TED Community » Aaron Wolf

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Science, Philosophy, Teaching, Music, Psychology, Sustainability, Creativity

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• TEDCred score: +2.90 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Talk: Kent Larson: Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city

  Sep 24 2012: One big concern: this self-parking car and the computerized apartment… they MUST be Free Open Source systems! If we have proprietary stuff at this extent, we will be absolute slaves to particular corporate control and have no privacy. Today you can put in your own floor, fix your doorknob, etc. and all the other DIY home maintenance that is part of being in control of your own home. We cannot tolerate a home that is under the control of developers who have their own interests that may conflict with ours.
  
  If this city of the future is Free/Libre Open Source, then I'm all for it.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Tali Sharot: The optimism bias

  Jun 14 2012: I've always said "the secret to happiness is low expectations but HIGH HOPES"
  
  This (overall excellent) talk doesn't change my mind at all. She equated low expectations with a negative life outlook. But the answer is to HOPE that you get the job, that you don't get divorced, but to have low (ok, realistic at least) expectations. Then we work to try to achieve the things we hope for — even though we don't just expect them.

• A comment on Conversation: Can advertising be both a force for commerce AND a force for good?

  Jan 25 2012: Conflict of interest is a big deal and affects everyone. I am sure you have good intentions and truly want the best for people. I am also certain that you are incapable of objectively judging the pros and cons of advertising, given your source of income.
  
  Advertising that is truly respectful should give viewers full control to avoid the ad if they prefer, should reveal conflicts of interest explicitly, and not include any information or images that are completely unrelated to the idea or item being advertised.
  
  For example, I would like to see a world in which the only ads that have music are ads for music or very closely related things. A food ad that includes music is inherently about eliciting emotions to bias the viewer. I know that a decent amount of clever music has been composed for ads, but still (and I'm a musician even)... But this is the ideal, and reality isn't going to get to this. The more we stop explicit ads, the more they'll just be interwoven in product placement and such... But that's why we need explicit markers of conflict of interest. I'd like to see a little symbol over the screen in every movie or TV show or internet video that reveals when the use of a product or idea was a paid placement.
  
  As to being informative, that's fine if it really only goes as far as informing people. I generally hate ads, but I have actually appreciated learning about certain products when the ad is literally a focused description of a great product.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Thomas Pogge: Medicine for the 99 percent

  Dec 24 2011: Robert, this model addresses cures. If someone is cured, then the stats will show a better quality of extended life, and THAT is what gets rewarded under this model. There's no profit from selling extra drugs. You're exactly right that the current system incentivizes ongoing treatments over cures. The HIF system is different though.
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Thomas Pogge: Medicine for the 99 percent

  Dec 24 2011: Your cynical pessimism might be warranted, but optimists are the ones who make progress and actually change the world.
  
  1. The idea is that adequate funding is necessary for the HIF model, maybe more than $6 billion is actually needed, but those are details that need to be figured out. He was proposing $6 billion PER YEAR as a minimal starting point, but ideally higher. Still, a company that gets a good chunk of that for 10 years straight easily recoups their R&D etc.
  
  2. If the HIF worked at all for just some small percentage of drugs, it would be a successful model and could grow until it actually gets to a $100 billion or more budget... lots of ifs, but the idea is to try it.
  
  3. Maybe the developer would have the option of making their own but selling at the generic price, or perhaps the highest quality generic could be stipulated. These are legitimate concerns but aren't a problem with the basic model. SOME generics can be completely on par with brands, even if not all are.
  
  4. The HIF model emphasizes the value of drugs that deal with diseases more common to impoverished people, so if a drug for THOSE diseases is developed, there's less incentive to go the patent route if there is the HIF option. And it's good press for the company.
  
  5. I sympathize with your cynicism here, but we gotta have hope or we all just give up on things.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity

  Aug 30 2011: Yeah, his methodology, conclusions, and technical statements are all problematic. Still the issue of sharing as related to language is a real issue.
  
