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The power to think ahead in a reckless age | {0: 'Bina Venkataraman is the Editorial Page Editor of the Boston Globe, a professor at MIT and the author of "The Optimist\'s Telescope."'} | TED2019 | So in the winter of 2012, I went to visit my grandmother's house in South India, a place, by the way, where the mosquitos have a special taste for the blood of the American-born. (Laughter) No joke. When I was there, I got an unexpected gift. It was this antique instrument made more than a century ago, hand-carved from a rare wood, inlaid with pearls and with dozens of metal strings. It's a family heirloom, a link between my past, the country where my parents were born, and the future, the unknown places I'll take it. I didn't actually realize it at the time I got it, but it would later become a powerful metaphor for my work. We all know the saying, "There's no time like the present." But nowadays, it can feel like there's no time but the present. What's immediate and ephemeral seems to dominate our lives, our economy and our politics. It's so easy to get caught up in the number of steps we took today or the latest tweet from a high-profile figure. It's easy for businesses to get caught up in making immediate profits and neglect what's good for future invention. And it's far too easy for governments to stand by while fisheries and farmland are depleted instead of conserved to feed future generations. I have a feeling that, at this rate, it's going to be hard for our generation to be remembered as good ancestors. If you think about it, our species evolved to think ahead, to chart the stars, dream of the afterlife, sow seeds for later harvest. Some scientists call this superpower that we have "mental time travel," and it's responsible for pretty much everything we call human civilization, from farming to the Magna Carta to the internet — all first conjured in the minds of humans. But let's get real: if we look around us today, we don't exactly seem to be using this superpower quite enough, and that begs the question: Why not? What's wrong is how our communities, businesses and institutions are designed. They're designed in a way that's impairing our foresight. I want to talk to you about the three key mistakes that I think we're making. The first mistake is what we measure. When we look at the quarterly profits of a company or its near-term stock price, that's often not a great measure of whether that company is going to grow its market share or be inventive in the long run. When we glue ourselves to the test scores that kids bring back from school, that's not necessarily what's great for those kids' learning and curiosity in the long run. We're not measuring what really matters in the future. The second mistake we're making that impairs our foresight is what we reward. When we celebrate a political leader or a business leader for the disaster she just cleaned up or the announcement she just made, we're not motivating that leader to invest in preventing those disasters in the first place, or to put down payments on the future by protecting communities from floods or fighting inequality or investing in research and education. The third mistake that impairs our foresight is what we fail to imagine. Now, when we do think about the future, we tend to focus on predicting exactly what's next, whether we're using horoscopes or algorithms to do that. But we spend a lot less time imagining all the possibilities the future holds. When the Ebola outbreak emerged in 2014 in West Africa, public health officials around the world had early warning signs and predictive tools that showed how that outbreak might spread, but they failed to fathom that it would, and they failed to act in time to intervene, and the epidemic grew to kill more than 11,000 people. When people with lots of resources and good forecasts don't prepare for deadly hurricanes, they're often failing to imagine how dangerous they can be. Now, none of these mistakes that I've described, as dismal as they might sound, are inevitable. In fact, they're all avoidable. What we need to make better decisions about the future are tools that can aid our foresight, tools that can help us think ahead. Think of these as something like the telescopes that ship captains of yore used when they scanned the horizon. Only instead of for looking across distance and the ocean, these tools are for looking across time to the future. I want to share with you a few of the tools that I've found in my research that I think can help us with foresight. The first tool I want to share with you I think of as making the long game pay now. This is Wes Jackson, a farmer I spent some time with in Kansas. And Jackson knows that the way that most crops are grown around the world today is stripping the earth of the fertile topsoil we need to feed future generations. He got together with a group of scientists, and they bred perennial grain crops which have deep roots that anchor the fertile topsoil of a farm, preventing erosion and protecting future harvests. But they also knew that in order to get farmers to grow these crops in the short run, they needed to boost the annual yields of the crops and find companies willing to make cereal and beer using the grains so that farmers could reap profits today by doing what's good for tomorrow. And this is a tried-and-true strategy. In fact, it was used by George Washington Carver in the South of the United States after the Civil War in the early 20th century. A lot of people have probably heard of Carver's 300 uses for the peanut, the products and recipes that he came up with that made the peanut so popular. But not everyone knows why Carver did that. He was trying to help poor Alabama sharecroppers whose cotton yields were declining, and he knew that planting peanuts in their fields would replenish those soils so that their cotton yields would be better a few years later. But he also knew it needed to be lucrative for them in the short run. Alright, so let's talk about another tool for foresight. This one I like to think of as keeping the memory of the past alive to help us imagine the future. So I went to Fukushima, Japan on the sixth anniversary of the nuclear reactor disaster there that followed the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011. When I was there, I learned about the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station, which was even closer to the epicenter of that earthquake than the infamous Fukushima Daiichi that we all know about. In Onagawa, people in the city actually fled to the nuclear power plant as a place of refuge. It was that safe. It was spared by the tsunamis. It was the foresight of just one engineer, Yanosuke Hirai, that made that happen. In the 1960s, he fought to build that power plant farther back from the coast at higher elevation and with a higher sea wall. He knew the story of his hometown shrine, which had flooded in the year 869 after a tsunami. It was his knowledge of history that allowed him to imagine what others could not. OK, one more tool of foresight. This one I think of as creating shared heirlooms. These are lobster fishermen on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and they're the ones who taught me this. They have protected their lobster harvest there for nearly a century, and they've done that by treating it as a shared resource that they're passing on to their collected children and grandchildren. They carefully measure what they catch so that they're not taking the breeding lobster out of the ocean. Across North America, there are more than 30 fisheries that are doing something vaguely similar to this. They're creating long-term stakes in the fisheries known as catch shares which get fishermen to be motivated not just in taking whatever they can from the ocean today but in its long-term survival. Now there are many, many more tools of foresight I would love to share with you, and they come from all kinds of places: investment firms that look beyond near-term stock prices, states that have freed their elections from the immediate interests of campaign financiers. And we're going to need to marshal as many of these tools as we can if we want to rethink what we measure, change what we reward and be brave enough to imagine what lies ahead. Not all this is going to be easy, as you can imagine. Some of these tools we can pick up in our own lives, some we're going to need to do in businesses or in communities, and some we need to do as a society. The future is worth this effort. My own inspiration to keep up this effort is the instrument I shared with you. It's called a dilruba, and it was custom-made for my great-grandfather. He was a well-known music and art critic in India in the early 20th century. My great-grandfather had the foresight to protect this instrument at a time when my great-grandmother was pawning off all their belongings, but that's another story. He protected it by giving it to the next generation, by giving it to my grandmother, and she gave it to me. When I first heard the sound of this instrument, it haunted me. It felt like hearing a wanderer in the Himalayan fog. It felt like hearing a voice from the past. (Music) (Music ends) That's my friend Simran Singh playing the dilruba. When I play it, it sounds like a cat's dying somewhere, so you're welcome. (Laughter) This instrument is in my home today, but it doesn't actually belong to me. It's my role to shepherd it in time, and that feels more meaningful to me than just owning it for today. This instrument positions me as both a descendant and an ancestor. It makes me feel part of a story bigger than my own. And this, I believe, is the single most powerful way we can reclaim foresight: by seeing ourselves as the good ancestors we long to be, ancestors not just to our own children but to all humanity. Whatever your heirloom is, however big or small, protect it and know that its music can resonate for generations. Thank you. (Applause) |
What ping-pong taught me about life | {0: 'Novelist and nonfiction author Pico Iyer writes on subjects ranging from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism, from Graham Greene to forgotten nations and the 21st-century global order.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | Every other night in Japan, I step out of my apartment, I climb up a hill for 15 minutes, and then I head into my local health club, where three ping-pong tables are set up in a studio. And space is limited, so at every table, one pair of players practices forehands, another practices backhands, and every now and then, the balls collide in midair and everybody says, "Wow!" Then, choosing lots, we select partners and play doubles. But I honestly couldn't tell you who's won, because we change partners every five minutes. And everybody is trying really hard to win points, but nobody is keeping track of who is winning games. And after an hour or so of furious exertion, I can honestly tell you that not knowing who has won feels like the ultimate victory. In Japan, it's been said, they've created a competitive spirit without competition. Now, all of you know that geopolitics is best followed by watching ping-pong. (Laughter) The two strongest powers in the world were fiercest enemies until, in 1972, an American ping-pong team was allowed to visit Communist China. And as soon as the former adversaries were gathered around some small green tables, each of them could claim a victory, and the whole world could breathe more easily. China's leader, Mao Zedong, wrote a whole manual on ping-pong, and he called the sport "a spiritual nuclear weapon." And it's been said that the only honorary lifelong member of the US Table Tennis Association is the then-President Richard Nixon, who helped to engineer this win-win situation through ping-pong diplomacy. But long before that, really, the history of the modern world was best told through the bouncing white ball. "Ping-pong" sounds like a cousin of "sing-song," like something Eastern, but actually, it's believed that it was invented by high-class Brits during Victorian times, who started hitting wine corks over walls of books after dinner. (Laughter) No exaggeration. (Laughter) And by the end of World War I, the sport was dominated by players from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire: eight out of nine early world championships were claimed by Hungary. And Eastern Europeans grew so adept at hitting back everything that was hit at them that they almost brought the whole sport to a standstill. In one championship match in Prague in 1936, the first point is said to have lasted two hours and 12 minutes. The first point! Longer than a "Mad Max" movie. And according to one of the players, the umpire had to retire with a sore neck before the point was concluded. (Laughter) That player started hitting the ball back with his left hand and dictating chess moves between shots. (Laughter) Many in the audience started, of course, filing out, as that single point lasted maybe 12,000 strokes. And an emergency meeting of the International Table Tennis Association had to be held then and there, and soon the rules were changed so that no game could last longer than 20 minutes. (Laughter) Sixteen years later, Japan entered the picture, when a little-known watchmaker called Hiroji Satoh showed up at the world championships in Bombay in 1952. And Satoh was not very big, he wasn't highly rated, he was wearing spectacles, but he was armed with a paddle that was not pimpled, as other paddles were, but covered by a thick spongy rubber foam. And thanks to this silencing secret weapon, the little-known Satoh won a gold medal. One million people came out into the streets of Tokyo to greet him upon his return, and really, Japan's postwar resurgence was set into motion. What I learned, though, at my regular games in Japan, is more what could be called the inner sport of global domination, sometimes known as life. We never play singles in our club, only doubles, and because, as I say, we change partners every five minutes, if you do happen to lose, you're very likely to win six minutes later. We also play best-of-two sets, so often, there's no loser at all. Ping-pong diplomacy. And I always remember that as a boy growing up in England, I was taught that the point of a game was to win. But in Japan, I'm encouraged to believe that, really, the point of a game is to make as many people as possible around you feel that they are winners. So you're not careening up and down as an individual might, but you're part of a regular, steady chorus. The most skillful players in our club deploy their skills to turn a 9-1 lead for their team into a 9-9 game in which everybody is intensely involved. And my friend who hits these high, looping lobs that smaller players flail at and miss — well, he wins a lot of points, but I think he's thought of as a loser. In Japan, a game of ping-pong is really like an act of love. You're learning how to play with somebody, rather than against her. And I'll confess, at first, this seemed to me to take all the fun out of the sport. I couldn't exult after a tremendous upset victory against our strongest players, because six minutes later, with a new partner, I was falling behind again. On the other hand, I never felt disconsolate. And when I flew away from Japan and started playing singles again with my English archrival, I noticed that after every defeat, I was really brokenhearted. But after every victory, I couldn't sleep either, because I knew there was only one way to go, and that was down. Now, if I were trying to do business in Japan, this would lead to endless frustration. In Japan, unlike elsewhere, if the score is still level after four hours, a baseball game ends in a tie, and because the league standings are based on winning percentage, a team with quite a few ties can finish ahead of a team with more victories. One of the first times an American was ever brought over to Japan to lead a professional Japanese baseball team, Bobby Valentine, in 1995, he took this really mediocre squad, he lead them to a stunning second-place finish, and he was instantly fired. Why? "Well," said the team spokesman, "because of his emphasis on winning." (Laughter) Official Japan can feel quite a lot like that point that was said to last two hours and 12 minutes, and playing not to lose can take all the imagination, the daring, the excitement, out of things. At the same time, playing ping-pong in Japan reminds me why choirs regularly enjoy more fun than soloists. In a choir, your only job is to play your small part perfectly, to hit your notes with feeling, and by so doing, to help to create a beautiful harmony that's much greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, every choir does need a conductor, but I think a choir releases you from a child's simple sense of either-ors. You come to see that the opposite of winning isn't losing — it's failing to see the larger picture. As my life goes on, I'm really startled to see that no event can properly be assessed for years after it has unfolded. I once lost everything I owned in the world, every last thing, in a wildfire. But in time, I came to see that it was that seeming loss that allowed me to live on the earth more gently, to write without notes, and actually, to move to Japan and the inner health club known as the ping-pong table. Conversely, I once stumbled into the perfect job, and I came to see that seeming happiness can stand in the way of true joy even more than misery does. Playing doubles in Japan really relieves me of all my anxiety, and at the end of an evening, I notice everybody is filing out in a more or less equal state of delight. I'm reminded every night that not getting ahead isn't the same thing as falling behind any more than not being lively is the same thing as being dead. And I've come to understand why it is that Chinese universities are said to offer degrees in ping-pong, and why researchers have found that ping-pong can actually help a little with mild mental disorders and even autism. But as I watch the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, I'm going to be keenly aware that it won't be possible to tell who's won or who's lost for a very long time. You remember that point I mentioned that was said to last for two hours and 12 minutes? Well, one of the players from that game ended up, six years later, in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau. But he walked out alive. Why? Simply because a guard in the gas chamber recognized him from his ping-pong playing days. Had he been the winner of that epic match? It hardly mattered. As you recall, many people had filed out before even the first point was concluded. The only thing that saved him was the fact that he took part. The best way to win any game, Japan tells me every other night, is never, never to think about the score. Thank you. (Applause) |
The mysterious origins of life on Earth | null | TED-Ed | Billions of years ago on the young planet Earth simple organic compounds assembled into more complex coalitions that could grow and reproduce. They were the very first life on Earth, and they gave rise to every one of the billions of species that have inhabited our planet since. At the time, Earth was almost completely devoid of what we’d recognize as a suitable environment for living things. The young planet had widespread volcanic activity and an atmosphere that created hostile conditions. So where on Earth could life begin? To begin the search for the cradle of life, it’s important to first understand the basic necessities for any life form. Elements and compounds essential to life include hydrogen, methane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, phosphates, and ammonia. In order for these ingredients to comingle and react with each other, they need a liquid solvent: water. And in order to grow and reproduce, all life needs a source of energy. Life forms are divided into two camps: autotrophs, like plants, that generate their own energy, and heterotrophs, like animals, that consume other organisms for energy. The first life form wouldn’t have had other organisms to consume, of course, so it must have been an autotroph, generating energy either from the sun or from chemical gradients. So what locations meet these criteria? Places on land or close to the surface of the ocean have the advantage of access to sunlight. But at the time when life began, the UV radiation on Earth’s surface was likely too harsh for life to survive there. One setting offers protection from this radiation and an alternative energy source: the hydrothermal vents that wind across the ocean floor, covered by kilometers of seawater and bathed in complete darkness. A hydrothermal vent is a fissure in the Earth’s crust where seawater seeps into magma chambers and is ejected back out at high temperatures, along with a rich slurry of minerals and simple chemical compounds. Energy is particularly concentrated at the steep chemical gradients of hydrothermal vents. There’s another line of evidence that points to hydrothermal vents: the Last Universal Common Ancestor of life, or LUCA for short. LUCA wasn’t the first life form, but it’s as far back as we can trace. Even so, we don’t actually know what LUCA looked like— there’s no LUCA fossil, no modern-day LUCA still around— instead, scientists identified genes that are commonly found in species across all three domains of life that exist today. Since these genes are shared across species and domains, they must have been inherited from a common ancestor. These shared genes tell us that LUCA lived in a hot, oxygen-free place and harvested energy from a chemical gradient— like the ones at hydrothermal vents. There are two kinds of hydrothermal vent: black smokers and white smokers. Black smokers release acidic, carbon-dioxide-rich water, heated to hundreds of degrees Celsius and packed with sulphur, iron, copper, and other metals essential to life. But scientists now believe that black smokers were too hot for LUCA— so now the top candidates for the cradle of life are white smokers. Among the white smokers, a field of hydrothermal vents on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge called Lost City has become the most favored candidate for the cradle of life. The seawater expelled here is highly alkaline and lacks carbon dioxide, but is rich in methane and offers more hospitable temperatures. Adjacent black smokers may have contributed the carbon dioxide necessary for life to evolve at Lost City, giving it all the components to support the first organisms that radiated into the incredible diversity of life on Earth today. |
A day in the life of a Cossack warrior | null | TED-Ed | Despite a serene sunset on the Dnipro river, the mood is tense for the Zaporozhian Cossacks. The year is 1676, and the Treaty of Żurawno has officially ended hostilities between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. But as Stepan and his men ride towards their stronghold, peace is far from their minds. Having made their home in the Wild Fields north of the Black Sea, these cossacks— derived from a Turkic word for "free man"— are renowned as one of Europe’s most formidable military forces. Composed of hunters, fishermen, nomads and outlaws, the Cossacks found freedom in these fertile unclaimed lands. Yet this freedom has proven increasingly difficult to maintain. Their decades-long strategy of shifting alliances between Poland and Moscow has led to the partitioning of their lands. In a desperate bid to reclaim independence and reunite the fractured Cossack state, their most recent leader, hetman Petro Doroshenko allied with the Ottoman Empire. This alliance successfully freed the Zaporozhian Cossacks in the west from Polish dominion, but their victory was a bitter one. Doroshenko’s Ottoman allies ravaged the countryside, carrying off peasants into slavery. And outrage at allying with Muslims against fellow Christians cost him any remaining local support. Now, with Doroshenko deposed and exiled, the Cossacks are at odds, disagreeing on what their next move should be. Until then, Stepan must keep order. With his musket and curved saber, he cuts an imposing figure. He surveys his battalion of 180 men. Most are Orthodox Christians and speak a Slavic language that will become modern Ukrainian. But there are also Greeks, Tatars, and even some Mongolian Kalmyks, many with different opinions on recent events. Officially, all of Stepan’s men have sworn to uphold the Cossack code by undergoing seven years of military training and remaining unmarried. In practice, some are part-timers, holding more closely to their own traditions, and maintaining families in nearby villages, outside Cossack lands. Thankfully, the tenuous peace is not broken before they reach the Sich— the center of Cossack military life. Currently located at Chortomlyk, the Sich’s location shifts with the tide of military action. The settlement is remarkably well- organized, with administrative buildings, officers’ quarters, and even schools, as Cossacks prize literacy. Stepan and his men make their way to the barracks where they live and train alongside several other battalions or kurins, all of which make up a several hundred man regiment. Inside, the men dine on dried fish, sheep’s cheese, and salted pork fat— along with plenty of wine. Stepan instructs his friend Yuri to lighten the mood with his bandura. But before long, an argument has broken out. One of his men has raised a toast to Doroshenko. Stepan cuts him off. The room is silent until he raises his own toast to Ivan Sirko, the new hetman who favors an alliance with Moscow against the Turks. Stepan plans to support him, and he expects his men to do the same. Suddenly, one of Sirko’s men rushes in, calling an emergency Rada, or general council meeting. Stepan and the others make their way towards the church square— the center of Sich life. Ivan Sirko welcomes the confused crowd with exciting news— scouts have located a large Ottoman camp completely vulnerable on one side. Sirko vows that tomorrow, they will ride against their common enemy, defend the Cossacks’ autonomy, and bring unity to the Wild Fields. As the men cheer in unison, Stepan is relieved at their renewed sense of brotherhood. Over the next 200 years, these freedom fighters would take on many foes. And tragically, they would eventually become the oppressive hand of the Russian government they once opposed. But today, these 17th century Cossacks are remembered for their spirit of independence and defiance. As the Russian painter Ilya Repin once said: “No people in the world held freedom, equality, and fraternity so deeply.” |
How the West can adapt to a rising Asia | {0: 'Through his books, diplomatic work and research, Kishore Mahbubani reenvisions global power dynamics through the lens of rising Asian economies.'} | TED2019 | About 200 years ago, Napoleon famously warned ... He said, "Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world." Despite this early warning, the West chose to go to sleep at precisely the moment when China and India and the rest of Asia woke up. Why did this happen? I'm here to address this great mystery. Now what do I mean when I say the West chose to go to sleep? Here I'm referring to the failure of the West to react intelligently and thoughtfully to a new world environment that's obviously been created by the return of Asia. As a friend of the West I feel anguished by this, so my goal to today is to try to help the West. But I have to begin the story first by talking about how the West actually woke up the rest of the world. Look at chart one. From the year one through the year 1820, the two largest economies of the world were always those of China and India. So it's only in the last 200 years that Europe took off, followed by North America. So the past 200 years of world history have therefore been a major historical aberration. All aberrations come to a natural end and this is what we are seeing. And if you look at chart two, you'll see how quickly and how forcefully China and India are coming back. The big question is: Who woke up China and India? The only honest answer to this question is that it was Western civilization that did so. We all know that the West was the first to successfully modernize, transform itself; initially it used its power to colonize and dominate the world. But over time, it shared the gifts of Western wisdom with the rest of the world. Let me add here that I have personally benefited from the sharing of Western wisdom. When I was born in Singapore, which was then a poor British colony, in 1948, I experienced, like three-quarters of humanity then, extreme poverty. Indeed, on the first day when I went to school at the age of six, I was put in a special feeding program because I was technically undernourished. Now as you can see I'm overnourished. (Laughter) But the greatest gift I got was that of Western education. Now since I've personally traveled this journey from third world poverty to a comfortable middle-class existence, I can speak with great conviction about the impact of Western wisdom and the sharing of Western wisdom with the world. And one particular gift that the West shared was the art of reasoning. Now reasoning was not invented by the West. It's inherent in all cultures and civilizations. Amartya Sen has described how deeply embedded it is in Indian civilization. Yet there's also no doubt that it was the West that carried the art of reasoning to a much higher level. And through the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the West really raised it forcefully, and equally importantly used this, applied it to solve many major practical problems. And the West then shared this art of applied reasoning with the rest of the world, and I can tell you that it led to what I call three silent revolutions. And as an Asian, I can describe how these silent revolutions transformed Asia. The first revolution was in economics. The main reason why so many Asian economies, including the communist societies of China and Vietnam, have performed so spectacularly well in economic development, is because they finally understood, absorbed and are implementing free market economics — a gift from the West. Adam Smith was right. If you let markets decide, productivity goes up. The second gift was psychological. Here too I can speak from personal experience. When I was young, my mother and her generation believed that life was determined by fate. You couldn't do anything about it. My generation and the generation of Asians after me, believe that we can take charge and we can improve our lives. And this may explain, for example, the spike of entrepreneurship you see all throughout Asia today. And if you travel through Asia today, you will also see the results of the third revolution: the revolution of good governance. Now as a result of good governance — travel in Asia, you see better health care, better education, better infrastructure, better public policies. It's a different world. Now having transformed the world through the sharing of Western wisdom with the rest of the world, the logical and rational response of the West should have been to say, "Hey, we have to adjust and adapt to this new world." Instead, the West chose to go to sleep. Why did it happen? I believe it happened because the West became distracted with two major events. The first event was the end of the Cold War. Yes, the end of the Cold War was a great victory. The West defeated the mighty Soviet Union without firing a shot. Amazing. But you know, when you have a great victory like this, it also leads to arrogance and hubris. And this hubris was best captured in a very famous essay by Francis Fukuyama called "The End of History?" Now, Fukuyama was putting across a very sophisticated message, but all that the West heard from this essay was that we, the liberal democracies, we have succeeded, we don't have to change, we don't have to adapt, it's only the rest of the world that has to change and adapt. Unfortunately, like a dangerous opiate, this essay did a lot of brain damage to the West because it put them to sleep just at precisely the moment when China and India were waking up and the West didn't adjust and adapt. The second major event was 9/11, which happened in 2001. And as we know, 9/11 caused a lot of shock and grief. I personally experienced the shock and grief because I was in Manhattan when 9/11 happened. 9/11 also generated a lot of anger, and in this anger, the United States decided to invade Afghanistan and later, Iraq. And unfortunately, partly as a result of this anger, the West didn't notice the significance of another event that happened also in 2001. China joined the World Trade Organization. Now, when you suddenly inject 900 million new workers into the global capitalist system, it would naturally lead to what the economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction. Western workers lost their jobs, they saw their incomes stagnate, clearly people had to think about new competitive policies, workers needed retraining, workers needed new skills. None of this was done. So partly as a result of this, the United States of America became the only major developed society where the average income of the bottom 50 percent — yes, 50 percent — average income went down over a 30-year period, from 1980 to 2010. So partly, as a result of this, it led eventually to the election of Donald Trump in 2016, who exploited the anger of the working classes, who are predominantly white. It also contributed to the rise of populism in Europe. And one wonders, could this populism have been avoided if the West had not been distracted by the end of the Cold War and by 9/11? But the big question we face today is this: Is it too late? Has the West lost everything? And my answer is that it's not too late. It is possible for the West to recover and come back in strength. And using the Western art of reasoning, I would recommend that the West adopt a new "three-m" strategy: minimalist, multilateral and Machiavellian. (Laughter) Why minimalist? Now even though Western domination has ended, the West continues to intervene and interfere in the affairs of many other societies. This is unwise. This is generating anger and resentment, especially in Islamic societies. It's also draining the resources and spirits of Western societies. Now I know that the Islamic world is having difficulties modernizing. It will have to find its way, but it's more likely to do so if it is left alone to do so. Now I can say this with some conviction because I come from a region, Southeast Asia, which has almost as many Muslims as the Arab world. 266 million Muslims. Southeast Asia is also one of the most diverse continents on planet earth, because you also have 146 million Christians, 149 million Buddhists — Mahayana Buddhists and Hinayana Buddhists — and you also have millions of Taoists and Confucianists and Hindus and even communists. And once known as "the Balkans of Asia," southeast Asia today should be experiencing a clash of civilizations. Instead, what you see in southeast Asia is one of the most peaceful and prosperous corners of planet earth with the second-most successful regional multilateral organization, ASEAN. So clearly, minimalism can work. The West should try it out. (Laughter) (Applause) But I'm also aware that minimalism cannot solve all the problems. There are some hard problems that have to be dealt with: Al-Qaeda, ISIS — they remain dangerous threats. They must be found, they must be destroyed. The question is, is it wise for the West, which represents 12 percent of the world's population — yes, 12 percent — to fight these threats on its own or to fight with the remaining 88 percent of the world's population? And the logical and rational answer is that you should work with the remaining 88 percent. Now where does one go if you want to get the support of humanity? There's only one place: the United Nations. Now I've been ambassador to the UN twice. Maybe that makes me a bit biased, but I can tell you that working with the UN can lead to success. Why is it that the first Iraq war, fought by President George H. W. Bush, succeeded? While the second Iraq war, fought by his son, President George W. Bush, failed? One key reason is that the senior Bush went to the UN to get the support of the global community before fighting the war in Iraq. So multilateralism works. There's another reason why we have to work with the UN. The world is shrinking. We are becoming a small, interdependent, global village. All villages need village councils. And the only global village counsel we have, as the late UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, is the UN. Now as a geopolitical analyst, I do know that it's often considered naive to work with the UN. So now let me inject my Machiavellian point. Now Machiavelli is a figure who's often derided in the West, but the liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin reminded us that the goal of Machiavelli was to promote virtue, not evil. So what is the Machiavellian point? It's this: what is the best way for the West to constrain the new rising powers that are emerging? And the answer is that the best way to constrain them is through multilateral rules and multilateral norms, multilateral institutions and multilateral processes. Now let me conclude with one final, big message. As a longtime friend of the West, I'm acutely aware of how pessimistic Western societies have become. Many in the West don't believe that a great future lies ahead for them, that their children will not have better lives. So please do not fear the future or the rest of the world. Now I can say this with some conviction, because as a Hindu Sindhi, I actually feel a direct cultural connection with society's diverse cultures and societies all the way from Tehran to Tokyo. And more than half of humanity lives in this space, so with this direct cultural connection, I can say with great conviction that if the West chooses to adopt a wiser strategy of being minimalist, multilateral and Machiavellian, the rest of the world will be happy to work with the West. So a great future lies ahead for humanity. Let's embrace it together. Thank you. (Applause) |
How climate change affects your mental health | {0: "Britt Wray's work is about life and what we make of it: past, present and future. "} | TED Residency | For all that's ever been said about climate change, we haven't heard nearly enough about the psychological impacts of living in a warming world. If you've heard the grim climate research that science communicators like me weave into our books and documentaries, you've probably felt bouts of fear, fatalism or hopelessness. If you've been impacted by climate disaster, these feelings can set in much deeper, leading to shock, trauma, strained relationships, substance abuse and the loss of personal identity and control. Vital political and technological work is underway to moderate our climate chaos, but I'm here to evoke a feeling in you for why we also need our actions and policies to reflect an understanding of how our changing environments threaten our mental, social and spiritual well-being. The anxiety, grief and depression of climate scientists and activists have been reported on for years. Trends we've seen after extreme weather events like hurricane Sandy or Katrina for increased PTSD and suicidality. And there are rich mental-health data from northern communities where warming is the fastest, like the Inuit in Labrador, who face existential distress as they witness the ice, a big part of their identity, vanishing before their eyes. Now if that weren't enough, the American Psychological Association says that our psychological responses to climate change, like conflict avoidance, helplessness and resignation, are growing. This means that our conscious and unconscious mental processes are holding us back from identifying the causes of the problem for what they are, working on solutions and fostering our own psychological resilience, but we need all those things to take on what we've created. Lately, I've been studying a phenomenon that's just one example of the emotional hardships that we're seeing. And it comes in the form of a question that a significant amount of people in my generation are struggling to answer. That being: Should I have a child in the age of climate change? After all, any child born today will have to live in a world where hurricanes, flooding, wildfires — what we used to call natural disasters — have become commonplace. The hottest 20 years on record occurred within the last 22. The UN expects that two-thirds of the global population may face water shortages only six years from now. The World Bank predicts that by 2050, there's going to be 140 million climate refugees in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South Asia. And other estimates put that number at over one billion. Mass migrations and resource scarcity increase the risk for violence, war and political instability. The UN just reported that we are pushing up to a million species to extinction, many within decades, and our emissions are still increasing, even after the Paris Agreement. Over the last year and a half, I've been conducting workshops and interviews with hundreds of people about parenting in the climate crisis. And I can tell you that people who are worried about having kids because of climate change are not motivated by an ascetic pride. They're nerve-racked. There's even a movement called BirthStrike, whose members have declared they're not going to have kids because of the state of the ecological crisis and inaction from governments to address this existential threat. And yes, other generations have also faced their own apocalyptic dangers, but that is no reason to disregard the very real threat to our survival now. Some feel that it's better to adopt children. Or that it's unethical to have more than one, especially three, four or more, because kids increase greenhouse gas emissions. Now, it is a really unfortunate state of affairs when people who want kids sacrifice their right to because, somehow, they have been told that their lifestyle choices are to blame when the fault is far more systemic, but let's just unpack the logic here. So an oft-cited study shows that, on average, having one less child in an industrialized nation can save about 59 tons of carbon dioxide per year. While in comparison, living car-free saves nearly 2.5 tons, avoiding a transatlantic flight — and this is just one — saves about 1.5 tons, and eating a plant-based diet can save almost one ton per year. And consider that a Bangladeshi child only adds 56 metric tons of carbon to their parents' carbon legacy over their lifetime, while an American child, in comparison, adds 9,441 to theirs. So this is why some people argue that it's parents from nations with huge carbon footprints who should think the hardest about how many kids they have. But the decision to have a child and one's feelings about the future are deeply personal, and wrapped up in all sorts of cultural norms, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, education levels and more. And so to some, this debate about kids in the climate crisis can seem like it came from another planet. Many have more immediate threats to their survival to think about, like, how they're going to put food on the table, when they're a single mom working three jobs, or they're HIV positive or on the move in a migrant caravan. Tragically, though, climate change is really great at intersectionality. It multiplies the stresses marginalized communities already face. A political scientist once said to me that a leading indicator that climate change is starting to hit home, psychologically, would be an increase in the rate of informed women deciding to not have children. Interesting. Is it hitting home with you, psychologically? Are you perhaps someone with climate-linked pre-traumatic stress? A climate psychiatrist coined that term, and that's a profession now, by the way, shrinks for climate woes. They're getting work at a time when some high schoolers don't want to apply to university any longer, because they can't foresee a future for themselves. And this brings me back to my main point. The growing concern about having kids in the climate crisis is an urgent indicator of how hard-pressed people are feeling. Right now, students around the world are screaming for change in the piercing voice of despair. And the fact that we can see how we contribute to this problem that makes us feel unsafe is crazy-making in itself. Climate change is all-encompassing and so are the ways that it messes with our minds. Many activists will tell you that the best antidote to grief is activism. And some psychologists will tell you the answer can be found in therapy. Others believe the key is to imagine you're on your deathbed, reflecting back on what's mattered the most in your life, so you can identify what you should do more of now, with the time that you have left. We need all these ideas, and more, to take care of our innermost selves as the environments we've known become more punishing towards us. And whether you have children or not, we need to be honest about what is happening, and what we owe one another. We cannot afford to treat the psychological impacts of climate change as some afterthought, because the other issues, of science, technology and the politics and economy, feel hard, while this somehow feels soft. Mental health needs to be an integral part of any climate change survival strategy, requiring funding, and ethics of equity and care, and widespread awareness. Because even if you're the most emotionally avoidant person on the planet, there's no rug in the world that's big enough to sweep this up under. Thank you. (Applause) |
The myth of Jason and the Argonauts | null | TED-Ed | Hercules, the strongest man alive with a mighty heart to match. Orpheus, charmer of nature and master of music. Castor and Pollux, the twin tricksters hatched from an egg. The Boreads, sons of the North Wind who could hurtle through the air. For untold times these heroes had roamed ancient Greece, creating new legends wherever they went. But none of their adventures was so great as when they joined forces for the sake of a young man named Jason. Years before, Jason’s uncle Pelias had ruthlessly usurped the throne of Thessaly from Jason’s grandfather. When Jason returned to his father’s stolen court, the cowardly king set him a seemingly impossible task: cross the teeming seas to Colchis, and steal the golden fleece of a flying ram under King Aeetes’ nose. If Jason retrieved the Fleece, Pelias promised to relinquish the throne. Touched by his heroic mission, the Gods spread Jason’s call for help, and soon he had assembled a not-so-motley crew. These heroes, alongside countless sailors, soothsayers, and rebel demigods, named themselves the Argonauts after their sturdy ship. But the path ahead was marked with untold terrors– enough to test even the fiercest heroes. Their first stop was Lemnos, an isle of women who had killed all the island’s men. As punishment, Aphrodite had cursed them with a sickening stench– but that didn’t stop Jason fathering twins with the queen. The rest of the crew also found themselves embroiled in new romances; until Hercules chastised them for not behaving like heroes. Eventually, they sailed on to the Mount of Bears, an island where a group of ancient, six-armed monsters lived alongside the peaceful Doliones. While the clan welcomed the Argonauts with open arms, the monsters surged down from the mountains and hurled rocks at the docked ship. Hercules held them off single-handedly, before his comrades joined the fray. Bolstered by their victory, the triumphant heroes sailed onward– only to be blown back to the island several stormy nights later. In the tempest, the Doliones thought these new arrivals invaders. The Argonauts were similarly unaware of their surroundings, and fought blunderingly in the dark, slaying wave after wave of foe. But the morning light revealed a horrible truth: their victims were none other than their previous hosts. Yet again, Jason had allowed the crew to be distracted, this time at a terrible cost. Ashamed at his conduct, he resolved to focus only on the Fleece, but even this haste proved ruinous. When Hercules’ squire was abducted by a water nymph, Jason sailed on– oblivious to the absence of his most powerful crewmate. The remaining Argonauts continued their quest, until stopping at the sight of an old man surrounded by a swirl of harpies. This was Phineas, a seer cursed by Zeus to endure old age, blindness, and endless torture for giving away his prophecies. Moved by his plight, the wind brothers set upon the flock, providing Phineas with a brief respite from his punishment. In return, the seer told them how to overcome the terrifying trial that lay ahead: the Symplegades, a pair clashing rocks that reduced ships to splinters. But first, the Argonauts would have to maneuver past the mouth of hell, around the island of the bloodthirsty Amazons, and under psychedelic skies. These adventures cost the crew both in men and morale– and some feared they might be losing their minds. Upon reaching the clashing rocks, the exhausted crew quaked with fear. But Phineas’ advice rang in their heads. The Argonauts released a single dove and sped through in its wake to emerge unscathed. With this narrow escape, the Argonauts finally had Colchis in their sights. Yet while Jason rested and celebrated with his crew, he could feel his time among them was drawing to a close. As the fleece gleamed in his mind, he knew he would have to retrieve it alone. But he could not guess that this final task would have the most horrible price of all. |
