If it's monetarily, then I think your statistics are off. While there are certainly a notable few who have found monetary success without completing (or attending college), the lions share of successful people do in fact have college degrees.

• A comment on Conversation: What is the most important thing you've learned on your own?

  Mar 10 2013: I learned that there was no such thing as God. I learned that human beings are capable of intense intellectual and cognitive dissonance as far as reality goes. I learned that reality is not so easily determined as one might think.
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  A comment on Talk: Colin Stokes: How movies teach manhood

  Jan 19 2013: I have a problem with suggesting that manhood is something that can both be obtained and even lost. Nobody suggests such a thing for womanhood. A woman has her womanhood by virtue of being a woman. Why do we think that men have to prove their manhood, instead of just understanding that manhood is neither given nor capable of being taken away. It just is.
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  A reply on Talk: Colin Stokes: How movies teach manhood

  Jan 19 2013: Things were simpler because you, as a child, were simpler. The lens that you saw the world through was simple. Now that you have grown up and nuance has entered your perspective, things will never be simple again.

• A reply on Talk: Hanna Rosin: New data on the rise of women

  Jun 13 2011: So you want to intentionally deny qualified female applicants access to college in favor of a group of less qualified male applicants because the male applicants at that age are naturally more frivolous and can't focus of what's important, but they'll get there eventually if only we give them a chance? That's your notion of equality? Sorry, the boys have to pick up their game if they want to compete. They don't get a "boys will be boys" pass for their behavior and lack of foresight. That notion is used all too often to absolve boys from having responsibility for what they do. And it handicaps them significantly later in life. To suggest that we intentionally restrict the intellectual progress our of societies to let boys get their on their own time is the wrong answer. We need to fix what's going wrong with the boys, not retard what's going right with the girls.

• A reply on Talk: Hanna Rosin: New data on the rise of women

  Jun 13 2011: Right, because feminists had so much influence back then to "design" a legal system. The purpose for a court in deciding divorce and child support arrangement is to prevent people from becoming wards of the state, and to provide for the best interest of any children involved. The design goes no further than that. That the best interest of the children lies typically with their mother who is much more likely to be their primary caregiver is not the fault of the court.

• A reply on Conversation: comments

  Jun 13 2011: You experiences with a limited number of female managers does not make a case for the entire population. I've had many female managers who did not such thing, and were very effective. Neither of our anecdotes has any place in the discussion.
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  A comment on Talk: Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

  Dec 18 2010: Seems like a brilliant guy. I kept getting lost in his rapid English accent though.
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  A reply on Talk: Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

  Dec 18 2010: In an abstract way, sure, she has more than we do, and that's an enviable position. But I think his meaning that it's not the pure envy that we would have if we saw those close around us to have successes that we have not achieved. It's called the little green monster for a reason. True envy is more visceral than the mere notion that you would appreciate having what another person has.
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  A reply on Talk: Rachel Botsman: The case for collaborative consumption

  Dec 18 2010: Your DNA is less than 1% different than that of a monkey. We are technically not monkeys. But we are remarkably close.