  The whole open-source software movement is related to this. Technological innovation is greatest when we share the most, and open-source software offers the most promise in this direction. Likewise, there would be advantages to using just one programming language, but clearly there are reasons for so many different programming languages. And that point further shows how BAD Pagel's reasoning is: his reasoning would say that the function of all these different programming languages was to keep people from stealing ideas. Obviously, that has nothing to do with why people developed many different programming languages.
• +7

  A comment on Talk: Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity

  Aug 30 2011: This is one of the worst TED talks I've ever seen. This guy is just ranting about his baseless theories like some arrogant undergrad student who thinks he's mastered the secrets to the universe.
  
  He's completely wrong about animals not having social learning. He is wrong that homo erectus not advancing technologically is proof of not having social learning. He needs to watch Matt Ridley's "When Ideas Have Sex" — that shows how necessary larger populations and specialization are to technological advancement. Homo erectus and even chimps fail to develop advanced technology only partly because they aren't quite *as* intelligent as us. They remain(ed) low in technology because they live(d) in small groups and struggled with basic survival. Our technological advancement requires language but didn't really take off until the age of agriculture, which provided necessary abundance, stability, and population growth. Ridley himself comes up to challenge Pagel at the end here, and Pagel uses a a simplistic rationalization to completely ignore Ridley's point. Pagel is clearly so self-assured that he actively creates models and theories just to support his pre-existing conclusion. He is a superb example of confirmation bias.
  
  His idea about "visual theft" is problematic. The concept of theft doesn't really apply here. His wording is far too strong, and he clearly isn't doing empirical research to test his ideas. Instead, he chose these ideas simply to support his unwavering conclusion. Do people actually think of being observed as visual theft? Do animals? Where's the evidence??
  
  His points about the value of a universal language are fine, but he misses the significance of languages having different benefits. For example, some languages have ways of expressing distinctions and nuance that others lack, and we gain insights into our own experience by recognizing these differences. A practical universal lingua franca is fine, of course. But that's not a revolutionary idea.
• +9

  A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

  May 16 2011: Charlie, you are basically picking the best of one side to compare to the worst of the other. There are definitely lots of logical conservatives, especially those who are less religious. But there's tons of emotional drill-baby-drill fight-for-our-team freedom-fries type conservatives. And yes, there's lots of insane emotional liberals who are dogmatic and extreme. But there's also lots of liberals who are logical and thoughtful and scientific. To say one side or the other is the emotional is a character attack that is illogical and damaging to the goal of rational discussion.
• +5

  A reply on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

  May 16 2011: But what if the conservatives are right in some ways? I think the whole point is that if we are to understand each other, we should understand the mechanisms we use to judge things. And Haidt's point is that maybe there is *some* value to the conservative value system.
  
  So the real answer is for liberals to understand these things, point out WHY the focus on things like Purity and In-Group are problematic, and use this framework to express what is wrong with the conservative judgments.
  
  To reword: we need to be on the same plane philosophically in order to have an honest discussion. So instead of just bashing a particular conservative judgment, progressives should either argue against the value of in-group (for example) thinking. If, alternatively, we accept some value for it, then we either accept that conservatives are partly right, or we need to identify where they are misusing this basic moral code. My point is that both sides need to accept the same basic moral system before the conservation can move on to the details.

• A reply on Talk: Rachel Botsman: The case for collaborative consumption

  Jan 5 2011: illegal ≠ unethical. Sharing media is the reality and the future, and the law not catching up with that and respecting it is only negative. There is no value for society in keeping the current copyright system. It is already the case that people pay or not for media based more on their own values than on the threat of law. For the most part, sharing of media is completely positive. If you don't agree, do you have a problem with public libraries??
  
  As for motivation, watch Dan Pink's talk here at TED (among many similar ones). The idea that capital and profit is the best driver of motivation has been thoroughly debunked.