The South African Civil Society Information Service

What's Wrong with TED Talks

6 Jan 2014

Have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED talks actually happens? So much potential and enthusiasm and so little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what ideas can do all by themselves wrong?

Benjamin Bratton writes about entanglements of technology and culture - how technologies enable the making of certain worlds and at the same time, how culture structures how those technologies will evolve. The conceptualization of possibilities is something that Bratton takes seriously. He contends that it's time to ask some serious questions about the intellectual viability of TED.

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Editor's Note: Read the text of Bratton’s talk here.

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You can find this page online at http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/1874.