Emergency medicine for our climate fever | {0: 'Kelly Wanser helps study and invent global-scale technological interventions that could save humanity from the worst effects of climate change.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | I'm here to talk to you about something important that may be new to you. The governments of the world are about to conduct an unintentional experiment on our climate. In 2020, new rules will require ships to lower their sulfur emissions by scrubbing their dirty exhaust or switching to cleaner fuels. For human health, this is really good, but sulfur particles in the emission of ships also have an effect on clouds. This is a satellite image of marine clouds off the Pacific West Coast of the United States. The streaks in the clouds are created by the exhaust from ships. Ships' emissions include both greenhouse gases, which trap heat over long periods of time, and particulates like sulfates that mix with clouds and temporarily make them brighter. Brighter clouds reflect more sunlight back to space, cooling the climate. So in fact, humans are currently running two unintentional experiments on our climate. In the first one, we're increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases and gradually warming the earth system. This works something like a fever in the human body. If the fever remains low, its effects are mild, but as the fever rises, damage grows more severe and eventually devastating. We're seeing a little of this now. In our other experiment, we're planning to remove a layer of particles that brighten clouds and shield us from some of this warming. The effect is strongest in ocean clouds like these, and scientists expect the reduction of sulfur emissions from ships next year to produce a measurable increase in global warming. Bit of a shocker? In fact, most emissions contain sulfates that brighten clouds: coal, diesel exhaust, forest fires. Scientists estimate that the total cooling effect from emission particles, which they call aerosols when they're in the climate, may be as much as all of the warming we've experienced up until now. There's a lot of uncertainty around this effect, and it's one of the major reasons why we have difficulty predicting climate, but this is cooling that we'll lose as emissions fall. So to be clear, humans are currently cooling the planet by dispersing particles into the atmosphere at massive scale. We just don't know how much, and we're doing it accidentally. That's worrying, but it could mean that we have a fast-acting way to reduce warming, emergency medicine for our climate fever if we needed it, and it's a medicine with origins in nature. This is a NASA simulation of earth's atmosphere, showing clouds and particles moving over the planet. The brightness is the Sun's light reflecting from particles in clouds, and this reflective shield is one of the primary ways that nature keeps the planet cool enough for humans and all of the life that we know. In 2015, scientists assessed possibilities for rapidly cooling climate. They discounted things like mirrors in space, ping-pong balls in the ocean, plastic sheets on the Arctic, and they found that the most viable approaches involved slightly increasing this atmospheric reflectivity. In fact, it's possible that reflecting just one or two percent more sunlight from the atmosphere could offset two degrees Celsius or more of warming. Now, I'm a technology executive, not a scientist. About a decade ago, concerned about climate, I started to talk with scientists about potential countermeasures to warming. These conversations grew into collaborations that became the Marine Cloud Brightening Project, which I'll talk about momentarily, and the nonprofit policy organization SilverLining, where I am today. I work with politicians, researchers, members of the tech industry and others to talk about some of these ideas. Early on, I met British atmospheric scientist John Latham, who proposed cooling the climate the way that the ships do, but with a natural source of particles: sea-salt mist from seawater sprayed from ships into areas of susceptible clouds over the ocean. The approach became known by the name I gave it then, "marine cloud brightening." Early modeling studies suggested that by deploying marine cloud brightening in just 10 to 20 percent of susceptible ocean clouds, it might be possible to offset as much as two degrees Celsius's warming. It might even be possible to brighten clouds in local regions to reduce the impacts caused by warming ocean surface temperatures. For example, regions such as the Gulf Atlantic might be cooled in the months before a hurricane season to reduce the force of storms. Or, it might be possible to cool waters flowing onto coral reefs overwhelmed by heat stress, like Australia's Great Barrier Reef. But these ideas are only theoretical, and brightening marine clouds is not the only way to increase the reflection of the sunlight from the atmosphere. Another occurs when large volcanoes release material with enough force to reach the upper layer of the atmosphere, the stratosphere. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it released material into the stratosphere, including sulfates that mix with the atmosphere to reflect sunlight. This material remained and circulated around the planet. It was enough to cool the climate by over half a degree Celsius for about two years. This cooling led to a striking increase in Arctic ice cover in 1992, which dropped in subsequent years as the particles fell back to earth. But the volcanic phenomenon led Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen to propose the idea that dispersing particles into the stratosphere in a controlled way might be a way to counter global warming. Now, this has risks that we don't understand, including things like heating up the stratosphere or damage to the ozone layer. Scientists think that there could be safe approaches to this, but is this really where we are? Is this really worth considering? This is a simulation from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research global climate model showing, earth surface temperatures through 2100. The globe on the left visualizes our current trajectory, and on the right, a world where particles are introduced into the stratosphere gradually in 2020, and maintained through 2100. Intervention keeps surface temperatures near those of today, while without it, temperatures rise well over three degrees. This could be the difference between a safe and an unsafe world. So, if there's even a chance that this could be close to reality, is this something we should consider seriously? Today, there are no capabilities, and scientific knowledge is extremely limited. We don't know whether these types of interventions are even feasible, or how to characterize their risks. Researchers hope to explore some basic questions that might help us know whether or not these might be real options or whether we should rule them out. It requires multiple ways of studying the climate system, including computer models to forecast changes, analytic techniques like machine learning, and many types of observations. And though it's controversial, it's also critical that researchers develop core technologies and perform small-scale, real-world experiments. There are two research programs proposing experiments like this. At Harvard, the SCoPEx experiment would release very small amounts of sulfates, calcium carbonate and water into the stratosphere with a balloon, to study chemistry and physics effects. How much material? Less than the amount released in one minute of flight from a commercial aircraft. So this is definitely not dangerous, and it may not even be scary. At the University of Washington, scientists hope to spray a fine mist of salt water into clouds in a series of land and ocean tests. If those are successful, this would culminate in experiments to measurably brighten an area of clouds over the ocean. The marine cloud brightening effort is the first to develop any technology for generating aerosols for atmospheric sunlight reflection in this way. It requires producing very tiny particles — think about the mist that comes out of an asthma inhaler — at massive scale — so think of looking up at a cloud. It's a tricky engineering problem. So this one nozzle they developed generates three trillion particles per second, 80 nanometers in size, from very corrosive saltwater. It was developed by a team of retired engineers in Silicon Valley — here they are — working full-time for six years, without pay, for their grandchildren. It will take a few million dollars and another year or two to develop the full spray system they need to do these experiments. In other parts of the world, research efforts are emerging, including small modeling programs at Beijing Normal University in China, the Indian Institute of Science, a proposed center for climate repair at Cambridge University in the UK and the DECIMALS Fund, which sponsors researchers in global South countries to study the potential impacts of these sunlight interventions in their part of the world. But all of these programs, including the experimental ones, lack significant funding. And understanding these interventions is a hard problem. The earth is a vast, complex system and we need major investments in climate models, observations and basic science to be able to predict climate much better than we can today and manage both our accidental and any intentional interventions. And it could be urgent. Recent scientific reports predict that in the next few decades, earth's fever is on a path to devastation: extreme heat and fires, major loss of ocean life, collapse of Arctic ice, displacement and suffering for hundreds of millions of people. The fever could even reach tipping points where warming takes over and human efforts are no longer enough to counter accelerating changes in natural systems. To prevent this circumstance, the UN's International Panel on Climate Change predicts that we need to stop and even reverse emissions by 2050. How? We have to quickly and radically transform major economic sectors, including energy, construction, agriculture, transportation and others. And it is imperative that we do this as fast as we can. But our fever is now so high that climate experts say we also have to remove massive quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere, possibly 10 times all of the world's annual emissions, in ways that aren't proven yet. Right now, we have slow-moving solutions to a fast-moving problem. Even with the most optimistic assumptions, our exposure to risk in the next 10 to 30 years is unacceptably high, in my opinion. Could interventions like these provide fast-acting medicine if we need it to reduce the earth's fever while we address its underlying causes? There are real concerns about this idea. Some people are very worried that even researching these interventions could provide an excuse to delay efforts to reduce emissions. This is also known as a moral hazard. But, like most medicines, interventions are more dangerous the more that you do, so research actually tends to draw out the fact that we absolutely, positively cannot continue to fill up the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, that these kinds of alternatives are risky and if we were to use them, we would need to use as little as possible. But even so, could we ever learn enough about these interventions to manage the risk? Who would make decisions about when and how to intervene? What if some people are worse off, or they just think they are? These are really hard problems. But what really worries me is that as climate impacts worsen, leaders will be called on to respond by any means available. I for one don't want them to act without real information and much better options. Scientists think it will take a decade of research just to assess these interventions, before we ever were to develop or use them. Yet today, the global level of investment in these interventions is effectively zero. So, we need to move quickly if we want policymakers to have real information on this kind of emergency medicine. There is hope! The world has solved these kinds of problems before. In the 1970s, we identified an existential threat to our protective ozone layer. In the 1980s, scientists, politicians and industry came together in a solution to replace the chemicals causing the problem. They achieved this with the only legally binding environmental agreement signed by all countries in the world, the Montreal Protocol. Still in force today, it has resulted in a recovery of the ozone layer and is the most successful environmental protection effort in human history. We have a far greater threat now, but we do have the ability to develop and agree on solutions to protect people and restore our climate to health. This could mean that to remain safe, we reflect sunlight for a few decades, while we green our industries and remove CO2. It definitely means we must work now to understand our options for this kind of emergency medicine. Thank you, (Applause) |
Can we choose to fall out of love? | {0: 'Dessa is an internationally touring rapper, singer and writer who built a career by defying genre conventions and audience expectations.'} | TEDxWanChai | Hello, my name is Dessa, and I'm a member of a hip-hop collective called Doomtree. I'm the one in the tank top. (Laughter) And I make my living as a performing, touring rapper and singer. When we perform as a collective, this is what our shows look like. I'm the one in the boots. There's a lot of jumping. There's a lot of sweating. It's loud. It's very high-energy. Sometimes there are unintentional body checks onstage. Sometimes there are completely intentional body checks onstage. It's kind of a hybrid between an intramural hockey game and a concert. However, when I perform my own music as a solo artist, I tend to gravitate towards more melancholy sounds. A few years ago, I gave my mom the rough mixes of a new album, and she said, "Baby, it's beautiful, but why is it always so sad?" (Laughter) "You always make music to bleed out to." And I thought, "Who are you hanging out with that you know that phrase?" (Laughter) But over the course of my career, I've written so many sad love songs that I got messages like this from fans: "Release new music or a book. I need help with my breakup." (Laughter) And after performing and recording and touring those songs for a long time, I found myself in a position in which my professional niche was essentially romantic devastation. What I hadn't been public about, however, was the fact that most of these songs had been written about the same guy. And for two years, we tried to sort ourselves out, and then for five and on and off for 10. And I was not only heartbroken, but I was kind of embarrassed that I couldn't rebound from what other people seemed to recover from so regularly. And even though I knew it wasn't doing either of us any good, I just couldn't figure out how to put the love down. Then, drinking white wine one night, I saw a TED Talk by a woman named Dr. Helen Fisher, and she said that in her work, she'd been able to map the coordinates of love in the human brain. And I thought, well, if I could find my love in my brain, maybe I could get it out. So I went to Twitter. "Anybody got access to an fMRI lab, like at midnight or something? I'll trade for backstage passes and whiskey." (Laughter) And that's Dr. Cheryl Olman, who works at the University of Minnesota's Center for Magnetic Resonance Research. She took me up on it. I explained Dr. Fisher's protocol, and we decided to recreate it with a sample size of one, me. (Laughter) So I got decked out in a pair of forest green scrubs, and I was laid on a gurney and wheeled into an fMRI machine. If you're unfamiliar with that technology, essentially, an fMRI machine is a big, tubular magnet that tracks the progress of deoxygenated iron in your blood. So it's essentially figuring out what parts of your brain are making the biggest metabolic demand at any given moment. And in that way, it can figure out which structures are associated with a task, like tapping your finger, for example, will always light up the same region, or in my case, looking at pictures of your ex-boyfriend and then looking at pictures of a dude who just sort of resembled my ex-boyfriend but for whom I had no strong feelings. He was the control. (Laughter) And when I left the machine, we had these really high-resolution images of my brain. We could cleave the two halves apart. We could inflate the cortex to see inside all of the wrinkles, essentially, in a view that Dr. Cheryl Olman called the "brain skin rug." (Laughter) And we could see how my brain had behaved when I looked at images of both men. And this was important. We could track all of the activity when I looked at the control and when I looked at my ex, and it was in comparing these data sets that we'd be able to find the love alone, in the same way that, if I were to step on a scale fully dressed and then step on it again naked, the difference between those numbers would be the weight of my clothing. So when we did that data comparison, we subtracted one from the other, we found activity in exactly the regions that Dr. Fisher would have predicted. That's me. And that's my brain in love. There was activity in that little orange dot, the ventral tegmental area, that kind of loop of red is the anterior cingulate and that golden set of horns is the caudates. After she had had time to analyze the data with her team and a couple of partners, Andrea and Phil, Cheryl sent me an image, a single slide. It was my brain in cross section, with one bright dot of activity that represented my feelings for this dude. And I'd known I was in love, and that's the whole reason I was going to these outrageous lengths. But having an image that proved it felt like such a vindication, like, "Yeah, it's all in my head, but now I know exactly where." (Laughter) And I also felt like an assassin who had her mark. That was what I had to annihilate. So I decided to embark on a course of treatment called "neurofeedback." I worked with a woman named Penijean Gracefire, and she explained that what we'd be doing was training my brain. We're not lobotomizing anything. We're training it in the way that we would train a muscle, so that it would be flexible enough and resilient enough to respond appropriately to my circumstances. So when we're on the treadmill, we would anticipate that our heart would beat and pound, and when we're asleep, we would ask that that muscle slow. Similarly, when I'm in a long-term, viable, loving romantic relationship, the emotional centers of my brain should engage, and when I'm not in a long-term, viable, emotional, loving relationship, they should eventually chill out. So she came over with a set of electrodes just smaller than a dime that were sensitive enough to detect my brainwaves through my bone and hair and scalp. And when she rigged me up, I could see my brain working in real time. And in another view that she showed me, I could see exactly which parts of my brain were hyperactive, here displayed in red; hypoactive, here displayed in blue; and the healthy threshold of behavior, the green zone, the Goldilocks zone, which is where I wanted to go. And we can, in fact, isolate just those parts of my brain that were associated with the romantic regulation that we'd identified in the Fisher study. So Penijean, several times, hooked me up with all her electrodes, and she explained that I didn't have to do or think anything. I just essentially had to hold pretty still and stay awake and watch. (Harp and vibraphone sounds play) So I did. And every time my brain operated in that healthy threshold, I got a little run of harp or vibraphone music. And I just watched my brain rotate at roughly the speed of a gyro machine on my dad's flat-screen TV. And that was counterintuitive. She said the learning would be essentially unconscious. But then I thought about the other things I had learned without actively engaging my conscious mind. When you ride a bike, I don't really know what, like, my left calf muscle is doing, or how my latissimus dorsi knows to engage when I wobble to the right. The body just learns. And similarly, Pavlov's dogs probably don't know a lot about, like, protein structures or the waveform of a ringing bell, but they salivate nonetheless because the body paired the stimuli. Finished the sessions, went back to Dr. Cheryl Olman's fMRI machine, and we repeated the protocol, the same images — of the ex, of the control and, in the interest of scientific rigor, Cheryl and her team didn't know who was who, so that they couldn't influence the results. And after she had time to analyze that second set of data, she sent me that image. She said, "Dude A's dominance of your brain seems to essentially have been eradicated. I think this is the desired result," comma, yes, question mark. (Laughter) And that was the exactly the desired result. And finally, I allowed myself a moment to introspect, like, how did I feel? And in one way, it felt like it was the same inventory of feelings that I'd had at the outset. This isn't "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." The dude wasn't a stranger. But I'd had love and jealousy and amity and attraction and respect and all those complicated feelings that you amass after long-term love. But it felt like the benevolent feelings had risen to the surface, and the feelings of fixation and the less-generous feelings weren't quite so present. And that sounds like a small thing in some way, this resequencing of feelings, but to me it felt like the biggest thing. Like, if I told you, "I'm going to anesthetize you, and I'm also going to take out your wisdom teeth," it would really matter to you the sequence in which I did those two things. (Laughter) And I also felt like I'd had this really unusual philosophical privilege to understand love. The lab offered to 3D-print my caudate. I got to hold love in my hand. (Laughter) And then I bronzed it, and I made it into a necklace and sold it at the merch table at my shows. (Laughter) (Applause) And then, with the help of a couple of friends back in Minneapolis, one of them Becky, we made an enormous disco ball of it — (Laughter) that could descend from the ceiling at my big shows. And I felt like I'd had the opportunity to better understand love, even the compulsive parts. It isn't a neat, symmetrical Valentine's heart. It's bodily, it's systemic, it is a hideous pair of ram's horns buried somewhere deep within your skull, and when that special boy walks by, it lights up, and if he likes you back and you make each other happy, then you fan the flames. And if he doesn't, then you assemble a team of neuroscientists to snuff them out by force. (Laughter) Thanks. (Applause) |
How I help people understand vitiligo | {0: 'Lee Thomas has loved to watch, write and share stories his entire life. '} | TED Salon The Macallan | When I was young, I wanted to be on TV: the lights, the cameras, the makeup, the glamorous life. And from my vantage point, just outside of a military base in Lawton, Oklahoma, I didn't make the distinction between TV reporter or actor. It was all the same to me. It was either, "Reporting live from Berlin" or "I shall attend her here and woo her with such spirit when she comes." (Laughter) It was all special, it was all the spotlight, and I just knew that it was for me. But somewhere along my journey, life happened. Ah, much better. (Applause) I have a disease called vitiligo. It started early in my career. It's an autoimmune disorder. It's where it looks like your skin is getting white patches, but it's actually void of color. It affects all ethnicities, it affects all ages, all genders, it's not contagious, it's not life-threatening, but it is mental warfare. It's tough. Now, I was diagnosed with this disease when I was working on "Eyewitness News" in New York City. I was in the biggest city in the country, I was on their flagship station and I was on their top-rated 5pm newscast. And the doctor looked me right in the eye and said, "You have a disease called vitiligo. It's a skin disorder where you lose your pigment. There is no cure, but there a-la-la-la-la". Charlie Brown's teacher. (Laughter) He said there is no cure. All I heard was, "My career is over." But I just couldn't give up. I couldn't quit, because we put too much into this. And by "we" I mean Mr. Moss, who sent me to speech and drama club instead of to detention, or my sister who paid part of my college expenses, or my mom, who simply gave me everything. I would not quit. So I decided to just put on makeup and keep it moving. I had to wear makeup anyway. It's TV, baby, right? I just put on a little more makeup, and everything's cool. And that actually went very well for years. I went from being a reporter in New York City to being a morning show anchor in Detroit, the Motor City. And as the disease got worse, I just put on more makeup. It was easy. Except for my hands. See, this disease is progressive and ever-changing. That means it comes and goes. At one point, for about a year and a half, my face was completely white. Yeah, it trips me out too. (Laughter) Yeah. And then, with a little help, some of the pigment came back, but living through this process was like two sides of a coin. When I'm at work and I'm wearing the makeup or wearing the makeup outside, I'm the TV guy. "Hey, how you doing everybody? Great." At home without the makeup, I'd take it off and it was like being a leper. The stares, constantly staring at me, the comments under their breath. Some people refused to shake my hand. Some people moved to the other side of the sidewalk, moved to the other side of the elevator. I felt like they were moving to the other side of life. It was tough, and those were some tough years. And honestly, sometimes I just had to shelter in place. You know what I mean? Kind of just stay at home till I get my mind right. But then I'd put my blinders back on, I'd get back out there, do my thing, but in the process of doing that, I developed this — angry, grumpy demeanor. Anger is an easy go-to, and people would leave me alone, but it just wasn't me. It wasn't me. I was allowing this disease to turn me into this angry, grumpy, spotted guy. It just wasn't me. So I had to change. I knew I could not change other people. People are going to react and do what they gonna do. But there was a cold hard reality as well. I was the one that was showing anger, sadness and isolating myself. It was actually a choice. I was walking out the door every day expecting the world to react with negativity, so I just gave them that mean face first. If I wanted change, the change had to start with me. So I came up with a plan. Two-parter, not that deep. Number one: I would just let people stare, drink it in, stare all you want, and not react. Because the truth is when I got this disease, I was all up in the mirror staring at every new spot trying to figure out what is going on. So I needed to let other people have that same opportunity to get that visual understanding. Number two: I would react with positivity, and that was simply a smile, or, at the very least, a nonjudgmental, kind face. Simple plan. But it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. But over time, things started to go OK. Like this one time, I'm at the store and this dude is like staring at me, like burning a hole in the side of my head. I'm shopping, he's staring at me, I'm going to the checkout, he's staring at me, I'm checking out, he's on the other line checking out, he's staring at me, we go to the exit, he's still staring at me, so I see he's staring and finally I turn to him and I go, "Hey buddy, what's up!" And he goes ... (Mumbles nervously) "Hi!" (Laughter) Awkward. So to relieve the tension, I say, "It's just a skin disorder. It's not contagious, it's not life-threatening, it just makes me look a little different." I end up talking to that guy for like five minutes. It was kind of cool, right? And at the end of our conversation, he says, "You know, if you didn't have 'vitilargo'" — it's actually vitiligo, but he was trying, so — (Laughter) "if you didn't have vitilargo, you'd look just like that guy on TV." (Laughter) And I was like, "Haha, yeah, I get that, I get that, yeah." (Laughter) So things were going OK. I was having more good exchanges than bad, until that day. I had a little time before work so I like to stop by the park to watch the kids play. They're funny. So I got a little too close, this little girl wasn't paying attention, she's about two or three years old, she's running, she runs directly into my leg and falls down, pretty hard. I thought she hurt herself, so I reach out to try and help the little girl and she looks at my vitiligo and she screams! Now kids are pure honesty. She's like two or three. This little girl, she wasn't trying to be mean. She didn't have any malice in her heart. This little girl was afraid. She was just afraid. I didn't know what to do. I just took a step back and put my hands by my side. I stayed in the house for two weeks and three days on that one. It took me a second to get my mind around the fact that I scare small children. And that was something that I could not smile away. But I jumped back on my plan and just put on my blinders, started going back out. Two months later, I'm in a grocery store reaching on the bottom shelf, and I hear a little voice go, "You've got a boo-boo?" It's like a two-year-old, three-year-old, same age, little girl, but she's not crying, so I kneel down in front of her and I don't speak two-year-old so I look up at the mom, and I say, "What did she say?" And she says, "She thinks you have a boo-boo." So I go, "No, I don't have a boo-boo, no, not at all." And the little girl says, "Duh-duh-hoy?" And so I look to mom for the translation, and she says, "She thinks you're hurt." And I say, "No, sweetie, I'm not hurt at all, I'm fine." And the little girl reaches out with that little hand and touches my face. She's trying to rub the chocolate into the vanilla or whatever she was doing. It was amazing! It was awesome. Because she thought she knew what it was, she was giving me everything I wanted: kindness, compassion. And with the touch of that little hand, she healed a grown man's pain. Yee-ha. Healed. I smiled for a long time on that one. Positivity is something worth fighting for, and the fight is not with others — it's internal. If you want to make positive changes in your life, you have to consistently be positive. My blood type is actually B positive. (Laughter) I know, corny TV guy dad joke, my daughter hates it, but I don't care! Be positive! (Laughs) A 14-year-old boy years ago — this kid had vitiligo — he asked me to show my face on television. I wasn't going to do it, we've been over this, I thought I was going to lose my job, but the kid convinced me by saying, "If you show people what you look like and explain this to them, maybe they will treat me differently." Boom! Blinders off. I did a TV report, got an overwhelming response. So I didn't know what to do. I took the attention and focused it back on the kid and other people that have vitiligo. I started a support group. Pretty soon, we noticed "VITFriends" and "V-Strong" support groups all over the country. In 2016, we all came together and celebrated World Vitiligo Day. This past June 25, we had over 300 people, all in celebration of our annual event. It was amazing. (Applause) Thanks. Now, I'm not going to lie to you and say it was quick or easy for me to find a positive place living with this disease, but I found it. But I also got much more. I became a better man, the man I always wanted to be, the kind of guy who can stand up in front of a room full of strangers and tell some of the toughest stories in his life and end it all with a smile, and find happiness in the fact that you all just smiled back. Thank you. (Applause) |
The rise and fall of the Mongol Empire | null | TED-Ed | It was the largest contiguous land empire in history— stretching from Korea to Ukraine and from Siberia to southern China, and was forged on the open plains. In the 12th century CE, before the Mongol Empire formed, the East Asian steppe was home to scattered groups of Mongol and Turkic pastoral nomads led by Khans. The people herded sheep, cattle, yaks and camels. They lived in felt tents and moved between summer and winter campsites. Nomadic women held significant authority, managing these migrations, many of the flocks and trade. Meanwhile, men specialized in mounted warfare. These nomadic groups often fought each other. That was to change under Temujin, who was born into an aristocratic Mongol family. Despite losing his father at an early age and growing up in poverty, he quickly rose to power by forging strategic alliances with other leaders. Unlike those khans, Temujin promoted soldiers based on merit and distributed spoils evenly among them. His most brilliant move was to scatter the nomads he conquered among his own soldiers so they couldn't join together against him. These innovations made him unstoppable, and by 1206, he had united the people of the felt-walled tents and become Chinggis Khan. The Mongols were shamanists, believing that the spirits of nature and their ancestors inhabited the world around them. Over all arched the Sky god Tenggeri. Chinggis Khan believed that Tenggeri wanted him to conquer the entire world in his name. With the nomads of the Mongolian plain united, this seemed within reach. Anyone who resisted the Mongols was resisting Tenggeri's will, and for this insubordination, had to die. Under Chinggis Khan, the Mongols first subdued northern China and the eastern Islamic lands. After his death in 1227, the Divine Mandate passed to his family, or the Golden Lineage. In the 1230s, Chinggis Khan's sons and daughters conquered the Turks of Central Asia and the Russian princes, then destroyed two European armies in 1241. In the 1250s, the Mongols seized Islamic territory as far as Baghdad, while in the East their grasp reached southern China by 1279. Life within the Mongol Empire wasn't just war, pillage and destruction. Once the Mongols conquered a territory, they left its internal politics alone and used local administrators to govern for them. The Mongols let all religions flourish, as long as the leaders prayed for them. Although they routinely captured artisans, scholars and engineers, they appreciated what those specialists could do and forcibly settled them across Asia to continue their work. The most valuable produce in the Empire was gold brocade, which took silk from China, gold from Tibet and weavers from Baghdad. Gold brocade clothed the Mongol rulers, covered their horses and lined their tents. The Mongols particularly prized gunpowder technicians from China. With much of Eurasia politically unified, trade flourished along the Silk Road, helped by an extensive system of horse messengers and relay posts. Robust trade continued at sea, especially in blue-and-white porcelain, which combined white pottery from Mongol China with blue dye from Mongol Iran. But this was not to last. Succession to the Great Khan didn't automatically go to the eldest son, but rather allowed brothers, uncles and cousins to vie for leadership with senior widows acting as regents for their sons. By the 1260s, Chinggis Khan's grandsons were in a full- blown civil war over inheritance and fragmented the realm into four separate empires. In China, Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty is remembered as a golden age of science and culture. In Iran, the Ilkhanate inaugurated the development of new monumental architecture and Persian miniature painting. In Central Asia, the Chagatai Khanate brought forth leaders like Timur and his descendant Babur, who founded the Mughal Empire in India. And in Eastern Europe, the Golden Horde ruled for years until a trading post named Muscovy grew into a major world power. Even though the Empire lasted only a short while, the Mongols left a legacy of world- domination that remains unmatched today. |
What I learned about freedom after escaping North Korea | {0: 'North Korean defector Yeonmi Park is becoming a leading voice of oppressed people around the world through her writing, speaking and work as a director at the Human Rights Foundation.'} | TED2019 | I was born in 1993 in the northern part of North Korea, in a town called Hyesan, which is on the border with China. I had loving parents and one older sister. Before I was even 10 years old, my father was sent to a labor camp for engaging in illegal trading. Now, by "illegal trading" — he was selling clogs, sugar, rice and later copper to feed us. In 2007, my sister and I decided to escape. She was 16 years old, and I was 13 years old. I need you to understand what the word "escape" means in the context of North Korea. We were all starving, and hunger means death in North Korea. So it was the only option for us. I didn't even understand the concept of escape, but I could see the lights from China at night, and I wondered if I go where the light is, I might be able to find a bowl of rice. It's not like we had a grand plan or maps. We did not know anything about what was going to happen. Imagine your apartment building caught fire. I mean, what would you do? Would you stay there to be burned, or would you jump off out of the window and see what happens? That's what we did. We jumped out of the house instead of the fire. North Korea is unimaginable. It's very hard for me when people ask me what it feels like to live there. To be honest, I tell you: you can't even imagine it. The words in any language can't describe, because it's a totally different planet, as you cannot imagine your life on Mars right now. For example, the word "love" has only one meaning: love for the Dear Leader. There's no concept of romantic love in North Korea. And if you don't know the words, that means you don't understand the concept, and therefore, you don't even realize that concept is even a possibility. Let me give you another example. Growing up in North Korea, we truly believed that our Dear Leader is an almighty god who can even read my thoughts. I was even afraid to think in North Korea. We are told that he's starving for us, and he's working tirelessly for us, and my heart just broke for him. When I escaped to South Korea, people told me that he was actually a dictator, he had cars, many, many resorts, and he had an ultraluxurious life. And then I remember looking at a picture of him, realizing for the first time that he is the largest guy in the picture. (Laughter) And it hit me. Finally, I realized he wasn't starving. But I was never able to see that before, until someone told me that he was fat. (Laughter) Really, someone had to teach me that he was fat. If you have never practiced critical thinking, then you simply see what you're told to see. The biggest question also people ask me is: "Why is there no revolution inside North Korea? Are we dumb? Why is there no revolution for 70 years of this oppression?" And I say: If you don't know you're a slave, if you don't know you're isolated or oppressed, how do you fight to be free? I mean, if you know you're isolated, that means you are not isolated. Not knowing is the true definition of isolation, and that's why I never knew I was isolated when I was in North Korea. I literally thought I was in the center of the universe. So here is my idea worth spreading: a lot of people think humans inherently know what is right and wrong, the difference between justice and injustice, what we deserve and we don't deserve. I tell them: BS. (Laughter) (Applause) Everything, everything must be taught, including compassion. If I see someone dying on the street right now, I will do anything to save that person. But when I was in North Korea, I saw people dying and dead on the streets. I felt nothing. Not because I'm a psychopath, but because I never learned the concept of compassion. Only, I felt compassion, empathy and sympathy in my heart after I learned the word "compassion" and the concept, and I feel them now. Now I live in the United States as a free person. (Applause) Thank you. (Applause) And recently, the leader of the free country, our President Trump, met with my former god. And he decided human rights is not important enough to include in his agendas, and he did not talk about it. And it scares me. We live in a world right now where a dictator can be praised for executing his uncle, for killing his half brother, killing thousands of North Koreans. And that was worthy of praise. And also it made me think: perhaps we all need to be taught something new about freedom now. Freedom is fragile. I don't want to alarm you, but it is. It only took three generations to make North Korea into George Orwell's "1984." It took only three generations. If we don't fight for human rights for the people who are oppressed right now who don't have a voice, as free people here, who will fight for us when we are not free? Machines? Animals? I don't know. I think it's wonderful that we care about climate change, animal rights, gender equality, all of these things. The fact that we care about animals' rights, that means that's how beautiful our heart is, that we care about someone who cannot speak for themselves. And North Koreans right now cannot speak for themselves. They don't have internet in the 21st century. We don't have electricity, and it is the darkest place on earth right now. Now I want to say something to my fellow North Koreans who are living in that darkness. They might not believe this, but I want to tell them that an alternative life is possible. Be free. From my experience, literally anything is possible. I was bought, I was sold as a slave. But now I'm here, and that is why I believe in miracles. The one thing that I learned from history is that nothing is forever in this world. And that is why we have every reason to be hopeful. Thank you. (Applause) |
The secret student resistance to Hitler | null | TED-Ed | In 1943 Allied aircraft swooped over Nazi Germany, raining tens of thousands of leaflets on people below. Written by anonymous Germans, the leaflets urged readers to renounce Hitler, to fight furiously for the future— and to never give up hope. Their call to action rippled through homes and businesses— and news of their message even reached concentration camps and prisons. It was only after the war had ended that the authors’ identities, stories, and tragic fate would come to light. When Hitler seized power 10 years earlier, Hans and Sophie Scholl were teenagers in the town of Forchtenberg. At that time, fear, propaganda, and surveillance kept all aspects of life for the Scholl family and millions of other Germans under Nazi control. The government specifically targeted young people, setting up institutions to regulate their behavior and police their thoughts. As teenagers, Hans was a member of the Hitler Youth and Sophie joined The League of German Girls. Hans rose through the ranks and oversaw the training and indoctrination of other young people. In 1936, he was chosen to carry the flag at a national rally. But when he witnessed the zeal of Nazi rhetoric, he began to question it for the first time. Meanwhile, Sophie was also starting to doubt the information she was being fed. Their parents Robert and Magdalena, who had feared they were losing their children to Nazi ideology, encouraged these misgivings. At home, Robert and Magdalena listened to foreign radio stations that the government first discouraged and later banned. While the government churned out national broadcasts which denied Nazi atrocities, the Scholls learned shocking truths. And yet, they were still subject to the rules of life in Hitler’s Germany. After the outbreak of war, Sophie reluctantly worked for the national effort, and Hans had to take on army duties while attending medical school in Munich. That was where Hans met Christoph Probst, Willi Graf and Alexander Schmorell. Day by day, each grew more sickened by Nazi ideology. They longed to share their views. But how could they spread them, when it was impossible to know who to trust? And so, the friends decided to rebel anonymously. They pooled their money and bought printing materials. An acquaintance let them use a cellar under his studio. In secret, they began drafting their message. In June 1942, mysterious anti-Nazi leaflets began appearing all over Munich. They were signed: the White Rose. The first leaflet denounced Hitler and called for Germans to sabotage the war effort: “Adopt passive resistance… block the functioning of this atheistic war machine before it is too late, before the last city is a heap of rubble… before the last youth of our nation bleeds to death... Don’t forget that each people gets the government it deserves!” At a time when a sarcastic remark could constitute treason, this language was unprecedented. It was written mostly by Hans Scholl. In 1942, Sophie came to Munich knowing nothing of her brother’s activities. She soon encountered the leaflets at school. But it was not until she discovered evidence in Han’s room that she realized who’d written them. Her shock soon gave way to resolve: she wanted in. For both siblings, it was time to escalate the fury that had been brewing for years. From June 1942 to February 1943, the group worked feverishly. While the Gestapo searched for leads, the White Rose were constantly on guard. The war raged on. Regulations tightened, and Munich suffered air raids. But the White Rose ventured deeper into conspiracy. They graffitied buildings and braved trains swarming with Gestapo. In the winter of 1942, Hans made a treacherous journey to the Czechoslovakian border to meet anti-Nazi rebels. On February 18, 1943, Sophie and Hans brought a suitcase of leaflets to their university. A custodian noticed what they were doing and reported them to the Gestapo. Both calmly denied any involvement— until the police gathered all the leaflets and placed them back in the empty case, where they fit perfectly. When Hans and Sophie confessed, they were immediately led to court and sentenced to death by guillotine. Despite a grueling interrogation, the two refused to betray their co-conspirators. Before her execution, Sophie declared her fury at the state of her country. But she also spoke to a more hopeful future: “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?” |
What happened when we paired up thousands of strangers to talk politics | {0: 'Jochen Wegner edits Zeit Online, the website of German weekly "Die Zeit," which prizes deep dives into cultural issues.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | Now, this is Joanna. Joanna works at a university in Poland. And one Saturday morning at 3am, she got up, packed her rucksack and traveled more than a thousand kilometers, only to have a political argument with a stranger. His name is Christof, and he's a customer manager from Germany. And the two had never met before. They only knew that they were totally at odds over European politics, over migration, or the relationship to Russia or whatever. And they were arguing for almost one day. And after that, Joanna sent me a somewhat irritating email. "That was really cool, and I enjoyed every single minute of it!" (Laughter) So these are Tom from the UK and Nils from Germany. They also were strangers, and they are both supporters of their local football team, as you may imagine, Borussia Dortmund and Tottenham Hotspurs. And so they met on the very spot where football roots were invented, on some field in Cambridge. And they didn't argue about football, but about Brexit. And after talking for many hours about this contentious topic, they also sent a rather unexpected email. "It was delightful, and we both enjoyed it very much." (Laughter) So in spring 2019, more than 17,000 Europeans from 33 countries signed up to have a political argument. Thousands crossed their borders to meet a stranger with a different opinion, and they were all part of a project called "Europe Talks." Now, talking about politics amongst people with different opinions has become really difficult, not only in Europe. Families are splitting, friends no longer talk to each other. We stay in our bubbles. And these so-called filter bubbles are amplified by social media, but they are not, in the core, a digital product. The filter bubble has always been there. It's in our minds. As many studies repeatedly have shown, we, for example, ignore effects that contradict our convictions. So correcting fake news is definitely necessary, but it's not sufficient to get a divided society to rethink itself. Fortunately, according to at least some research, there may be a simple way to get a new perspective: a personal one-on-one discussion with someone who doesn't have your opinion. It enables you to see the world in a new way, through someone else's eyes. Now, I'm the editor of "ZEIT ONLINE," one of the major digital news organizations in Germany. And we started what became "Europe Talks" as a really modest editorial exercise. As many journalists, we were impressed by Trump and by Brexit, and Germany was getting divided, too, especially over the issue of migration. So the arrival of more than a million refugees in 2015 and 2016 dominated somewhat the debate. And when we were thinking about our own upcoming election in 2017, we definitely knew that we had to reinvent the way we were dealing with politics. So digital nerds that we are, we came up with obviously many very strange digital product ideas, one of them being a Tinder for politics — (Laughter) a dating platform for political opposites, a tool that could help get people together with different opinions. And we decided to test it and launched what techies would call a "minimum viable product." So it was really simple. We called it "Deutschland spricht" — "Germany Talks" — and we started with that in May 2017. And it was really simple. We used mainly Google Forms, a tool that each and every one of us here can use to make surveys online. And everywhere in our content, we embedded simple questions like this: "Did Germany take in too many refugees?" You click yes or no. We asked you more questions, like, "Does the West treat Russia fairly?" or, "Should gay couples be allowed to marry?" And if you answered all these questions, we asked one more question: "Hey, would you like to meet a neighbor who totally disagrees with you?" (Laughter) So this was a really simple experiment with no budget whatsoever. We expected some hundred-ish people to register, and we planned to match them by hand, the pairs. And after one day, 1,000 people had registered. And after some weeks, 12,000 Germans had signed up to meet someone else with a different opinion. So we had a problem. (Laughter) We hacked a quick and dirty algorithm that would find the perfect Tinder matches, like people living as close as possible having answered the questions as differently as possible. We introduced them via email. And, as you may imagine, we had many concerns. Maybe no one would show up in real life. Maybe all the discussions in real life would be awful. Or maybe we had an axe murderer in our database. (Laughter) But then, on a Sunday in June 2017, something beautiful happened. Thousands of Germans met in pairs and talked about politics peacefully. Like Anno. He's a former policeman who's against — or was against — gay marriage, and Anne, she's an engineer who lives in a domestic partnership with another woman. And they were talking for hours about all the topics where they had different opinions. At one point, Anno told us later, he realized that Anne was hurt by his statements about gay marriage, and he started to question his own assumptions. And after talking for three hours, Anne invited Anno to her summer party, and today, years later, they still meet from time to time and are friends. So our algorithm matched, for example, this court bailiff. He's also a spokesperson of the right-wing populist party AfD in Germany, and this counselor for pregnant women. She used to be an active member of the Green Party. We even matched this professor and his student. (Laughter) It's an algorithm. (Laughter) We also matched a father-in-law and his very own daughter-in-law, because, obviously, they live close by but have really different opinions. So as a general rule, we did not observe, record, document the discussions, because we didn't want people to perform in any way. But I made an exception. I took part myself. And so I met in my trendy Berlin neighborhood called Prenzlauer Berg, I met Mirko. This is me talking to Mirko. Mirko didn't want to be in the picture. He's a young plant operator, and he looked like all the hipsters in our area, like with a beard and a beanie. We were talking for hours, and I found him to be a wonderful person. And despite the fact that we had really different opinions about most of the topics — maybe with the exception of women's rights, where I couldn't comprehend his thoughts — it was really nice. After our discussion, I Googled Mirko. And I found out that in his teenage years, he used to be a neo-Nazi. So I called him and asked, "Hey, why didn't you tell me?" And he said, "You know, I didn't tell you because I want to get over it. I just don't want to talk about it anymore." I thought that people with a history like that could never change, and I had to rethink my assumptions, as did many of the participants who sent us thousands of emails and also selfies. No violence was recorded whatsoever. (Laughter) And we just don't know if some of the pairs got married. (Laughter) But, at least, we were really excited and wanted to do it again, especially in version 2.0, wanted to expand the diversity of the participants, because obviously in the first round, they were mainly our readers. And so we embraced our competition and asked other media outlets to join. We coordinated via Slack. And this live collaboration among 11 major German media houses was definitely a first in Germany. The numbers more than doubled: 28,000 people applied this time. And the German president — you see him here in the center of the picture — became our patron. And so, thousands of Germans met again in the summer of 2018 to talk to someone else with a different opinion. Some of the pairs we invited to Berlin to a special event. And there, this picture was taken, until today my favorite symbol for "Germany Talks." You see Henrik, a bus driver and boxing trainer, and Engelbert, the director of a children's help center. They answered all of the seven questions we asked differently. They had never met before this day, and they had a really intensive discussion and seemed to get along anyway with each other. So this time we also wanted to know if the discussion would have any impact on the participants. So we asked researchers to survey the participants. And two-thirds of the participants said that they learned something about their partner's attitudes. Sixty percent agreed that their viewpoints converged. The level of trust in society seemed also higher after the event, according to the researchers. Ninety percent said that they enjoyed their discussion. Ten percent said they didn't enjoy their discussion, eight percent only because, simply, their partner didn't show up. (Laughter) After "Germany Talks," we got approached by many international media outlets, and we decided this time to build a serious and secure platform. We called it "My Country Talks." And in this short period of time, "My Country Talks" has already been used for more than a dozen local and national events like "Het grote gelijk" in Belgium or "Suomi puhuu" in Finland or "Britain Talks" in the UK. And as I mentioned at the beginning, we also launched "Europe Talks," together with 15 international media partners, from the "Financial Times" in the UK to "Helsingin Sanomat" in Finland. Thousands of Europeans met with a total stranger to argue about politics. So far, we have been approached by more than 150 global media outlets, and maybe someday there will be something like "The World Talks," with hundreds of thousands of participants. But what matters here are not the numbers, obviously. What matters here is ... Whenever two people meet to talk in person for hours without anyone else listening, they change. And so do our societies. They change little by little, discussion by discussion. What matters here is that we relearn how to have these face-to-face discussions, without anyone else listening, with a stranger. Not only with a stranger we are introduced to by a Tinder for politics, but also with a stranger in a pub or in a gym or at a conference. So please meet someone and have an argument and enjoy it very much. Thank you. (Applause) Wow! (Applause) |
