TED Community » Ziyad Basheer

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• A reply on Conversation: Send your old or damaged bikes to South America.

  Mar 19 2011: Have you decided to take action with regards to this idea?

• A reply on Conversation: Send your old or damaged bikes to South America.

  Mar 19 2011: It's usually easier to get people to donate unused items instead of having them cough up cash for a new bike. I agree that some good Samaritans would participate but unfortunately the general public isn't likely to.
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  A reply on Conversation: Send your old or damaged bikes to South America.

  Mar 18 2011: Jorge, even if people are doing this they're probably doing it locally at their towns. You can still start small at your local town/city and go bigger from there.

• A reply on Conversation: Internet Social Communities changing the way we see and create identities.

  Mar 18 2011: I see what you mean. People see other nationals in developed countries such as the US and Europe as you mentioned and long for those privileges and rights in their own lands. This I believe urges them to push for reform in their own lands and make their own place better. Why settle for something when you can have something better? e.g. what's happening in the Middle East right now.
  
  Ultimately there are those who are going to push for reform as I mentioned and some who will just ignore their homelands and seek citizenship elsewhere, as it is much easier than changing an entire nation's ideas.

• A reply on Conversation: How smart can we make dolphins?

  Mar 18 2011: To point out the shortcomings of your argument and let you know that you should be thinking about doing things that would benefit humans instead.
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  A comment on Conversation: Send your old or damaged bikes to South America.

  Mar 17 2011: Great idea Jorge! You can start with bikes and then move on to other commodities. Start a non-profit which accepts donations of no longer used commodities in developed countries such as the US, the UK and so on. Repair and refurbish them as needed and provide them to the less privileged in other countries for little to no cost. It does sound like something that has been probably done before. We need to research other non-profits possibly working on the same idea and study the feasibility of the idea. It has a lot of potential though! It would be nice if someone could shed some light on similar organizations.
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  A comment on Conversation: Internet Social Communities changing the way we see and create identities.

  Mar 17 2011: That's globalization my friend, all due to the internet. Since people are now able to connect without any discrimination to share ideas, connect and be productive the lines of discrimination are quickly blurring. People are now becoming "citizens of the world" by every sense of the phrase.
  
  Of course political and other movements would have a larger base of supporters, however it wouldn't be much larger than what it might have been before globalization because as much as globalization connects people regardless of boundaries people in the same localities connect as such they are able to share ideas quicker.
  
  However even if these political movements are larger or gain more traction they would still be limited to the nationals of that certain country unless we have a world government. Indicating that no matter how connected people are, they as you pointed out recognize that they're from different places with different governments and different politics. Which is why social movements won't get massive traction.

• A reply on Conversation: It seems odd that Governments who send their people to war show concern for loss of life when catastrophe strikes.

  Mar 17 2011: There aren't really "rules" in war. Don't you know the saying that goes "all is fair in love and war"? The invading nation, which would be the United States in the case of both recent wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) doesn't and isn't abiding by any rules when their army is deployed.
  
  As for the wars boosting economies that's debatable, here's a great article on it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jan/22/iraq.economy
  
  If anything, people dying in wars humans waged by choice (including military and civilians) should be treated with more sensitivity than those dying in disasters beyond our control as these deaths could have been avoided.

• A comment on Conversation: ترجمة موقع تيد إلى اللغة العربية

  Mar 17 2011: Excuse the English response, I don't have Arabic installed on this computer. I don't think that translating the entire website would be efficient as since a lot of talks are available in Arabic. The only other thing that should be in Arabic is the user interface the user interacts with.
  
  Instead of translating the English site I would suggest integrating an Arabic portal instead or any language specific portal for that matter. A portal that only facilitates user interaction with content available in the language they choose with the option of reverting to the English site.
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  A comment on Conversation: Zero tolerance for bullying. Period.

  Mar 17 2011: Bullying is bad, agreed. However I don't think parents or any educational institution for that matter would allow students to be sent away to a "boot camp" as you're suggesting for two weeks at a time. Even if they do, that won't really solve the problem as kids tend to retain whatever habits they have when re-exposed to the environment which fostered those habits.
  
  This indicates that bullying as with most other problems in school need to be eradicated starting from home. As such, educating the parents and urging them to raise their kids better, i.e. hold those classes for parents would be a much more feasible idea.
  
  In addition, inducing punishment usually backfires, instead we should show students what positive impact the eradication of bullying will have on the school, the community and their lives as a whole.