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| Does The Price of Shame fit into the category of Technology, Entertainment or Design? |
I got creeped out at TED talks and stopped watching them a
couple of years ago, but only recently after seeing an advertisement for a
recent TED conference did I start thinking about why they bother me. Believe it
or not, this actually ties in with the fact that I grew up in a religious cult
(guess which one) and around this same time I've been remembering some of what
my brain had been going to a lot of trouble to erase. TED talks are getting to
a point where a strange kind of religious spin is applied to their ideas. Not
only direct ideas, but also in the styles of cadence and rhythm religious
ceremonies have. Benjamin Bratton called TED "middlebrow megachurch
infotainment"[1]. Take a look at this 2015 Vancouver TED conference
promotion[2]:
Truth
In our fast-changing world, a
reliable grasp on the truth is hard to come by. Take the following widely held
beliefs. True or false?
— The news is bad.
— Nature is good.
— Technology is no fun any more.
— Growing inequality is inevitable.
— Privacy matters more than transparency.
— Our kids will be worse off than we are.
— We've lost the battle against Big Brother.
— Physics is becoming incomprehensible.
— We've left it too late to prevent a climate crisis.
— The political right has run out of decent ideas.
— Robots will destroy more jobs than they create.
— The genomics revolution arrived too late to help me.
— Nature is good.
— Technology is no fun any more.
— Growing inequality is inevitable.
— Privacy matters more than transparency.
— Our kids will be worse off than we are.
— We've lost the battle against Big Brother.
— Physics is becoming incomprehensible.
— We've left it too late to prevent a climate crisis.
— The political right has run out of decent ideas.
— Robots will destroy more jobs than they create.
— The genomics revolution arrived too late to help me.
The religion I grew up with
always threw around the word truth with a capital T, as if it were some sort of
verbal life preserver. Like you got more points the more religious psychobabble
you can spout to your neighbour. But what I consider worse than just putting
moral thinking in to what is supposed to be scientific and academic based
presentations, they are very blatantly picking and choosing very specific ideas
to "challenge", that is, they are essentially creating their own
ideology. I can easily say that TED is pushing the agenda related to
challenging (that is, replacing) the above beliefs, and answering what they
present as "the big questions".
I ask all kinds of questions. But "the big
questions" are still there from the beginning of recorded civilization,
precisely because they are unanswerable, not for lack of people trying to
answer. The fact that so many different people from so many different places
and backgrounds have their own answers to all the big questions and don't agree with one another should
be good evidence that none of them are right, otherwise the correct one would
become apparent. The fact that there is a never ending discourse shows the
argument has not settled into agreement, as arguments like the shape of the
earth or properties of its movement have eventually become irrefutable.
ANYWAYS, another good question, "why do TED talks cost
so much?" was asked and answered on the ted.com web site archive[3]. Tickets to TED conferences cost $8,500,
(x1200 seats at the recent convention if you want to do some fun math[4]).
Donor membership is $17,000 per year. Patron membership is $150,000 for 5
years. There were 3 upvoted answers attached to this question, none of which
actually address the question of why they cost so much. We are talking about a
non-profit organization (The Sapling Foundation) that owns TED earning over $45
million dollars in 2013[5].
Another way to ask the question is "What is the money
that TED conferences earn used for?" Ninety-seven percent of The Sapling
Foundation's expenses are administration expenses [6]. Because Sapling is non-profit,
the profits are reinvested back in to the company, and they are also
unconditionally tax exempt.
So here is a theory of how a non-profit might work:
1. Start a non-profit, get all your friends that have
disposable income to donate to your charity.
2. Contributions are tax deductible by donators, and the non-profit
ensures they are tax exempt.
3. Do whatever your donor friends want to do with the money.
4. Throw a party for yourself, make sure to write it off.
I thought I would look around a bit more and maybe I could
find some tidbits online about how their money was being spent. I found another
answer from Quora:
Building on Kamrin's great answer, TED is
owned by a nonprofit, the Sapling Foundation. The conference itself makes
money, but we pretty much spend it as soon as we get it -- on video editing and
hosting for TED Talks, which is expensive, and on supporting all the other
worldwide initiatives Kamrin mentions above. And TED pays fair salaries &
benefits to staffers, and pays our interns, which is important to me :)
You spend all your money on video editing? It is no secret
TED pays its' high profile speaker, the Billy Gates' and the Billy Clintons'
big fees for showing up and giving a talk. I wonder how much they charge?
What bothers me almost as much as the religious overtones is
that other feeling of familiarity accompanying TED talks - no, it isn't (just)
that all TED talks sound the same, have similar formats, on-cue applause, and
the same narrow range of "inspiring" topics - it's that it's the same
canned mush that has become staple format all over the TV, internet, books and
magazines. Some optimal cookie-cutting device has been created by the endless
marketing cycles of capitalism, and have told producers of content that this
will make them the most money. While presenting themselves as science, they do
not provide the same avenues normally afforded to the audience - critical
questions to get to the meat of the matter, and call people out when they
aren't being entirely factual. I could dedicate an entire blog to just criticizing
a new TED talk every post, and point out
line by line all of the opinions stated as facts, unsubstantiated claims and poorly
drawn conclusions that go nowhere. They never suggest any real change, just an
tweaking the status quo in some insignificant way because of a pet theory they
have. TED talks aren't a journey, they're a predictable walk around the block.
I also don't understand the continuous lack of engagement at
the end of the talk. Okay, you have the audience inspired, what kinds of things
could they be doing to make the world better? Are you conducting a study where
the audience could log in and participate by doing a survey? Could they assist
with data analysis or help track down resources to help research and
development, or provide other networking connections or collaboration? I'm sure
their primary concern is money, but people who may be sincerely interested in
furthering a cause might not have extra cash to dole out, but may want to
donate time or other resources.
There are lots of videos that are plenty inspiring, if that
is what the mass appeal really is. What people could really be trying to get
out of videos are a type of friend that has the exact same interests as
themselves. It's like attending a dinner party where Malcom Gladwell entertains
you with a "facinating" anecdote about mustard. People want the idea
of rubbing elbows with famous intellects or genuinely charming and talented
individuals, via the internet stream.
Before I conclude, let's think back before TED to the last
big group of smart people that wanted to change the world. That would be Mensa...remember
them? What have you heard Mensa has been up to lately? Not much of anything, they
just seem to like hanging out with other people like them. The TED speakers
Mensa-esque clique have just infused their nerd club with some Andy Warhol,
because they are smart enough to know that is the thing to do to make money and
impress people.
In the end what I have to ask is, can an entity be doing
things beneficial to society, while also making immense amounts of money? Or is
the profitability coming at some higher cost? I don't know, because IT'S A BIG
QUESTION. I am inclined to distrust large corporate entities because making
money tends to trump everything else.
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