A climate change solution that's right under our feet | {0: 'Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a soil and global-change scientist and educator passionate about all things related to the science and beauty of soils.'} | TED2019 | So one of the most important solutions to the global challenge posed by climate change lies right under our foot every day. It's soil. Soil's just the thin veil that covers the surface of land, but it has the power to shape our planet's destiny. See, a six-foot or so of soil, loose soil material that covers the earth's surface, represents the difference between life and lifelessness in the earth system, and it can also help us combat climate change if we can only stop treating it like dirt. (Laughter) Climate change is happening, the earth's atmosphere is warming, because of the increasing amount of greenhouse gases we keep releasing into the atmosphere. You all know that. But what I assume you might not have heard is that one of the most important things our human society could do to address climate change lies right there in the soil. I'm a soil scientist who has been studying soil since I was 18, because I'm interested in unlocking the secrets of soil and helping people understand this really important climate change solution. So here are the facts about climate. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere has increased by 40 percent just in the last 150 years or so. Human actions are now releasing 9.4 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, from activities such as burning fossil fuels and intensive agricultural practices, and other ways we change the way we use land, including deforestation. But the concentration of carbon dioxide that stays in the atmosphere is only increasing by about half of that, and that's because half of the carbon we keep releasing into the atmosphere is currently being taken up by land and the seas through a process we know as carbon sequestration. So in essence, whatever consequence you think we're facing from climate change right now, we're only experiencing the consequence of 50 percent of our pollution, because the natural ecosystems are bailing us out. But don't get too comfortable, because we have two major things working against us right now. One: unless we do something big, and then fast, emissions will continue to rise. And second: the ability of these natural ecosystems to take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it in the natural habitats is currently getting compromised, as they're experiencing serious degradation because of human actions. So it's not entirely clear that we will continue to get bailed out by these natural ecosystems if we continue on this business-as-usual path that we've been. Here's where the soil comes in: there is about three thousand billion metric tons of carbon in the soil. That's roughly about 315 times the amount of carbon that we release into the atmosphere currently. And there's twice more carbon in soil than there is in vegetation and air. Think about that for a second. There's more carbon in soil than there is in all of the world's vegetation, including the lush tropical rainforests and the giant sequoias, the expansive grasslands, all of the cultivated systems, and every kind of flora you can imagine on the face of the earth, plus all the carbon that's currently up in the atmosphere, combined, and then twice over. Hence, a very small change in the amount of carbon stored in soil can make a big difference in maintenance of the earth's atmosphere. But soil's not just simply a storage box for carbon, though. It operates more like a bank account, and the amount of carbon that's in soil at any given time is a function of the amount of carbon coming in and out of the soil. Carbon comes into the soil through the process of photosynthesis, when green plants take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it to make their bodies, and upon death, their bodies enter the soil. And carbon leaves the soil and goes right back up into the atmosphere when the bodies of those formerly living organisms decay in soil by the activity of microbes. See, decomposition releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as well as other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, but it also releases all the nutrients we all need to survive. One of the things that makes soil such a fundamental component of any climate change mitigation strategy is because it represents a long-term storage of carbon. Carbon that would have lasted maybe a year or two in decaying residue if it was left on the surface can stay in soil for hundreds of years, even thousands and more. Soil biogeochemists like me study exactly how the soil system makes this possible, by locking away the carbon in physical association with minerals, inside aggregates of soil minerals, and formation of strong chemical bonds that bind the carbon to the surfaces of the minerals. See when carbon is entrapped in soil, in these kinds of associations with soil minerals, even the wiliest of the microbes can't easily degrade it. And carbon that's not degrading fast is carbon that's not going back into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases. But the benefit of carbon sequestration is not just limited to climate change mitigation. Soil that stores large amounts of carbon is healthy, fertile, soft. It's malleable. It's workable. It makes it like a sponge. It can hold on to a lot of water and nutrients. Healthy and fertile soils like this support the most dynamic, abundant and diverse habitat for living things that we know of anywhere on the earth system. It makes life possible for everything from the tiniest of the microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, all the way to higher plants, and fulfills the food, feed and fiber needs for all animals, including you and I. So at this point, you would assume that we should be treating soil like the precious resource that it is. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Soils around the world are experiencing unprecedented rates of degradation through a variety of human actions that include deforestation, intensive agricultural production systems, overgrazing, excessive application of agricultural chemicals, erosion and similar things. Half of the world's soils are currently considered degraded. Soil degradation is bad for many reasons, but let me just tell you a couple. One: degraded soils have diminished potential to support plant productivity. And hence, by degrading soil, we're compromising our own abilities to provide the food and other resources that we need for us and every member of living things on the face of the earth. And second: soil use and degradation, just in the last 200 years or so, has released 12 times more carbon into the atmosphere compared to the rate at which we're releasing carbon into the atmosphere right now. I'm afraid there's even more bad news. This is a story of soils at high latitudes. Peatlands in polar environments store about a third of the global soil carbon reserves. These peatlands have a permanently frozen ground underneath, the permafrost, and the carbon was able to build up in these soils over long periods of time because even though plants are able to photosynthesize during the short, warm summer months, the environment quickly turns cold and dark, and then microbes are not able to efficiently break down the residue. So the soil carbon bank in these polar environments built up over hundreds of thousands of years. But right now, with atmospheric warming, the permafrost is thawing and draining. And when permafrost thaws and drains, it makes it possible for microbes to come in and rather quickly decompose all this carbon, with the potential to release hundreds of billions of metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases. And this release of additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will only contribute to further warming that makes this predicament even worse, as it starts a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop that could go on and on and on, dramatically changing our climate future. Fortunately, I can also tell you that there is a solution for these two wicked problems of soil degradation and climate change. Just like we created these problems, we do know the solution, and the solution lies in simultaneously working to address these two things together, through what we call climate-smart land management practices. What do I mean here? I mean managing land in a way that's smart about maximizing how much carbon we store in soil. And we can accomplish this by putting in place deep-rooted perennial plants, putting back forests whenever possible, reducing tillage and other disturbances from agricultural practices, including optimizing the use of agricultural chemicals and grazing and even adding carbon to soil, whenever possible, from recycled resources such as compost and even human waste. This kind of land stewardship is not a radical idea. It's what made it possible for fertile soils to be able to support human civilizations since time immemorial. In fact, some are doing it just right now. There's a global effort underway to accomplish exactly this goal. This effort that started in France is known as the "4 per 1000" effort, and it sets an aspirational goal to increase the amount of carbon stored in soil by 0.4 percent annually, using the same kind of climate-smart land management practices I mentioned earlier. And if this effort's fully successful, it can offset a third of the global emissions of fossil-fuel-derived carbon into the atmosphere. But even if this effort is not fully successful, but we just start heading in that direction, we still end up with soils that are healthier, more fertile, are able to produce all the food and resources that we need for human populations and more, and also soils that are better capable of sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and helping with climate change mitigation. I'm pretty sure that's what politicians call a win-win solution. And we all can have a role to play here. We can start by treating the soil with the respect that it deserves: respect for its ability as the basis of all life on earth, respect for its ability to serve as a carbon bank and respect for its ability to control our climate. And if we do so, we can then simultaneously address two of the most pressing global challenges of our time: climate change and soil degradation. And in the process, we would be able to provide food and nutritional security to our growing human family. Thank you. (Applause) |
A 13-year-old's plan for removing plastic from the oceans | {0: 'Haaziq Kazi is a student from Pune, India.'} | TEDxGateway | I have a question for you. Anybody in the audience who doesn't have a plastic ID? Anybody? Well, think about it. Plastic is everywhere. The buttons on your shirt, your mobile cover, the water from the plastic bottle you just had, plastic money in the wallet, maybe. It is interesting how plastic has become an integral part of our lives and how we cannot go one single day without it. Do you know what that makes me think? How my generation is inheriting not just this legacy but also the problem that comes with it: the problem of what we throw in our oceans. Hello, everybody. My name is Haaziq Kazi. I am 12 years old, and I alone have a plastic debt of roughly 66 tons and counting. So, in case you are wondering, What is plastic debt? It is the amount of non-cycled plastic which we humans leave behind on this planet. How many Indians in the house today? Raise your hands, please. According to a study, for every person in India, six tons of plastic is not recycled annually. Any Americans here? Your figures are even more astounding. Ninety tons per person of plastic which is not recycled, annually. Imagine, in a lifetime, how much plastic is left behind because of us. When we die, our bodies go back to Mother Earth, but the plastic debt is left behind as a legacy for the coming generations. Did you know that by 2050, we will have as much, or maybe more, plastic in the ocean than fish? Speaking of which, every time I see people eating fish, I wonder, "Are they eating fish or plastic?" Because the plastic we dispose that ends up in the ocean might have been consumed by the same fish which gets on our plate - talk about the vicious karmic cycle. The magnitude of the problem inspired me to do something about this. Hence, I came up with an idea of an invention that could help make the oceans a cleaner place: an ocean cleaner called ERVIS. ERVIS is an intelligent ship which sucks waste from the ocean surface and cleans it. It all started two years back. I saw some documentaries and a TED Talk of Boyan Slat about how he wanted to clean the oceans. A few days later, as I came home from playing football, my mom asked me to wash my hands, and as I went to the sink to get the dirt off, I observed a whirlpool of water going down the drain. An idea came to my mind, and I smiled. I drew and created a rough model, a circular ship with saucers attached, a very futuristic design, much like the USS Enterprise from Star Trek. Come on, we all love the series. Right? This was just the first draft. The propellers weren't automated, and it only lasted seven seconds in water before coming apart. But there it was: my ERVIS, my vision of changing the oceans. While guzzling down innumerable cups of hot chocolate - you know, I'm still a kid, no coffee for me - I did some exhaustive research to achieve my vision of ERVIS, which is: first, to clean the current waste floating in the ocean; second, to analyze the data from the waste which we collect; and third, to stop it at source, which is getting disposed by the ships. I also realized that a circular shape was not very efficient and that I had to redesign my ship to be more hydrodynamic. So I worked with scientists and engineers to create a more bleeding edge model. So here's how it works. The ship is essentially a large boat powered by solar and renewable natural gas, with various compartments, and saucers surrounding it. The saucers float on the surface, gravitate to create a whirlpool to pull the waste towards its center, which is then sent through a tube to various chambers in the ship. The chambers include an oil chamber, which collects waste oil. The next four chambers are for large, medium, small, and micro-waste, respectively. Just imagine ERVIS to be a gigantic vacuum cleaner with many cleaning tubes attached to many dust bags. Once the waste enters the chambers, ERVIS analyzes, segregates, and compacts it, and pumps the filtered water back into the oceans, all without harming marine life in the process. ERVIS, the ship, is my contribution in making the Earth a better place. (Applause) And I hope, in some way, it can inspire you to find your idea which can bring a positive change in the world. Thank you. (Applause) (Cheers) |
"Stumbling towards intimacy": An improvised TED Talk | {0: 'Anthony Veneziale is a leader in the field of improvisation and teaching, with over 25 years of improv performances around the globe.'} | TED2019 | [This is an improvised talk (and intro) based on a suggested topic from the audience. The speaker doesn't know the content of the slides.] Moderator: Our next speaker — (Laughter) is an — incredibly — (Laughter) Is an incredibly experienced linguist working at a lab at MIT with a small group of researchers, and through studying our language and the way that we communicate with other people, he has stumbled upon the secret of human intimacy. Here to give us his perspective, please welcome to the stage, Anthony Veneziale. (Applause) (Laughter) Anthony Veneziale: You might think I know what you're going through. You might be looking at me here on the red dot, or you might be looking at me on the screen. There's a one sixth of a second delay. Did I catch myself? I did. I could see myself before I turned, and that small delay creates a little bit of a divide. (Laughter) And a divide is exactly what happens with human language, and the processing of that language. I of course am working out of a small lab at MIT. (Laughter) And we are scraping for every insight that we can get. (Laughter) This is not often associated with a computational challenge, but in this case, we found that persistence of vision and auditory intake actually have more in common than we ever realized, and we can see it in this first slide. (Laughter) (Applause) Immediately your processing goes to, "Is that a hard-boiled egg?" (Laughter) "Is that perhaps the structural integrity of the egg being able to sustain the weight of what seems to be a rock? Aha, is it in fact a real rock?" We go to questions when we see visual information. But when we hear information, this is what happens. (Laughter) The floodgates in our mind open much like the streets of Shanghai. (Applause) So many pieces of information to process, so many ideas, concepts, feelings and, of course, vulnerabilities that we don't often wish to share. And so we hide, and we hide behind what we like to call the floodgate of intimacy. (Laughter) And what might that floodgate be holding? What is the dike upon which it is built? Well, first off — (Laughter) we found that it's different for six different genotypes. (Applause) And, of course, we can start categorizing these genotypes into a neuronormative experience and a neurodiverse experience. (Laughter) On the right-hand side of the screen, you're seeing spikes for the neurodiverse thinking. Now, there are generally only two emotional states that a neurodiverse brain can tabulate and keep count of at any given time, thereby eliminating the possibility for them to be emotionally, sometimes, attuned to the present situation. But on the left-hand side, you can see the neuronormative brain, which can often handle about five different pieces of emotional cognitive information at any given time. These are the slight variances that you are seeing in the 75, 90 and 60 percentile, and then of course that dramatic difference of the 25, 40 and 35 percentile. (Laughter) But of course, what is the neural network that is helping to bridge and build these different discrepancies? (Laughter) Fear. (Laughter) (Applause) And as we all know, fear resides in the amygdala, and it is a very natural response, and it is very closely linked with visual perception. It is not as closely linked with verbal perception, so our fear receptors often will be going off in advance of any of our cognitive usage around verbal and words and cues of language. So as we see these fear moments, we of course are taken aback. We stumble in a certain direction, generally away from the intimacy. (Laughter) Now of course, there's a difference between the male perception and the female perception and of trans and those who are in between, all of those as well, and outside of the gender spectrum. (Laughter) But fear is the central underlying underpinning of all of our response systems. Fight-or-flight is one of the earliest, some say reptilian, response to our environment. How can we disengage or unhook ourselves from the horns of the amygdala? (Laughter) Well, I'd like to tell you the secret right now. (Applause) This is all making much, much too much sense. (Laughter) The secret lies in turning our backs to one another, and I know that that sounds absolutely like the opposite of what you were expecting, but when in a relationship you turn your back to your partner and place your back upon their back — (Laughter) you eliminate visual cues. (Laughter) (Applause) You are more readily available to failing first, and failing first — (Laughter) far outweighs the lengths we go to to appeal to others, to our partners and to ourselves. We spend billions and billions of dollars on clothing, on makeup, on the latest trend of glasses, but what we don't spend money and time on is connecting with each other in a way that is truthful and honest and stripped of those visual receptors. (Applause) (Laughter) It sounds hard, doesn't it? (Laughter) But we want to be aggressive about this. We don't want to just sit on the couch. As a historian said earlier today, it's important to get up and circumvent sometimes that couch. And how can we do it? Well yes, ice is a big part of it. Insights, compassion and empathy: I, C, E. (Applause) And when we start using this ice method, well, the possibilities become much bigger than us. In fact, they become smaller than you. On a molecular level, I believe that that insight is the unifying theme for every talk you have seen so far at TED and will continue as we of course embark on this journey here on this tiny planet, on the ledge, on the precipice, as we are seeing, yes, death is inevitable. (Laughter) Will it meet all of us at the same time, I think, is the variable we are inquiring. (Laughter) I think that timeline gets a bit longer when we use ice and when we rest our backs upon one another and build together, leaving behind the fear and working towards — (Laughter) they'll edit this part out — (Laughter) a ripened experience of love, compassion, intimacy based on a truth that you are sharing from your mind's eye and the heart that we all can touch, tactilely feel, have maybe potentially a mushy experience that we don't just throw out because it is browned, but let us slice in half the experience we have gathered, let us seed what the heart, the core, the seed of that idea in each of us is, and let us share it back to back. Thank you very much. (Applause) |
How porn changes the way teens think about sex | {0: 'Boston University professor Emily F. Rothman is a leading public health scholar on sexually explicit media and its impact on adolescent dating relationships.'} | TEDMED 2018 | [This talk contains mature content] Six years ago, I discovered something that scientists have been wanting to know for years. How do you capture the attention of a roomful of extremely bored teenagers? It turns out all you have to do is mention the word pornography. (Laughter) Let me tell you how I first learned this. In 2012, I was sitting in a crowded room full of high school students who were attending an after-school program in Boston. And my job, as guest speaker for the day, was to inspire them to think about how exciting it would be to have a career in public health. The problem was, as I looked at their faces, I could see that their eyes were glazing over, and they were just tuning out. It didn't even matter that I wore what I thought was my cool outfit that day. I was just losing my audience. So, then one of the two adults who worked for the program said, "Aren't you doing some research about pornography? Maybe tell them about that." All of a sudden, that room full of high school students exploded into laughter, high fives. I think there were some loud hooting noises. And all anyone had done was say that one word — pornography. That moment would prove to be an important turning point for me and my professional mission of finding solutions to end dating and sexual violence. At that point, I'd been working for more than a decade on this seemingly intractable problem of dating violence. Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrate that one in five high school-attending youth experience physical and/or sexual abuse by a dating partner each year in the US. That makes dating violence more prevalent than being bullied on school property, seriously considering suicide, or even vaping, in that same population. But solutions were proving elusive. And I was working with a research team that was hunting for novel answers to the question: What's causing dating abuse, and how do we stop it? One of the research studies that we were working on at the time happened to include a few questions about pornography. And something unexpected was emerging from our findings. Eleven percent of the teen girls in our sample reported that they had been forced or threatened to do sexual things that the perpetrator saw in pornography. That got me curious. Was pornography to blame for any percentage of dating violence? Or was it more like a coincidence that the pornography users also happen to be more likely to be in unhealthy relationships? I investigated by reading everything that I could from the peer-reviewed literature, and by conducting my own research. I wanted to know what kinds of sexually explicit media youth were watching, and how often and why, and see if I could piece together if it was part of the reason that for so many of them dating relationships were apparently unhealthy. As I read, I tried to keep an open mind, even though there were plenty of members of the public who'd already made up their mind about the issue. Why would I keep an open mind about pornography? Well, I'm a trained social scientist, so it's my job to be objective. But I'm also what people call sex-positive. That means that I fully support people's right to enjoy whatever kind of sex life and sexuality they find fulfilling, no matter what it involves, as long as it includes the enthusiastic consent of all parties involved. That said, I personally wasn't inclined towards watching pornography. I'd seen some, didn't really do anything for me. And as a mom of two soon-to-be teenage children, I had my own concerns about what seeing pornography could do to them. I noticed that while there were a lot of people who were denouncing pornography, there were also people who were staunch defenders of it for a variety of reasons. So in my scholarly exploration, I genuinely tried to understand: Was pornography bad for you or was it good for you? Was it misogynist or was it empowering? And there was not one singular answer that emerged clearly. There was one longitudinal study that had me really worried, that showed that teenagers who saw pornography were subsequently more likely to perpetrate sexual violence. But the design of the study didn't allow for definitive causal conclusions. And there were other studies that did not find that adolescent pornography use was associated with certain negative outcomes. Even though there were other studies that did find that. But as I spoke to other experts, I felt tremendous pressure to pick a side about pornography. Join one team or the other. I was even told that it was weak-minded of me not to be able to pick out the one correct answer about pornography. And it was complicated, because there is an industry that is capitalizing off of audience's fascination with seeing women, in particular, not just having sex, but being chocked, gagged, slapped, spit upon, ejaculated upon, called degrading names over and over during sex, and not always clearly with their consent. Most people would agree that we have a serious problem with misogyny, sexual violence and rape in this country, and pornography probably isn't helping with any of that. And a critically important problem to me was that for more than a century, the anti-pornography position had been used as a pretext for discriminating against gays and lesbians or people who have kinks or have fetishes. So I could see why, on the one hand, we might be very worried about the messages that pornography is sending, and on the other hand, why we might be really worried about going overboard indicting it. For the next two years, I looked into every scary, horrifying claim that I could find about the average age at which people first see pornography, or what it does to their brains or their sexuality. Here's what I have to report back. The free, online, mainstream pornography, that's the kind that teenagers are most likely to see, is a completely terrible form of sex education. (Laughter) (Applause) But that's not what it was intended for. And it probably is not instantly poisoning their minds or turning them into compulsive users, the way that some ideologues would have you believe. It's a rare person who doesn't see some pornography in their youth. By the time they're 18 years old, 93 percent of first year college males and 62 percent of females have seen pornography at least once. And though people like to say that the internet has made pornography ubiquitous, or basically guarantees that any young child who's handed a smartphone is definitely going to see pornography, data don't really support that. A nationally representative study found that in the year 2000 16 percent of 10-to-13-year-old youth reported that they'd seen pornography in the past year. And by 2010, that figure had increased. But only to 30 percent. So it wasn't everybody. Our problems with adolescents and sexual violence perpetration is not only because of pornography. In fact, a recent study found that adolescents are more likely to see sexualized images in other kinds of media besides pornography. Think about all those sexualized video games, or TV shows, or music videos. And it could be exposure to a steady stream of violent media that instead of or in addition to the sexualized images is causing our problems. By focusing on the potential harms of pornography alone, we may be distracting ourselves from bigger issues. Or missing root causes of dating and sexual violence, which are the true public health crises. That said, even my own research demonstrates that adolescents are turning to pornography for education and information about sex. And that's because they can't find reliable and factual information elsewhere. Less than 50 percent of the states in the United States require that sex education be taught in schools, including how to prevent coerced sex. And less than half of those states require that the information presented be medically accurate. So in that Boston after-school program, those kids really wanted to talk about sex, and they really wanted to talk about pornography. And they wanted to talk about those things a whole lot more than they wanted to talk about dating or sexual violence. So we realized, we could cover all of the same topics that we might normally talk about under the guise of healthy relationships education, like, what's a definition of sexual consent? Or, how do you know if you're hurting somebody during sex? Or what are healthy boundaries to have when you're flirting? All of these same things we could discuss by using pornography as the jumping-off point for our conversation. It's sort of like when adults give kids a desert like brownies, but they secretly baked a zucchini or something healthy inside of it. (Laughter) We could talk to the kids about the healthy stuff, the stuff that's good for you, but hide it inside a conversation that was about something that they thought they wanted to be talking about. We also discovered something that we didn't necessarily set out to find, which is that there's a fantastic way to have a conversation with teenagers about pornography. And that is, keep the conversation true to science. Admit what we know and what we don't know about the impact of pornography. Talk about where there are mixed results or where there are weaknesses in the studies that have been conducted. Invite the adolescents to become critical consumers of the research literature on pornography, as well as the pornography itself. That really fits with adolescent development. Adolescents like to question things and they like to be invited to think for themselves. And we realized by starting to experiment, teaching some classes in consent, respect and pornography, that trying to scare adolescents into a particular point of view or jam a one-sided argument down their throat about pornography not only probably does not work, but really doesn't model the kind of respectful, consensual behavior that we want them to learn. So our approach, what we call pornography literacy, is about presenting the truth about pornography to the best of our knowledge, given that there is an ever-changing evidence base. When people hear that we teach a nine-session, 18-hour class in pornography literacy to teenagers, I think that they either think that we're sitting kids down and trying to show them how to watch pornography, which is not what we do, or that we're part of an anti-pornography activist group that's trying to convince them that if they ever saw pornography, it would be the number one worst thing for their health ever. And that's not it, either. Our secret ingredient is that we're nonjudgmental. We don't think that youth should be watching pornography. But, above all, we want them to become critical thinkers if and when they do see it. And we've learned, from the number of requests for our curriculum and our training, from across the US and beyond, that there are a lot of parents and a lot of teachers who really do want to be having these more nuanced and realistic conversations with teenagers about pornography. We've had requests from Utah to Vermont, to Alabama, to Hawaii. So in that after-school program, what I saw, is that from the minute we mentioned the word pornography, those kids were ready to jump in to a back-and-forth about what they did and didn't want to see in pornography, and what they did and didn't want to do during sex. And what was degrading to women or unfair to men or racist, all of it. And they made some really sophisticated points. Exactly the kinds of things that we would want them to be talking about as violence prevention activists. And as teachers, we might leave the class one day and think, "It is really sad that there's that one boy in our class who thinks that all women have orgasms from anal sex." And we might leave class the next week and think, "I'm really glad that there's that one kid in our class who's gay, who said that seeing his sexuality represented in pornography saved his life." Or, "There's that one girl in our class who said that she's feeling a lot better about her body, because she saw someone shaped like her as the object of desire in some tame pornography." So this is where I find myself as a violence prevention activist. I find myself talking about and researching pornography. And though it would be easier if things in life were all one way or the other, what I've found in my conversations with teenagers about pornography is that they remain engaged in these conversations because we allow them to grapple with the complexities. And because we're honest about the science. These adolescents may not be adults yet, but they are living in an adult world. And they're ready for adult conversations. Thank you. (Applause) |
Inside the bizarre world of internet trolls and propagandists | {0: 'Andrew Marantz writes narrative journalism about politics, the internet and the way we understand our world.'} | TED2019 | I spent the past three years talking to some of the worst people on the internet. Now, if you've been online recently, you may have noticed that there's a lot of toxic garbage out there: racist memes, misogynist propaganda, viral misinformation. So I wanted to know who was making this stuff. I wanted to understand how they were spreading it. Ultimately, I wanted to know what kind of impact it might be having on our society. So in 2016, I started tracing some of these memes back to their source, back to the people who were making them or who were making them go viral. I'd approach those people and say, "Hey, I'm a journalist. Can I come watch you do what you do?" Now, often the response would be, "Why in hell would I want to talk to some low-t soy-boy Brooklyn globalist Jew cuck who's in cahoots with the Democrat Party?" (Laughter) To which my response would be, "Look, man, that's only 57 percent true." (Laughter) But often I got the opposite response. "Yeah, sure, come on by." So that's how I ended up in the living room of a social media propagandist in Southern California. He was a married white guy in his late 30s. He had a table in front of him with a mug of coffee, a laptop for tweeting, a phone for texting and an iPad for livestreaming to Periscope and YouTube. That was it. And yet, with those tools, he was able to propel his fringe, noxious talking points into the heart of the American conversation. For example, one of the days I was there, a bomb had just exploded in New York, and the guy accused of planting the bomb had a Muslim-sounding name. Now, to the propagandist in California, this seemed like an opportunity, because one of the things he wanted was for the US to cut off almost all immigration, especially from Muslim-majority countries. So he started livestreaming, getting his followers worked up into a frenzy about how the open borders agenda was going to kill us all and asking them to tweet about this, and use specific hashtags, trying to get those hashtags trending. And tweet they did — hundreds and hundreds of tweets, a lot of them featuring images like this one. So that's George Soros. He's a Hungarian billionaire and philanthropist, and in the minds of some conspiracists online, George Soros is like a globalist bogeyman, one of a few elites who is secretly manipulating all of global affairs. Now, just to pause here: if this idea sounds familiar to you, that there are a few elites who control the world and a lot of them happen to be rich Jews, that's because it is one of the most anti-Semitic tropes in existence. I should also mention that the guy in New York who planted that bomb, he was an American citizen. So whatever else was going on there, immigration was not the main issue. And the propagandist in California, he understood all this. He was a well-read guy. He was actually a lawyer. He knew the underlying facts, but he also knew that facts do not drive conversation online. What drives conversation online is emotion. See, the original premise of social media was that it was going to bring us all together, make the world more open and tolerant and fair ... And it did some of that. But the social media algorithms have never been built to distinguish between what's true or false, what's good or bad for society, what's prosocial and what's antisocial. That's just not what those algorithms do. A lot of what they do is measure engagement: clicks, comments, shares, retweets, that kind of thing. And if you want your content to get engagement, it has to spark emotion, specifically, what behavioral scientists call "high-arousal emotion." Now, "high arousal" doesn't only mean sexual arousal, although it's the internet, obviously that works. It means anything, positive or negative, that gets people's hearts pumping. So I would sit with these propagandists, not just the guy in California, but dozens of them, and I would watch as they did this again and again successfully, not because they were Russian hackers, not because they were tech prodigies, not because they had unique political insights — just because they understood how social media worked, and they were willing to exploit it to their advantage. Now, at first I was able to tell myself this was a fringe phenomenon, something that was relegated to the internet. But there's really no separation anymore between the internet and everything else. This is an ad that ran on multiple TV stations during the 2018 congressional elections, alleging with very little evidence that one of the candidates was in the pocket of international manipulator George Soros, who is awkwardly photoshopped here next to stacks of cash. This is a tweet from the President of the United States, alleging, again with no evidence, that American politics is being manipulated by George Soros. This stuff that once seemed so shocking and marginal and, frankly, just ignorable, it's now so normalized that we hardly even notice it. So I spent about three years in this world. I talked to a lot of people. Some of them seemed to have no core beliefs at all. They just seemed to be betting, perfectly rationally, that if they wanted to make some money online or get some attention online, they should just be as outrageous as possible. But I talked to other people who were true ideologues. And to be clear, their ideology was not traditional conservatism. These were people who wanted to revoke female suffrage. These were people who wanted to go back to racial segregation. Some of them wanted to do away with democracy altogether. Now, obviously these people were not born believing these things. They didn't pick them up in elementary school. A lot of them, before they went down some internet rabbit hole, they had been libertarian or they had been socialist or they had been something else entirely. So what was going on? Well, I can't generalize about every case, but a lot of the people I spoke to, they seem to have a combination of a high IQ and a low EQ. They seem to take comfort in anonymous, online spaces rather than connecting in the real world. So often they would retreat to these message boards or these subreddits, where their worst impulses would be magnified. They might start out saying something just as a sick joke, and then they would get so much positive reinforcement for that joke, so many meaningless "internet points," as they called it, that they might start believing their own joke. I talked a lot with one young woman who grew up in New Jersey, and then after high school, she moved to a new place and suddenly she just felt alienated and cut off and started retreating into her phone. She found some of these spaces on the internet where people would post the most shocking, heinous things. And she found this stuff really off-putting but also kind of engrossing, kind of like she couldn't look away from it. She started interacting with people in these online spaces, and they made her feel smart, they made her feel validated. She started feeling a sense of community, started wondering if maybe some of these shocking memes might actually contain a kernel of truth. A few months later, she was in a car with some of her new internet friends headed to Charlottesville, Virginia, to march with torches in the name of the white race. She'd gone, in a few months, from Obama supporter to fully radicalized white supremacist. Now, in her particular case, she actually was able to find her way out of the cult of white supremacy. But a lot of the people I spoke to were not. And just to be clear: I was never so convinced that I had to find common ground with every single person I spoke to that I was willing to say, "You know what, man, you're a fascist propagandist, I'm not, whatever, let's just hug it out, all our differences will melt away." No, absolutely not. But I did become convinced that we cannot just look away from this stuff. We have to try to understand it, because only by understanding it can we even start to inoculate ourselves against it. In my three years in this world, I got a few nasty phone calls, even some threats, but it wasn't a fraction of what female journalists get on this beat. And yeah, I am Jewish, although, weirdly, a lot of the Nazis couldn't tell I was Jewish, which I frankly just found kind of disappointing. (Laughter) Seriously, like, your whole job is being a professional anti-Semite. Nothing about me is tipping you off at all? Nothing? (Laughter) This is not a secret. My name is Andrew Marantz, I write for "The New Yorker," my personality type is like if a Seinfeld episode was taped at the Park Slope Food Coop. Nothing? (Laughter) Anyway, look — ultimately, it would be nice if there were, like, a simple formula: smartphone plus alienated kid equals 12 percent chance of Nazi. It's obviously not that simple. And in my writing, I'm much more comfortable being descriptive, not prescriptive. But this is TED, so let's get practical. I want to share a few suggestions of things that citizens of the internet like you and I might be able to do to make things a little bit less toxic. So the first one is to be a smart skeptic. So, I think there are two kinds of skepticism. And I don't want to drown you in technical epistemological information here, but I call them smart and dumb skepticism. So, smart skepticism: thinking for yourself, questioning every claim, demanding evidence — great, that's real skepticism. Dumb skepticism: it sounds like skepticism, but it's actually closer to knee-jerk contrarianism. Everyone says the earth is round, you say it's flat. Everyone says racism is bad, you say, "I dunno, I'm skeptical about that." I cannot tell you how many young white men I have spoken to in the last few years who have said, "You know, the media, my teachers, they're all trying to indoctrinate me into believing in male privilege and white privilege, but I don't know about that, man, I don't think so." Guys — contrarian white teens of the world — look: if you are being a round earth skeptic and a male privilege skeptic and a racism is bad skeptic, you're not being a skeptic, you're being a jerk. (Applause) It's great to be independent-minded, we all should be independent-minded, but just be smart about it. So this next one is about free speech. You will hear smart, accomplished people who will say, "Well, I'm pro-free speech," and they say it in this way that it's like they're settling a debate, when actually, that is the very beginning of any meaningful conversation. All the interesting stuff happens after that point. OK, you're pro-free speech. What does that mean? Does it mean that David Duke and Richard Spencer need to have active Twitter accounts? Does it mean that anyone can harass anyone else online for any reason? You know, I looked through the entire list of TED speakers this year. I didn't find a single round earth skeptic. Is that a violation of free speech norms? Look, we're all pro-free speech, it's wonderful to be pro-free speech, but if that's all you know how to say again and again, you're standing in the way of a more productive conversation. Making decency cool again, so ... Great! (Applause) Yeah. I don't even need to explain it. So in my research, I would go to Reddit or YouTube or Facebook, and I would search for "sharia law" or I would search for "the Holocaust," and you might be able to guess what the algorithms showed me, right? "Is sharia law sweeping across the United States?" "Did the Holocaust really happen?" Dumb skepticism. So we've ended up in this bizarre dynamic online, where some people see bigoted propaganda as being edgy or being dangerous and cool, and people see basic truth and human decency as pearl-clutching or virtue-signaling or just boring. And the social media algorithms, whether intentionally or not, they have incentivized this, because bigoted propaganda is great for engagement. Everyone clicks on it, everyone comments on it, whether they love it or they hate it. So the number one thing that has to happen here is social networks need to fix their platforms. (Applause) So if you're listening to my voice and you work at a social media company or you invest in one or, I don't know, own one, this tip is for you. If you have been optimizing for maximum emotional engagement and maximum emotional engagement turns out to be actively harming the world, it's time to optimize for something else. (Applause) But in addition to putting pressure on them to do that and waiting for them and hoping that they'll do that, there's some stuff that the rest of us can do, too. So, we can create some better pathways or suggest some better pathways for angsty teens to go down. If you see something that you think is really creative and thoughtful and you want to share that thing, you can share that thing, even if it's not flooding you with high arousal emotion. Now that is a very small step, I realize, but in the aggregate, this stuff does matter, because these algorithms, as powerful as they are, they are taking their behavioral cues from us. So let me leave you with this. You know, a few years ago it was really fashionable to say that the internet was a revolutionary tool that was going to bring us all together. It's now more fashionable to say that the internet is a huge, irredeemable dumpster fire. Neither caricature is really true. We know the internet is just too vast and complex to be all good or all bad. And the danger with these ways of thinking, whether it's the utopian view that the internet will inevitably save us or the dystopian view that it will inevitably destroy us, either way, we're letting ourselves off the hook. There is nothing inevitable about our future. The internet is made of people. People make decisions at social media companies. People make hashtags trend or not trend. People make societies progress or regress. When we internalize that fact, we can stop waiting for some inevitable future to arrive and actually get to work now. You know, we've all been taught that the arc of the moral universe is long but that it bends toward justice. Maybe. Maybe it will. But that has always been an aspiration. It is not a guarantee. The arc doesn't bend itself. It's not bent inevitably by some mysterious force. The real truth, which is scarier and also more liberating, is that we bend it. Thank you. (Applause) |
