TED Community » Dustin Boyd

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  A comment on Conversation: Has science made us gods even before we've become worthy of being men?

  Jun 30 2011: Wisdom for all! So how do we effectively pass on Wisdom? The first thing that comes to my mind - We have to look at the way we are treating our elders. In Western culture, when you get old, you are often assumed to be weak and feeble and incapable work. Unfortunately, our elders are looked upon as a burden, instead of a wellspring of knowledge and wisdom.
  
  I must say I have been guilty of such misconceptions. It took me 23 years to realize that my grandmother isn't just a sick old woman who has lost her mind. Once I began to ACTUALLY talk with her, I realized I couldn't have been more wrong.
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  A comment on Conversation: Has science made us gods even before we've become worthy of being men?

  Jun 21 2011: My opinion....
  
  Just like children, we (the human race) are still very naive. If we are the first species with a brain that allows us to be so creative and think on our own, then we definitely have much to learn. And, also like a child, we sometimes act like we are invincible, or unstoppable. Like Aaron Morrison was saying, in a previous post, "getting older makes you more able to see change... really you have a broader point of reference to base your thoughts/ideas/reality on..." we are very young as humans, and naturally, we don't always think about consequences. We may feel like we can act like God's, but we have so much to learn. I feel that we need to slow down a little, and take time to fully (as fully as we can) evaluate the consequences of our decisions.

• A reply on Talk: Bill Ford: A future beyond traffic gridlock

  Jun 21 2011: Thanks for your reply, David.
  I suppose I'm more prone to be skeptical of Bill because of the TYPE of business he is in, and the country his business is from. We do love our petroleum here :( But, I do believe he has good intentions.
  
  I personally don't am not fond of the idea of being too dependent on our technologies. For example, if one of our primary ways of avoiding "global gridlock" is by means of GPS communication between all vehicles, then what happens if/when our devices are malfunctioning? Don't get me wrong, technology has it's place, but I hope we can keep it in it's place. CYLON invasion? haha, hopefully I'm just kidding on that one.
  
  Sorry for not listing my "common sense" solutions, haha. Bill was right in saying that more cars and trucks are not the answer. So let's really, really go after smarter planned public transportation, away from the personal ownership of vehicles (which means changing the way automobile companies advertise and create the idea of car ownership placing you one step up on the social totem pole), and towards more widespread, easily accessible public transportation. Someone mentioned planning our city structures along with public transportation, to reduce all the back and forth of driving.
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  A comment on Talk: Bill Ford: A future beyond traffic gridlock

  Jun 20 2011: No matter how much I want to take what Bill Ford says at face value, I must still consider the fact that he is a high-end executive of a large motor company who's primary goal is still to promote and elevate their business, before making the world a better place. The words he spoke I imagine were pruned and picked by Ford.
  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that our automotive industry hasn't seen the error in their past ways, and doesn't want to help fix the huge problems that have arisen, But we have to make sure we keep our automotive industry in check. We must be sure that the ways we decide to handle this problem are FIRSTLY geared towards real sustainability and the push towards zero emissions, and not towards putting money in the greedy industry's hands.
  For example (by no means am I an expert on these issues, just a concerned individual), what are the implications of all the new technology that will allow all of our vehicles to communicate with one another? What is this going to cost a middle-class family to purchase one of these vehicles? This sounds like something EVERY vehicle would have to incorporate to make this work. What happens if 60% of everyone's cars are talking to each other, and the other 40% are not?
  Are new, high-tech cars necessarily what we need to solve our problem? Or just some good old fashioned common sense?