Ideas worth spreading

How to be "Team Human" in the digital future

1,847,390 views | Douglas Rushkoff • TED Salon: Samsung

Humans are no longer valued for our creativity, says media theorist Douglas Rushkoff -- in a world dominated by digital technology, we're now just valued for our data. In a passionate talk, Rushkoff urges us to stop using technology to optimize people for the market and start using it to build a future centered on our pre-digital values of connection, creativity and respect. "Join 'Team Human.' Find the others," he says. "Together let's make the future that we always wanted."

Humans are no longer valued for our creativity, says media theorist Douglas Rushkoff -- in a world dominated by digital technology, we're now just valued for our data. In a passionate talk, Rushkoff urges us to stop using technology to optimize people for the market and start using it to build a future centered on our pre-digital values of connection, creativity and respect. "Join 'Team Human.' Find the others," he says. "Together let's make the future that we always wanted."

This talk was presented at a TED Salon event given in partnership with Samsung. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TED Salons.

Listen to the Team Human podcast. Each week, we engage in real-time, no-holds-barred discussions with people who are hacking the machine to make it more compatible with human life, and helping redefine what it means to stay human in a digital age.

About the speaker

Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff

Media theorist, author

See speaker profile

Douglas Rushkoff promotes human autonomy in the digital age.

Douglas Rushkoff | W. W. Norton & Company, 2019 | Book

Team Human

This is my manifesto for human autonomy in a digital age, in which I show we came to accept technology's priorities as our own. Incapable of establishing genuine rapport with others online, we blame one another rather than our machines. Team Human seeks to liberate us from this conundrum by celebrating our humanity and redefining being human as a team sport.

George Monbiot | Verso, 2017 | Book

Out of the Wreckage: a New Politics for an Age of Crisis

Monbiot shows how we succumbed to a toxic ideology of extreme competition and individualism that misrepresents human nature as individualistic and competitive. He offers a very different narrative for human cooperation and altruism and provides a convincing argument for how we can realize this alternative narrative.

Jeremy Lent | Prometheus Books, 2017 | Book

The Patterning Instinct

Lent celebrates the uniquely human ability to find patterns in the seeming chaos. This is a comprehensive history of the human species, on the order of Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, but directed toward reacquainting people with their ability to envision and create their collective reality. Moreover, it does this without falling into any new age silliness, but relying on historical, anthropological, and scientific rigor.

Max Horkheimer | 1947 | Book

The Eclipse of Reason

This very short book by Frankfurt Group philosopher Max Horkheimer was written back in 1947 as a critique of the Nazi's use of the term "reasonable" to describe their regime's agenda. But it works just as well to critique the utilitarian agenda of Silicon Valley developers. More important, it explains the difference between the particular practical reasons we may do something, and the more significant "Reason" animating us.

Adam Brock | North Atlantic Books, 2017 | Book

Change Here Now: Permaculture Solutions for Personal and Community Transformation

Brock applies the land stewardship techniques of permaculture and applies them to society, economics and social justice, mimicking nature's resilience and abundance. This is as close to a how-to guide for an actionable approach to rebuilding working communities from the bottom up.

Frances Mooré Lappe and Adam Eichen | Beacon Press, 2017 | Book

Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want

Diet for a Small Planet author France Moore Lappé teams up with Democracy Matters activist Adam Eichen for this a rousing call to retrieve the collaborative spirit of democracy. Lappe and Eichen trace the process by which American citizens were stripped of their power to enact social change and show how instead of succumbing to despair, millions of Americans are participating in movements to fulfill human ends. They recast the current political strife as a moment of opportunity.

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About TED Salon

TED Salons welcome an intimate audience for an afternoon or evening of highly-curated TED Talks revolving around a globally relevant theme. A condensed version of a TED flagship conference, they are distinct in their brevity, opportunities for conversation, and heightened interaction between the speaker and audience.

Read more about TED Salons

This talk was presented at a TED Salon event given in partnership with Samsung. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TED Salons.

Listen to the Team Human podcast. Each week, we engage in real-time, no-holds-barred discussions with people who are hacking the machine to make it more compatible with human life, and helping redefine what it means to stay human in a digital age.