A global initiative to end violence against children | {0: 'In partnership across traditional boundaries, Howard Taylor leads efforts that leverage public and private resources to put a stop to violence against children and change harmful societal attitudes.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | [This talk contains mature content] I'm often asked what do I do. To which I reply, "I work to end violence against children. All violence against every child in every country." There's usually a pause. Sometimes, depending on the setting, "Whoa, that's a conversation killer." And then the questions: "What sort of violence are you talking about?" "How much violence is there?" "Where is it happening, is it happening here?" And when I answer those questions, people tend to be shocked. Shocked at the scale of violence, shocked at the nature of violence. But I'm always quick to make sure that people aren't left with a sense of doom and gloom. I believe we have an unprecedented historical opportunity in this generation to end violence against children. There's a nascent movement building around this. Governments, national governments, city governments, provinces and others are joining that movement. And when we succeed — and it will take all of us — we will change the course of human history. What do I mean by violence against children? I mean all of the physical violence, sexual, psychological and emotional violence that happens to children at home, at school, online and in their communities. We work with partners right across the world and from those partners, we hear disturbing stories of individual children. For example, Sarah, age 10. Raped repeatedly by her stepfather and threatened with violence if she tells anyone. Faisal, hit across the knuckles at school with a cable, shamed and called a donkey, made to stand outside in the cold when he gets the answers wrong. And from the partners we work with to make the internet safer for children, we hear stories like that of Angelika. Twelve years old, and forced to commit sexual acts on her uncle, which are live-streamed to paying adults the other side of the world. One in 10 girls experiences sexual abuse before the age of 20. Half of children live in countries where corporal punishment has not been fully prohibited. And last year alone, in the US, 45 million reports were made of images and videos of violent and sexual abuse of children online. Twice the number the year before. Now these forms of violence and other forms of violence roll up into some truly staggering numbers. One billion children globally every year who experience some kind of violence. That's one in two children. This is a universal issue. So what gives me optimism? Let me talk about Sweden and Uganda. Probably about as different as two countries you might imagine. If you speak to an economist, they might tell you that Sweden has a per capita average income of around 50,000 dollars a year. In Uganda, it's 2,000 dollars. A historian might tell you Sweden hasn't been in a national conflict for about 200 years. Uganda is still struggling with an insurgency in the north of the country. A musician might tell you that Uganda, the national anthem, "Oh Uganda, Land of Beauty," is one of the shortest in the world. In fact, so short, it's often played more than once. I believe Swedes play theirs and sing theirs for a little longer. But more seriously, Sweden and Uganda have made a commitment, they have a common bond and shared purpose, a commitment to end violence against children, and they are taking action to try and get their countries on a pathway to zero violence against children by 2030. And many other countries, cities and states are joining them, all over the world. But what does it really mean, what does it mean in practice? When they make that commitment, what do they do? It means high-level political commitment and leadership. Enacting and implementing legislation. And launching initiatives, changing policy, starting a national conversation that begins to raise awareness on a journey to changing attitudes and making it socially unacceptable to have any violence and abuse of children in a country. It means recognizing that violence against children cuts across many sectors, and therefore the response, the answer, has to be a systems approach. You can't just do one piece of it. It requires multiple agencies within and beyond government. It requires faith groups, the private sector, media, academia, civil society organizations and others. And it requires drawing on what the best practice and the best evidence globally tells us, but using national-level data to shine a light on the often hidden story of violence in any given country. And using that data to inform the national response, but also using it to measure and track progress. And share what's working, being honest about when things aren't working. And sharing inspiration when we see success and violence declining. But can we really do this on a global scale? One billion children a year experiencing violence. I think we can. In 2015, 193 world leaders committed their countries to end violence, abuse and neglect of children by 2030. Violence against children undermines all the other investments in them: in their health, in their education. Often with multi-year, sometimes lifelong and intergenerational consequences and transmission. But it's not just about international agreements and governments. They really matter. I think something's also changing more fundamentally, and we as societies around the world are finally calling out unacceptable behaviors which for too long have been tolerated. Think of the #MeToo movement, and how sector after sector, industry after industry, calling out perpetrators, bringing and holding them to account. It's a journey, but we've embarked upon it. Look at what's happened in the aid industry. Following some abuses of power, the aid industry is now taking very seriously the safeguarding of children across the world. But maybe even more than that. Children and young people themselves, part aided by technology, but they have a voice now that they may not, I don't think, have had before. And they are using that voice, not just to advocate for the situation they see around them or what they know needs to improve, but to be part of the solutions of things that actually inform and affect their lives. Think of those young activists who speak out against female genital mutilation, child marriage, cyber bullying, safe schools, harming conflict — the list goes on and on. Those children really matter. So we have political leadership, we have youth activism, we have evidence-based solutions, we have public awareness growing — we're on that pathway, beginning that journey to get to zero by 2030. But what are those solutions? Three years ago, in 2016, 10 global institutions came together and aligned behind a framework which is a comprehensive, step-by-step approach to ending violence against children. It's called INSPIRE. It looks at the need for the relevant legislation, addressing social norms, parent and caregiver support, responses for children who have experienced violence and abuse. And safe schools, so children can be in a learning environment where they thrive. In Uganda, four years ago, an eight-year-old girl could be married to a 30-year-old man. That can no longer happen. In 2016, the Children Act made that illegal and set the minimum age of marriage at 18. That's the I of INSPIRE: enact and implement legislation. Cambodia is rolling out parental support, parent and caregiver support across the country, so parents are equipped to raise their children and to have discipline in a nonviolent way in the home. That's the P of INSPIRE, parent and caregiver support. In the Philippines, there are 100 centers set up to protect women and children nationwide. Women and children who are either at high risk of abuse and violence or have experienced violence. That's the R of INSPIRE, response and support services. And in Uganda, a safe schools toolkit has been rolled out now to half of teachers in Uganda, equipping them to control a class with nonviolent discipline. That's the E of INSPIRE, education and life skills. That's just some bits within some of the INSPIRE framework. But more and more countries are committing to implement it, adapt it locally, inform it with the relevant data, put a plan together, work across sectors, and begin that journey to zero. Canada, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Tanzania — I mentioned Sweden and Uganda already — Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, more and more countries, and now cities, too. And right here in Scotland, University of Edinburgh is establishing a learning lab that's going to track the journey that cities in Scotland and the Philippines and Colombia go on together. See what works in a city, take something that's being prepared for implementation at a nationwide level and bring it down to the city level, where we believe that we can actually make probably faster and demonstrable progress in a shorter space of time. And when we do that, that success will be shared through the learning lab and beyond at Edinburgh University. Ending violence is the right thing to do, it's a smart investment to make, we have evidence-based solutions, and we have the beginnings of a journey. But what would happen if we actually end violence against children? Let's just imagine for a moment. First of all, think of the children I mentioned. Sarah would no longer lie in her bed at night, fearful of the sound of her stepfather's footsteps coming up the stairs. Faisal would go to school and he would thrive. He would no longer fear being at school and being bullied and hit and ashamed by the teachers. And Angelika and those like her would no longer be something, a commodity brought online for the enjoyment of adults thousands of miles away. But then multiply the social, the economic, the cultural benefits of that. Multiply those by every family, every community, village, town, city, country and suddenly, you've got a new normal emerging. A generation would grow up without having experienced violence. It will take us all. But we do have an unprecedented opportunity to try, and I believe we also, as adults, have a responsibility to do this. And then when we're all asked, "What do you do?" each and every one of us can say, "I'm changing the course of human history. I'm doing my bit to end violence against children." Let's do this and do it now. Thank you. (Applause) |
Why you should be a climate activist | {0: 'Luisa Neubauer is a climate activist, author and leader of the "Fridays For Future" school strike movement.'} | TEDxYouth@München | I never planned to become a climate activist. But things have changed, and now, standing here as a climate activist, I ask you all to become one, too. Here's why, and most importantly, how. Ten years ago, when I was 13 years old, I first learned about the greenhouse effect. Back then, we spent 90 minutes on this issue, and I remember finding it quite irritating that something so fundamental would be squeezed into a single geography lesson. Some of this irritation remained, so when I graduated from high school, I decided to study geography, just to make sure I was on the right track with this whole climate change thing. And this is when everything changed. This was the first time I looked at the data, at the science behind the climate crisis, and I couldn't believe what I was reading. Like many of you, I thought that the planet wasn't really in a good state. I had no idea that we are rushing into this self-made disaster in such a rapid pace. There was also the first time I understood what difference it makes when you consider the bigger picture. Take the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, for instance, the number one driver for global warming. Yes, this looks bad. This looks like we are on a pretty bad track. But it's only once you don't just consider the last 60 years but the last 10,000 years that you understand how terrifying this really is. And this is just one aspect of the crisis we're seeing. I'm not going to get into details here, but let me tell you so much: we are in a point of history that the most destructive force on the planet is humanity itself. We are in a point of history that no scientist could guarantee you that you will survive this. We are in a point of history that humanity is creating an environment that's not safe for humans anymore. Yeah, there I was, first year of geography, and felt pretty overwhelmed. But ... there was good news. The very same year I first learned about all this, leaders from across the globe came together in Paris to decide on the common target to limit global warming to below two degrees. Pictures went around the world, and I was told that history was made that day. How relieving, right? Except ... something didn't quite work out about this. After this agreement was signed, things didn't really get better. Actually, they got much worse. Decision makers and industries, leaders and politicians, they went back to business as usual, exploiting our livelihoods like there is literally no tomorrow, building coal power plants again and again, even though we know that needs to stop, according to the Paris Agreement. So while there are also good developments, of course — there are installations of wind and solar energy all over the globe, yes — but these positive changes are slow — too slow, in fact. So since the Paris Agreement was signed, climate graphs keep racing to the top, smashing records every year. The five hottest years ever recorded were the previous five years, and at no time have global emissions been higher than today. So there I was, seeing and understanding the science on the one side, but not seeing answers, not seeing the action, on the other side. At that point, I had enough. I wanted to go to the UN Climate Conference myself, that very place that was created to bring people together to fix the climate — except not really, apparently. This was last year. I traveled to the Climate Conference and wanted to find out what this is really like, what this is about. For political realists, this might be no surprise, but I found it hard to bear: that fossil fuel industries and political leaders are doing everything, everything to prevent real change from happening. They are not keen to set targets that are ambitious enough to put us on a below-two-degree pathway. After all, these are the only ones who benefit from this climate crisis, right? The fossil fuel industry generates profits, and political leaders, well, they look at the next election, at what makes them popular, and I guess that's not asking the inconvenient questions. There is no intention for them to change the game. There is no country in the world where either companies or political powers are sanctioned for wrecking the climate. With all the strangeness and the sadness about this conference, there was one someone who was different, someone who seemed to be quite worried, and that was Greta Thunberg. I decided right there that everything else seemed hopeless and didn't seem to make sense, so I joined her climate strike right there at the conference. It was my very first climate strike ever and an incredibly strange setting, just me and her sitting there at this conference hall, surrounded by this busyness of the suit-wearing conference crowd who had no idea what to do with us. And yet, this felt more powerful than anything I had expected in a very long time. And it was right there that I felt it was maybe time to start striking in Germany. I was now certain that no one else was going to fix this for us, and if there was just the slightest chance that this could make a difference, it seemed almost foolish not to give it a go. So I — (Applause) So I traveled back to Berlin. I found allies who had the same idea at the same time, and together we thought we'd give this "Fridays For Future" thing a go. Obviously, we had no idea what we were getting into. Before our first strike, many of us, including me, had never organized a public demonstration or any kind of protest before. We had no money, no resources and absolutely no idea what climate striking really is. So we started doing what we were good at: we started texting, texting en masse, night and day, everyone we could reach, organizing our first climate strike via WhatsApp. The night before our first strike, I was so nervous I couldn't sleep. I didn't know what to expect, but I expected the worst. Maybe it was because we weren't the only ones who had been longing to have a voice in a political environment that had seemingly forgotten how to include young people's perspective into decision-making, maybe. But somehow this worked out. And from one day to the other, we were all over the place. And I, from one day to the other, became a climate activist. Usually, in these kind of TED Talks, I would now say how it's overly hopeful, how we young people are going to get this sorted, how we're going to save the future and the planet and everything else, how we young people striking for the climate are going to fix this. Usually. But this is not how this works. This is not how this crisis works. Here's a twist: today, three and a half years after that Paris Agreement was signed, when we look at the science, we find it's still possible to keep global warming to below two degrees — technically. And we also see it's still possible to hold other disastrous developments we're seeing, such as mass extinction and soil degradation — yes, technically. It's just incredibly, incredibly unlikely. And in any case, the world would have to see changes which we have never experienced before. We'd have to fully decarbonize our economies by 2050 and transform the distribution of powers that is currently allowing those fossil fuel giants and political leaders to stay on top of the game. We are talking of nothing less than the greatest transformation since the Industrial Revolution. We are talking, if you want to put it that way, we are talking of a climate revolution in a minimum amount of time. We wouldn't have a single further year to lose. And in any case, for any of that change to happen, the world needs to stop relying on one or two or three million school strikers to sort this out. Yes, we are great, we are going to keep going, and we are going to go to places no one ever expected us, yes. But we are not the limit; we are the start. This is not a job for a single generation. This is a job for humanity. And this is when all eyes are on you. For this change to happen, we will have to get one million things sorted. It's an incredibly complex thing, after all. But ... there are some things that everyone can get started with. Bad news first: if you thought I would tell you now to cycle more or eat less meat, to fly less, or to go secondhand shopping, sorry, this is not that easy. But here comes the good news: you are more than consumers and shoppers, even though the industry would like you to keep yourselves limited to that. No; me and you — we are all political beings, and we can all be part of this answer. We can all be something that many people call climate activists. Yay? (Laughter) So what are the first steps? Four first steps that are essential to get everything else done, four first steps that everyone can get started with, four first steps that decide about everything that can happen after. So what's that? Number one: we need to drastically reframe our understanding of a climate activist, our understanding of who can be the answer to this. A climate activist isn't that one person that's read every single study and is now spending every afternoon handing out leaflets about vegetarianism in shopping malls. No. A climate activist can be everyone, everyone who wants to join a movement of those who intend to grow old on a planet that prioritizes protection of natural environments and happiness and health for the many over the destruction of the climate and the wrecking of the planet for the profits of the few. And since the climate crisis is affecting every single part of our social, of our political and of our private life, we need climate activists everywhere on every corner, not only in every room, but also in every city and country and state and continent. Second: I need you to get out of that zone of convenience, away from a business as usual that has no tomorrow. All of you here, you are either a friend or a family member, you are a worker, a colleague, a student, a teacher or, in many cases, a voter. All of this comes along with a responsibility that this crisis requires you to grow up to. There's the company that employs you or that sponsors you. Is it on track of meeting the Paris Agreement? Does your local parliamentarian know that you care about this, that you want this to be a priority in every election? Does your best friend know about this? Do you read a newspaper or write a newspaper? Great. Then let them know you want them to report on this in every issue, and that you want them to challenge decision makers in every single interview. If you're a singer, sing about this. If you're a teacher, teach about this. And if you have a bank account, tell your bank you're going to leave if they keep investing in fossil fuels. And, of course, on Fridays, you should all know what to do. Thirdly: leaving that zone of convenience works best when you join forces. One person asking for inconvenient change is mostly inconvenient. Two, five, ten, one hundred people asking for inconvenient change are hard to ignore. The more you are, the harder it gets for people to justify a system that has no future. Power is not something that you either have or don't have. Power is something you either take or leave to others, and it grows once you share it. We young people on the streets, we school strikers, we are showing how this can work out. One single school striker will always be one single school striker — well, Greta Thunberg. Two, five, ten, one thousand people striking school are a movement, and that's what we need everywhere. No pressure. (Laughter) And number four, finally — and this is probably the most important aspect of all of this — I need you to start taking yourselves more seriously. If there's one thing I've learned during seven months of organizing climate action, it's that if you don't go for something, chances are high that no one else will. The most powerful institutions of this world have no intention of changing the game they're profiting from most, so there's no point in further relying on them. That's scary, I know. That's a huge responsibility, a huge burden on everyone's shoulders, yes. But this also means, if we want to, we can have a say in this. We can be part of that change. We can be part of that answer. And that's quite beautiful, right? So let's give it a try, let's rock and roll, let's flood the world with climate activists. Let's get out of the zones of convenience and join forces and start taking ourselves more seriously. Imagine what this world would look like, where children would grow up, knowing their future was this one great adventure to look forward to and nothing to be scared of, what this world would look like when the next climate conference is this great happening of people who come together, who had heard the voices of millions, who would then roll up their sleeves, ready to create real change. You know, I dream of this world where geography classes teach about the climate crisis as this one greatest challenge that was won by people like you and me, who had started acting in time because they understood they had nothing to lose and everything to win. So why not give it a go? No one else will save the future for us. This is more than an invitation. Spread the word. Thank you. (Applause) |
The dust bunnies that built our planet | null | TED-Ed | Consider the spot where you’re sitting. Travel backwards in time and it might’ve been submerged at the bottom of a shallow sea, buried under miles of rock, or floating through a molten, infernal landscape. But go back far enough— about 4.6 billion years, and you’d be in the middle of an enormous cloud of dust and gas orbiting a newborn star. This is the setting for some of the biggest, smallest mysteries of physics: the mysteries of cosmic dust bunnies. Seemingly empty regions of space between stars actually contain clouds of gas and dust, usually blown there by supernovas. When a dense cloud reaches a certain threshold called the Jeans mass, it collapses in on itself. The shrinking cloud rotates faster and faster, and heats up, eventually becoming hot enough to burn hydrogen in its core. At this point a star is born. As fusion begins in the new star, it sends out jets of gas that blow off the top and bottom of the cloud, leaving behind an orbiting ring of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disk. This is a surprisingly windy place; eddies of gas carry particles apart, and send them smashing into each other. The dust consists of tiny metal fragments, bits of rock, and, further out, ices. We’ve observed thousands of these disks in the sky, at various stages of development as dust clumps together into larger and larger masses. Dust grains 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair stick to each other through what’s called the van der Waals force. That’s where a cloud of electrons shifts to one side of a molecule, creating a negative charge on one end, and a positive charge on the other. Opposites attract, but van der Waals can only hold tiny things together. And there’s a problem: once dust clusters grow to a certain size, the windy atmosphere of a disk should constantly break them up as they crash into each other. The question of how they continue to grow is the first mystery of dust bunnies. One theory looks to electrostatic charge to answer this. Energetic gamma rays, x-rays, and UV photons knock electrons off of gas atoms within the disk, creating positive ions and negative electrons. Electrons run into and stick to dust, making it negatively charged. Now, when the wind pushes clusters together, like repels like and slows them down as they collide. With gentle collisions they won’t fragment, but if the repulsion is too strong, they’ll never grow. One theory suggests that high energy particles can knock more electrons off of some dust clumps, leaving them positively charged. Opposites again attract, and clusters grow rapidly. But before long we reach another set of mysteries. We know from evidence found in meteorites that these fluffy dust bunnies eventually get heated, melted and then cooled into solid pellets called chondrules. And we have no idea how or why that happens. Furthermore, once those pellets do form, how do they stick together? The electrostatic forces from before are too weak, and small rocks can’t be held together by gravity either. Gravity increases proportionally to the mass of the objects involved. That’s why you could effortlessly escape an asteroid the size of a small mountain using just the force generated by your legs. So if not gravity, then what? Perhaps it’s dust. A fluffy dust rim collected around the outside of the pellets could act like Velcro. There’s evidence for this in meteors, where we find many chondrules surrounded by a thin rim of very fine material– possibly condensed dust. Eventually the chondrule pellets get cemented together inside larger rocks, which at about 1 kilometer across are finally large enough to hold themselves together through gravity. They continue to collide and grow into larger and larger bodies, including the planets we know today. Ultimately, the seeds of everything familiar– the size of our planet, its position within the solar system, and its elemental composition– were determined by an uncountably large series of random collisions. Change the dust cloud just a bit, and perhaps the conditions wouldn’t have been right for the formation of life on our planet. |
How we can make racism a solvable problem -- and improve policing | {0: 'Phillip Atiba Goff works with police departments to help public safety become more equitable and less deadly.'} | TED2019 | When people meet me for the first time on my job, they often feel inspired to share a revelation they've had about me, and it kind of goes something like this. "Hey, I know why police chiefs like to share their deep, dark secrets with you. Phil, with your PhD in psychology, and your shiny bald head, you're basically the Black Dr. Phil, right?" (Laughter) And for each and every person who's ever said that to me I do want to say thank you because that was the first time I ever heard that joke. (Laughter) But for everybody else, I really hope you'll believe me when I tell you no police chief likes talking to me because they think I'm a clinical psychologist. And also I'm not. I have no idea what your mother did to you, and I can't help. (Laughter) Police chiefs like talking to me because I'm an expert on a problem that feels impossible for them to solve: racism in their profession. Now my expertise comes from being a scientist who studies how our minds learn to associate Blackness and crime and misperceive Black children as older than they actually are. It also comes from studying actual police behavior, which is how I know that every year, about one in five adults in the United States has contact with law enforcement. Out of those, about a million are targeted for police use of force. And if you're Black, you're two to four times more likely to be targeted for that force than if you're white. But it also comes from knowing what those statistics feel like. I've experienced the fear of seeing an officer unclip their gun and the panic of realizing that someone might mistake my 13-year-old godson as old enough to be a threat. So when a police chief, or a pastor, or an imam, or a mother — when they call me after an officer shoots another unarmed Black child, I understand a bit of the pain in their voice. It's the pain of a heart breaking when it fails to solve a deadly problem. Breaking from trying to do something that feels simultaneously necessary and impossible. The way trying to fix racism usually feels. Necessary and impossible. So, police chiefs like talking to me because I'm an expert, but I doubt they'd be lining up to lie down on Dr. Phil's couch if I told them all their problems were hopeless. All of my research, and the decade of work I've done with my center — the Center for Policing Equity — actually leads me to a hopeful conclusion amidst all the heartbreak of race in America, which is this: trying to solve racism feels impossible because our definition of racism makes it impossible — but it doesn't have to be that way. So here's what I mean. The most common definition of racism is that racist behaviors are the product of contaminated hearts and minds. When you listen to the way we talk about trying to cure racism, you'll hear it. "We need to stamp out hatred. We need to combat ignorance," right? It's hearts and minds. Now the only problem with that definition is that it's completely wrong — both scientifically and otherwise. One of the foundational insights of social psychology is that attitudes are very weak predictors of behaviors, but more importantly than that, no Black community has ever taken to the streets to demand that white people would love us more. Communities march to stop the killing, because racism is about behaviors, not feelings. And even when civil rights leaders like King and Fannie Lou Hamer used the language of love, the racism they fought, that was segregation and brutality. It's actions over feelings. And every one of those leaders would agree, if a definition of racism makes it harder to see the injuries racism causes, that's not just wrong. A definition that cares about the intentions of abusers more than the harms to the abused — that definition of racism is racist. But when we change the definition of racism from attitudes to behaviors, we transform that problem from impossible to solvable. Because you can measure behaviors. And when you can measure a problem, you can tap into one of the only universal rules of organizational success. You've got a problem or a goal, you measure it, you hold yourself accountable to that metric. So if every other organization measures success this way, why can't we do that in policing? It turns out we actually already do. Police departments already practice data-driven accountability, it's just for crime. The vast majority of police departments across the United States use a system called CompStat. It's a process that, when you use it right, it identifies crime data, it tracks it and identifies patterns, and then it allows departments to hold themselves accountable to public safety goals. It usually works either by directing police attentions and police resources, or changing police behavior once they show up. So if I see a string of muggings in that neighborhood, I'm going to want to increase patrols in that neighborhood. If I see a spike in homicides, I'm going to want to talk to the community to find out why and collaborate on changes on police behavior to tamp down the violence. Now when you define racism in terms of measurable behaviors, you can do the same thing. You can create a CompStat for justice. That's exactly what the Center for Policing Equity has been doing. So let me tell you how that works. After a police department invites us in, we handle the legal stuff, we engage with the community, our next step is to analyze their data. The goal of these analyses is to determine how much do crime, poverty, neighborhood demographics predict, let's say, police use of force? Let's say that those factors predict police will use force on this many Black people. There? So our next question is, how many Black people actually are targeted for police use of force? Let's say it's this many. So what's up with the gap? Well, a big portion of the gap is the difference between what's predicted by things police can't control and what's predicted by things police can control — their policies and their behaviors. And what we're looking for are the types of contact or the areas in the city where that gap is biggest, because then we can tell our partners, "Look here. Solve this problem first." It's actually the kind of therapy police chiefs can get behind, because there is nothing so inspiring in the face of our history of racism as a solvable problem. Look, if the community in Minneapolis asked their police department to remedy the moral failings of race in policing, I'm not sure they know how to do that. But if instead the community says, "Hey, you're data say you're beating up a lot of homeless folks. You want to knock that off?" That's something police can learn how to do. And they did. So in 2015, the Minneapolis PD let us know their community was concerned they were using force too often. So we showed them how to leverage their own data to identify situations where force could be avoided. And when you look at those data, you'll see that a disproportionate number of their use-of-force incidents, they involved somebody who's homeless, in mental distress, has a substance abuse issue or some combination of all three — more than you expect based on those factors I was just telling you about. So right there's the gap. Next question is why. Well, it turns out homeless folks often need services. And when those services are unavailable, when they can't get their meds, they lose their spot in the shelter, they're more likely to engage in behaviors that end up with folks calling the cops. And when the cops show up, they're more likely to resist intervention, oftentimes because they haven't actually done anything illegal, they're literally just living outside. The problem wasn't a need to train officers differently in Minneapolis. The problem was the fact that folks were using the cops to "treat" substance abuse and homelessness in the first place. So the city of Minneapolis found a way to deliver social services and city resources to the homeless community before anybody ever called the cops. (Applause) Now the problem isn't always homelessness, right? Sometimes the problem is fear of immigration enforcement, like it was in Salt Lake City, or it is in Houston, where the chiefs had to come forward and say, "We're not going to deport you just for calling 911." Or the problem is foot pursuits, like it was in Las Vegas, where they had to train their officers to slow down and take a breath instead of allowing the adrenaline in that situation to escalate it. It's searches in Oakland; it's pulling folks out of cars in San Jose; it's the way that they patrol the neighborhoods that make up Zone 3 in Pittsburgh and the Black neighborhoods closest to the waterfront in Baltimore. But in each city, if we can give them a solvable problem, they get busy solving it. And together our partners have seen an average of 25 percent fewer arrests, fewer use-of-force incidents and 13 percent fewer officer-related injuries. Essentially, by identifying the biggest gaps and directing police attentions to solving it, we can deliver a data-driven vaccine against racial disparities in policing. Right now, we have the capacity to partner with about 40 cities at a time. That means if we want the United States to stop feeling exhausted from trying to solve an impossible problem, we're going to need a lot more infrastructure. Because our goal is to have our tools be able to scale the brilliance of dedicated organizers and reform-minded chiefs. So to get there we're going to need the kind of collective will that desegregated schools and won the franchise for the sons and daughters of former slaves so that we can build a kind of health care system capable of delivering our vaccine across the country. Because our audacious idea is to deliver a CompStat for justice to departments serving 100 million people across the United States in the next five years. (Applause and cheers) Doing that would mean arming about a third of the United States with tools to reduce racial disparities in police stops, arrests and use of force, but also tools to reduce predatory cash bail and mass incarceration, family instability and chronic mental health and substance abuse issues, and every other ill that our broken criminal-legal systems aggravate. Because every unnecessary arrest we can prevent saves a family from the terrifying journey through each one of those systems. Just like every gun we can leave holstered saves an entire community from a lifetime of grief. Look, each and every one of us, we measure the things that matter to us. Businesses measure profit; good students keep track of their grades; families chart the growth of their children with pencil markings in doorframes. We all measure the things that matter most to us, which is why we feel the neglect when nobody's bothering to measure anything at all. For the past quarter millennium, we've defined the problems of race and policing in a way that's functionally impossible to measure. But now the science says we can just change that definition. And the folks at the Center for Policing Equity, I actually think we may have measured more police behavior than any one in human history. And that means that once we have the will and the resources to do it, this could be the generation that stops feeling like racism is an unsolvable problem and instead sees that what's been necessary for far too long is possible. Thank you. (Applause and cheers) |
"Ode to the Only Black Kid in the Class" | {0: "Clint Smith's work blends art and activism."} | TED-Ed | I'm Clint Smith and this is "Ode to the Only Black Kid in the Class." You, it seems, are the manifestation of several lifetimes of toil. Brown v. Board in flesh. Most days the classroom feels like an antechamber. You are deemed expert on all things Morrison, King, Malcolm, Rosa. Hell, weren’t you sitting on that bus, too? You are every- body’s best friend until you are not. Hip-hop lyricologist. Presumed athlete. Free & Reduced sideshow. Exception and caricature. Too black and too white all at once. If you are successful it is because of affirmative action. If you fail it is because you were destined to. You are invisible until they turn on the Friday night lights. Here you are star before they render you asteroid. Before they watch you turn to dust. |
Why should you read "Midnight's Children"? | null | TED-Ed | It begins with a countdown. On August 14th, 1947, a woman in Bombay goes into labor as the clock ticks towards midnight. Across India, people hold their breath for the declaration of independence after nearly two centuries of British occupation and rule. And at the stroke of midnight, a squirming infant and two new nations are born in perfect synchronicity. These events form the foundation of "Midnight’s Children," a dazzling novel by the British-Indian author Salman Rushdie. The baby who is the exact same age as the nation is Saleem Sinai, the novel’s protagonist. His narrative stretches over 30 years of his life, jumping backwards and forwards in time to speculate on family secrets and deep-seated mysteries. These include the greatest enigma of all: Saleem has magic powers, and they’re somehow related to the time of his birth. And he’s not the only one. All children born in and around the stroke of midnight are imbued with extraordinary powers; like Parvati the Witch, a spectacular conjurer; and Saleem’s nemesis Shiva, a gifted warrior. With his powers of telepathy, Saleem forges connections with a vast network of the children of midnight— including a figure who can step through time and mirrors, a child who changes their gender when immersed in water, and multilingual conjoined twins. Saleem acts as a delightful guide to magical happenings and historical context alike. Although his birthday is a day of celebration, it also marks a turbulent period in Indian history. In 1948, the leader of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, was assassinated. Independence also coincided with Partition, which divided British-controlled India into the two nations of India and Pakistan. This contributed to the outbreak of the Indo-Pakistani Wars in 1965 and 1971. Saleem touches on all this and more, tracing the establishment of Bangladesh in 1971 and the emergency rule of Indira Gandhi. This vast historical frame is one reason why "Midnight’s Children" is considered one of the most illuminating works of postcolonial literature ever written. This genre typically addresses the experience of people living in colonized and formerly colonized countries, and explores the fallout through themes like revolution, migration, and identity. Rushdie, who like Saleem was born in 1947, was educated in India and Britain, and is renowned for his cross-continental histories, political commentary, and magical realism. He enriches "Midnight’s Children" with a plethora of Indian and Pakistani cultural references, from family traditions to food, religion and folktales. Scribbling by night under the watchful eyes of his lover Padma, Saleem’s frame narrative echoes that of "1001 Nights," where a woman named Scheherazade tells her king a series of stories to keep herself alive. And as Saleem sees it, 1001 is “the number of night, of magic, of alternative realities.” Over the course of the novel, Rushdie dazzles us with multiple versions of reality. Sometimes, this is like reading a rollercoaster. Saleem narrates: “Who what am I? My answer: I am everyone everything whose being-in- the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each 'I,' every one of the now-six- hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world.” Saleem’s narrative often has a breathless quality— and even as Rushdie depicts the cosmological consequences of a life, he questions the idea that we can ever condense history into a single narrative. His mind-bending plot and shapeshifting characters have garnered continuing fascination and praise. Not only did "Midnight’s Children" win the prestigious Man Booker Prize in its year of publication, but in a 2008 competition that pitted all 39 winners against each other, it was named the best of all the winners. In a masterpiece of epic proportions, Rushdie reveals that there are no singular truths— rather, it’s wiser to believe in several versions of reality at once, hold many lives in the palms of our hands, and experience multiple moments in a single stroke of the clock. |
How your emotions change the shape of your heart | {0: 'Sandeep Jauhar is a practicing cardiologist passionate about communicating medicine in all its glorious, quirky, inescapable humanity.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | No other organ, perhaps no other object in human life, is as imbued with metaphor and meaning as the human heart. Over the course of history, the heart has been a symbol of our emotional lives. It was considered by many to be the seat of the soul, the repository of the emotions. The very word "emotion" stems in part from the French verb "émouvoir," meaning "to stir up." And perhaps it's only logical that emotions would be linked to an organ characterized by its agitated movement. But what is this link? Is it real or purely metaphorical? As a heart specialist, I am here today to tell you that this link is very real. Emotions, you will learn, can and do have a direct physical effect on the human heart. But before we get into this, let's talk a bit about the metaphorical heart. The symbolism of the emotional heart endures even today. If we ask people which image they most associate with love, there's no question that the Valentine heart would the top the list. The heart shape, called a cardioid, is common in nature. It's found in the leaves, flowers and seeds of many plants, including silphium, which was used for birth control in the Middle Ages and perhaps is the reason why the heart became associated with sex and romantic love. Whatever the reason, hearts began to appear in paintings of lovers in the 13th century. Over time, the pictures came to be colored red, the color of blood, a symbol of passion. In the Roman Catholic Church, the heart shape became known as the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Adorned with thorns and emitting ethereal light, it became an insignia of monastic love. This association between the heart and love has withstood modernity. When Barney Clark, a retired dentist with end-stage heart failure, received the first permanent artificial heart in Utah in 1982, his wife of 39 years reportedly asked the doctors, "Will he still be able to love me?" Today, we know that the heart is not the source of love or the other emotions, per se; the ancients were mistaken. And yet, more and more, we have come to understand that the connection between the heart and the emotions is a highly intimate one. The heart may not originate our feelings, but it is highly responsive to them. In a sense, a record of our emotional life is written on our hearts. Fear and grief, for example, can cause profound cardiac injury. The nerves that control unconscious processes such as the heartbeat can sense distress and trigger a maladaptive fight-or-flight response that triggers blood vessels to constrict, the heart to gallop and blood pressure to rise, resulting in damage. In other words, it is increasingly clear that our hearts are extraordinarily sensitive to our emotional system, to the metaphorical heart, if you will. There is a heart disorder first recognized about two decades ago called "takotsubo cardiomyopathy," or "the broken heart syndrome," in which the heart acutely weakens in response to intense stress or grief, such as after a romantic breakup or the death of a loved one. As these pictures show, the grieving heart in the middle looks very different than the normal heart on the left. It appears stunned and frequently balloons into the distinctive shape of a takotsubo, shown on the right, a Japanese pot with a wide base and a narrow neck. We don't know exactly why this happens, and the syndrome usually resolves within a few weeks. However, in the acute period, it can cause heart failure, life-threatening arrhythmias, even death. For example, the husband of an elderly patient of mine had died recently. She was sad, of course, but accepting. Maybe even a bit relieved. It had been a very long illness; he'd had dementia. But a week after the funeral, she looked at his picture and became tearful. And then she developed chest pain, and with it, came shortness of breath, distended neck veins, a sweaty brow, a noticeable panting as she was sitting up in a chair — all signs of heart failure. She was admitted to the hospital, where an ultrasound confirmed what we already suspected: her heart had weakened to less than half its normal capacity and had ballooned into the distinctive shape of a takotsubo. But no other tests were amiss, no sign of clogged arteries anywhere. Two weeks later, her emotional state had returned to normal and so, an ultrasound confirmed, had her heart. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy has been linked to many stressful situations, including public speaking — (Laughter) (Applause) domestic disputes, gambling losses, even a surprise birthday party. (Laughter) It's even been associated with widespread social upheaval, such as after a natural disaster. For example, in 2004, a massive earthquake devastated a district on the largest island in Japan. More than 60 people were killed, and thousands were injured. On the heels of this catastrophe, researchers found that the incidents of takotsubo cardiomyopathy increased twenty-four-fold in the district one month after the earthquake, compared to a similar period the year before. The residences of these cases closely correlated with the intensity of the tremor. In almost every case, patients lived near the epicenter. Interestingly, takotsubo cardiomyopathy has been seen after a happy event, too, but the heart appears to react differently, ballooning in the midportion, for example, and not at the apex. Why different emotional precipitants would result in different cardiac changes remains a mystery. But today, perhaps as an ode to our ancient philosophers, we can say that even if emotions are not contained inside our hearts, the emotional heart overlaps its biological counterpart, in surprising and mysterious ways. Heart syndromes, including sudden death, have long been reported in individuals experiencing intense emotional disturbance or turmoil in their metaphorical hearts. In 1942, the Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon published a paper called "'Voodoo' Death," in which he described cases of death from fright in people who believed they had been cursed, such as by a witch doctor or as a consequence of eating taboo fruit. In many cases, the victim, all hope lost, dropped dead on the spot. What these cases had in common was the victim's absolute belief that there was an external force that could cause their demise, and against which they were powerless to fight. This perceived lack of control, Cannon postulated, resulted in an unmitigated physiological response, in which blood vessels constricted to such a degree that blood volume acutely dropped, blood pressure plummeted, the heart acutely weakened, and massive organ damage resulted from a lack of transported oxygen. Cannon believed that voodoo deaths were limited to indigenous or "primitive" people. But over the years, these types of deaths have been shown to occur in all manner of modern people, too. Today, death by grief has been seen in spouses and in siblings. Broken hearts are literally and figuratively deadly. These associations hold true even for animals. In a fascinating study in 1980 published in the journal "Science," researchers fed caged rabbits a high-cholesterol diet to study its effect on cardiovascular disease. Surprisingly, they found that some rabbits developed a lot more disease than others, but they couldn't explain why. The rabbits had very similar diet, environment and genetic makeup. They thought it might have something to do with how frequently the technician interacted with the rabbits. So they repeated the study, dividing the rabbits into two groups. Both groups were fed a high-cholesterol diet. But in one group, the rabbits were removed from their cages, held, petted, talked to, played with, and in the other group, the rabbits remained in their cages and were left alone. At one year, on autopsy, the researchers found that the rabbits in the first group, that received human interaction, had 60 percent less aortic disease than rabbits in the other group, despite having similar cholesterol levels, blood pressure and heart rate. Today, the care of the heart has become less the province of philosophers, who dwell upon the heart's metaphorical meanings, and more the domain of doctors like me, wielding technologies that even a century ago, because of the heart's exalted status in human culture, were considered taboo. In the process, the heart has been transformed from an almost supernatural object imbued with metaphor and meaning into a machine that can be manipulated and controlled. But this is the key point: these manipulations, we now understand, must be complemented by attention to the emotional life that the heart, for thousands of years, was believed to contain. Consider, for example, the Lifestyle Heart Trial, published in the British journal "The Lancet" in 1990. Forty-eight patients with moderate or severe coronary disease were randomly assigned to usual care or an intensive lifestyle that included a low-fat vegetarian diet, moderate aerobic exercise, group psychosocial support and stress management advice. The researchers found that the lifestyle patients had a nearly five percent reduction in coronary plaque. Control patients, on the other hand, had five percent more coronary plaque at one year and 28 percent more at five years. They also had nearly double the rate of cardiac events, like heart attacks, coronary bypass surgery and cardiac-related deaths. Now, here's an interesting fact: some patients in the control group adopted diet and exercise plans that were nearly as intense as those in the intensive lifestyle group. Their heart disease still progressed. Diet and exercise alone were not enough to facilitate coronary disease regression. At both one- and five-year follow-ups, stress management was more strongly correlated with reversal of coronary disease than exercise was. No doubt, this and similar studies are small, and, of course, correlation does not prove causation. It's certainly possible that stress leads to unhealthy habits, and that's the real reason for the increased cardiovascular risk. But as with the association of smoking and lung cancer, when so many studies show the same thing, and when there are mechanisms to explain a causal relationship, it seems capricious to deny that one probably exists. What many doctors have concluded is what I, too, have learned in my nearly two decades as a heart specialist: the emotional heart intersects with its biological counterpart in surprising and mysterious ways. And yet, medicine today continues to conceptualize the heart as a machine. This conceptualization has had great benefits. Cardiology, my field, is undoubtedly one of the greatest scientific success stories of the past 100 years. Stents, pacemakers, defibrillators, coronary bypass surgery, heart transplants — all these things were developed or invented after World War II. However, it's possible that we are approaching the limits of what scientific medicine can do to combat heart disease. Indeed, the rate of decline of cardiovascular mortality has slowed significantly in the past decade. We will need to shift to a new paradigm to continue to make the kind of progress to which we have become accustomed. In this paradigm, psychosocial factors will need to be front and center in how we think about heart problems. This is going to be an uphill battle, and it remains a domain that is largely unexplored. The American Heart Association still does not list emotional stress as a key modifiable risk factor for heart disease, perhaps in part because blood cholesterol is so much easier to lower than emotional and social disruption. There is a better way, perhaps, if we recognize that when we say "a broken heart," we are indeed sometimes talking about a real broken heart. We must, must pay more attention to the power and importance of the emotions in taking care of our hearts. Emotional stress, I have learned, is often a matter of life and death. Thank you. (Applause) |
