TED Community » Jake Vermillion

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I'm passionate about

Collectivizing the individual talents of architects, planners, social workers, policy makers, cultural and ecological advocates, and craftsman to effect true change in the slums & ghettos of the world

An idea worth spreading

The eradication of third world slums, urban ghettos, and forsaken villages. Now, define eradication: 1Destroy completely; 2To pull up by the roots. So, when I say the eradication of the above, I say so in a positive manner. We, as planners, architects, builders, sociologists, cultural advocates, and environmentalists must examine the roots of slums, ghettos, and villages (poverty, hunger, trafficking, negligence, energy waste, crime, and the many other factors that make up these homes to billions) to then pull those roots up and eradicate them. The term 'eradication' is not to suggest the destruction or elimination of the peoples of these slums, ghettos, and forsaken villages nor the quarantine of their geographic locations. Rather, the term 'eradication' is to be applied to the slums, ghettos, and waterless, food depleted, forsaken villages themselves. Then, we must replace these with homes and amenities to build up the peoples of the world for a better tomorrow and a brighter future.

Talk to me about

The integration of policy, planning, architecture, social science, environmentalism, construction, and Christianity to begin to build a better world for the generations of tomorrow, of the future!

My TED Story

I'm new to TED, so let's get started right away! Get in touch with me and let's begin to not only discuss problems and potential solutions, but actually transcend the exchange of information via the world wide web and lets build a coalition of not just thinkers, but doers, and and let's go do something!

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: Isn't it time to eliminate grades in education?

  Jul 28 2011: No! Absolutely not! In life there must be consequences for every action, whether those consequences be positive or negative, they must exist. As such, for every academic action by a student of the educational system there must exist a consequence. This has become known as the grading scale, a system in which actions by all students receive their due consequence, that consequence to be delivered in the form of an evaluation.
  
  These evaluations allow educational administrators to determine the progress of each individual student. This of course means some students will fail while others succeed. That is, unfortunately, the nature of life. Some must fail. Call it social evolution, but for every success there exists a failure, as does vice versa.
  
  Therefore, it's not time the educational system eliminate the grading system. Rather, it's time society embrace the concept of social evolution and understand that some will fail within the educational system. Education is a privilege. Not a right. Unless of course you're Lyndon B. Johnson.

• A reply on Conversation: How does spiritual transformation lead to cultural transformation?

  Jul 19 2011: I do believe so Rohan. But we must understand that is the youth and the upcoming generation that holds the power to do so. Our generation is one of power; if united, we can effect true and lasting change to recreate the world for a better tomorrow. The question is, will we?
  
  Also, I must ask, what religious evolution do you seek Rohan?

• A reply on Conversation: Is war a necessity or something that should be avoided at all cost?

  Jul 19 2011: I hope I never implied we should be ignorant of the world around us. As I mentioned, advanced national infrastructure needs be implemented so as to adapt to the ever advancing energy sector; however, we must understand the market alone must shape the need for alternative energy, and until an alternative form of energy is either cheaper and more efficient than, or at least competitive with, oil, no mass progress can be made toward a more sustainable future with regard to the energy sector and the current obsession with oil. That said, please note I hold little against the oil industry. Yes, corporate America can be difficult to deal with and often attains profit by way of exploitation, but that is capitalism, which is the only economic system compatible with democracy.
  
  Diplomacy should always be the first measure taken in conflict (such as genocide as prescribed by warlords); however, the second and only remaining option is military force, which in many cases is war.

• A reply on Conversation: Is war a necessity or something that should be avoided at all cost?

  Jul 18 2011: But, do note that is your opinion of the purposes of war. Some would argue natural resource, especially that of a depleting natural resource, is as worthy a cause of war as is that of liberation. It is arguable that the attainment or retention of natural resources for a nation of increasing energy dependence is necessary. Some would argue that's absurd and that the nobler of paths is that of the avoidance of war and the advancement of technology, the reinvention of national infrastructure to support more sustainable energy use, and the waging of battles over oil reserves diplomatically, rather than with the lives of American soldiers.
  
