Apr 30 2013: I think it's safe to say that statistically driving is dangerous for your health. I think we need to go beyound or ego's about our personal driving skills and start to find a better way to ensure less of us die or get injured from our transportation system. It really doesn't matter how good or bad I am as a driver, statistically it only matters how often people get killed or injured based on the same mixture of good and bad driver's we've had for generations now. There are too many cars to track, too many places to look, too many things happening that require faster-than-human response times to avoid. If we could use our technology to predict and avoid a large portion of these situations, then the risk will be lower for yourself and your family and everyone else on the road. With the number of camera's, GPS units and other tracking systems already out there, its hardly a case of privacy anymore. I can't stop someone from texting on his or her 'smart' phone behind me, beside me, in front of me... and untill enough of our loved one's die the culture is not going to change. If there is a technology that can help predict and prevent accidents in cars, then we are lucky to have it.
Mar 25 2013: Nutrition does not correct something you are born with. I would imagine that people who are squeamish about using drugs to cure illness are just as squeamish about using genetic manipulation of embryo's to remove disease-causing defects. I don't believe the solution is anything as simplistic as adding more drugs or having better nutrition. Reality is that mutation is part of what makes us... us, and that some people get some really bad luck in the mutation department. It might be at birth, it might be 5 years or 50 years after. And yes, bad nutrition does not help matters either. Both are needed.
Jan 21 2013: Bill Clnton reminds me of this quote from the movie "Secondhand Lions" by the character 'Hub':
"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in. " I find myself wanting to believe that Bill Clinton is a good man, not because he is perfect or flawless, but because what he is trying to do today is worth believing in. His talents are being used to try to make mankind a better place. I hope we all do.
Jan 18 2013: Makes me wonder, what was the average number of sexual assaults on women 50 years ago? Do we know if that number is increasing or declining over time? 1 out of 5 is still too much, but perhaps the path is already laid for society to make that better even if the pace is dramatically slow. TED pays off for helping me see a different point of view on topics I have not considered before. I agree that my son needs to learn how to view, work with and treat women in a constructive way. I agree that my daughter needs to see more than just what the magazines and movies show her as role models. Both my children are blessed with fantastic grand parents and family that show the broader side of life than just what's on a screen on TV or the movies. I believe this leads to the thought that movies and media should not be the reality of our kids lives, but rather family and friends. I don't give movies or TV that much credit or fault for raising my kids, because that's my job, and my wife's job, and my families' job to do. Not to dismiss the effect of media, but I certainly don't want to hang my hat on only using media to shape our kids views on life and interactions with the opposite sex.
Dec 20 2012: Exactly. I don't think we can hope to eliminate mass murders, I would like to hope we could limit the frequency and number of casualties caused by easy access to rapid-fire weapons. While a bomb is potentially more destructive, it seems to me it is more difficult to implement and the risk of being caught beforehand is much higher than taking your mother's AR-15 assault rifle and driving down to a school and pulling the trigger as fast as you can. There is no time to react, no time to intervene. Even if there was a armed defender in the school, by the time he/she would have gotten there the damage would have been done. The novelty of owning a rapid fire killing tool is not important enought (or shouldn't be) for the risk of it being used to kill kids in our own schools. I am sure we can find a secure place to stockpile the hundreds of thousands of these weapons in case Russia invades or you need to overthrow the government. Statistically, Joe America is not doing a good enough job keeping these tools out of the hands of the crazy people who will shoot their kids.
Dec 19 2012: Its really about speaking up and advocating that practical wisdom is a better path to resolve a particular problem than simply staying quiet while someone suggests using policy/rules/incentives to produce the behaviour we desire. Its about speaking up that virtue has value, the most intrinsic kind of value that creates the only kind of results that will ever matter. Bad things happen (or continue to happen) when good people stay quiet and just follow the rules. Advocates bring change, and never forget to practice what you preach, even if you fail once and a while.