A "living drug" that could change the way we treat cancer | {0: 'Carl June is a renowned pioneer in the fight against cancer.'} | TEDMED 2018 | So this is the first time I've told this story in public, the personal aspects of it. Yogi Berra was a world-famous baseball player who said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." Researchers had been, for more than a century, studying the immune system as a way to fight cancer, and cancer vaccines have, unfortunately, been disappointing. They've only worked in cancers caused by viruses, like cervical cancer or liver cancer. So cancer researchers basically gave up on the idea of using the immune system to fight cancer. And the immune system, in any case, did not evolve to fight cancer; it evolved to fight pathogens invading from the outside. So its job is to kill bacteria and viruses. And the reason the immune system has trouble with most cancers is that it doesn't invade from the outside; it evolves from its own cells. And so either the immune system does not recognize the cancer as a problem, or it attacks a cancer and also our normal cells, leading to autoimmune diseases like colitis or multiple sclerosis. So how do you get around that? Our answer turned out to be synthetic immune systems that are designed to recognize and kill cancer cells. That's right — I said a synthetic immune system. You do that with genetic engineering and synthetic biology. We did it with the naturally occurring parts of the immune system, called B cells and T cells. These were our building blocks. T cells have evolved to kill cells infected with viruses, and B cells are the cells that make antibodies that are secreted and then bind to kill bacteria. Well, what if you combined these two functions in a way that was designed to repurpose them to fight cancer? We realized it would be possible to insert the genes for antibodies from B cells into T cells. So how do you do that? Well, we used an HIV virus as a Trojan horse to get past the T cells' immune system. The result is a chimera, a fantastic fire-breathing creature from Greek mythology, with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. So we decided that the paradoxical thing that we had created with our B-cell antibodies, our T cells carrier and the HIV Trojan horse should be called "Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cells," or CAR T cells. The virus also inserts genetic information to activate the T cells and program them into their killing mode. So when CAR T cells are injected into somebody with cancer, what happens when those CAR T cells see and bind to their tumor target? They act like supercharged killer T cells on steroids. They start this crash-defense buildup system in the body and literally divide and multiply by the millions, where they then attack and kill the tumor. All of this means that CAR T cells are the first living drug in medicine. CAR T cells break the mold. Unlike normal drugs that you take — they do their job and get metabolized, and then you have to take them again — CAR T cells stay alive and on the job for years. We have had CAR T cells stay in the bodies of our cancer patients now for more than eight years. And these designer cancer T cells, CAR T cells, have a calculated half-life of more than 17 years. So one infusion can do the job; they stay on patrol for the rest of your life. This is the beginning of a new paradigm in medicine. Now, there was one major challenge to these T-cell infusions. The only source of T cells that will work in a patient are your own T cells, unless you happen to have an identical twin. So for most of us, we're out of luck. So what we did was to make CAR T cells. We had to learn to grow the patient's own T cells. And we developed a robust platform for this in the 1990s. Then in 1997, we first tested CAR T cells in patients with advanced HIV-AIDS. And we found that those CAR T cells survived in the patients for more than a decade. And it improved their immune system and decreased their viruses, but it didn't cure them. So we went back to the laboratory, and over the next decade made improvements to the CAR T cell design. And by 2010, we began treating leukemia patients. And our team treated three patients with advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2012. It's a form of incurable leukemia that afflicts approximately 20,000 adults every year in the United States. The first patient that we treated was a retired Marine sergeant and a prison corrections officer. He had only weeks to live and had, in fact, already paid for his funeral. The cells were infused, and within days, he had high fevers. He developed multiple organ failures, was transferred to the ICU and was comatose. We thought he would die, and, in fact, he was given last rites. But then, another fork in the road happened. So, around 28 days after the CAR T cell infusion, he woke up, and the physicians finally examined him, and the cancer was gone. The big masses that had been there had melted. Bone marrow biopsies found no evidence of leukemia, and that year, in our first three patients we treated, two of three have had durable remissions now for eight years, and one had a partial remission. The CAR T cells had attacked the leukemia in these patients and had dissolved between 2.9 and 7.7 pounds of tumor in each patient. Their bodies had become veritable bioreactors for these CAR T cells, producing millions and millions of CAR T cells in the bone marrow, blood and tumor masses. And we discovered that these CAR T cells can punch far above their weight class, to use a boxing analogy. Just one CAR T cell can kill 1,000 tumor cells. That's right — it's a ratio of one to a thousand. The CAR T cell and its daughter progeny cells can divide and divide and divide in the body until the last tumor cell is gone. There's no precedent for this in cancer medicine. The first two patients who had full remission remain today leukemia-free, and we think they are cured. These are people who had run out of options, and by all traditional methods they had, they were like modern-day Lazarus cases. All I can say is: thank goodness for those forks in the road. Our next step was to get permission to treat children with acute leukemia, the most common form of cancer in kids. The first patient we enrolled on the trial was Emily Whitehead, and at that time, she was six years old. She had gone through a series of chemotherapy and radiation treatments over several years, and her leukemia had always come back. In fact, it had come back three times. When we first saw her, Emily was very ill. Her official diagnosis was advanced, incurable leukemia. Cancer had invaded her bone marrow, her liver, her spleen. And when we infused her with the CAR T cells in the spring of April 2012, over the next few days, she did not get better. She got worse, and in fact, much worse. As our prison corrections officer had in 2010, she, in 2012, was admitted to the ICU, and this was the scariest fork in the whole road of this story. By day three, she was comatose and on life support for kidney failure, lung failure and coma. Her fever was as high as 106 degrees Fahrenheit for three days. And we didn't know what was causing those fevers. We did all the standard blood tests for infections, and we could not find an infectious cause for her fever. But we did find something very unusual in her blood that had never been seen before in medicine. She had elevated levels of a protein called interleukin-6, or IL-6, in her blood. It was, in fact, more than a thousandfold above the normal levels. And here's where yet another fork in the road came in. By sheer coincidence, one of my daughters has a form of pediatric arthritis. And as a result, I had been following as a cancer doc, experimental therapies for arthritis for my daughter, in case she would need them. And it so happened that just months before Emily was admitted to the hospital, a new therapy had been approved by the FDA to treat elevated levels of interleukin-6. And it was approved for the arthritis that my daughter had. It's called tocilizumab. And, in fact, it had just been added to the pharmacy at Emily's hospital, for arthritis. So when we found Emily had these very high levels of IL-6, I called her doctors in the ICU and said, "Why don't you treat her with this arthritis drug?" They said I was a cowboy for suggesting that. And since her fever and low blood pressure had not responded to any other therapy, her doctor quickly asked permission to the institutional review board, her parents, and everybody, of course, said yes. And they tried it, and the results were nothing short of striking. Within hours after treatment with tocilizumab, Emily began to improve very rapidly. Twenty-three days after her treatment, she was declared cancer-free. And today, she's 12 years old and still in remission. (Applause) So we now call this violent reaction of the high fevers and coma, following CAR T cells, cytokine release syndrome, or CRS. We've found that it occurs in nearly all patients who respond to the therapy. But it does not happen in those patients who fail to respond. So paradoxically, our patients now hope for these high fevers after therapy, which feels like "the worst flu in their life," when they get CAR T-cell therapies. They hope for this reaction because they know it's part of the twisting and turning path back to health. Unfortunately, not every patient recovers. Patients who do not get CRS are often those who are not cured. So there's a strong link now between CRS and the ability of the immune system to eradicate leukemia. That's why last summer, when the FDA approved CAR T cells for leukemia, they also co-approved the use of tocilizumab to block the IL-6 effects and the accompanying CRS in these patients. That was a very unusual event in medical history. Emily's doctors have now completed further trials and reported that 27 out of 30 patients, the first 30 we treated, or 90 percent, had a complete remission after CAR T cells, within a month. A 90 percent complete remission rate in patients with advanced cancer is unheard of in more than 50 years of cancer research. In fact, companies often declare success in a cancer trial if 15 percent of the patients had a complete response rate. A remarkable study appeared in the "New England Journal of Medicine" in 2013. An international study has since confirmed those results. And that led to the approval by the FDA for pediatric and young adult leukemia in August of 2017. So as a first-ever approval of a cell and gene therapy, CAR T-cell therapy has also been tested now in adults with refractory lymphoma. This disease afflicts about 20,000 a year in the United States. The results were equally impressive and have been durable to date. And six months ago, the FDA approved the therapy of this advanced lymphoma with CAR T cells. So now there are many labs and physicians and scientists around the world who have tested CAR T cells across many different diseases, and understandably, we're all thrilled with the rapid pace of advancement. We're so grateful to see patients who were formerly terminal return to healthy lives, as Emily has. We're thrilled to see long remissions that may, in fact, be a cure. At the same time, we're also concerned about the financial cost. It can cost up to 150,000 dollars to make the CAR T cells for each patient. And when you add in the cost of treating CRS and other complications, the cost can reach one million dollars per patient. We must remember that the cost of failure, though, is even worse. The current noncurative therapies for cancer are also expensive and, in addition, the patient dies. So, of course, we'd like to see research done now to make this more efficient and increase affordability to all patients. Fortunately, this is a new and evolving field, and as with many other new therapies and services, prices will come down as industry learns to do things more efficiently. When I think about all the forks in the road that have led to CAR T-cell therapy, there is one thing that strikes me as very important. We're reminded that discoveries of this magnitude don't happen overnight. CAR T-cell therapies came to us after a 30-year journey, along a road full of setbacks and surprises. In all this world of instant gratification and 24/7, on-demand results, scientists require persistence, vision and patience to rise above all that. They can see that the fork in the road is not always a dilemma or a detour; sometimes, even though we may not know it at the time, the fork is the way home. Thank you very much. (Applause) |
How deepfakes undermine truth and threaten democracy | {0: 'Danielle Citron writes, speaks and teaches her academic loves: privacy, free speech and civil rights. Through her work with privacy organizations, she also puts these ideas into practice.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | [This talk contains mature content] Rana Ayyub is a journalist in India whose work has exposed government corruption and human rights violations. And over the years, she's gotten used to vitriol and controversy around her work. But none of it could have prepared her for what she faced in April 2018. She was sitting in a café with a friend when she first saw it: a two-minute, 20-second video of her engaged in a sex act. And she couldn't believe her eyes. She had never made a sex video. But unfortunately, thousands upon thousands of people would believe it was her. I interviewed Ms. Ayyub about three months ago, in connection with my book on sexual privacy. I'm a law professor, lawyer and civil rights advocate. So it's incredibly frustrating knowing that right now, law could do very little to help her. And as we talked, she explained that she should have seen the fake sex video coming. She said, "After all, sex is so often used to demean and to shame women, especially minority women, and especially minority women who dare to challenge powerful men," as she had in her work. The fake sex video went viral in 48 hours. All of her online accounts were flooded with screenshots of the video, with graphic rape and death threats and with slurs about her Muslim faith. Online posts suggested that she was "available" for sex. And she was doxed, which means that her home address and her cell phone number were spread across the internet. The video was shared more than 40,000 times. Now, when someone is targeted with this kind of cybermob attack, the harm is profound. Rana Ayyub's life was turned upside down. For weeks, she could hardly eat or speak. She stopped writing and closed all of her social media accounts, which is, you know, a tough thing to do when you're a journalist. And she was afraid to go outside her family's home. What if the posters made good on their threats? The UN Council on Human Rights confirmed that she wasn't being crazy. It issued a public statement saying that they were worried about her safety. What Rana Ayyub faced was a deepfake: machine-learning technology that manipulates or fabricates audio and video recordings to show people doing and saying things that they never did or said. Deepfakes appear authentic and realistic, but they're not; they're total falsehoods. Although the technology is still developing in its sophistication, it is widely available. Now, the most recent attention to deepfakes arose, as so many things do online, with pornography. In early 2018, someone posted a tool on Reddit to allow users to insert faces into porn videos. And what followed was a cascade of fake porn videos featuring people's favorite female celebrities. And today, you can go on YouTube and pull up countless tutorials with step-by-step instructions on how to make a deepfake on your desktop application. And soon we may be even able to make them on our cell phones. Now, it's the interaction of some of our most basic human frailties and network tools that can turn deepfakes into weapons. So let me explain. As human beings, we have a visceral reaction to audio and video. We believe they're true, on the notion that of course you can believe what your eyes and ears are telling you. And it's that mechanism that might undermine our shared sense of reality. Although we believe deepfakes to be true, they're not. And we're attracted to the salacious, the provocative. We tend to believe and to share information that's negative and novel. And researchers have found that online hoaxes spread 10 times faster than accurate stories. Now, we're also drawn to information that aligns with our viewpoints. Psychologists call that tendency "confirmation bias." And social media platforms supercharge that tendency, by allowing us to instantly and widely share information that accords with our viewpoints. Now, deepfakes have the potential to cause grave individual and societal harm. So, imagine a deepfake that shows American soldiers in Afganistan burning a Koran. You can imagine that that deepfake would provoke violence against those soldiers. And what if the very next day there's another deepfake that drops, that shows a well-known imam based in London praising the attack on those soldiers? We might see violence and civil unrest, not only in Afganistan and the United Kingdom, but across the globe. And you might say to me, "Come on, Danielle, that's far-fetched." But it's not. We've seen falsehoods spread on WhatsApp and other online message services lead to violence against ethnic minorities. And that was just text — imagine if it were video. Now, deepfakes have the potential to corrode the trust that we have in democratic institutions. So, imagine the night before an election. There's a deepfake showing one of the major party candidates gravely sick. The deepfake could tip the election and shake our sense that elections are legitimate. Imagine if the night before an initial public offering of a major global bank, there was a deepfake showing the bank's CEO drunkenly spouting conspiracy theories. The deepfake could tank the IPO, and worse, shake our sense that financial markets are stable. So deepfakes can exploit and magnify the deep distrust that we already have in politicians, business leaders and other influential leaders. They find an audience primed to believe them. And the pursuit of truth is on the line as well. Technologists expect that with advances in AI, soon it may be difficult if not impossible to tell the difference between a real video and a fake one. So how can the truth emerge in a deepfake-ridden marketplace of ideas? Will we just proceed along the path of least resistance and believe what we want to believe, truth be damned? And not only might we believe the fakery, we might start disbelieving the truth. We've already seen people invoke the phenomenon of deepfakes to cast doubt on real evidence of their wrongdoing. We've heard politicians say of audio of their disturbing comments, "Come on, that's fake news. You can't believe what your eyes and ears are telling you." And it's that risk that professor Robert Chesney and I call the "liar's dividend": the risk that liars will invoke deepfakes to escape accountability for their wrongdoing. So we've got our work cut out for us, there's no doubt about it. And we're going to need a proactive solution from tech companies, from lawmakers, law enforcers and the media. And we're going to need a healthy dose of societal resilience. So now, we're right now engaged in a very public conversation about the responsibility of tech companies. And my advice to social media platforms has been to change their terms of service and community guidelines to ban deepfakes that cause harm. That determination, that's going to require human judgment, and it's expensive. But we need human beings to look at the content and context of a deepfake to figure out if it is a harmful impersonation or instead, if it's valuable satire, art or education. So now, what about the law? Law is our educator. It teaches us about what's harmful and what's wrong. And it shapes behavior it deters by punishing perpetrators and securing remedies for victims. Right now, law is not up to the challenge of deepfakes. Across the globe, we lack well-tailored laws that would be designed to tackle digital impersonations that invade sexual privacy, that damage reputations and that cause emotional distress. What happened to Rana Ayyub is increasingly commonplace. Yet, when she went to law enforcement in Delhi, she was told nothing could be done. And the sad truth is that the same would be true in the United States and in Europe. So we have a legal vacuum that needs to be filled. My colleague Dr. Mary Anne Franks and I are working with US lawmakers to devise legislation that would ban harmful digital impersonations that are tantamount to identity theft. And we've seen similar moves in Iceland, the UK and Australia. But of course, that's just a small piece of the regulatory puzzle. Now, I know law is not a cure-all. Right? It's a blunt instrument. And we've got to use it wisely. It also has some practical impediments. You can't leverage law against people you can't identify and find. And if a perpetrator lives outside the country where a victim lives, then you may not be able to insist that the perpetrator come into local courts to face justice. And so we're going to need a coordinated international response. Education has to be part of our response as well. Law enforcers are not going to enforce laws they don't know about and proffer problems they don't understand. In my research on cyberstalking, I found that law enforcement lacked the training to understand the laws available to them and the problem of online abuse. And so often they told victims, "Just turn your computer off. Ignore it. It'll go away." And we saw that in Rana Ayyub's case. She was told, "Come on, you're making such a big deal about this. It's boys being boys." And so we need to pair new legislation with efforts at training. And education has to be aimed on the media as well. Journalists need educating about the phenomenon of deepfakes so they don't amplify and spread them. And this is the part where we're all involved. Each and every one of us needs educating. We click, we share, we like, and we don't even think about it. We need to do better. We need far better radar for fakery. So as we're working through these solutions, there's going to be a lot of suffering to go around. Rana Ayyub is still wrestling with the fallout. She still doesn't feel free to express herself on- and offline. And as she told me, she still feels like there are thousands of eyes on her naked body, even though, intellectually, she knows it wasn't her body. And she has frequent panic attacks, especially when someone she doesn't know tries to take her picture. "What if they're going to make another deepfake?" she thinks to herself. And so for the sake of individuals like Rana Ayyub and the sake of our democracy, we need to do something right now. Thank you. (Applause) |
What reading slowly taught me about writing | {0: 'For Jacqueline Woodson, writing is a gift of joy not only to herself but also to her readers, who span all ages and backgrounds.'} | TED2019 | A long time ago, there lived a Giant, a Selfish Giant, whose stunning garden was the most beautiful in all the land. One evening, this Giant came home and found all these children playing in his garden, and he became enraged. "My own garden is my own garden!" the Giant said. And he built this high wall around it. The author Oscar Wilde wrote the story of "The Selfish Giant" in 1888. Almost a hundred years later, that Giant moved into my Brooklyn childhood and never left. I was raised in a religious family, and I grew up reading both the Bible and the Quran. The hours of reading, both religious and recreational, far outnumbered the hours of television-watching. Now, on any given day, you could find my siblings and I curled up in some part of our apartment reading, sometimes unhappily, because on summer days in New York City, the fire hydrant blasted, and to our immense jealousy, we could hear our friends down there playing in the gushing water, their absolute joy making its way up through our open windows. But I learned that the deeper I went into my books, the more time I took with each sentence, the less I heard the noise of the outside world. And so, unlike my siblings, who were racing through books, I read slowly — very, very slowly. I was that child with her finger running beneath the words, until I was untaught to do this; told big kids don't use their fingers. In third grade, we were made to sit with our hands folded on our desk, unclasping them only to turn the pages, then returning them to that position. Our teacher wasn't being cruel. It was the 1970s, and her goal was to get us reading not just on grade level but far above it. And we were always being pushed to read faster. But in the quiet of my apartment, outside of my teacher's gaze, I let my finger run beneath those words. And that Selfish Giant again told me his story, how he had felt betrayed by the kids sneaking into his garden, how he had built this high wall, and it did keep the children out, but a grey winter fell over his garden and just stayed and stayed. With each rereading, I learned something new about the hard stones of the roads that the kids were forced to play on when they got expelled from the garden, about the gentleness of a small boy that appeared one day, and even about the Giant himself. Maybe his words weren't rageful after all. Maybe they were a plea for empathy, for understanding. "My own garden is my own garden." Years later, I would learn of a writer named John Gardner who referred to this as the "fictive dream," or the "dream of fiction," and I would realize that this was where I was inside that book, spending time with the characters and the world that the author had created and invited me into. As a child, I knew that stories were meant to be savored, that stories wanted to be slow, and that some author had spent months, maybe years, writing them. And my job as the reader — especially as the reader who wanted to one day become a writer — was to respect that narrative. Long before there was cable or the internet or even the telephone, there were people sharing ideas and information and memory through story. It's one of our earliest forms of connective technology. It was the story of something better down the Nile that sent the Egyptians moving along it, the story of a better way to preserve the dead that brought King Tut's remains into the 21st century. And more than two million years ago, when the first humans began making tools from stone, someone must have said, "What if?" And someone else remembered the story. And whether they told it through words or gestures or drawings, it was passed down; remembered: hit a hammer and hear its story. The world is getting noisier. We've gone from boomboxes to Walkmen to portable CD players to iPods to any song we want, whenever we want it. We've gone from the four television channels of my childhood to the seeming infinity of cable and streaming. As technology moves us faster and faster through time and space, it seems to feel like story is getting pushed out of the way, I mean, literally pushed out of the narrative. But even as our engagement with stories change, or the trappings around it morph from book to audio to Instagram to Snapchat, we must remember our finger beneath the words. Remember that story, regardless of the format, has always taken us to places we never thought we'd go, introduced us to people we never thought we'd meet and shown us worlds that we might have missed. So as technology keeps moving faster and faster, I am good with something slower. My finger beneath the words has led me to a life of writing books for people of all ages, books meant to be read slowly, to be savored. My love for looking deeply and closely at the world, for putting my whole self into it, and by doing so, seeing the many, many possibilities of a narrative, turned out to be a gift, because taking my sweet time taught me everything I needed to know about writing. And writing taught me everything I needed to know about creating worlds where people could be seen and heard, where their experiences could be legitimized, and where my story, read or heard by another person, inspired something in them that became a connection between us, a conversation. And isn't that what this is all about — finding a way, at the end of the day, to not feel alone in this world, and a way to feel like we've changed it before we leave? Stone to hammer, man to mummy, idea to story — and all of it, remembered. Sometimes we read to understand the future. Sometimes we read to understand the past. We read to get lost, to forget the hard times we're living in, and we read to remember those who came before us, who lived through something harder. I write for those same reasons. Before coming to Brooklyn, my family lived in Greenville, South Carolina, in a segregated neighborhood called Nicholtown. All of us there were the descendants of a people who had not been allowed to learn to read or write. Imagine that: the danger of understanding how letters form words, the danger of words themselves, the danger of a literate people and their stories. But against this backdrop of being threatened with death for holding onto a narrative, our stories didn't die, because there is yet another story beneath that one. And this is how it has always worked. For as long as we've been communicating, there's been the layering to the narrative, the stories beneath the stories and the ones beneath those. This is how story has and will continue to survive. As I began to connect the dots that connected the way I learned to write and the way I learned to read to an almost silenced people, I realized that my story was bigger and older and deeper than I would ever be. And because of that, it will continue. Among these almost-silenced people there were the ones who never learned to read. Their descendants, now generations out of enslavement, if well-off enough, had gone on to college, grad school, beyond. Some, like my grandmother and my siblings, seemed to be born reading, as though history stepped out of their way. Some, like my mother, hitched onto the Great Migration wagon — which was not actually a wagon — and kissed the South goodbye. But here is the story within that story: those who left and those who stayed carried with them the history of a narrative, knew deeply that writing it down wasn't the only way they could hold on to it, knew they could sit on their porches or their stoops at the end of a long day and spin a slow tale for their children. They knew they could sing their stories through the thick heat of picking cotton and harvesting tobacco, knew they could preach their stories and sew them into quilts, turn the most painful ones into something laughable, and through that laughter, exhale the history a country that tried again and again and again to steal their bodies, their spirit and their story. So as a child, I learned to imagine an invisible finger taking me from word to word, from sentence to sentence, from ignorance to understanding. So as technology continues to speed ahead, I continue to read slowly, knowing that I am respecting the author's work and the story's lasting power. And I read slowly to drown out the noise and remember those who came before me, who were probably the first people who finally learned to control fire and circled their new power of flame and light and heat. And I read slowly to remember the Selfish Giant, how he finally tore that wall down and let the children run free through his garden. And I read slowly to pay homage to my ancestors, who were not allowed to read at all. They, too, must have circled fires, speaking softly of their dreams, their hopes, their futures. Each time we read, write or tell a story, we step inside their circle, and it remains unbroken. And the power of story lives on. Thank you. (Applause) |
A brief history of chess | null | TED-Ed | The attacking infantry advances steadily, their elephants already having broken the defensive line. The king tries to retreat, but enemy cavalry flanks him from the rear. Escape is impossible. But this isn’t a real war– nor is it just a game. Over the roughly one-and-a-half millennia of its existence, chess has been known as a tool of military strategy, a metaphor for human affairs, and a benchmark of genius. While our earliest records of chess are in the 7th century, legend tells that the game’s origins lie a century earlier. Supposedly, when the youngest prince of the Gupta Empire was killed in battle, his brother devised a way of representing the scene to their grieving mother. Set on the 8x8 ashtapada board used for other popular pastimes, a new game emerged with two key features: different rules for moving different types of pieces, and a single king piece whose fate determined the outcome. The game was originally known as chaturanga– a Sanskrit word for "four divisions." But with its spread to Sassanid Persia, it acquired its current name and terminology– "chess," derived from "shah," meaning king, and “checkmate” from "shah mat," or “the king is helpless.” After the 7th century Islamic conquest of Persia, chess was introduced to the Arab world. Transcending its role as a tactical simulation, it eventually became a rich source of poetic imagery. Diplomats and courtiers used chess terms to describe political power. Ruling caliphs became avid players themselves. And historian al-Mas’udi considered the game a testament to human free will compared to games of chance. Medieval trade along the Silk Road carried the game to East and Southeast Asia, where many local variants developed. In China, chess pieces were placed at intersections of board squares rather than inside them, as in the native strategy game Go. The reign of Mongol leader Tamerlane saw an 11x10 board with safe squares called citadels. And in Japanese shogi, captured pieces could be used by the opposing player. But it was in Europe that chess began to take on its modern form. By 1000 AD, the game had become part of courtly education. Chess was used as an allegory for different social classes performing their proper roles, and the pieces were re-interpreted in their new context. At the same time, the Church remained suspicious of games. Moralists cautioned against devoting too much time to them, with chess even being briefly banned in France. Yet the game proliferated, and the 15th century saw it cohering into the form we know today. The relatively weak piece of advisor was recast as the more powerful queen– perhaps inspired by the recent surge of strong female leaders. This change accelerated the game’s pace, and as other rules were popularized, treatises analyzing common openings and endgames appeared. Chess theory was born. With the Enlightenment era, the game moved from royal courts to coffeehouses. Chess was now seen as an expression of creativity, encouraging bold moves and dramatic plays. This "Romantic" style reached its peak in the Immortal Game of 1851, where Adolf Anderssen managed a checkmate after sacrificing his queen and both rooks. But the emergence of formal competitive play in the late 19th century meant that strategic calculation would eventually trump dramatic flair. And with the rise of international competition, chess took on a new geopolitical importance. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union devoted great resources to cultivating chess talent, dominating the championships for the rest of the century. But the player who would truly upset Russian dominance was not a citizen of another country but an IBM computer called Deep Blue. Chess-playing computers had been developed for decades, but Deep Blue’s triumph over Garry Kasparov in 1997 was the first time a machine had defeated a sitting champion. Today, chess software is capable of consistently defeating the best human players. But just like the game they’ve mastered, these machines are products of human ingenuity. And perhaps that same ingenuity will guide us out of this apparent checkmate. |
Community-powered criminal justice reform | {0: 'Raj Jayadev is the cofounder and coordinator of Silicon Valley De-Bug, a community organizing, media and advocacy organization based in San Jose, California. '} | TEDxBinghamtonUniversity | This is my favorite protest shirt. It says, "Protect your people." We made it in the basement of our community center. I've worn it at rallies, at protests and marches, at candlelight vigils with families who have lost loved ones to police violence. I've seen how this ethic of community organizing has been able to change arresting practices, hold individual officers accountable and allow families to feel strong and supported in the darkest moments of their lives. But when a family would come to our center and say, "My loved one got arrested, what can we do?" we didn't know how to translate the power of community organizing that we saw on the streets into the courts. We figured we're not lawyers, and so that's not our arena to make change. And so despite our belief in collective action, we would allow people that we cared about to go to court alone. Nine out of ten times — and this is true nationally — they couldn't afford their own attorney, and so they'd have a public defender, who is doing heroic work, but was often under-resourced and stretched bare with too many cases. They would face prosecutors aiming for high conviction rates, mandatory minimum sentences and racial bias baked into every stage of the process. And so, facing those odds, stripped away from the power of community, unsure how to navigate the courts, over 90 percent of people that face a criminal charge in this country will take a plea deal. Meaning, they'll never have their fabled day in court that we talk about in television shows and in movies. And this is the untold part of the story of mass incarceration in America — how we became the largest jailer in the world. Over two million people currently incarcerated in this country. And projections that say one out of three black men will see the inside of a prison cell at some point in their life on this trajectory. But we have a solution. We decided to be irreverent to this idea that only lawyers can impact the courts. And to penetrate the judicial system with the power, intellect and ingenuity of community organizing. We call the approach "participatory defense." It's a methodology for families and communities whose loved ones are facing charges, and how they could impact the outcome of those cases and transform the landscape of power in the courts. How it works is, families whose loved ones are facing criminal charges will come to a weekly meeting, and it's half support group, half strategic planning session. And they'll build a community out of what otherwise would be an isolating and lonely experience. And they'll sit in a circle, and write the names of their loved ones on a board, who they're there to support. And collectively, the group will find out ways to tangibly and tactfully impact the outcome of that case. They'll review police reports to find out inconsistencies; they'll find areas that require more investigation by the defense attorney; and they'll go to court with each other, for the emotional support but also so that the judge knows that the person standing before them is part of a larger community that is invested in their well-being and success. And the results have been remarkable. We've seen charges get dismissed, sentences significantly reduced, acquittals won at trial and, sometimes, it has been literally lifesaving. Like in the case of Ramon Vasquez. Father of two, family man, truck driver and someone who was wrongfully charged with a gang-related murder he was totally innocent of, but was facing a life sentence. Ramon's family came to those meetings shortly after his arrest and his detention, and they worked the model. And through their hard work, they found major contradictions in the case, gaping holes in the investigation. And were able to disprove dangerous assumptions by the detectives. Like that the red hat that they found when they raided his home somehow affiliated him to a gang lifestyle. Through their photos and their records, they were able to prove that the red hat was from his son's Little League team that Ramon coached on the weekends. And they produced independent information that proved that Ramon was on the other side of town at the time of the alleged incident, through their phone records and receipts from the stores that they attended. After seven long months of hard work from the family, Ramon staying strong inside jail, they were able to get the charge dismissed. And they brought Ramon home to live the life that he should have been living all along. And with each new case, the families identified new ways to flex the knowledge of the community to have impact on the court system. We would go to a lot of sentencing hearings. And when we would leave the sentencing hearing, on the walk back to the parking lot after someone's loved one just got sent to prison, the most common refrain we would hear wasn't so much, "I hate that judge," or "I wish we had a new lawyer." What they would say was, "I wish they knew him like we know him." And so we developed tools and vehicles for families to tell the fuller story of their loved one so they would be understood as more than just a case file. They started making what we call social biography packets, which is families making a compilation of photos and certificates and letters that show past challenges and hardships and accomplishments, and future prospects and opportunities. And the social biography [packets] were working so well in the courts, that we evolved it into social biography videos. Ten-minute mini documentaries, which were interviews of people in their homes, and at their churches and at their workplace, explaining who the person was in the backdrop of their lives. And it was a way for us to dissolve the walls of the court temporarily. And through the power of video, bring the judge out of the court and into the community, so that they would be able to understand the fuller context of someone's life that they're deciding the fate of. One of the first social biography projects that came out of our camp was by Carnell. He had come to the meetings because he had pled to a low-level drug charge. And after years of sobriety, got arrested for this one drug possession charge. But he was facing a five-year prison sentence because of the sentencing schemes in California. We knew him primarily as a dad. He'd bring his daughters to the meetings and then play with them at the park across the street. And he said, "Look, I could do the time, but if I go in, they're going to take my girls." And so we gave him a camera and said, "Just take pictures of what's like being a father." And so he took pictures of making breakfast for his daughters and taking them to school, taking them to after-school programs and doing homework. And it became this photo essay that he turned in to his lawyer who used it at the sentencing hearing. And that judge, who originally indicated a five-year prison sentence, understood Carnell in a whole new way. And he converted that five-year prison sentence into a six-month outpatient program, so that Carnell could be with his daughters. His girls would have a father in their life. And Carnell could get the treatment that he was actually seeking. We have one ceremony of sorts that we use in participatory defense. And I told you earlier that when families come to the meetings, they write the names of their loved ones on the board. Those are names that we all get to know, week in, week out, through the stories of the family, and we're rooting for and praying for and hoping for. And when we win a case, when we get a sentence reduced, or a charge dropped, or we win an acquittal, that person, who's been a name on the board, comes to the meeting. And when their name comes up, they're given an eraser, and they walk over to the board and they erase their name. And it sounds simple, but it is a spiritual experience. And people are applauding, and they're crying. And for the families that are just starting that journey and are sitting in the back of the room, for them to know that there's a finish line, that one day, they too might be able to bring their loved one home, that they could erase the name, is profoundly inspiring. We're training organizations all over the country now in participatory defense. And we have a national network of over 20 cities. And it's a church in Pennsylvania, it's a parents' association in Tennessee, it's a youth center in Los Angeles. And the latest city that we just added to the national network to grow and deepen this practice is Philadelphia. They literally just started their first weekly participatory defense meeting last week. And the person that we brought from California to Philadelphia to share their testimony, to inspire them to know what's possible, was Ramon Vasquez, who went from sitting in a jail in Santa Clara County, California, to inspiring a community about what's possible through the perseverance of community across the country. And with all the hubs, we still use one metric that we invented. It's called time saved. It's a saying that we actually still say at weekly meetings. And what we say when a family comes in a meeting for the first time is: if you do nothing, the system is designed to give your loved one time served. That's the language the system uses to quantify time of incarceration. But if you engage, if you participate, you can turn time served into time saved. That's them home with you, living the life they should be living. So, Carnell, for example, would represent five years of time saved. So when we totaled our time saved numbers from all the different participatory defense hubs, through the work in the meetings and at court and making social biography videos and packets, we had 4,218 years of time saved from incarceration. That is parents' and children's lives. Young people going to college instead of prison. We're ending generational cycles of suffering. And when you consider in my home state of California, it costs 60,000 dollars to house someone in the California prison system, that means that these families are saving their states a ton of money. I'm not a mathematician, I haven't done the numbers, but that is money and resources that could be reallocated to mental health services, to drug treatment programs, to education. And we're now wearing this shirt in courts all across the country. And people are wearing this shirt because they want the immediacy of protecting their people in the courtroom. But what we're telling them is, as practitioners, they're building a new field, a new movement that is going to forever change the way justice is understood in this country. Thank you. (Applause) |
The dirty secret of capitalism -- and a new way forward | {0: 'Nick Hanauer is one of the world’s most provocative thinkers about our society’s growing inequality and the dire consequences it creates for our democracies.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | I am a capitalist, and after a 30-year career in capitalism spanning three dozen companies, generating tens of billions of dollars in market value, I'm not just in the top one percent, I'm in the top .01 percent of all earners. Today, I have come to share the secrets of our success, because rich capitalists like me have never been richer. So the question is, how do we do it? How do we manage to grab an ever-increasing share of the economic pie every year? Is it that rich people are smarter than we were 30 years ago? Is it that we're working harder than we once did? Are we taller, better looking? Sadly, no. It all comes down to just one thing: economics. Because, here's the dirty secret. There was a time in which the economics profession worked in the public interest, but in the neoliberal era, today, they work only for big corporations and billionaires, and that is creating a little bit of a problem. We could choose to enact economic policies that raise taxes on the rich, regulate powerful corporations or raise wages for workers. We have done it before. But neoliberal economists would warn that all of these policies would be a terrible mistake, because raising taxes always kills economic growth, and any form of government regulation is inefficient, and raising wages always kills jobs. Well, as a consequence of that thinking, over the last 30 years, in the USA alone, the top one percent has grown 21 trillion dollars richer while the bottom 50 percent have grown 900 billion dollars poorer, a pattern of widening inequality that has largely repeated itself across the world. And yet, as middle class families struggle to get by on wages that have not budged in about 40 years, neoliberal economists continue to warn that the only reasonable response to the painful dislocations of austerity and globalization is even more austerity and globalization. So, what is a society to do? Well, it's super clear to me what we need to do. We need a new economics. So, economics has been described as the dismal science, and for good reason, because as much as it is taught today, it isn't a science at all, in spite of all of the dazzling mathematics. In fact, a growing number of academics and practitioners have concluded that neoliberal economic theory is dangerously wrong and that today's growing crises of rising inequality and growing political instability are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory. What we now know is that the economics that made me so rich isn't just wrong, it's backwards, because it turns out it isn't capital that creates economic growth, it's people; and it isn't self-interest that promotes the public good, it's reciprocity; and it isn't competition that produces our prosperity, it's cooperation. What we can now see is that an economics that is neither just nor inclusive can never sustain the high levels of social cooperation necessary to enable a modern society to thrive. So where did we go wrong? Well, it turns out that it's become painfully obvious that the fundamental assumptions that undergird neoliberal economic theory are just objectively false, and so today first I want to take you through some of those mistaken assumptions and then after describe where the science suggests prosperity actually comes from. So, neoliberal economic assumption number one is that the market is an efficient equilibrium system, which basically means that if one thing in the economy, like wages, goes up, another thing in the economy, like jobs, must go down. So for example, in Seattle, where I live, when in 2014 we passed our nation's first 15 dollar minimum wage, the neoliberals freaked out over their precious equilibrium. "If you raise the price of labor," they warned, "businesses will purchase less of it. Thousands of low-wage workers will lose their jobs. The restaurants will close." Except ... they didn't. The unemployment rate fell dramatically. The restaurant business in Seattle boomed. Why? Because there is no equilibrium. Because raising wages doesn't kill jobs, it creates them; because, for instance, when restaurant owners are suddenly required to pay restaurant workers enough so that now even they can afford to eat in restaurants, it doesn't shrink the restaurant business, it grows it, obviously. (Applause) Thank you. The second assumption is that the price of something is always equal to its value, which basically means that if you earn 50,000 dollars a year and I earn 50 million dollars a year, that's because I produce a thousand times as much value as you. Now, it will not surprise you to learn that this is a very comforting assumption if you're a CEO paying yourself 50 million dollars a year but paying your workers poverty wages. But please, take it from somebody who has run dozens of businesses: this is nonsense. People are not paid what they are worth. They are paid what they have the power to negotiate, and wages' falling share of GDP is not because workers have become less productive but because employers have become more powerful. And — (Applause) And by pretending that the giant imbalance in power between capital and labor doesn't exist, neoliberal economic theory became essentially a protection racket for the rich. The third assumption, and by far the most pernicious, is a behavioral model that describes human beings as something called "homo economicus," which basically means that we are all perfectly selfish, perfectly rational and relentlessly self-maximizing. But just ask yourselves, is it plausible that every single time for your entire life, when you did something nice for somebody else, all you were doing was maximizing your own utility? Is it plausible that when a soldier jumps on a grenade to defend fellow soldiers, they're just promoting their narrow self-interest? If you think that's nuts, contrary to any reasonable moral intuition, that's because it is and, according to the latest science, not true. But it is this behavioral model which is at the cold, cruel heart of neoliberal economics, and it is as morally corrosive as it is scientifically wrong because, if we accept at face value that humans are fundamentally selfish, and then we look around the world at all of the unambiguous prosperity in it, then it follows logically, then it must be true by definition, that billions of individual acts of selfishness magically transubstantiate into prosperity and the common good. If we humans are merely selfish maximizers, then selfishness is the cause of our prosperity. Under this economic logic, greed is good, widening inequality is efficient, and the only purpose of the corporation can be to enrich shareholders, because to do otherwise would be to slow economic growth and harm the economy overall. And it is this gospel of selfishness which forms the ideological cornerstone of neoliberal economics, a way of thinking which has produced economic policies which have enabled me and my rich buddies in the top one percent to grab virtually all of the benefits of growth over the last 40 years. But, if instead we accept the latest empirical research, real science, which correctly describes human beings as highly cooperative, reciprocal and intuitively moral creatures, then it follows logically that it must be cooperation and not selfishness that is the cause of our prosperity, and it isn't our self-interest but rather our inherent reciprocity that is humanity's economic superpower. So at the heart of this new economics is a story about ourselves that grants us permission to be our best selves, and, unlike the old economics, this is a story that is virtuous and also has the virtue of being true. Now, I want to emphasize that this new economics is not something I have personally imagined or invented. Its theories and models are being developed and refined in universities around the world building on some of the best new research in economics, complexity theory, evolutionary theory, psychology, anthropology and other disciplines. And although this new economics does not yet have its own textbook or even a commonly agreed upon name, in broad strokes its explanation of where prosperity comes from goes something like this. So, market capitalism is an evolutionary system in which prosperity emerges through a positive feedback loop between increasing amounts of innovation and increasing amounts of consumer demand. Innovation is the process by which we solve human problems, consumer demand is the mechanism through which the market selects for useful innovations, and as we solve more problems, we become more prosperous. But as we become more prosperous, our problems and solutions become more complex, and this increasing technical complexity requires ever higher levels of social and economic cooperation in order to produce the more highly specialized products that define a modern economy. Now, the old economics is correct, of course, that competition plays a crucial role in how markets work, but what it fails to see is that it is largely a competition between highly cooperative groups — competition between firms, competition between networks of firms, competition between nations — and anyone who has ever run a successful business knows that building a cooperative team by including the talents of everyone is almost always a better strategy than just a bunch of selfish jerks. So how do we leave neoliberalism behind and build a more sustainable, more prosperous and more equitable society? The new economics suggests just five rules of thumb. First is that successful economies are not jungles, they're gardens, which is to say that markets, like gardens, must be tended, that the market is the greatest social technology ever invented for solving human problems, but unconstrained by social norms or democratic regulation, markets inevitably create more problems than they solve. Climate change, the great financial crisis of 2008 are two easy examples. The second rule is that inclusion creates economic growth. So the neoliberal idea that inclusion is this fancy luxury to be afforded if and when we have growth is both wrong and backwards. The economy is people. Including more people in more ways is what causes economic growth in market economies. The third principle is the purpose of the corporation is not merely to enrich shareholders. The greatest grift in contemporary economic life is the neoliberal idea that the only purpose of the corporation and the only responsibility of executives is to enrich themselves and shareholders. The new economics must and can insist that the purpose of the corporation is to improve the welfare of all stakeholders: customers, workers, community and shareholders alike. Rule four: greed is not good. Being rapacious doesn't make you a capitalist, it makes you a sociopath. (Laughter) (Applause) And in an economy as dependent upon cooperation at scale as ours, sociopathy is as bad for business as it is for society. And fifth and finally, unlike the laws of physics, the laws of economics are a choice. Now, neoliberal economic theory has sold itself to you as unchangeable natural law, when in fact it's social norms and constructed narratives based on pseudoscience. If we truly want a more equitable, more prosperous and more sustainable economy, if we want high-functioning democracies and civil society, we must have a new economics. And here's the good news: if we want a new economics, all we have to do is choose to have it. Thank you. (Applause) Moderator: So Nick, I'm sure you get this question a lot. If you're so unhappy with the economic system, why not just give all your money away and join the 99 percent? Nick Hanauer: Yeah, no, yes, right. You get that a lot. You get that a lot. "If you care so much about taxes, why don't you pay more, and if you care so much about wages, why don't you pay more?" And I could do that. The problem is, it doesn't make that much difference, and I have discovered a strategy that works literally a hundred thousand times better — Moderator: OK. NH: which is to use my money to build narratives and to pass laws that will require all the other rich people to pay taxes and pay their workers better. (Applause) And so, for example, the 15-dollar minimum wage that we cooked up has now affected 30 million workers. So that works better. Moderator: That's great. If you change your mind, we'll find some takers for you. NH: OK. Thank you. Moderator: Thank you very much. |