  Both are valid arguments; however, I'm simply here to play devil's advocate.

• A reply on Conversation: Is war a necessity or something that should be avoided at all cost?

  Jul 18 2011: Agreed.

• A comment on Conversation: Is war a necessity or something that should be avoided at all cost?

  Jul 18 2011: Simply answered, 'both.'
  
  Ultimately, under some situations (take the Nazi regime, as led by Hitler, for example) war is both necessary and inevitable. What we must understand is that war is a tool governments, nations, and peoples can use as both a scare tactic to drive conversations to the table in order to discuss diplomatic solutions to imminent or present conflict as well as a force of action to stand in opposition to the ideas, encroachment, or other action of another government, nation, or people. However, war can likewise be abused as a weapon of force, wherein a nation, group of people, regime, or some other militant-capable institution chooses to use deadly force in order to conquer, usurp power, or in some other fashion violate the innate and undeniable rights of all mankind.
  
  That said, war should of course be a last resort. So, to your question, I say 'both.' War is both necessary as well as something that should be avoided at all REASONABLE costs. The question then becomes what are the reasonable costs to declare war? That question, mankind has sought to answer since its creation.
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  A comment on Conversation: How does spiritual transformation lead to cultural transformation?

  Jul 18 2011: Let's take the United States of America as a prime example of spiritual transformation leading to cultural transformation. As the oppressive institutions of governance of European countries in the 17th century continued to employ theocratic principles by forcing upon their peoples the religion of the state, a purist Christian doctrine began to grow in both number and strength, accumulating thousands of practicing worshippers who desired a state of religious tolerance for their then considered extremist beliefs. As a result, those peoples built a coalition to secure passage to the New World to one day establish a system of governance and society that would actively practice religious tolerance. That experimental institution of government and democratic society ultimately became what we know today to be the United States of America.
  
  Thus, the initial spiritual transformation of the purist Christian underground in the late 16th to early 17th centuries led to the cultural transformation that surmounted in the establish of the United States of America.
  
  It is therefore without doubt that one can proclaim social transformation is capable of the most prominent cultural transformation.

• A comment on Conversation: The Right of Free Travel (visa-free) for Every Human Being on Planet Earth

  Jul 18 2011: The topic of free movement of peoples between the many nations of the world is indeed both interesting, minimally discussed, and provocative. As such, I will try to, as best possible, summarize my beliefs by numbering them in the process of my logic: here goes.
  
  1. Humans are endowed with inalienable rights. Those rights extend not from any man, document, or philosophy, but rather from Heaven. By Heaven, I do mean that man's inalienable rights are divine, hence the term "divine rights." These so termed rights, were endowed upon mankind by the Lord Almighty, Creator God, and are thereby irrefutable.
  
  2. Who, or what for that matter, is responsible then for recognizing and/or protecting these rights? That, as we have made it, is government. We as mankind have chosen to vest our divine rights in political institutions of governance, voluntarily or not (a constituted government versus that of a coup d'état), for both recognition and protection. Thus, what lies at the heart of the issue you wish to address first comes to light, that being: not all institutions of governance recognize and/or protect the divine rights of humanity.
  
  3. As all political institutions of governance do not recognize and/or protect these divine rights, does it become the right of the people under these institutions to move from under the authority of that institution to under the authority of yet another institution of governance freely? If so, what impact would be effected upon national demographics, political institutions, global populations, etc.? And, is it then the duty or obligation of all free nations and their institutions of governance to receive those peoples abandoning their nations of origin due to the absence of recognition/protection of their divine rights?
  
  4. Ultimately, my answer to that final question is no. Therefore, my reluctant answer to the question of whether or not there should be allowed the free movement of peoples between the nations of the world must likewise be no.