Nov 1 2012: As the saying goes "A lot of the truth's we cling to depend on our own point of view". Anyone in power, from an elected official, boss of a company or president of a non-profit group, will experience moments of conflict between trusting the groups a whole or using your designated power to act on their behalf. You cannot poll everyone on everything all the time, even with the internet, there are simply too many decisions to make in any given minute. What is changing, slowly, agonizingly slowly, is the foundations on what we base our 'truths' on for making those decisions. For a long time it was based on folk-lore and religion, now a bit more based on science, which is in its infancy by all accounts. I think a lot of us are very uncomfortable with just how much we don't really know. Like it or not, I have to trust my elected officials, to a point, to keep the system running while I am out there working my little part of it. Every one of us has to stay vigil, and we cannot afford to bury our heads and hand over everything. But the broad stokes... the ability to remove someone from power who is abusing it, is where I see democracy's advantage over other systems. Sure, the rich can influence the media, but the ability to find out the truth is getting easier every day. I am all for allowing politicians to make mistakes, heck I make mistakes, so long as they own up to them, learn from them, get better at what they do or step-aside and let someone else do a better job. I hereby give permission for pioliticians to fail, I do NOT give them permissoin to give up and try to hide their failure. Same goes for the rest of you ;)
Apr 18 2012: It was only 19 minutes, but felt like a day's worth of information. I often come to TED to learn how to pass information in the presentations I do for my audience, and this talk has be both amazed and baffled. The story he tells jumps from person to person and subject to subject in a manner I would have never imagined to use, yet he somehow connects with us on a deeper level than the script would imply. I share his passion for learning... and I am grateful TED has given me an avenue to pursue that passion.
Apr 16 2012: I never really though of a book as anything more than a story to be read. But in reality, books are more than paper with words. Books are decorations, and expression of style, a visual testimony to your personal intellectual journey, sitting right on your bookshelf. Books have a real life presence, they take up space and consume resources... and live far beyond their original reading. They provide a history of memory at a glance. Like photo's or paintings... just because technology can display them on a screen does not diminishthe value of their physical incarnations. I imagine will will continue to see both medium so long as the technologies and resources exist to produce them both.
The question really becomes... what is the current generation willing and able to do about it? To a certain extent, someone like me is pretty comfortable working my job, feeding my family, enjoying my holidays. Now, I do come to TED to educate myself and in a small way, change my view so that I might change my behavior... or at least become more supportive of initiatives that introduce positive changes. The scope of these kinds of issues is staggering... and its likely our kids, kids who will suffer the consequences of my the system that was setup years before I was ever born. I am not at all interested in wasting time assigning blame, I am simply trying to figure out what actions to take today that will make a lick of difference in the future. I am anticipating that real change, societal change, won't happen until something bad happens. I just hope we can survive the price of waiting.
We've all heard estimates of 'how long we got'... and really I am not sure what that is. Technology may solve some issues, it might create new issues... but the pace which environmental change and the pace of human growth is staggering, apparently unprecidented... so our time to react will likely be much shorter.
Funny thing is, at least to me, is what I am doing today might be irrelavant in 5 or 20 years from now as bigger issues refocus our society. I am not sure what career advice to give to my kids... because I have no idea what emergency they will have to be prepared for next.
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A comment on Talk: Jennifer Healey: If cars could talk, accidents might be avoidable
A comment on Talk: Francis Collins: We need better drugs -- now
A comment on Talk: Bill Clinton on rebuilding Rwanda
"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in. " I find myself wanting to believe that Bill Clinton is a good man, not because he is perfect or flawless, but because what he is trying to do today is worth believing in. His talents are being used to try to make mankind a better place. I hope we all do.
A comment on Talk: Colin Stokes: How movies teach manhood
A reply on Conversation: The time is NOW for people to stand up and say 'No More Assault Weapons" and not wait for the government to legislate the change.
A reply on Talk: Barry Schwartz: Using our practical wisdom
A comment on Talk: Rory Stewart: Why democracy matters
A comment on Talk: Ben Dunlap: The life-long learner
A comment on Conversation: Can and will books ever be replaced by something other than we know it today?
A comment on Talk: Jonathan Foley: The other inconvenient truth
The question really becomes... what is the current generation willing and able to do about it? To a certain extent, someone like me is pretty comfortable working my job, feeding my family, enjoying my holidays. Now, I do come to TED to educate myself and in a small way, change my view so that I might change my behavior... or at least become more supportive of initiatives that introduce positive changes. The scope of these kinds of issues is staggering... and its likely our kids, kids who will suffer the consequences of my the system that was setup years before I was ever born. I am not at all interested in wasting time assigning blame, I am simply trying to figure out what actions to take today that will make a lick of difference in the future. I am anticipating that real change, societal change, won't happen until something bad happens. I just hope we can survive the price of waiting.
We've all heard estimates of 'how long we got'... and really I am not sure what that is. Technology may solve some issues, it might create new issues... but the pace which environmental change and the pace of human growth is staggering, apparently unprecidented... so our time to react will likely be much shorter.
Funny thing is, at least to me, is what I am doing today might be irrelavant in 5 or 20 years from now as bigger issues refocus our society. I am not sure what career advice to give to my kids... because I have no idea what emergency they will have to be prepared for next.