How climate change could make our food less nutritious | {0: 'At the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Kristie Ebi studies and develops interventions to help at-risk populations deal with climate change.'} | TED2019 | Yogi Berra, a US baseball player and philosopher, said, "If we don't know where we're going, we might not get there." Accumulating scientific knowledge is giving us greater insights, greater clarity, into what our future might look like in a changing climate and what that could mean for our health. I'm here to talk about a related aspect, on how our emissions of greenhouse gases from burning of fossil fuels is reducing the nutritional quality of our food. We'll start with the food pyramid. You all know the food pyramid. We all need to eat a balanced diet. We need to get proteins, we need to get micronutrients, we need to get vitamins. And so, this is a way for us to think about how to make sure we get what we need every day so we can grow and thrive. But we eat not just because we need to, we also eat for enjoyment. Bread, pasta, pizza — there's a whole range of foods that are culturally important. We enjoy eating these. And so they're important for our diet, but they're also important for our cultures. Carbon dioxide has been increasing since the start of the Industrial Revolution, increasing from about 280 parts per million to over 410 today, and it continues to increase. The carbon that plants need to grow comes from this carbon dioxide. They bring it into the plant, they break it apart into the carbon itself, and they use that to grow. They also need nutrients from the soil. And so yes, carbon dioxide is plant food. And this should be good news, of rising carbon dioxide concentrations, for food security around the world, making sure that people get enough to eat every day. About 820 million people in the world don't get enough to eat every day. So there's a fair amount written about how higher CO2 is going to help with our food security problem. We need to accelerate our progress in agricultural productivity to feed the nine to 10 billion people who will be alive in 2050 and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the Goal Number 2, that is on reducing food insecurity, increasing nutrition, increasing access to the foods that we need for everyone. We know that climate change is affecting agricultural productivity. The earth has warmed about one degree centigrade since preindustrial times. That is changing local temperature and precipitation patterns, and that has consequences for the agricultural productivity in many parts of the world. And it's not just local changes in temperature and precipitation, it's the extremes. Extremes in terms of heat waves, floods and droughts are significantly affecting productivity. And that carbon dioxide, besides making plants grow, has other consequences as well, that plants, when they have higher carbon dioxide, increase the synthesis of carbohydrates, sugars and starches, and they decrease the concentrations of protein and critical nutrients. And this is very important for how we think about food security going forward. A couple of nights ago in the table talks on climate change, someone said that they're a five-sevenths optimist: that they're an optimist five days of the week, and this is a topic for the other two days. When we think about micronutrients, almost all of them are affected by higher CO2 concentrations. Two in particular are iron and zinc. When you don't have enough iron, you can develop iron deficiency anemia. It's associated with fatigue, shortness of breath and some fairly serious consequences as well. When you don't have enough zinc, you can have a loss of appetite. It is a significant problem around the world. There's about one billion people who are zinc deficient. It's very important for maternal and child health. It affects development. The B vitamins are critical for a whole range of reasons. They help convert our food into energy. They're important for the functions of many of the physiologic activities in our bodies. And when you have higher carbon in a plant, you have less nitrogen, and you have less B vitamins. And it's not just us. Cattle are already being affected because the quality of their forage is declining. In fact, this affects every consumer of plants. And give a thought to, for example, our pet cats and dogs. If you look on the label of most of the pet and dog food, there's a significant amount of grain in those foods. So this affects everyone. How do we know that this is a problem? We know from field studies and we know from experimental studies in laboratories. In the field studies — and I'll focus primarily on wheat and on rice — there's fields, for example, of rice that are divided into different plots. And the plots are all the same: the soil's the same, the precipitation's the same — everything's the same. Except carbon dioxide is blown over some of the plots. And so you can compare what it looks like under today's conditions and under carbon dioxide conditions later in the century. I was part of one of the few studies that have done this. We looked at 18 rice lines in China and in Japan and grew them under conditions that you would expect later in the century. And when you look at the results, the white bar is today's conditions, the red bar is conditions later in the century. So protein declines about 10 percent, iron about eight percent, zinc about five percent. These don't sound like really big changes, but when you start thinking about the poor in every country who primarily eat starch, that this will put people who are on the edge over the edge into frank deficiencies, creating all kinds of health problems. The situation is more significant for the B vitamins. When you look at vitamin B1 and vitamin B2, there's about a 17 percent decline. Pantothenic acid, vitamin B5, is about a 13 percent decline. Folate is about a 30 percent decline. And these are averages over the various experiments that were done. Folate is critical for child development. Pregnant women who don't get enough folate are at much higher risk of having babies with birth defects. So these are very serious potential consequences for our health as CO2 continues to rise. In another example, this is modeling work that was done by Chris Weyant and his colleagues, taking a look at this chain from higher CO2 to lower iron and zinc — and they only looked at iron and zinc — to various health outcomes. They looked at malaria, diarrheal disease, pneumonia, iron deficiency anemia, and looked at what the consequences could be in 2050. And the darker the color in this, the larger the consequences. So you can see the major impacts in Asia and in Africa, but also note that in countries such as the United States and countries in Europe, the populations also could be affected. They estimated about 125 million people could be affected. They also modeled what would be the most effective interventions, and their conclusion was reducing our greenhouse gases: getting our greenhouse gas emissions down by mid-century so we don't have to worry so much about these consequences later in the century. These experiments, these modeling studies did not take climate change itself into account. They just focused on the carbon dioxide component. So when you put the two together, it's expected the impact is much larger than what I've told you. I'd love to be able to tell you right now how much the food you had for breakfast, the food you're going to have for lunch, has shifted from what your grandparents ate in terms of its nutritional quality. But I can't. We don't have the research on that. I'd love to tell you how much current food insecurity is affected by these changes. But I can't. We don't have the research on that, either. There's a lot that needs to be known in this area, including what the possible solutions could be. We don't know exactly what those solutions are, but we've got a range of options. We've got advancements in technologies. We've got plant breeding. We've got biofortification. Soils could make a difference. And, of course, it will be very helpful to know how these changes could affect our future health and the health of our children and the health of our grandchildren. And these investments take time. It will take time to sort all of these issues out. There is no national entity or business group that is funding this research. We need these investments critically so that we do know where we're going. In the meantime, what we can do is ensure that all people have access to a complete diet, not just those in the wealthy parts of the world but everywhere in the world. We also individually and collectively need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the challenges that will come later in the century. It's been said that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. Let's not. Let's invest in ourselves, in our children and in our planet. Thank you. (Applause) |
What streaming means for the future of entertainment | {0: 'Emmett Shear is the CEO and cofounder of Twitch and its predecessor justin.tv.'} | TED2019 | I am obsessed with forming healthy communities, and that's why I started Twitch — to help people watch other people play video games on the internet. (Laughter) Thank you for coming to my TED talk. (Laughter) So in seriousness, video games and communities truly are quite related. From our early human history, we made our entertainment together in small tribes. We shared stories around the campfire, we sang together, we danced together. Our earliest entertainment was both shared and interactive. It wasn't until pretty recently on the grand scale of human history that interactivity took a back seat and broadcast entertainment took over. Radio and records brought music into our vehicles, into our homes. TV and VHS brought sports and drama into our living rooms. This access to broadcast entertainment was unprecedented. It gave people amazing content around the globe. It created a shared culture for millions of people. And now, if you want to go watch or listen to Mozart, you don't have to buy an incredibly expensive ticket and find an orchestra. And if you like to sing — (Sings) I can show you the world — then you have something in common with people around the world. But with this amazing access, we allowed for a separation between creator and consumer, and the relationship between the two became much more one-way. We wound up in a world where we had a smaller class of professional creators and most of us became spectators, and as a result it became far easier for us to enjoy that content alone. There's a trend counteracting this: scarcity. So, Vienna in the 1900s, was famous for its café culture. And one of the big drivers of that café culture was expensive newspapers that were hard to get, and as a result, people would go to the café and read the shared copy there. And once they're in the cafe, they meet the other people also reading the same newspaper, they converse, they exchange ideas and they form a community. In a similar way, TV and cable used to be more expensive, and so you might not watch the game at home. Instead you'd go to the local bar and cheer along with your fellow sports fans there. But as the price of media continues to fall over time thanks to technology, this shared necessity that used to bring our communities together falls away. We have so many amazing options for our entertainment, and yet it's easier than ever for us to wind up consuming those options alone. Our communities are bearing the consequences. For example, the number of people who report having at least two close friends is at an all-time low. I believe that one of the major contributing causes to this is that our entertainment today allows us to be separate. There is one trend reversing this atomization of our society: modern multiplayer video games. Games are like a shared campfire. They're both interactive and connecting. Now these campfires may have beautiful animations, heroic quests, occasionally too many loot boxes, but games today are very different than the solitary activity of 20 years ago. They're deeply complex, they're more intellectually stimulating, and most of all, they're intrinsically social. One of the recent breakout genres exemplifying this change is the battle royale. 100 people parachute onto an island in a last-man-standing competition. Think of it as being kind of like "American Idol," but with a lot more fighting and a lot less Simon Cowell. You may have heard of "Fortnite," which is a breakout example of the battle royale genre, which has been played by more than 250 million people around the world. It's everyone from kids in your neighborhood to Drake and Ellen DeGeneres. 2.3 billion people in the world play video games. Early games like "Tetris" and "Mario" may have been simple puzzles or quests, but with the rise of arcades and then internet play, and now massively multiplayer games of huge, thriving online communities, games have emerged as the one form of entertainment where consumption truly requires human connection. So this brings us to streaming. Why do people stream themselves playing video games? And why do hundreds of millions of people around the world congregate to watch them? I want you all the imagine for second — imagine you land on an alien planet, and on this planet, there's a giant green rectangle. And in this green rectangle, aliens in matching outfits are trying to push a checkered sphere between two posts using only their feet. It's pretty evenly matched, so the ball is just going back and forth, but there's hundreds of millions of people watching from home anyway, and cheering and getting excited and engaged right along with them. Now I grew up watching sports with my dad, so I get why soccer is entertaining and engaging. But if you don't watch sports, maybe you like watching "Dancing with the Stars" or you enjoy "Top Chef." Regardless, the principle is the same. If there is an activity that you really enjoy, you're probably going to like watching other people do it with skill and panache. It might be perplexing to an alien, but bonding over shared passion is a human universal. So gamers grew up expecting this live, interactive entertainment, and passive consumption just doesn't feel as fulfilling. That's why livestreaming has taken off with video games. Because livestreaming offers that same kind of interactive feeling. So when you imagine what's happening on Twitch, I don't want you to think of a million livestreams of video games. Instead, what I want you to picture is millions of campfires. Some of them are bonfires — huge, roaring bonfires with hundreds of thousands of people around them. Some of them are smaller, more intimate community gatherings where everyone knows your name. Let's try taking a seat by one of those campfires right now. Hey Cohh, how's it going? Cohh: Hey, how's it going, Emmett? ES: So I'm here at TED with about 1,000 of my closest friends, and we thought we'd come and join you guys for a little stream. Cohh: Awesome! It's great to hear from you guys. ES: So Cohh, can you share with the TED audience here — what have you learned about your community on Twitch? Cohh: Ah, man, where to begin? I've been doing this for over five years now, and if there's one thing that doesn't cease to impress me on the daily, it's just kind of how incredible this whole thing is for communication. I've been playing games for 20 years of my life, I've led online MMO guilds for over 10, and it's the kind of thing where there's very few places in life where you can go to meet so many people with similar interests. I was listening in a bit earlier; I love the campfire analogy, I actually use a similar one. I see it all as a bunch of people on a big couch but only one person has the controller. So it's kind of like a "Pass the snack!" situation, you know? 700 people that way — but it's great and really it's just — ES: So Cohh, what is going on in chat right now? Can you explain that a little bit to us? Because my eyesight isn't that good but I see a lot of emotes. Cohh: So this is my community; this is the Cohhilition. I stream every single day. I actually just wrapped up a 2,000-day challenge, and as such, we have developed a pretty incredible community here in the channel. Right now we have about 6200 people with us. What you're seeing is a spam of "Hello, TED" good-vibe emotes, love emotes, "this is awesome," "Hi, guys," "Hi, everyone." Basically just a huge collection of people — huge collection of gamers that are all just experiencing a positive event together. ES: So is there anything that — can we poll chat? I want ask chat a question. Is there anything that chat would like the world, and particularly these people here with me at TED right now, to know about what they get out of playing video games and being part of this community? Cohh: Oh, wow. I am already starting to see a lot of answers here. "I like the good vibes." "Best communities are on Twitch." (Laughter) "They get us through the rough patches in life." Oh, that's a message I definitely see a lot on Twitch, which is very good. "A very positive community," "a lot of positivity," which is pretty great. ES: So Cohh, before I get back to my TED talk, which I actually should probably get back to doing at some point — (Laughter) Do you have anything else that you want to share with me or any question you wanted to ask, you've always wanted to get out there before an audience? Cohh: Honestly, not too much. I mean, I absolutely love what you're doing right now. I think that the interactive streaming is the big unexplored frontier of the future in entertainment, and thank you for doing everything you're doing up there. The more people that hear about what you do, the better — for everyone on here. ES: Awesome, Cohh. Thanks so much. I'm going to get back to giving this talk now, but we should catch up later. Cohh: Sounds great! (Applause) ES: So that was a new way to interact. We could influence what happened on the stream, we could cocreate the experience along with him, and we really had a multiplayer experience with chat and with Cohh. At Twitch, we've started calling this, as a result, "multiplayer entertainment." Because going from watching a video alone to watching a live interactive stream is similar to the difference between going from playing a single-player game to playing a multiplayer game. Gamers are often as the forefront of exploration in new technology. Microcomputers, for example, were used early on for video games, and the very first handheld, digital mass-market devices weren't cell phones, they were Gameboys ... for video games. And as a result, one way that you can get a hint of what the future might hold is to look to this fun, interactive sandbox of video games and ask yourself, "what are these gamers doing today?" And that might give you a hint as to what the future is going to hold for all of us. One of the things we're already seeing on Twitch is multiplayer entertainment coming to sports. So, Twitch and the NFL teamed up to offer livestreaming football, but instead of network announcers in suits streaming the game, we got Twitch users to come in and stream it themselves on their own channel and interact with their community and make it a real multiplayer experience. So I actually think that if you look out into the future — only hundreds of people today get to be sports announcers. It's a tiny, tiny number of people who have that opportunity. But sports are about to go multiplayer, and that means that anyone who wants to around the world is going to get the opportunity to become a sports announcer, to give it a shot. And I think that's going to unlock incredible amounts of new talent for all of us. And we're not going to be asking, "Did you catch the game?" Instead, we're going to be asking, "Whose channel did you catch the game on?" We already see this happening with cooking, with singing — we even see people streaming welding. And all of this stuff is going to happen around the metaphorical campfire. There's going to be millions of these campfires lit over the next few years. And on every topic, you're going to be able to find a campfire that will allow you to bond with your people around the world. For most of human history, entertainment was simply multiplayer. We sang together in person, we shared news together in the town square in person, and somewhere along the way, that two-way conversation turned into a one-way transmission. As someone who cares about communities, I am excited for a world where our entertainment could connect us instead of isolating us. A world where we can bond with each other over our shared interests and create real, strong communities. Games, streams and the interactions they encourage, are only just beginning to turn the wheel back to our interactive, community-rich, multiplayer past. Thank you all for sharing this experience here with me, and may you all find your best campfire. (Applause) |
Can you solve the secret sauce riddle? | null | TED-Ed | One of the top chefs from Pasta Palace has been kidnapped by operatives from Burger Bazaar hoping to learn the location of their secret sauce recipe. Little do they know that a third party— Sausage Saloon— has sent you to take advantage of the situation. As their top spy, your skills range from infiltration and subterfuge, to safecracking and reading faces for signs of deception. You’ve tracked the captors to where they’re holding the chef prisoner. From your hiding spot, you can see him on the other side of the glass, while in front of you an interrogator wearing headphones speaks into a microphone. “We already know the recipe is on the 13th floor of the bank vault, in a safe deposit box numbered between 13 and 1300. Now tell us… Is the number less than 500?” You can’t hear the chef’s answer, but you can see that he’s lying. The interrogator, however, falls for it. He follows up by asking, “Is it a perfect square?” Again you can’t hear the answer but can tell the chef is lying, while the interrogator takes him at his word. He then asks, “Is it a perfect cube?” This time the chef answers truthfully. The interrogator thinks for a minute and says, “Good. Now if you just tell me whether or not the number’s second digit is a one, we’ll be done here.” But as the chef starts to answer, the interrogator stands up, blocking your view. Within moments he rushes out of the room, announcing that he’s got the answer and is sending agents to retrieve the recipe. You know that the Burger Bazaar people have the wrong box number. But can you figure out the right one and retrieve the recipe yourself? Pause the video to figure it out for yourself. Answer in 3 Answer in 2 Answer in 1 The key here is to work backwards. We don’t know what the chef answers to the final question or whether he answers truthfully. But we do know that by the time the interrogator asks it, he’s narrowed the options down to two numbers– one where the second digit is 1, and one where it isn’t. Our goal, then, is to find answers to the previous questions that lead to just two possibilities. Of the three constraints offered, the one that narrows our options the most is if the number is a perfect cube. That leaves us with only eight answers between 13 and 1300. So let’s assume the answer to the third question was a truthful YES. Now, let’s look at the second question. If the chef answered YES to the number being a perfect square, it would narrow the interrogator’s options to just 64 and 729– the only numbers in our range that are both a square and a cube. But neither of these has a 1 as the second digit. So the given answer to the second question must’ve been NO. And that also means we can eliminate these two squares from the interrogator's list, leaving only six numbers. Now for the first question, which allows us to divide this list. If the chef answered YES to the number being less than 500, we’d have four options, which is too many. But a NO leaves us with two numbers greater than 500, one of which does have a 1 as its second digit. We don’t know which of these numbers the interrogator thinks is correct. But that doesn’t matter– remember, his conclusion was based on lies. You, on the other hand, are now in a position to reconstruct the truth. First, the chef said the number was greater than 500 but lied, meaning it’s actually less than 500. Second, the chef said it wasn’t a perfect square but lied again, meaning the number is indeed a square. And finally, he truthfully confirmed that it was also a cube. And as we’ve already seen, the only number under 500 that’s both a square and a cube is 64. You find the secret recipe and are gone before anyone’s the wiser. Corporate espionage is not an easy game— but sometimes, that’s just how the sausage is made. |
A day in the life of an ancient Celtic Druid | null | TED-Ed | As the sun rises on a fall morning in 55 BCE, Camma lays two pigeons on the altar at the center of her village. She offers a prayer to Matrona mother goddess of the Earth, and Lugus chief of the gods. Then, she wrings the birds’ necks and cuts them open to examine their entrails for divine messages. Camma is a druid. This means she conducts religious rites, but she also serves as a judge, healer, and scholar, teaching children and mediating conflict between Celtic tribes. She began her studies as a child, memorizing the countless details necessary to perform her many roles, since the druids’ knowledge is considered too sacred to record in writing. Like many druids, she spent years studying in Britain. Now, she is a resident Druid of the Veneti tribe in a small farming village near the western coast of Gaul, in what is now France. Since returning to Gaul, she has received many offers of marriage– but she has decided to devote herself to her work, at least for now. This morning, the omens are troubling. They tell of war and strife, as they often have in recent months. A neighboring tribe, the Redones, have raided their village and stolen cattle in broad daylight twice this fall. The children have gathered around to watch her work. Camma plays her lyre and sings to them. She weaves stories of the powerful kings who once ruled their land – brave warriors who were slain naked in combat but who will be reborn, as will all the Celts. When the children go off to help in the fields, Camma heads across the village to visit an old woman with an eye infection. On the way to the old woman’s hut, she passes men salting pigs for the winter food supply and women weaving clothing from dyed wool. She delivers a remedy for the injured eye– it’s made from mistletoe, a sacred healing plant, but deadly if used incorrectly. From there, Camma visits the chieftain to discuss the omens. She convinces him to go and talk through their problems with their neighbors. Accompanied by several warriors, they head through the forest and demand a meeting outside the Redones’ village walls. The Redones’ representatives bring their own druid, who Camma recognizes from the annual gathering in central Gaul where head druids are elected. The chieftains immediately begin to argue and threaten each other. Camma steps between the opposing sides to stop them from fighting— they must honor her authority. Finally, the Redones agree to pay Camma’s tribe several cattle. In spite of this resolution, Camma still feels uneasy on the long walk home. As they approach the village walls, a bright streak shoots across the sky— another omen, but of what? Back home, Camma sits among the elders for her evening meal of porridge, a bit of meat, and a cup of wine. While they were out during the day, an intercepted parchment arrived. Camma recognizes the writing immediately. Although the druids are forbidden from recording their knowledge, she and many other young druids can read Latin. From the message, she learns that the Romans are drawing closer to their lands. Some of the elders say that the tribe should flee to the nearby hills and hide, but Camma counsels them to trust in the gods and remain in their home. Privately, she has her doubts. Should the Romans reach them, her power to help might be limited. Unlike the other Celtic tribes, Roman legions have no regard for the druids’ sacred role as peacemakers. Before going to bed, she observes the course of the planets and consults her charts, trying to make sense of the meteor she saw earlier. The signs are converging on a larger threat than their neighbors. |
How we use astrophysics to study earthbound problems | {0: "TED Fellow Federica Bianco is a cross-disciplinary scientist who can't stay still."} | TED2019 | I am an astrophysicist. I research stellar explosions across the universe. But I have a flaw: I'm restless, and I get bored easily. And although as an astrophysicist, I have the incredible opportunity to study the entire universe, the thought of doing only that, always that, makes me feel caged and limited. What if my issues with keeping attention and getting bored were not a flaw, though? What if I could turn them into an asset? An astrophysicist cannot touch or interact with the things that she studies. No way to explode a star in a lab to figure out why or how it blew up. Just pictures and movies of the sky. Everything we know about the universe, from the big bang that originated space and time, to the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies, to the structure of our own solar system, we figured out studying images of the sky. And to study a system as complex as the entire universe, astrophysicists are experts at extracting simple models and solutions from large and complex data sets. So what else can I do with this expertise? What if we turned the camera around towards us? At the Urban Observatory, that is exactly what we are doing. Greg Dobler, also an astrophysicist and my husband, created the first urban observatory in New York University in 2013, and I joined in 2015. Here are some of the things that we do. We take pictures of the city at night and study city lights like stars. By studying how light changes over time and the color of astronomical lights, I gain insight about the nature of exploding stars. By studying city lights the same way, we can measure and predict how much energy the city needs and consumes and help build a resilient grid that will support the needs of growing urban environments. In daytime images, we capture plumes of pollution. Seventy-five percent of greenhouse gases in New York City come from a building like this one, burning oil for heat. You can measure pollution with air quality sensors. But imagine putting a sensor on each New York City building, reading in data from a million monitors. Imagine the cost. With a team of NYU students, we built a mathematical model, a neural network that can detect and track these plumes over the New York City skyline. We can classify them — harmless steam plumes, white and evanescent; polluting smokestacks, dark and persistent — and provide policy makers with a map of neighborhood pollution. This cross-disciplinary project created transformational solutions. But the data analysis methodologies we use in astrophysics can be applied to all sorts of data, not just images. We were asked to help a California district attorney understand prosecutorial delays in their jurisdiction. There are people on probation or sitting in jail, awaiting for trial sometimes for years. They wanted to know what kind of cases dragged on, and they had a massive data set to explore to understand it, but didn't have the expertise or the instruments in their office to do so. And that's where we came in. I worked with my colleague, public policy professor Angela Hawken, and our team first created a visual dashboard for DAs to see and better understand the prosecution process. But also, we ourselves analyzed their data, looking to see if the duration of the process suffered from social inequalities in their jurisdiction. We did so using methods that I would use to classify thousands of stellar explosions, applied to thousands of court cases. And in doing so, we built a model that can be applied to other jurisdictions who are willing to explore their biases. These collaborations between domain experts and astrophysicists created transformational solutions to help improve people's quality of life. But it is a two-way road. I bring my astrophysics background to urban science, and I bring what I learn in urban science back to astrophysics. Light echoes: the reflections of stellar explosions onto interstellar dust. In our images, these reflections appear as white, evanescent, moving features, just like plumes. I am adapting the same models that detect plumes in city images to detect light echoes in images of the sky. By exploring the things that interest and excite me, reaching outside of my domain, I did turn my restlessness into an asset. We, you, all have a unique perspective that can generate new insight and lead to new, unexpected, transformational solutions. Thank you. (Applause) |
A free world needs satire | {0: "With simple lines and pointed jokes that skewer injustice, Patrick Chappatte's editorial cartoons view the tragic, the farcical and the absurd through a lens of unfettered humor."} | TEDSummit 2019 | I've been a political cartoonist on the global stage for the last 20 years. Hey, we have seen a lot of things happen in those 20 years. We saw three different Catholic popes, and we witnessed that unique moment: the election of a pope on St. Peter's Square — you know, the little white smoke and the official announcement. [It's a boy!] (Laughter) (Applause) We saw four American presidents. Obama, of course. Oh, Europeans liked him a lot. He was a multilateralist. He favored diplomacy. He wanted to be friends with Iran. (Laughter) And then ... reality imitated caricature the day Donald Trump became the President of the United States of America. (Laughter) (Applause) You know, people come to us and they say, "It's too easy for you cartoonists. I mean — with people like Trump?" Well, no, it's not easy to caricature a man who is himself a caricature. (Laughter) No. (Applause) Populists are no easy target for satire because you try to nail them down one day, and the next day, they outdo you. For example, as soon as he was elected, I tried to imagine the tweet that Trump would send on Christmas Eve. So I did this, OK? [Merry Christmas to all! Except all those pathetic losers. So sad.] (Laughter) And basically, the next day, Trump tweeted this: [Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love!] (Laughter) It's the same! (Applause) This is the era of strongmen. And soon, Donald Trump was able to meet his personal hero, Vladimir Putin, and this is how the first meeting went: [I'll help you find the hackers. Give me your password.] (Laughter) And I'm not inventing anything. He came out of that first meeting saying that the two of them had agreed on a joint task force on cybersecurity. This is true, if you do remember. Oh, who would have imagined the things we saw over these 20 years. We saw Great Britain run towards a European Union exit. [Hard Brexit?] (Laughter) In the Middle East, we believed for a while in the democratic miracle of the Arab Spring. We saw dictators fall, we saw others hang on. (Laughter) And then there is the timeless Kim dynasty of North Korea. These guys seem to be coming straight out of Cartoon Network. I was blessed to be able to draw two of them. Kim Jong-il, the father, when he died a few years ago, that was a very dangerous moment. [That was close!] (Laughter) That was — (Applause) And then the son, Kim Jong-un, proved himself a worthy successor to the throne. He's now friends with the US president. They meet each other all the time, and they talk like friends. [What kind of hair gel?] (Laughter) Should we be surprised to be living in a world ruled by egomaniacs? What if they were just a reflection of ourselves? I mean, look at us, each of us. (Laughter) Yeah, we love our smartphones; we love our selfies; we love ourselves. And thanks to Facebook, we have a lot of friends all over the world. Mark Zuckerberg is our friend. (Laughter) You know, he and his peers in Silicon Valley are the kings and the emperors of our time. Showing that the emperors have no clothes, that's the task of satire, right? Speaking truth to power. This has always been the historical role of political cartooning. In the 1830s, postrevolutionary France under King Louis Philippe, journalists and caricaturists fought hard for the freedom of the press. They were jailed, they were fined, but they prevailed. And this caricature of the king by Daumier came to define the monarch. It marked history. It became the timeless symbol of satire triumphing over autocracy. Today, 200 years after Daumier, are political cartoons at risk of disappearing? Take this blank space on the front page of Turkish opposition newspaper "Cumhuriyet." This is where Musa Kart's cartoon used to appear. In 2018, Musa Kart was sentenced to three years in jail. For doing what? For doing political cartoons in Erdoğan's Turkey. Cartoonists from Venezuela, Russia, Syria have been forced into exile. Look at this image. It seems so innocent, right? Yet it is so provocative. When he posted this image, Hani Abbas knew it would change his life. It was in 2012, and the Syrians were taking to the streets. Of course, the little red flower is the symbol of the Syrian revolution. So pretty soon, the regime was after him, and he had to flee the country. A good friend of his, cartoonist Akram Raslan, didn't make it out of Syria. He died under torture. In the United States of America recently, some of the very top cartoonists, like Nick Anderson and Rob Rogers — this is a cartoon by Rob — [Memorial Day 2018. (on tombstone) Truth. Honor. Rule of Law.] they lost their positions because their publishers found their work too critical of Trump. And the same happened to Canadian cartoonist Michael de Adder. Hey, maybe we should start worrying. Political cartoons were born with democracy, and they are challenged when freedom is. You know, over the years, with the Cartooning for Peace Foundation and other initiatives, Kofi Annan — this is not well known — he was the honorary chair of our foundation, the late Kofi Annan, Nobel Peace Laureate. He was a great defender of cartoons. Or, on the board of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, we have advocated on behalf of jailed, threatened, fired, exiled cartoonists. But I never saw a case of someone losing his job over a cartoon he didn't do. Well, that happened to me. For the last 20 years, I have been with the "International Herald Tribune" and the "New York Times." Then something happened. In April 2019, a cartoon by a famous Portuguese cartoonist, which was first published in a newspaper "El Expresso" in Lisbon, was picked by an editor at the "New York Times" and reprinted in the international editions. This thing blew up. It was denounced as anti-Semitic, triggered widespread outrage, apologies and a lot of damage control by the Times. A month after, my editor told me they were ending political cartoons altogether. So we could, and we should, have a discussion about that cartoon. Some people say it reminds them of the worst anti-Semitic propaganda. Others, including in Israel, say no, it's just a harsh criticism of Trump, who is shown as blindly following the Prime Minister of Israel. I have some issues with this cartoon, but that discussion did not happen at the "New York Times." Under attack, they took the easiest path: in order to not have problems with political cartoons in the future, let's not have any at all. Hey, this is new. Did we just invent preventive self-censorship? I think this is bigger than cartoons. This is about opinion and journalism. This, in the end, is about democracy. We now live in a world where moralistic mobs gather on social media and rise like a storm. The most outraged voices tend to define the conversation, and the angry crowd follows in. These social media mobs, sometimes fueled by interest groups, fall upon newsrooms in an overwhelming blow. They send publishers and editors scrambling for countermeasures. This leaves no room for meaningful discussions. Twitter is a place for fury, not for debate. And you know what? Someone described pretty well our human condition in this noisy age. You know who? Shakespeare, 400 years ago. ["(Life is) a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."] This speaks to me. Shakespeare is still very relevant, no? But the world has changed a bit. [Too long!] (Laughter) It's true. (Applause) You know, social media is both a blessing and a curse for cartoons. This is the era of the image, so they get shared, they get viral, but that also makes them a prime target. More than often, the real target behind the cartoon is the media that published it. [Covering Iraq? No, Trump!] That relationship between traditional media and social media is a funny one. On one hand, you have the time-consuming process of information, verification, curation. On the other hand, it's an open buffet, frankly, for rumors, opinions, emotions, amplified by algorithms. Even quality newspapers mimic the codes of social networks on their websites. They highlight the 10 most read, the 10 most shared stories. They should put forward the 10 most important stories. (Applause) The media must not be intimidated by social media, and editors should stop being afraid of the angry mob. (Applause) We're not going to put up warnings the way we do on cigarette packs, are we? [Satire can hurt your feelings] (Laughter) Come on. [Under your burkini you could be hiding a sex bomb] Political cartoons are meant to provoke, just like opinions. But before all, they are meant to be thought-provoking. You feel hurt? Just let it go. You don't like it? Look the other way. Freedom of expression is not incompatible with dialogue and listening to each other. But it is incompatible with intolerance. (Applause) Let us not become our own censors in the name of political correctness. We need to stand up, we need to push back, because if we don't, we will wake up tomorrow in a sanitized world, where any form of satire and political cartooning becomes impossible. Because, when political pressure meets political correctness, freedom of speech perishes. (Applause) Do you remember January 2015? With the massacre of journalists and cartoonists at "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris, we discovered the most extreme form of censorship: murder. Remember how it felt. [Without humor we are all dead] Whatever one thought of that satirical magazine, however one felt about those particular cartoons, we all sensed that something fundamental was at stake, that citizens of free societies — actually, citizens of any society — need humor as much as the air we breathe. This is why the extremists, the dictators, the autocrats and, frankly, all the ideologues of the world cannot stand humor. In the insane world we live in right now, we need political cartoons more than ever. And we need humor. Thank you. (Applause) |
This could be why you're depressed or anxious | {0: 'Johann Hari is the author of two "New York Times" best-selling books.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | For a really long time, I had two mysteries that were hanging over me. I didn't understand them and, to be honest, I was quite afraid to look into them. The first mystery was, I'm 40 years old, and all throughout my lifetime, year after year, serious depression and anxiety have risen, in the United States, in Britain, and across the Western world. And I wanted to understand why. Why is this happening to us? Why is it that with each year that passes, more and more of us are finding it harder to get through the day? And I wanted to understand this because of a more personal mystery. When I was a teenager, I remember going to my doctor and explaining that I had this feeling, like pain was leaking out of me. I couldn't control it, I didn't understand why it was happening, I felt quite ashamed of it. And my doctor told me a story that I now realize was well-intentioned, but quite oversimplified. Not totally wrong. My doctor said, "We know why people get like this. Some people just naturally get a chemical imbalance in their heads — you're clearly one of them. All we need to do is give you some drugs, it will get your chemical balance back to normal." So I started taking a drug called Paxil or Seroxat, it's the same thing with different names in different countries. And I felt much better, I got a real boost. But not very long afterwards, this feeling of pain started to come back. So I was given higher and higher doses until, for 13 years, I was taking the maximum possible dose that you're legally allowed to take. And for a lot of those 13 years, and pretty much all the time by the end, I was still in a lot of pain. And I started asking myself, "What's going on here? Because you're doing everything you're told to do by the story that's dominating the culture — why do you still feel like this?" So to get to the bottom of these two mysteries, for a book that I've written I ended up going on a big journey all over the world, I traveled over 40,000 miles. I wanted to sit with the leading experts in the world about what causes depression and anxiety and crucially, what solves them, and people who have come through depression and anxiety and out the other side in all sorts of ways. And I learned a huge amount from the amazing people I got to know along the way. But I think at the heart of what I learned is, so far, we have scientific evidence for nine different causes of depression and anxiety. Two of them are indeed in our biology. Your genes can make you more sensitive to these problems, though they don't write your destiny. And there are real brain changes that can happen when you become depressed that can make it harder to get out. But most of the factors that have been proven to cause depression and anxiety are not in our biology. They are factors in the way we live. And once you understand them, it opens up a very different set of solutions that should be offered to people alongside the option of chemical antidepressants. For example, if you're lonely, you're more likely to become depressed. If, when you go to work, you don't have any control over your job, you've just got to do what you're told, you're more likely to become depressed. If you very rarely get out into the natural world, you're more likely to become depressed. And one thing unites a lot of the causes of depression and anxiety that I learned about. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Everyone here knows you've all got natural physical needs, right? Obviously. You need food, you need water, you need shelter, you need clean air. If I took those things away from you, you'd all be in real trouble, real fast. But at the same time, every human being has natural psychological needs. You need to feel you belong. You need to feel your life has meaning and purpose. You need to feel that people see you and value you. You need to feel you've got a future that makes sense. And this culture we built is good at lots of things. And many things are better than in the past — I'm glad to be alive today. But we've been getting less and less good at meeting these deep, underlying psychological needs. And it's not the only thing that's going on, but I think it's the key reason why this crisis keeps rising and rising. And I found this really hard to absorb. I really wrestled with the idea of shifting from thinking of my depression as just a problem in my brain, to one with many causes, including many in the way we're living. And it only really began to fall into place for me when one day, I went to interview a South African psychiatrist named Dr. Derek Summerfield. He's a great guy. And Dr. Summerfield happened to be in Cambodia in 2001, when they first introduced chemical antidepressants for people in that country. And the local doctors, the Cambodians, had never heard of these drugs, so they were like, what are they? And he explained. And they said to him, "We don't need them, we've already got antidepressants." And he was like, "What do you mean?" He thought they were going to talk about some kind of herbal remedy, like St. John's Wort, ginkgo biloba, something like that. Instead, they told him a story. There was a farmer in their community who worked in the rice fields. And one day, he stood on a land mine left over from the war with the United States, and he got his leg blown off. So they him an artificial leg, and after a while, he went back to work in the rice fields. But apparently, it's super painful to work under water when you've got an artificial limb, and I'm guessing it was pretty traumatic to go back and work in the field where he got blown up. The guy started to cry all day, he refused to get out of bed, he developed all the symptoms of classic depression. The Cambodian doctor said, "This is when we gave him an antidepressant." And Dr. Summerfield said, "What was it?" They explained that they went and sat with him. They listened to him. They realized that his pain made sense — it was hard for him to see it in the throes of his depression, but actually, it had perfectly understandable causes in his life. One of the doctors, talking to the people in the community, figured, "You know, if we bought this guy a cow, he could become a dairy farmer, he wouldn't be in this position that was screwing him up so much, he wouldn't have to go and work in the rice fields." So they bought him a cow. Within a couple of weeks, his crying stopped, within a month, his depression was gone. They said to doctor Summerfield, "So you see, doctor, that cow, that was an antidepressant, that's what you mean, right?" (Laughter) (Applause) If you'd been raised to think about depression the way I was, and most of the people here were, that sounds like a bad joke, right? "I went to my doctor for an antidepressant, she gave me a cow." But what those Cambodian doctors knew intuitively, based on this individual, unscientific anecdote, is what the leading medical body in the world, the World Health Organization, has been trying to tell us for years, based on the best scientific evidence. If you're depressed, if you're anxious, you're not weak, you're not crazy, you're not, in the main, a machine with broken parts. You're a human being with unmet needs. And it's just as important to think here about what those Cambodian doctors and the World Health Organization are not saying. They did not say to this farmer, "Hey, buddy, you need to pull yourself together. It's your job to figure out and fix this problem on your own." On the contrary, what they said is, "We're here as a group to pull together with you, so together, we can figure out and fix this problem." This is what every depressed person needs, and it's what every depressed person deserves. This is why one of the leading doctors at the United Nations, in their official statement for World Health Day, couple of years back in 2017, said we need to talk less about chemical imbalances and more about the imbalances in the way we live. Drugs give real relief to some people — they gave relief to me for a while — but precisely because this problem goes deeper than their biology, the solutions need to go much deeper, too. But when I first learned that, I remember thinking, "OK, I could see all the scientific evidence, I read a huge number of studies, I interviewed a huge number of the experts who were explaining this," but I kept thinking, "How can we possibly do that?" The things that are making us depressed are in most cases more complex than what was going on with this Cambodian farmer. Where do we even begin with that insight? But then, in the long journey for my book, all over the world, I kept meeting people who were doing exactly that, from Sydney, to San Francisco, to São Paulo. I kept meeting people who were understanding the deeper causes of depression and anxiety and, as groups, fixing them. Obviously, I can't tell you about all the amazing people I got to know and wrote about, or all of the nine causes of depression and anxiety that I learned about, because they won't let me give a 10-hour TED Talk — you can complain about that to them. But I want to focus on two of the causes and two of the solutions that emerge from them, if that's alright. Here's the first. We are the loneliest society in human history. There was a recent study that asked Americans, "Do you feel like you're no longer close to anyone?" And 39 percent of people said that described them. "No longer close to anyone." In the international measurements of loneliness, Britain and the rest of Europe are just behind the US, in case anyone here is feeling smug. (Laughter) I spent a lot of time discussing this with the leading expert in the world on loneliness, an incredible man named professor John Cacioppo, who was at Chicago, and I thought a lot about one question his work poses to us. Professor Cacioppo asked, "Why do we exist? Why are we here, why are we alive?" One key reason is that our ancestors on the savannas of Africa were really good at one thing. They weren't bigger than the animals they took down a lot of the time, they weren't faster than the animals they took down a lot of the time, but they were much better at banding together into groups and cooperating. This was our superpower as a species — we band together, just like bees evolved to live in a hive, humans evolved to live in a tribe. And we are the first humans ever to disband our tribes. And it is making us feel awful. But it doesn't have to be this way. One of the heroes in my book, and in fact, in my life, is a doctor named Sam Everington. He's a general practitioner in a poor part of East London, where I lived for many years. And Sam was really uncomfortable, because he had loads of patients coming to him with terrible depression and anxiety. And like me, he's not opposed to chemical antidepressants, he thinks they give some relief to some people. But he could see two things. Firstly, his patients were depressed and anxious a lot of the time for totally understandable reasons, like loneliness. And secondly, although the drugs were giving some relief to some people, for many people, they didn't solve the problem. The underlying problem. One day, Sam decided to pioneer a different approach. A woman came to his center, his medical center, called Lisa Cunningham. I got to know Lisa later. And Lisa had been shut away in her home with crippling depression and anxiety for seven years. And when she came to Sam's center, she was told, "Don't worry, we'll carry on giving you these drugs, but we're also going to prescribe something else. We're going to prescribe for you to come here to this center twice a week to meet with a group of other depressed and anxious people, not to talk about how miserable you are, but to figure out something meaningful you can all do together so you won't be lonely and you won't feel like life is pointless." The first time this group met, Lisa literally started vomiting with anxiety, it was so overwhelming for her. But people rubbed her back, the group started talking, they were like, "What could we do?" These are inner-city, East London people like me, they didn't know anything about gardening. They were like, "Why don't we learn gardening?" There was an area behind the doctors' offices that was just scrubland. "Why don't we make this into a garden?" They started to take books out of the library, started to watch YouTube clips. They started to get their fingers in the soil. They started to learn the rhythms of the seasons. There's a lot of evidence that exposure to the natural world is a really powerful antidepressant. But they started to do something even more important. They started to form a tribe. They started to form a group. They started to care about each other. If one of them didn't show up, the others would go looking for them — "Are you OK?" Help them figure out what was troubling them that day. The way Lisa put it to me, "As the garden began to bloom, we began to bloom." This approach is called social prescribing, it's spreading all over Europe. And there's a small, but growing body of evidence suggesting it can produce real and meaningful falls in depression and anxiety. And one day, I remember standing in the garden that Lisa and her once-depressed friends had built — it's a really beautiful garden — and having this thought, it's very much inspired by a guy called professor Hugh Mackay in Australia. I was thinking, so often when people feel down in this culture, what we say to them — I'm sure everyone here said it, I have — we say, "You just need to be you, be yourself." And I've realized, actually, what we should say to people is, "Don't be you. Don't be yourself. Be us, be we. Be part of a group." (Applause) The solution to these problems does not lie in drawing more and more on your resources as an isolated individual — that's partly what got us in this crisis. It lies on reconnecting with something bigger than you. And that really connects to one of the other causes of depression and anxiety that I wanted to talk to you about. So everyone knows junk food has taken over our diets and made us physically sick. I don't say that with any sense of superiority, I literally came to give this talk from McDonald's. I saw all of you eating that healthy TED breakfast, I was like no way. But just like junk food has taken over our diets and made us physically sick, a kind of junk values have taken over our minds and made us mentally sick. For thousands of years, philosophers have said, if you think life is about money, and status and showing off, you're going to feel like crap. That's not an exact quote from Schopenhauer, but that is the gist of what he said. But weirdly, hardy anyone had scientifically investigated this, until a truly extraordinary person I got to know, named professor Tim Kasser, who's at Knox College in Illinois, and he's been researching this for about 30 years now. And his research suggests several really important things. Firstly, the more you believe you can buy and display your way out of sadness, and into a good life, the more likely you are to become depressed and anxious. And secondly, as a society, we have become much more driven by these beliefs. All throughout my lifetime, under the weight of advertising and Instagram and everything like them. And as I thought about this, I realized it's like we've all been fed since birth, a kind of KFC for the soul. We've been trained to look for happiness in all the wrong places, and just like junk food doesn't meet your nutritional needs and actually makes you feel terrible, junk values don't meet your psychological needs, and they take you away from a good life. But when I first spent time with professor Kasser and I was learning all this, I felt a really weird mixture of emotions. Because on the one hand, I found this really challenging. I could see how often in my own life, when I felt down, I tried to remedy it with some kind of show-offy, grand external solution. And I could see why that did not work well for me. I also thought, isn't this kind of obvious? Isn't this almost like banal, right? If I said to everyone here, none of you are going to lie on your deathbed and think about all the shoes you bought and all the retweets you got, you're going to think about moments of love, meaning and connection in your life. I think that seems almost like a cliché. But I kept talking to professor Kasser and saying, "Why am I feeling this strange doubleness?" And he said, "At some level, we all know these things. But in this culture, we don't live by them." We know them so well they've become clichés, but we don't live by them. I kept asking why, why would we know something so profound, but not live by it? And after a while, professor Kasser said to me, "Because we live in a machine that is designed to get us to neglect what is important about life." I had to really think about that. "Because we live in a machine that is designed to get us to neglect what is important about life." And professor Kasser wanted to figure out if we can disrupt that machine. He's done loads of research into this; I'll tell you about one example, and I really urge everyone here to try this with their friends and family. With a guy called Nathan Dungan, he got a group of teenagers and adults to come together for a series of sessions over a period of time, to meet up. And part of the point of the group was to get people to think about a moment in their life they had actually found meaning and purpose. For different people, it was different things. For some people, it was playing music, writing, helping someone — I'm sure everyone here can picture something, right? And part of the point of the group was to get people to ask, "OK, how could you dedicate more of your life to pursuing these moments of meaning and purpose, and less to, I don't know, buying crap you don't need, putting it on social media and trying to get people to go, 'OMG, so jealous!'" And what they found was, just having these meetings, it was like a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous for consumerism, right? Getting people to have these meetings, articulate these values, determine to act on them and check in with each other, led to a marked shift in people's values. It took them away from this hurricane of depression-generating messages training us to seek happiness in the wrong places, and towards more meaningful and nourishing values that lift us out of depression. But with all the solutions that I saw and have written about, and many I can't talk about here, I kept thinking, you know: Why did it take me so long to see these insights? Because when you explain them to people — some of them are more complicated, but not all — when you explain this to people, it's not like rocket science, right? At some level, we already know these things. Why do we find it so hard to understand? I think there's many reasons. But I think one reason is that we have to change our understanding of what depression and anxiety actually are. There are very real biological contributions to depression and anxiety. But if we allow the biology to become the whole picture, as I did for so long, as I would argue our culture has done pretty much most of my life, what we're implicitly saying to people is, and this isn't anyone's intention, but what we're implicitly saying to people is, "Your pain doesn't mean anything. It's just a malfunction. It's like a glitch in a computer program, it's just a wiring problem in your head." But I was only able to start changing my life when I realized your depression is not a malfunction. It's a signal. Your depression is a signal. It's telling you something. (Applause) We feel this way for reasons, and they can be hard to see in the throes of depression — I understand that really well from personal experience. But with the right help, we can understand these problems and we can fix these problems together. But to do that, the very first step is we have to stop insulting these signals by saying they're a sign of weakness, or madness or purely biological, except for a tiny number of people. We need to start listening to these signals, because they're telling us something we really need to hear. It's only when we truly listen to these signals, and we honor these signals and respect these signals, that we're going to begin to see the liberating, nourishing, deeper solutions. The cows that are waiting all around us. Thank you. (Applause) |
4 questions you should always ask your doctor | {0: 'Christer Mjåset, M.D. is a neurosurgeon, author, columnist and lecturer who currently works as a Harkness fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston studying value-based health care models.'} | TEDxOslo | I am a neurosurgeon, and I'm here to tell you today that people like me need your help. And in a few moments, I will tell you how. But first, let me start off by telling you about a patient of mine. This was a woman in her 50s, she was in generally good shape, but she had been in and out of hospital a few times due to curative breast cancer treatment. Now she had gotten a prolapse from a cervical disc, giving her radiating pain of a tense kind, out into the right arm. Looking at her MRI before the consultation, I decided to suggest an operation. Now, neck operations like these are standardized, and they're quick. But they carry a certain risk. You make an incision right here, and you dissect carefully past the trachea, the esophagus, and you try not to cut into the internal carotid artery. (Laughter) Then you bring in the microscope, and you carefully remove the disc and the prolapse in the nerve root canal, without damaging the cord and the nerve root lying only millimeters underneath. The worst case scenario is the damage to the cord, which can result in paralysis from the neck down. Explaining this to the patient, she fell silent. And after a few moments, she uttered a few very decisive words for me and for her. "Doctor, is this really necessary?" (Laughter) And you know what I realized, right there and then? It was not. In fact, when I get patients like this woman, I tend to advise not to operate. So what made me do it this time? Well, you see, this prolapse was so delicate, I could practically see myself pulling it out of the nerve root canal before she entered the consultation room. I have to admit it, I wanted to operate on her. I'd love to operate on her. Operating, after all, is the most fun part of my job. (Laughter) I think you can relate to this feeling. My architect neighbor says he loves to just sit and draw and design houses. He'd rather do that all day than talk to the client paying for the house that might even give him restrictions on what to do. But like every architect, every surgeon needs to look their patient in the eye and together with the patient, they need to decide on what is best for the person having the operation. And that might sound easy. But let's look at some statistics. The tonsils are the two lumps in the back of your throat. They can be removed surgically, and that's called a tonsillectomy. This chart shows the operation rate of tonsillectomies in Norway in different regions. What might strike you is that there is twice the chance that your kid — because this is for children — will get a tonsillectomy in Finnmark than in Trondheim. The indications in both regions are the same. There should be no difference, but there is. Here's another chart. The meniscus helps stabilize the knee and can be torn or fragmented acutely, topically during sports like soccer. What you see here is the operation rate for this condition. And you see that the operation rate in Møre og Romsdal is five times the operation rate in Stavanger. Five times. How can this be? Did the soccer players in Møre og Romsdal play more dirty than elsewhere in the country? (Laughter) Probably not. I added some information now. What you see now is the procedures performed in public hospitals, in light blue, the ones in private clinics are light green. There is a lot of activity in the private clinics in Møre og Romsdal, isn't there? What does this indicate? A possible economic motivation to treat the patients. And there's more. Recent research has shown that the difference of treatment effect between regular physical therapy and operations for the knee — there is no difference. Meaning that most of the procedures performed on the chart I've just shown could have been avoided, even in Stavanger. So what am I trying to tell you here? Even though most indications for treatments in the world are standardized, there is a lot of unnecessary variation of treatment decisions, especially in the Western world. Some people are not getting the treatment that they need, but an even greater portion of you are being overtreated. "Doctor, is this really necessary?" I've only heard that question once in my career. My colleagues say they never heard these words from a patient. And to turn it the other way around, how often do you think you'll get a "no" from a doctor if you ask such a question? Researchers have investigated this, and they come up with about the same "no" rate wherever they go. And that is 30 percent. Meaning, three out of 10 times, your doctor prescribes or suggests something that is completely unnecessary. And you know what they claim the reason for this is? Patient pressure. In other words, you. You want something to be done. A friend of mine came to me for medical advice. This is a sporty guy, he does a lot of cross-country skiing in the winter time, he runs in the summer time. And this time, he'd gotten a bad back ache whenever he went jogging. So much that he had to stop doing it. I did an examination, I questioned him thoroughly, and what I found out is that he probably had a degenerated disc in the lower part of his spine. Whenever it got strained, it hurt. He'd already taken up swimming instead of jogging, there was really nothing to do, so I told him, "You need to be more selective when it comes to training. Some activities are good for you, some are not." His reply was, "I want an MRI of my back." "Why do you want an MRI?" "I can get it for free through my insurance at work." "Come on," I said — he was also, after all, my friend. "That's not the real reason." "Well, I think it's going to be good to see how bad it looks back there." "When did you start interpreting MRI scans?" I said. (Laughter) "Trust me on this. You're not going to need the scan." "Well," he said, and after a while, he continued, "It could be cancer." (Laughter) He got the scan, obviously. And through his insurance at work, he got to see one of my colleagues at work, telling him about the degenerated disc, that there was nothing to do, and that he should keep on swimming and quit the jogging. After a while, I met him again and he said, "At least now I know what this is." But let me ask you a question. What if all of you in this room with the same symptoms had an MRI? And what if all the people in Norway had an MRI due to occasional back pain? The waiting list for an MRI would quadruple, maybe even more. And you would all take the spot on that list from someone who really had cancer. So a good doctor sometimes says no, but the sensible patient also turns down, sometimes, an opportunity to get diagnosed or treated. "Doctor, is this really necessary?" I know this can be a difficult question to ask. In fact, if you go back 50 years, this was even considered rude. (Laughter) If the doctor had decided what to do with you, that's what you did. A colleague of mine, now a general practitioner, was sent away to a tuberculosis sanatorium as a little girl, for six months. It was a terrible trauma for her. She later found out, as a grown-up, that her tests on tuberculosis had been negative all along. The doctor had sent her away on nothing but wrong suspicion. No one had dared or even considered confronting him about it. Not even her parents. Today, the Norwegian health minister talks about the patient health care service. The patient is supposed to get advice from the doctor about what to do. This is great progress. But it also puts more responsibility on you. You need to get in the front seat with your doctor and start sharing decisions on where to go. So, the next time you're in a doctor's office, I want you to ask, "Doctor, is this really necessary?" And in my female patient's case, the answer would be no, but an operation could also be justified. "So doctors, what are the risks attached to this operation?" Well, five to ten percent of patients will have worsening of pain symptoms. One to two percent of patients will have an infection in the wound or even a rehemorrhage that might end up in a re-operation. 0.5 percent of patients also experience permanent hoarseness and a few, but still a few, will experience reduced function in the arms or even legs. "Doctor, are there other options?" Yes, rest and physical therapy over some time might get you perfectly well. "And what happens if I don't do anything?" It's not recommended, but even then, there's a slight chance that you will get well. Four questions. Simple questions. Consider them your new toolbox to help us. Is this really necessary? What are the risks? Are there other options? And what happens if I don't do anything? Ask them when your doctor wants to send you to an MRI, when he prescribes antibiotics or suggests an operation. What we know from research is that one out of five of you, 20 percent, will change your opinion on what to do. And by doing that, you will not only have made your life a whole lot easier, and probably even better, but the whole health care sector will have benefited from your decision. Thank you. (Applause) |
We need to track the world's water like we track the weather | {0: 'TED Fellow Sonaar Luthra is building a weather service for water to help businesses and communities manage 21st-century water risk.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | We need to build a weather service for water. Yet, until we collectively demand accountability, the incentives to fund it will not exist. The first time I spoke at a conference was here at TED, eight years ago. Fresh out of grad school, little did I know that in those few minutes onstage, I was framing the questions I was going to be asked for the next decade. And, like too many 20-somethings, I expected to solve the world's problems — more specifically, the world's water problems — with my technology. I had a lot to learn. It was seductive, believing that our biggest water quality problems persist because they're so hard to identify. And I presumed that we just needed simpler, faster and more affordable sensors. I was wrong. While it's true that managing tomorrow's water risk is going to require better data and more technology, today we're barely using the little water data that we have. Our biggest water problems persist because of what we don't do and the problems we fail to acknowledge. There's actually little question about what today's water data is telling us to do as a species: we need to conserve more, and we need to pollute less. But today's data is not going to help us forecast the emerging risks facing businesses and markets. It's rapidly becoming useless for that. It used to carry more value, but it's never actually told us with any real accuracy how much water we have or what's in it. Let's consider the past decade of water usage statistics from each of the G20 nations. Now, what these numbers do not tell you is that none of these countries directly measures how much water they use. These are all estimates, and they're based on outdated models that don't consider the climate crisis, nor do they consider its impact on water. In 2015, Chennai, India's sixth-largest city, was hit with the worst floods it had seen in a century. Today, its water reservoirs are nearly dry. It took three years to get here, three years of subaverage rainfall. Now, that's faster than most nations tabulate their national water data, including the US. And although there were forecasts that predicted severe shortages of water in Chennai, none of them could actually help us pinpoint exactly when or where this was going to happen. This is a new type of water problem, because the rate at which every aspect of our water cycle changes is accelerating. As a recent UN warning this month revealed, we are now facing one new climate emergency every single week. There are greater uncertainties ahead for water quality. It's rare in most countries for most water bodies to be tested for more than a handful of contaminants in a year. Instead of testing, we use what's called the "dilution model" to manage pollution. Now, imagine I took an Olympic-sized swimming pool, I filled it with fresh water and I added one drop of mercury. That would dilute down to one part per billion mercury, which is well within what the World Health Organization considers safe. But if there was any unforeseen drop in how much water was available — less groundwater, less stream flow, less water in the pool — less dilution would take place, and things would get more toxic. So this is how most countries are managing pollution. They use this model to tell them how much pollution is safe. And it has clear weaknesses, but it worked well enough when we had abundant water and consistent weather patterns. Now that we don't, we're going to need to invest and develop new data-collection strategies. But before we do that, we have to start acting on the data we already have. This is a jet fuel fire. As many of you may be aware, jet fuel emissions play an enormous role in climate change. What you might not be aware of is that the US Department of Defense is the world's largest consumer of jet fuel. And when they consume jet fuel, they mandate the use of the firefighting foam pictured here, which contains a class of chemicals called PFAS. Nobody uses more of this foam than the US Department of Defense, and every time it's used, PFAS finds its way into our water systems. Globally, militaries have been using this foam since the 1970s. We know PFAS causes cancer, birth defects, and it's now so pervasive in the environment that we seem to find it in nearly every living thing we test, including us. But so far, the US Department of Defense has not been held accountable for PFAS contamination, nor has it been held liable. And although there's an effort underway to phase out these firefighting foams, they're not embracing safer, effective alternatives. They're actually using other PFAS molecules, which may, for all we know, carry worse health consequences. So today, government accountability is eroding to the point of elimination, and the risk of liability from water pollution is vanishing. What types of incentives does this create for investing in our water future? Over the past decade, the average early stage global investment in early stage water technology companies has totaled less than 30 million dollars every year. That's 0.12 percent of global venture capital for early stage companies. And public spending is not going up nearly fast enough. And a closer look at it reveals that water is not a priority. In 2014, the US federal government was spending 11 dollars per citizen on water infrastructure, versus 251 dollars on IT infrastructure. So when we don't use the data we have, we don't encourage investment in new technologies, we don't encourage more data collection and we certainly don't encourage investment in securing a water future. So are we doomed? Part of what I'm still learning is how to balance the doom and the urgency with things we can do, because Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion don't want our hope — they want us to act. So what can we do? It's hard to imagine life without a weather service, but before modern weather forecasting, we had no commercial air travel, it was common for ships to be lost at sea, and a single storm could produce a food shortage. Once we had radio and telegraph networks, all that was necessary to solve these problems was tracking the movement of storms. And that laid the foundation for a global data collection effort, one that every household and every business depends upon today. And this was as much the result of coordinated and consistent data collection as it was the result of producing a culture that saw greater value in openly assessing and sharing everything that it could find out and discover about the risks we face. A global weather service for water would help us forecast water shortages. It could help us implement rationing well before reservoirs run dry. It could help us detect contamination before it spreads. It could protect our supply chains, secure our food supplies, and, perhaps most importantly, it would enable the precise estimation of risk necessary to insure against it. We know we can do this because we've already done it with weather. But it's going to require resources. We need to encourage greater investment in water. Investors, venture capitalists: a portion of your funds and portfolios should be dedicated to water. Nothing is more valuable and, after all, businesses are going to need to understand water risks in order to remain competitive in the world we are entering. Aside from venture capital, there are also lots of promising government programs that encourage economic development through tax incentives. A new option in the US that my company is using is called "opportunity zones." They offer favorable tax treatment for investing capital gains in designated distressed and low-income areas. Now, these are areas that are also facing staggering water risk, so this creates crucial incentives to work directly with the communities who need help most. And if you're not looking to make this type of investment but you own land in the US, did you know that you can leverage your land to conserve water quality permanently with a conservation easement? You can assign the perpetual right to a local land trust to conserve your land and set specific water quality goals. And if you meet those goals, you can be rewarded with a substantial tax discount every year. How many areas could our global community protect through these and other programs? They're powerful because they offer the access to real property necessary to lay the foundation for a global weather service for water. But this can only work if we use these programs as they are intended and not as mere vehicles for tax evasion. When the conservation easement was established, nobody could anticipate how ingrained in environmental movements corporate polluters would become. And we've become accustomed to companies talking about the climate crisis while doing nothing about it. This has undermined the legacy and the impact of these programs, but it also makes them ripe for reclamation. Why not use conservation easements as they were intended, to set and reach ambitious conservation goals? Why not create opportunities in opportunity zones? Because fundamentally, water security requires accountability. Accountability is not corporate polluters sponsoring environmental groups and museums. Those are conflicts of interest. (Applause) Accountability is: making the risk of liability too expensive to continue polluting and wasting our water. We can't keep settling for words. It's time to act. And where better to start than with our biggest polluters, particularly the US Department of Defense, which is taxpayer-funded. Who and what are we protecting when US soldiers, their families and the people who live near US military bases abroad are all drinking toxic water? Global security can no longer remain at odds with protecting our planet or our collective health. Our survival depends on it. Similarly, agriculture in most countries depends on taxpayer-funded subsidies that are paid to farmers to secure and stabilize food supplies. These incentives are a crucial leverage point for us, because agriculture is responsible for consuming 70 percent of all the water we use every year. Fertilizer and pesticide runoff are the two biggest sources of water pollution. Let's restructure these subsidies to demand better water efficiency and less pollution. (Applause) Finally: we can't expect progress if we're unwilling to confront the conflicts of interest that suppress science, that undermine innovation and that discourage transparency. It is in the public interest to measure and to share everything we can learn and discover about the risks we face in water. Reality does not exist until it's measured. It doesn't just take technology to measure it. It takes our collective will. Thank you. (Applause) |
A bold plan to empower 1.6 million out-of-school girls in India | {0: "Safeena Husain has worked extensively with rural and urban underserved communities in South America, Africa and Asia. After returning to India, she chose the agenda closest to her heart -- girls' education -- and founded Educate Girls."} | TED2019 | The world today has many problems. And they're all very complicated and interconnected and difficult. But there is something we can do. I believe that girls' education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet to help solve some of the world's most difficult problems. But you don't have to take my word for it. The World Bank says that girls' education is one of the best investments that a country can make. It helps to positively impact nine of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Everything from health, nutrition, employment — all of these are positively impacted when girls are educated. Additionally, climate scientists have recently rated girls' education at number six out of 80 actions to reverse global warming. At number six, it's rated higher than solar panels and electric cars. And that's because when girls are educated, they have smaller families, and the resulting reduction in population reduces carbon emissions significantly. But more than that, you know, it's a problem we have to solve once. Because an educated mother is more than twice as likely to educate her children. Which means that by doing it once, we can close the gender and literacy gap forever. I work in India, which has made incredible progress in bringing elementary education for all. However, we still have four million out-of-school girls, one of the highest in the world. And girls are out of school because of, obviously poverty, social, cultural factors. But there's also this underlying factor of mindset. I have met a girl whose name was Naraaz Nath. Naaraaz means angry. And when I asked her, "Why is your name 'angry'?" she said, "Because everybody was so angry when a girl was born." Another girl called Antim Bala, which means the last girl. Because everybody hoped that would be the last girl to be born. A girl called Aachuki. It means somebody who has arrived. Not wanted, but arrived. And it is this mindset that keeps girls from school or completing their education. It's this belief that a goat is an asset and a girl is a liability. My organization Educate Girls works to change this. And we work in some of the most difficult, rural, remote and tribal villages. And how do we do it? We first and foremost find young, passionate, educated youth from the same villages. Both men and women. And we call them Team Balika, balika just means the girl child, so this is a team that we are creating for the girl child. And so once we recruit our community volunteers, we train them, we mentor them, we hand-hold them. That's when our work starts. And the first piece we do is about identifying every single girl who's not going to school. But the way we do it is a little different and high-tech, at least in my view. Each of our frontline staff have a smartphone. It has its own Educate Girls app. And this app has everything that our team needs. It has digital maps of where they're going to be conducting the survey, it has the survey in it, all the questions, little guides on how best to conduct the survey, so that the data that comes to us is in real time and is of good quality. So armed with this, our teams and our volunteers go door-to-door to every single household to find every single girl who may either we never enrolled or dropped out of school. And because we have this data and technology piece, very quickly we can figure out who the girls are and where they are. Because each of our villages are geotagged, and we can actually build that information out very, very quickly. And so once we know where the girls are, we actually start the process of bringing them back into school. And that actually is just our community mobilization process, it starts with village meetings, neighborhood meetings, and as you see, individual counseling of parents and families, to be able to bring the girls back into school. And this can take anything from a few weeks to a few months. And once we bring the girls into the school system, we also work with the schools to make sure that schools have all the basic infrastructure so that the girls will be able to stay. And this would include a separate toilet for girls, drinking water, things that will help them to be retained. But all of this would be useless if our children weren't learning. So we actually run a learning program. And this is a supplementary learning program, and it's very, very important, because most of our children are first-generation learners. That means there's nobody at home to help them with homework, there's nobody who can support their education. Their parents can't read and write. So it's really, really key that we do the support of the learning in the classrooms. So this is essentially our model, in terms of finding, bringing the girls in, making sure that they're staying and learning. And we know that our model works. And we know this because a most recent randomized control evaluation confirms its efficacy. Our evaluator found that over a three-year period Educate Girls was able to bring back 92 percent of all out-of-school girls back into school. (Applause) And in terms of learning, our children's learning went up significantly as compared to control schools. So much so, that it was like an additional year of schooling for the average student. And that's enormous, when you think about a tribal child who's entering the school system for the first time. So here we have a model that works; we know it's scalable, because we are already functioning at 13,000 villages. We know it's smart, because of the use of data and technology. We know that it's sustainable and systemic, because we work in partnership with the community, it's actually led by the community. And we work in partnership with the government, so there's no creation of a parallel delivery system. And so because we have this innovative partnership with the community, the government, this smart model, we have this big, audacious dream today. And that is to solve a full 40 percent of the problem of out-of-school girls in India in the next five years. (Applause) And you're thinking, that's a little ... You know, how am I even thinking about doing that, because India is not a small place, it's a huge country. It's a country of over a billion people. We have 650,000 villages. How is it that I'm standing here, saying that one small organization is going to solve a full 40 percent of the problem? And that's because we have a key insight. And that is, because of our entire approach, with data and with technology, that five percent of villages in India have 40 percent of the out-of-school girls. And this is a big, big piece of the puzzle. Which means, I don't have to work across the entire country. I have to work in those five percent of the villages, about 35,000 villages, to actually be able to solve a large piece of the problem. And that's really key, because these villages not only have high burden of out-of-school girls, but also a lot of related indicators, right, like malnutrition, stunting, poverty, infant mortality, child marriage. So by working and focusing here, you can actually create a large multiplier effect across all of these indicators. And it would mean that we would be able to bring back 1.6 million girls back into school. (Applause) I have to say, I have been doing this for over a decade, and I have never met a girl who said to me, you know, "I want to stay at home," "I want to graze the cattle," "I want to look after the siblings," "I want to be a child bride." Every single girl I meet wants to go to school. And that's what we really want to do. We want to be able to fulfill those 1.6 million dreams. And it doesn't take much. To find and enroll a girl with our model is about 20 dollars. To make sure that she is learning and providing a learning program, it's another 40 dollars. But today is the time to do it. Because she is truly the biggest asset we have. I am Safeena Husain, and I educate girls. Thank you. (Applause) |
Can seaweed help curb global warming? | {0: 'Explorer and professor Tim Flannery seeks to grasp the big picture of planetary evolution and how humans can affect it -- for better or for worse.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | Oh, there's a lot of it. This is seaweed. It's pretty humble stuff. But it does have some remarkable qualities. For one, it grows really fast. So the carbon that is part of that seaweed, just a few weeks ago, was floating in the atmosphere as atmospheric CO2, driving all the adverse consequences of climate change. For the moment, it's locked safely away in the seaweed, but when that seaweed rots — and by the smell of it, it's not far away — when it rots, that CO2 will be released back to the atmosphere. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could find a way of keeping that CO2 locked up long-term, and thereby significantly contributing to solving the climate problem? What I'm talking about here is drawdown. It's now become the other half of the climate challenge. And that's because we have delayed so long, in terms of addressing climate change, that we now have to do two very big and very difficult things at once. We have to cut our emissions and clean our energy supply at the same time that we draw significant volumes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. If we don't do that, about 25 percent of the CO2 we put in the air will remain there, by human standards, forever. So we have to act. This is really a new phase in addressing the climate crisis and it demands new thinking. So, ideas like carbon offsets really don't make sense in the modern era. You know, when you offset something, you say, "I'll permit myself to put some greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, but then I'll offset it by drawing it down." When you've got to both cut your emissions and draw down CO2, that thinking doesn't make sense anymore. And when we're talking about drawdown, we're talking about putting large volumes of greenhouses gases, particularly CO2, out of circulation. And to do that, we need a carbon price. We need a significant price that we'll pay for that service that we'll all benefit from. We've made almost no progress so far with the second half of the climate challenge. It's not on most people's radar. And, you know, I must say, at times, I hear people saying, "I've lost hope that we can do anything about the climate crisis." And look, I've had my sleepless nights too, I can tell you. But I'm here today as an ambassador for this humble weed, seaweed. I think it has the potential to be a big part of addressing the challenge of climate change and a big part of our future. Now, what the scientists are telling us we need to do over the next 80-odd years to the end of this century, is to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by three percent every year, and draw three gigatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year. Those numbers are so large that they baffle us. But that's what the scientists tell us we need to do. I really hate showing this graph, but I'm sorry, I have to do it. It is very eloquent in terms of telling the story of my personal failure in terms of all the advocacy I've done in climate change work and in fact, our collective failure to address climate change. You can see our trajectory there in terms of warming and greenhouse gas concentrations. You can see all of the great scientific announcements that we've made, saying how much danger we face with climate change. You can see the political meetings. None of it has changed the trajectory. And this is why we need new thinking, we need a new approach. So how might we go about drawing down greenhouse gases at a large scale? There's really only two ways of doing it, and I've done a very deep dive into drawdown. And I'll preempt my — And I would say this stuff comes up smelling like roses at the end of the day. It does, it's one of the best options, but there are many, many possibilities. There are chemical pathways and biological pathways. So two ways, really, of getting the job done. The biological pathways are fantastic because the energy source that's needed to drive them, the sun, is effectively free. We use the sun to drive photosynthesis in plants, break apart that CO2 and capture the carbon. There are also chemical pathways. They sound ominous, but actually, they're not bad at all. The difficulty they face is that we have to actually pay for the energy that's required to do the job or pay to facilitate that energy. Direct air capture is a great example of a chemical pathway, and people are using that right now to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and manufacture biofuels or manufacture plastics. Great progress is being made, but it will be many decades before those chemical pathways are drawing down a gigaton of CO2 a year. The biological pathways offer us a lot more hope, I think, in the short term. You've probably heard about reforestation, planting trees, as a solution to the climate problem. You know, it's a fair question: Can we plant our way out of this problem by using trees? I'm skeptical about that for a number of reasons. One is just the scale of the problem. All trees start as seeds, little tiny things, and it's many decades before they've reached their full carbon-capture potential. And secondly, if you look at the land surface, you see that it's so heavily utilized. We get our food from it, we get our forestry products from it, biodiversity protection and water and everything else. To expect that we'll find enough space to deal with this problem, I think is going to be quite problematic. But if we look offshore, wee see a solution where there's already an existing industry, and where there's a clearer way forward. The oceans cover about 70 percent of our planet. They play a really big role in regulating our climate, and if we can enhance the growth of seaweed in them, we can use them, I think, to develop a climate-altering crop. There are so many different kinds of seaweed, there's unbelievable genetic diversity in seaweed, and they're very ancient; they were some of the first multicellular organisms ever to evolve. People are using special kinds of seaweed now for particular purposes, like developing very high-quality pharmaceutical products. But you can also use seaweed to take a seaweed bath, it's supposed to be good for your skin; I can't testify to that, but you can do it. The scalability is the big thing about seaweed farming. You know, if we could cover nine percent of the world's ocean in seaweed farms, we could draw down the equivalent of all of the greenhouse gases we put up in any one year, more than 50 gigatons. Now, I thought that was fantastic when I first read it, but I thought I'd better calculate how big nine percent of the world's oceans is. It turns out, it's about four and a half Australias, the place I live in. And how close are we to that at the moment? How many ocean-going seaweed farms do we actually have out there? Zero. But we do have some prototypes, and therein lies some hope. This little drawing here of a seaweed farm that's currently under construction tells you some very interesting things about seaweed. You can see the seaweed growing on that rack, 25 meters down in the ocean there. It's really different from anything you see on land. And the reason being that, you know, seaweed is not like trees, it doesn't have nonproductive parts like roots and trunks and branches and bark. The whole of the plant is pretty much photosynthetic, so it grows fast. Seaweed can grow a meter a day. And how do we sequester the carbon? Again, it's very different from on land. All you need to do is cut that seaweed off — drifts into the ocean abyss, Once it's down a kilometer, the carbon in that seaweed is effectively out of the atmospheric system for centuries or millennia. Whereas if you plant a forest, you've got to worry about forest fires, bugs, etc., releasing that carbon. The key to this farm, though, is that little pipe going down into the depths. You know, the mid-ocean is basically a vast biological desert. There's no nutrients there that were used up long ago. But just 500 meters down, there is cool, very nutrient-rich water. And with just a little bit of clean, renewable energy, you can pump that water up and use the nutrients in it to irrigate your seaweed crop. So I think this really has so many benefits. It's changing a biological desert, the mid-ocean, into a productive, maybe even planet-saving solution. So what could go wrong? Well, anything we're talking about at this scale involves a planetary-scale intervention. And we have to be very careful. I think that piles of stinking seaweed are probably going to be the least of our problems. There's other unforeseen things that will happen. One of the things that really worries me, when I talk about this, is the fate of biodiversity in the deep ocean. If we are putting gigatons of seaweed into the deep ocean, we're affecting life down there. The good news is that we know that a lot of seaweed already reaches the deep ocean, after storms or through submarine canyons. So we're not talking about a novel process here; we are talking about enhancing a natural process. And we'll learn as we go. I mean, it may be that these ocean-going seaweed farms will need to be mobile, to distribute the seaweed across vast areas of the ocean, rather than creating a big stinking pile in one place. It may be that we'll need to char the seaweed — so create a sort of an inert, mineral biochar before we dispatch it into the deep. We won't know until we start the process, and we will learn effectively by doing. I just want to take you to contemporary seaweed farming. It's a big business — it's a six-billion-dollar-a-year business. These seaweed farms off South Korea — you can see them from space, they are huge. And they're increasingly not just seaweed farms. What people are doing in places like this is something called ocean permaculture. And in ocean permaculture, you grow fish, shellfish and seaweed all together. And the reason it works so well is that the seaweed makes the seawater less acid. It provides an ideal environment for growing marine protein. If we covered nine percent of the world's oceans in ocean permaculture, we would be producing enough protein in the form of fish and shellfish to give every person in a population of 10 billion 200 kilograms of high-quality protein per year. So, we've got a multipotent solution here. We can address climate change, we can feed the world, we can deacidify the oceans. The economics of all of this is going to be challenging. We'll be investing many, many billions of dollars into these solutions, and they will take decades to get to the gigaton scale. The reason that I'm convinced that this is going to happen is that unless we get the gas out of the air, it is going to keep driving adverse consequences. It will flood our cities, it will deprive us of food, it will cause all sorts of civil unrest. So anyone who's got a solution to dealing with this problem has a valuable asset. And already, as I've explained, ocean permaculture is well on the road to being economically sustainable. You know, in the next 30 years, we have to go from being a carbon-emitting economy to a carbon-absorbing economy. And that doesn't seem like very long. But half of the greenhouse gases that we've put into the atmosphere, we've put there in the last 30 years. My argument is, if we can put the gas in in 30 years, we can pull it out in 30 years. And if you doubt how much can be done over 30 years, just cast your mind back a century, to 1919, compare it with 1950. Now, in 1919, here in Edinburgh, you might have seen a canvas and wood biplane. Thirty years later, you'd be seeing jet aircraft. Transport in the street were horses in 1919. By 1950, they're motor vehicles. 1919, we had gun powder; 1950, we had nuclear power. We can do a lot in a short period of time. But it all depends upon us believing that we can find a solution. Now what I would love to do is bring together all of the people with knowledge in this space. The engineers who know how to build structures offshore, the seaweed farmers, the financiers, the government regulators, the people who understand how things are done. And chart a way forward, say: How do we go from the existing six-billion-dollar-a-year, inshore seaweed industry, to this new form of industry, which has got so much potential, but will require large amounts of investment? I'm not a betting man, you know. But if I were, I'll tell you, my money would be on that stuff, it would be on seaweed. It's my hero. Thank you. (Applause) |
The myth of the Sampo— an infinite source of fortune and greed | null | TED-Ed | After a savage seafaring skirmish and eight long days of being battered by waves, Väinämöinen— a powerful bard and sage as old as the world itself— washed up on the shores of distant Pohjola. Unlike his home Kalevala, Pohjola was a dark and frozen land, ruled by Louhi, “the gap-tooth hag of the North." The cunning witch nursed Väinämöinen back to health but demanded a reward for returning him home. Not content with mere gold or silver, Louhi wanted what did not yet exist— the Sampo. To be forged from “the tips of white-swan feathers," “the milk of greatest virtue," “a single grain of barley," and “the finest wool of lambskins," this artifact was said to be an endless font of wealth. But Väinämöinen knew that only Seppo Ilmarinen, the Eternal Hammerer who forged the sky-dome itself, could craft such an object. So he convinced Louhi to send him home and fetch the smith. Though the journey was far from easy, the bard finally made it back to Kalevala. But Ilmarinen refused to go to the gloomy North— a land of witches and man-eaters. But keeping true to his word, Väinämöinen tricked Ilmarinen into climbing a giant tree, before summoning a mighty storm to carry the smith all the way to Pohjola. Ilmarinen was well received in the North. Louhi lavished her guest with extravagant hospitality and promised him the hand of her beautiful daughter— if he could craft what she wished. When she finally asked if Ilmarinen was capable of forging the Sampo, the powerful smith declared he could indeed accomplish the task. But try as he might to bend the forge to his will, its fires only produced other artifacts— beautiful in appearance but ill-mannered in nature. An elegant crossbow that thirsted for blood and a gleaming plow that ruined cultivated fields among others. Finally, Ilmarinen summoned the winds themselves to work the bellows, and in three days time he pulled the Sampo, with its lid of many colors from the forge’s flames. On its sides the smith carefully crafted a grain mill, a salt mill, and a money mill. Louhi was so delighted with the object’s limitless productive power that she ran off to lock her treasure inside a mountain. But when Ilmarinen tried to claim his prize, the promised maiden refused to marry him, and the smith had to return home alone. Years passed, and while Pohjola prospered, Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen were without wives or great wealth. Bitter about this injustice, the bard proposed a quest to retrieve the Sampo, and the two sailed north with the help of Lemminkäinen— a beautiful young man with a history of starting trouble. Upon arrival, Väinämöinen requested half the Sampo’s profits as compensation— or they’d take the artifact by force. Outraged at this request, Louhi summoned her forces to fight the heroes. But as her army readied for war, the bard played his magic harp, Kantele, entrancing all who heard it and sending Pohjola into a deep slumber. Unimpeded, the three men took the Sampo and quietly made their escape. Lemminkäinen was ecstatic at their success, and demanded that Väinämöinen sing of their triumph. The bard refused, knowing the dangers of celebrating too early. But after three days of traveling, Lemminkäinen’s excitement overwhelmed him, and he recklessly broke out in song. His awful singing voice woke a nearby crane, whose screeching cries roused the Pohjolan horde. The army made chase. As their warship closed in, Väinämöinen raised a rock to breach their hull. Undeterred, Louhi transformed into a giant eagle, carrying her army on her back as they attacked the heroes’ vessel. She managed to grab the Sampo in her claw, but just as quickly, it dropped into the sea, shattering into pieces and sinking deep beyond her talon’s reach. Buried on the ocean floor, the remnants of this powerful device remain in the realm of Ahti, god of water— where they grind salt for the seas to this very day. |
How couples can sustain a strong sexual connection for a lifetime | {0: 'Emily Nagoski teaches women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies.'} | TEDxFergusonLibrary | I'm sitting in a bar with a couple of friends — literally, a couple, married couple. They're the parents of two young children, seven academic degrees between them, big nerds, really nice people but very sleep-deprived. And they ask me the question I get asked more than any other question. They go, "So, Emily, how do couples, you know, sustain a strong sexual connection over multiple decades?" I'm a sex educator, which is why my friends ask me questions like this, and I am also a big nerd like my friends. I love science, which is why I can give them something like an answer. Research actually has pretty solid evidence that couples who sustain strong sexual connections over multiple decades have two things in common. Before I can tell my friends what those two things are, I have to tell them a few things that they are not. These are not couples who have sex very often. Almost none of us have sex very often. We are busy. They are also not couples who necessarily have wild, adventurous sex. One recent study actually found that the couples who are most strongly predicted to have strong sexual and relationship satisfaction, the best predictor of that is not what kind of sex they have or how often or where they have it but whether they cuddle after sex. And they are not necessarily couples who constantly can't wait to keep their hands off each other. Some of them are. They experience what the researchers call "spontaneous desire," that just sort of seems to appear out of the blue. Erika Moen, the cartoonist who illustrated my book, draws spontaneous desire as a lightning bolt to the genitals — kaboom! — you just want it out of the blue. That is absolutely one normal, healthy way to experience sexual desire. But there's another healthy way to experience sexual desire. It's called "responsive desire." Where spontaneous desire seems to emerge in anticipation of pleasure, responsive desire emerges in response to pleasure. There's a sex therapist in New Jersey named Christine Hyde, who taught me this great metaphor she uses with her clients. She says, imagine that your best friend invites you to a party. You say yes because it's your best friend and a party. But then, as the date approaches, you start thinking, "Aw, there's going to be all this traffic. We have to find child care. Am I really going to want to put my party clothes on and get there at the end of the week?" But you put on your party clothes and you show up to the party, and what happens? You have a good time at the party. If you are having fun at the party, you are doing it right. When it comes to a sexual connection, it's the same thing. You put on your party clothes, you set up the child care, you put your body in the bed, you let your skin touch your partner's skin and allow your body to wake up and remember, "Oh, right! I like this. I like this person!" That's responsive desire, and it is key to understanding the couples who sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term, because — and this is the part where I tell my friends the two characteristics of the couples who do sustain a strong sexual connection — one, they have a strong friendship at the foundation of their relationship. Specifically, they have strong trust. Relationship researcher and therapist, developer of emotionally focused therapy, Sue Johnson, boils trust down to this question: Are you there for me? Especially, are you emotionally present and available for me? Friends are there for each other. One. The second characteristic is that they prioritize sex. They decide that it matters for their relationship. They choose to set aside all the other things that they could be doing — the children they could be raising and the jobs they could be going to, the other family members to pay attention to, the other friends they might want to hang out with. God forbid they just want to watch some television or go to sleep. Stop doing all that stuff and create a protected space where all you're going to do is put your body in the bed and let your skin touch your partner's skin. So that's it: best friends, prioritize sex. So I said this to my friends in the bar. I was like, best friends, prioritize sex, I told them about the party, I said you put your skin next to your partner's skin. And one of the partners I was talking to goes, "Aaagh." (Laughter) And I was like, "OK, so, there's your problem." (Laughter) The difficulty was not that they did not want to go to the party, necessarily. If the difficulty is just a lack of spontaneous desire for party, you know what to do: you put on your party clothes and show up for the party. If you're having fun at the party, you're doing it right. Their difficulty was that this was a party where she didn't love what there was available to eat, the music was not her favorite music, and she wasn't totally sure she felt great about her relationships with people who were at the party. And this happens all the time: nice people who love each other come to dread sex. These couples, if they seek sex therapy, the therapist might have them stand up and put as much distance between their bodies as they need in order to feel comfortable, and the less interested partner will make 20 feet of space. And the really difficult part is that space is not empty. It is crowded with weeks or months or more of the, "You're not listening to me," and "I don't know what's wrong with me but your criticism isn't helping," and, "If you loved me, you would," and, "You're not there for me." Years, maybe, of all these difficult feelings. In the book, I use this really silly metaphor of difficult feelings as sleepy hedgehogs that you are fostering until you can find a way to set them free by turning toward them with kindness and compassion. And the couples who struggle to maintain a strong sexual connection, the distance between them is crowded with these sleepy hedgehogs. And it happens in any relationship that lasts long enough. You, too, are fostering a prickle of sleepy hedgehogs between you and your certain special someone. The difference between couples who sustain a strong sexual connection and the ones who don't is not that they don't experience these difficult hurt feelings, it's that they turn towards those difficult feelings with kindness and compassion so that they can set them free and find their way back to each other. So my friends in the bar are faced with the question under the question, not, "How do we sustain a strong connection?" but, "How do we find our way back to it?" And, yes, there is science to answer this question, but in 25 years as a sex educator, one thing I have learned is sometimes, Emily, less science, more hedgehogs. So I told them about me. I spent many months writing a book about the science of women's sexual well-being. I was thinking about sex all day, every day, and I was so stressed by the project that I had zero — zero! — interest in actually having any sex. And then I spent months traveling all over, talking with anyone who would listen about the science of women's sexual well-being. And by the time I got home, you know, I'd show up for the party, put my body in the bed, let my skin touch my partner's skin, and I was so exhausted and overwhelmed I would just cry and fall asleep. And the months of isolation fostered fear and loneliness and frustration. So many hedgehogs. My best friend, this person I love and admire, felt a million miles away. But ... he was still there for me. No matter how many difficult feelings there were, he turned toward them with kindness and compassion. He never turned away. And what was the second characteristic of couples who sustain a strong sexual connection? They prioritize sex. They decide that it matters for their relationship, that they do what it takes to find their way back to the connection. I told my friends what sex therapist and researcher Peggy Kleinplatz says. She asks: What kind of sex is worth wanting? My partner and I looked at the quality of our connection and what it brought to our lives, and we looked at the family of sleepy hedgehogs I had introduced into our home. And we decided it was worth it. We decided — we chose — to do what it took to find our way, turning towards each of those sleepy hedgehogs, those difficult hurt feelings, with kindness and compassion and setting them free so that we could find our way back to the connection that mattered for our relationship. This is not the story we are usually told about how sexual desire works in long-term relationships. But I can think of nothing more romantic, nothing sexier, than being chosen as a priority because that connection matters enough, even after I introduced all of these difficult feelings into our relationship. How do you sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term? You look into the eyes of your best friend, and you keep choosing to find your way back. Thank you. (Applause) |
Why should you read "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy? | null | TED-Ed | “A few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes/ And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned clock… must be resurrected from the ruins and examined.” This is the premise of Arundhati Roy’s 1997 novel "The God of Small Things." Set in a town in Kerala, India called Ayemenem, the story revolves around fraternal twins Rahel and Estha, who are separated for 23 years after the fateful few dozen hours in which their cousin drowns, their mother’s illicit affair is revealed, and her lover is murdered. While the book is set at the point of Rahel and Estha’s reunion, the narrative takes place mostly in the past, reconstructing the details around the tragic events that led to their separation. Roy’s rich language and masterful storytelling earned her the prestigious Booker prize for "The God of Small Things." In the novel, she interrogates the culture of her native India, including its social mores and colonial history. One of her focuses is the caste system, a way of classifying people by hereditary social class that is thousands of years old. By the mid-20th century, the original four castes associated with specific occupations had been divided into some 3000 sub-castes. Though the caste system was Constitutionally abolished in 1950, it continued to shape social life in India, routinely marginalizing people of lower castes. In the novel, Rahel and Estha have a close relationship with Velutha, a worker in their family’s pickle factory and member of the so-called “untouchable” caste. When Velutha and the twins’ mother, Ammu, embark on an affair, they violate what Roy describes as the “love laws” forbidding intimacy between different castes. Roy warns that the tragic consequences of their relationship “would lurk forever in ordinary things,” like “coat hangers,” “the tar on roads,” and “the absence of words.” Roy’s writing makes constant use of these ordinary things, bringing lush detail to even the most tragic moments. The book opens at the funeral of the twins’ half-British cousin Sophie after her drowning. As the family mourns, lilies curl and crisp in the hot church. A baby bat crawls up a funeral sari. Tears drip from a chin like raindrops from a roof. The novel forays into the past to explore the characters’ struggles to operate in a world where they don’t quite fit, alongside their nation’s political turmoil. Ammu struggles not to lash out at her beloved children when she feels particularly trapped in her parents’ small-town home, where neighbors judge and shun her for being divorced. Velutha, meanwhile, balances his affair with Ammu and friendship with the twins not only with his employment to their family, but also with his membership to a budding communist countermovement to Indira Ghandi’s “Green Revolution.” In the 1960s, the misleadingly named “Green Revolution” introduced chemical fertilizers and pesticides and the damming of rivers to India. While these policies produced high-yield crops that staved off famine, they also forced people from lower castes off their land and caused widespread environmental damage. When the twins return to Ayemenem as adults, the consequences of the Green Revolution are all around them. The river that was bursting with life in their childhood greets them “with a ghastly skull’s smile, with holes where teeth had been, and a limp hand raised from a hospital bed.” As Roy probes the depths of human experience, she never loses sight of the way her characters are shaped by the time and the place where they live. In the world of "The God of Small Things," “Various kinds of despair competed for primacy… personal despair could never be desperate enough... personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible public turmoil of a nation.” |
How we're building the world's largest family tree | {0: 'Yaniv Erlich is fascinated by the connection between DNA and data.'} | TEDMED 2018 | People use the internet for various reasons. It turns out that one of the most popular categories of website is something that people typically consume in private. It involves curiosity, non-insignificant levels of self-indulgence and is centered around recording the reproductive activities of other people. (Laughter) Of course, I'm talking about genealogy — (Laughter) the study of family history. When it comes to detailing family history, in every family, we have this person that is obsessed with genealogy. Let's call him Uncle Bernie. Uncle Bernie is exactly the last person you want to sit next to in Thanksgiving dinner, because he will bore you to death with peculiar details about some ancient relatives. But as you know, there is a scientific side for everything, and we found that Uncle Bernie's stories have immense potential for biomedical research. We let Uncle Bernie and his fellow genealogists document their family trees through a genealogy website called geni.com. When users upload their trees to the website, it scans their relatives, and if it finds matches to existing trees, it merges the existing and the new tree together. The result is that large family trees are created, beyond the individual level of each genealogist. Now, by repeating this process with millions of people all over the world, we can crowdsource the construction of a family tree of all humankind. Using this website, we were able to connect 125 million people into a single family tree. I cannot draw the tree on the screens over here because they have less pixels than the number of people in this tree. But here is an example of a subset of 6,000 individuals. Each green node is a person. The red nodes represent marriages, and the connections represent parenthood. In the middle of this tree, you see the ancestors. And as we go to the periphery, you see the descendants. This tree has seven generations, approximately. Now, this is what happens when we increase the number of individuals to 70,000 people — still a tiny subset of all the data that we have. Despite that, you can already see the formation of gigantic family trees with many very distant relatives. Thanks to the hard work of our genealogists, we can go back in time hundreds of years ago. For example, here is Alexander Hamilton, who was born in 1755. Alexander was the first US Secretary of the Treasury, but mostly known today due to a popular Broadway musical. We found that Alexander has deeper connections in the showbiz industry. In fact, he's a blood relative of ... Kevin Bacon! (Laughter) Both of them are descendants of a lady from Scotland who lived in the 13th century. So you can say that Alexander Hamilton is 35 degrees of Kevin Bacon genealogy. (Laughter) And our tree has millions of stories like that. We invested significant efforts to validate the quality of our data. Using DNA, we found that .3 percent of the mother-child connections in our data are wrong, which could match the adoption rate in the US pre-Second World War. For the father's side, the news is not as good: 1.9 percent of the father-child connections in our data are wrong. And I see some people smirk over here. It is what you think — there are many milkmen out there. (Laughter) However, this 1.9 percent error rate in patrilineal connections is not unique to our data. Previous studies found a similar error rate using clinical-grade pedigrees. So the quality of our data is good, and that should not be a surprise. Our genealogists have a profound, vested interest in correctly documenting their family history. We can leverage this data to learn quantitative information about humanity, for example, questions about demography. Here is a look at all our profiles on the map of the world. Each pixel is a person that lived at some point. And since we have so much data, you can see the contours of many countries, especially in the Western world. In this clip, we stratified the map that I've showed you based on the year of births of individuals from 1400 to 1900, and we compared it to known migration events. The clip is going to show you that the deepest lineages in our data go all the way back to the UK, where they had better record keeping, and then they spread along the routes of Western colonialism. Let's watch this. (Music) [Year of birth: ] [1492 - Columbus sails the ocean blue] [1620 - Mayflower lands in Massachusetts] [1652 - Dutch settle in South Africa] [1788 - Great Britain penal transportation to Australia starts] [1836 - First migrants use Oregon Trail] [all activity] I love this movie. Now, since these migration events are giving the context of families, we can ask questions such as: What is the typical distance between the birth locations of husbands and wives? This distance plays a pivotal role in demography, because the patterns in which people migrate to form families determine how genes spread in geographical areas. We analyzed this distance using our data, and we found that in the old days, people had it easy. They just married someone in the village nearby. But the Industrial Revolution really complicated our love life. And today, with affordable flights and online social media, people typically migrate more than 100 kilometers from their place of birth to find their soul mate. So now you might ask: OK, but who does the hard work of migrating from places to places to form families? Are these the males or the females? We used our data to address this question, and at least in the last 300 years, we found that the ladies do the hard work of migrating from places to places to form families. Now, these results are statistically significant, so you can take it as scientific fact that males are lazy. (Laughter) We can move from questions about demography and ask questions about human health. For example, we can ask to what extent genetic variations account for differences in life span between individuals. Previous studies analyzed the correlation of longevity between twins to address this question. They estimated that the genetic variations account for about a quarter of the differences in life span between individuals. But twins can be correlated due to so many reasons, including various environmental effects or a shared household. Large family trees give us the opportunity to analyze both close relatives, such as twins, all the way to distant relatives, even fourth cousins. This way we can build robust models that can tease apart the contribution of genetic variations from environmental factors. We conducted this analysis using our data, and we found that genetic variations explain only 15 percent of the differences in life span between individuals. That is five years, on average. So genes matter less than what we thought before to life span. And I find it great news, because it means that our actions can matter more. Smoking, for example, determines 10 years of our life expectancy — twice as much as what genetics determines. We can even have more surprising findings as we move from family trees and we let our genealogists document and crowdsource DNA information. And the results can be amazing. It might be hard to imagine, but Uncle Bernie and his friends can create DNA forensic capabilities that even exceed what the FBI currently has. When you place the DNA on a large family tree, you effectively create a beacon that illuminates the hundreds of distant relatives that are all connected to the person that originated the DNA. By placing multiple beacons on a large family tree, you can now triangulate the DNA of an unknown person, the same way that the GPS system uses multiple satellites to find a location. The prime example of the power of this technique is capturing the Golden State Killer, one of the most notorious criminals in the history of the US. The FBI had been searching for this person for over 40 years. They had his DNA, but he never showed up in any police database. About a year ago, the FBI consulted a genetic genealogist, and she suggested that they submit his DNA to a genealogy service that can locate distant relatives. They did that, and they found a third cousin of the Golden State Killer. They built a large family tree, scanned the different branches of that tree, until they found a profile that exactly matched what they knew about the Golden State Killer. They obtained DNA from this person and found a perfect match to the DNA they had in hand. They arrested him and brought him to justice after all these years. Since then, genetic genealogists have started working with local US law enforcement agencies to use this technique in order to capture criminals. And only in the past six months, they were able to solve over 20 cold cases with this technique. Luckily, we have people like Uncle Bernie and his fellow genealogists These are not amateurs with a self-serving hobby. These are citizen scientists with a deep passion to tell us who we are. And they know that the past can hold a key to the future. Thank you very much. (Applause) |
Einstein's twin paradox explained | null | TED-Ed | On their 20th birthday, identical twin astronauts volunteer for an experiment. Terra will remain on Earth, while Stella will board a spaceship. Stella’s ship will travel at 86.6% the speed of light to visit a star that is 10 light-years away, then return to Earth at the same speed. As they prepare to part ways, the twins wonder what will happen when they’re reunited. Since a light year is exactly the distance light can travel in a year, Stella’s journey should take 23 years. But from having studied special relativity, the twins know it’s not that simple. First of all, the faster an object moves through space, the slower it moves through time compared to an unmoving observer. This relationship can be quantified with something called the Lorentz factor, which is defined by this equation. And secondly, the length of a moving object as measured by an observer at rest will contract by the same factor. At 86.6% of the speed of light the Lorentz factor is 2, meaning time will pass twice as slowly aboard the spaceship. Of course, Stella won’t notice time slowing down. That’s because all time-based processes in the ship will slow down as well– clocks and electrical devices; Stella’s biological activities including her rate of aging and her perception of time itself. The only people who could notice time on the moving spaceship passing slower for Stella would be observers in an inertial, or non-accelerating, reference frame– like Terra back on Earth. Thus, Terra concludes that when they meet back on Earth, she’ll be older than Stella. But that’s just one way of looking at things. Because all movement is relative, Stella argues it would be just as valid to say her spaceship will stand still while the rest of the universe, including Terra, moves around her. And in that case, time will pass twice as slowly for Terra, making Stella the older twin in the end. They can’t each be older than the other, so which one of them is right? This apparent contradiction is known as the “Twin Paradox.” But it’s not really a paradox– just an example of how special relativity can be easily misunderstood. To test their theories in real-time, each of the twins agrees to send a burst of light to the other every time a year has passed for them. Unlike other objects, the speed of light is always constant regardless of an observer’s reference frame. A light burst sent from Earth will be measured at the same speed as a light burst sent from the spaceship, regardless of whether it’s on its outbound or return trip. So when one twin observes a burst of light, they’re measuring how long it took the other twin to experience a year passing, plus how long it took for light to travel between them. We can track what’s happening on a graph. The X axis marks distance from Earth, and the Y axis tracks the passage of time. From Terra’s perspective, her path will simply be a vertical line, with distance equal to zero and each tick on the line equivalent to a year as she perceives it. Stella’s path will stretch from the same origin to a point 11.5 years in time and 10 light-years in distance from Terra… before converging again at zero distance and 23 years’ time. At her first one-year mark, Terra will send a pulse of light from Earth towards Stella’s spaceship. Since light takes a year to travel one light-year, its path will be a 45-degree diagonal line. And because Stella is traveling away from it, by the time the light catches up to her, over 7 total years will have passed for Terra, and over 4 for Stella. By the time Stella observes Terra’s second burst, she will already be on her return journey. But now, since she’s moving towards the source of the light, it will take less time to reach her, and she’ll observe the bursts more frequently. This means that Stella observes Terra aging slowly for the first half of her journey, but aging rapidly during the return half. Meanwhile for Stella, it seems as though Terra, the destination star, and the whole universe are moving around her. And because of length contraction, Stella observes the distance between them shrinking by a factor of 2. This means each leg of the trip will only take about six years from Stella’s perspective. When she sends the first signal to Earth, two years will have passed for Terra. Stella will send four more light bursts during her outbound journey, each one from farther away. By the time Terra observes the first pulse from Stella's inbound journey, over 21 years will have passed for her. For the rest of Stella's return home, Terra receives multiple light bursts each year. Thus, Terra observes Stella aging slowly for about 90% of their 23 years apart, and aging rapidly during the last 10%. This asymmetry accounts for why the paradox isn’t really a paradox. Although each twin witnesses time both speeding up and slowing down for the other, Stella sees an even split, while Terra sees Stella aging slowly for most of the time they’re apart. This is consistent with each twin’s measurement of the space voyage, which takes 23 Earth years, but only 11.5 as experienced aboard the ship. When the twins are reunited, Terra will be 43 years old, while Stella will be 31. Where Stella went wrong was her assumption that she and Terra had equal claim to being inertial observers. To be an inertial observer, one has to maintain a constant speed and direction relative to the rest of the universe. Terra was at rest the entire time, so her velocity was a constant zero. But when Stella changed her direction for the return journey, she entered a different reference frame from the one she’d started in. Terra and Stella now both have a better understanding of how spacetime works. And as twins who are eleven years apart in age, they’re a perfect example of special relativity. |
A wall won't solve America's border problems | {0: 'Congressman Will Hurd represents the 23rd District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving constituents across 29 counties and two time zones from San Antonio to El Paso.', 1: 'Anne Milgram is committed to using data and analytics to fight crime.'} | TED Salon Border Stories | Anne Milgram: Congressman, I was about to introduce you and say a little more — Will Hurd: Hey, Anne. How are you? AM: Hi, how are you doing? Thank you so much for joining us tonight. We're so lucky to have you here with us. I've already explained that you're actually in Washington because you're working. And I was about to tell folks that you represent the 23rd district of Texas. But maybe you could tell us a little bit about your district and describe it for us. WH: Sure, my district in Southwest Texas is 29 counties, two time zones, 820 miles of border from Eagle Pass, Texas all the way to El Paso. It takes 10 and a half hours to drive across my district at 80 miles an hour, which is the speed limit in most of the district. And I found out a couple of weekends ago, it's not the speed limit in all the district. (Laughter) It's a 71-percent Latino district, and it's the district that I've been representing for now my third term in Congress. And when you think about the issue of the border, I have more border than any other member of Congress. I spent nine and a half years as an undercover officer in the CIA, chasing bad people all across the country. So when it comes to securing our border, it's something I know a little bit about. AM: One of the things I learned recently which I hadn't known before is that your district is actually the size, I think, of the state of Georgia? WH: That's right. It's larger than 26 states, roughly the size of the state of Georgia. So it's pretty big. AM: So as an expert in national security and as a member of Congress, you've been called upon to think about issues related to immigration, and in recent years, particularly about the border wall. What is your reaction to President Trump's statement that we need a big, beautiful wall that would stretch across our border, and at 18 to 30 feet high? WH: I've been saying this since I first ran for Congress back in 2009, this is not a new topic, that building a 30-foot-high concrete structure from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security. There are parts of the border where Border Patrol's response time to a threat is measured in hours to days. If your response time is measured in hours to days, then a wall is not a physical barrier. We should be having technology along the border, we should have operation control of our border, which means we know everything that's going back and forth across it. We can do a lot of that with technology. We also need more folks within our border patrol. But in addition to doing all this, one of the things we should be able to do is streamline legal immigration. If you're going to be a productive member of our society, let's get you here as quickly as possible, but let's do it legally. And if we're able to streamline that, then you're going to see some of the pressures relieved along our border and allow men and women in Border Patrol to focus on human trafficking and drug-trafficking organizations as well. AM: Congressman, there's also been a conversation nationally about using emergency funds to build the border wall and taking those funds from the United States military. What has your position been on that issue? WH: I'm one of the few Republicans up here that has opposed that effort. We are just now rebuilding our military, and taking funds away from making sure that our brothers and sisters, our wives and our husbands have the training and equipment they need in order to take care of us in far-flung places — taking money away from them is not an efficient use of our resources, especially if it's going to build a ... you know, I always say it's a fourth-century solution to a 21st-century problem. And the reality is, what we should be focusing on is some of the other root causes of this problem, and many of your speakers today have talked about that. Some of those key root problems are violence, lack of economic opportunity and extreme poverty, specifically, in the Northern Triangle: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. We should be working — AM: I was going to ask what you would recommend United States government does to address the underlying, what we call push factors, or root causes in those three countries in Central America? WH: One of the things I learned as an undercover officer in the CIA is be nice with nice guys and tough with tough guys. And one of the principles of being nice with nice guys is to strengthen our alliances. We have a number of programs currently in these three countries that USAID and the State Department is doing to address this violence issue. And we know, in El Salvador, one of the problems was that the police were corrupt. And so we've worked with the Salvadorians to purge the police, rehire new folks, use community policing tactics. These are tactics the men and women in the United States of America and police forces use every single day. And when we did this in certain communities, guess what happened? We saw a decrease in the violence that was happening in those communities. And then we also saw a decrease in the number of people that were leaving those areas to try to come to the United States illegally. So it's a fraction of the cost to solve a problem there, before it ultimately reaches our border. And one of the reasons that you have violence and crime is political corruption and the lack of central governments to protect its citizens. And so this is something we should be continuing to work on. We shouldn't be decreasing the amount of money that we have that we're sending to these countries. I actually think we should be increasing it. I believe the first thing — we should have done this months ago — is select a special representative for the Northern Triangle. That's a senior diplomat that's going to work to make sure we're using all of our levers of power to help these three countries, and then that we're doing it in a coordinated effort. This is not just a problem for the United States and Mexico, this is a problem for the entire western hemisphere. So, where is the Organization of American States? Where is the International Development Bank? We should be having a collective plan to address these root causes. And when you talk about violence, a lot of times, we talk about these terrible gangs like MS-13. But it's also violence like women being beaten by their husbands. And they have nobody else to go to, and they are unable to deal with this current problem. So these are the types of issues that we should be increasing our diplomacy, increasing our economic development aid. AM: Please, I want to take you now from thinking about the root causes in Central America to thinking about the separation of children and families in the United States. Starting in April 2018, the Trump administration began a no-tolerance policy for immigrants, people seeking refugee status, asylum in the United States. And that led to the separation of 2,700 children in the first year that that program was run. Now, I want to address this with you, and I want to separate it up front into two different conversations. One of the things that the administration did was file legal court papers, saying that one of the primary purposes of the separations was to act as a deterrent against people coming to the United States. And I want to talk for a moment about that from a moral perspective and to get your views. WH: We shouldn't be doing it, period. It's real simple. And guess what, it wasn't a deterrent. You only saw an increase in the amount of illegal immigration. And when you're sitting, debating a strategy, if somebody comes up with the idea of snatching a child out of their mother's arms, you need to go back to the drawing board. This is not what the United States of America stands for, this is not a Republican or a Democrat or independent thing. This is a human decency thing. And so, using that strategy, it didn't achieve the ultimate purpose. And ultimately, the amount of research that is done and the impact that the detention of children has — especially if it's over 21 days — has on their development and their future is disastrous. So we shouldn't be trying to detain children for any more than 21 days, and we should be getting children, if they're in our custody, we should be taking care of them humanely, and making sure they're with people that can provide them a safe and loving environment. AM: I would challenge you even on the 21-day number, but for the purposes of this conversation, I want to follow up on something you just said, which is both that it's wrong to detain children, and that it's not effective. So the question, then, is why does the administration continue to do it, when we've seen 900 additional children separated from their parents since the summer of 2018? Why is this happening? WH: Well, that's something that you'd have to ultimately ask the administration. These are questions that I've been asking. The Tornillo facility is in my district. These are buildings that are not designed to hold anybody for multiple days, let alone children. We should be making sure that if they are in our custody — a lot of times for the uncompanied children, we don't have a ... we don't know of a patron or a family member in the United States, and we should make sure that they're in facilities where they're able to go to school and have proper food and health care. And if we're able to find a sponsor or family member, let's get them into that custody, while they're waiting for their immigration court case. That's the other issue here. When you have a backlog of cases — I think it's now 900,000 cases that are backlogged — we should be able to do an immigration hearing within nine months. I think most of the legal community thinks that is enough time to do something like this, so that we can facilitate whether someone, an individual, is able to stay in the United States or they're going to have to be returned back to their home country, rather than being in this limbo for five years. AM: If we think about the asylum system today, where people are coming and saying that they have a credible threat, that they will be persecuted back home, and we think about the fact that on average, it's about two years for someone to get an asylum hearing, that many people are not represented as they go through that process, it makes me think about something that they say in the health care space all the time, which is that every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. And so as you think about this and think about how we would redesign this system to not do what we're doing, which is years and years of detention and separations and hardship for people seeking — and again, asylum being a lawful United States government process — for people seeking to enter our country lawfully. What should we do? WH: I tried to increase by four billion dollars the amount of resources that HHS has in order to specifically deal, ultimately, with children. I think we need more immigration judges in order to process these cases, and I think we need to ensure that folks can get representation. I've been able to work with a number of lawyers up and down the border to make sure they are being able to get access to the folks that are having these problems. And so this is something that we should be able to design. And ultimately, when it comes to children, we should be doing everything we can when they're in our custody, in order to take care of them. AM: So I have two more questions for you before I'm going to let you go back to work. The first is about our focus in the United States on the questions of immigration. Because if you look at some of the statistics, you see that of people who are undocumented in the United States, the majority of people have overstayed on visas, they haven't come through the border. If you look at the people who try to enter the country who are on the terrorist watch list, they enter overwhelmingly through the airports and not through the border. If we look at drugs coming into the United States, which has been a huge part of this conversation, the vast majority of those drugs come through our ports and through other points of entry, not through backpacks on people crossing the border. So the thing I always ask and I always worry about with government, is that we focus so much on one thing, and my question for you is whether we are focused in this conversation nationally about the border, every day and every minute of every day, whether we're looking completely in the wrong direction. WH: I would agree with your premise. When you have — let's start with the economic benefits. When you have 3.6 percent unemployment, what does that mean? That means you need folks in every industry, whether it's agriculture or artificial intelligence. So why aren't we streamlining legal immigration? We should be able to make this market based in order to have folks come in and be productive members of our society. When it comes to the drug issue you're talking about, yes, it's in our ports of entry, but it's also coming in to our shores. Coast Guard is only able to action 25 percent of the known intelligence they have on drugs coming into our country. The metric that we should be measuring [is] are we seeing a decrease of deaths from overdose from drugs overseas, are we seeing a decrease in illegal immigration? It's not how many miles of fencing that we have ultimately built. And so we have benefited from the brain drain of every other country for the last couple of decades. I want to see that continue, and I want to see that continue with the hardworking drain. And I can sell you this: at last Congress, Pete Aguilar, a Democrat from California, and I had a piece of legislation called the USA Act: strong border security, streamline legal immigration, fix DACA — 1.2 million kids who have only known the United States of America as their home — these kids, or I should say young men and women, they are already Americans, let's not have them go through any more uncertainty and make that ultimately happen. We had 245 people that were willing to sign this bill into law, it wasn't allowed to come forward under a Republican speaker, and also the current Democratic speaker hasn't brought this bill through in something that we would be able to pass. AM: So I want to close, and you are, perhaps, most famous — I don't know if that's fair — but you took a road trip with Beto O'Rourke from your district to Washington, DC, and you've become known for reaching across the aisle and engaging in these bipartisan conversations. And one of the things I've seen you say repeatedly is to talk about how we are all united. And I think, when we think about the language of immigration and we start hearing words about enemies and militarization, I think the real question is: How do we convince all Americans to understand what you say that more unites us than divides us? WH: Crisscrossing a district like mine that's truly 50-50 — 50 percent Democrat, 50 percent Republican, it's been very clear to me that way more unites us than divides us. And if we focus on those things that we agree on, we'll all be better off. And I'm not going to get a perfect attendance award for going to church, but I do remember when Jesus was in the Second Temple and the Pharisees asked him what's the most important commandment, and he said to "Love thy Lord God with all your heart, mind and soul." But people forget he also said, "Equally as important, is to love thy neighbor like thyself." And if we remember that and realize what it would mean, and what you would have to be going through to be living in a situation that you may send your child on a 3,000-mile perilous journey, because that's what you think the only thing for their future, the only thing that you can do to make sure their future is bright, if we all remember that situation, and think what we would do in that situation, I think we'd also be better off. AM: Thank you, Congressman. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. (Applause) |
How does impeachment work? | null | TED-Ed | For most jobs, it's understood that you can be fired, whether for crime, incompetence, or just poor performance. But what if your job happens to be the most powerful position in the country, or the world? That's where impeachment comes in. Impeachment isn't the same as actually removing someone from office. Like an indictment in criminal court, it's only the formal accusation that launches a trial, which could end in conviction or acquittal. Originating in the United Kingdom, impeachment allowed Parliament to vote for removing a government official from office even without the king's consent. Although this was an important check on royal power, the king couldn't be impeached because the monarch was considered the source of all government power. But for the founders of the American Republic, there was no higher authority beyond the people themselves. And so impeachment was adopted in the United States as a power of Congress applying to any civil officers, up to and including the president. Although demands for impeachment can come from any members of the public, only the House of Representatives has the power to actually initiate the process. It begins by referring the matter to a committee, usually the House Committee on Rules and the House Committee on the Judiciary. These committees review the accusations, examine the evidence, and issue a recommendation. If they find sufficient grounds to proceed, the House holds a separate vote on each of the specific charges, known as Articles of Impeachment. If one or more passes by a simple majority, the official is impeached and the stage is set for trial. The actual trial that follows impeachment is held in the Senate. Selected members of the House, known as managers, act as the prosecution, while the impeached official and their lawyers present their defense. The Senate acts as both judge and jury, conducting the trial and deliberating after hearing all the arguments. If it's the president or vice president being impeached, the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides. A conviction requires a supermajority of two-thirds and results in automatic removal from power. Depending on the original charges, it can also disqualify them from holding office in the future and open them to standard criminal prosecution. So what exactly can get someone impeached? That's a bit more complicated. Unlike in the United Kingdom, impeachment in the U.S. pits an elected legislature against other democratically elected members of government. Therefore, to prevent the process from being used as a political weapon, the Constitution specifies that an official can only be impeached for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. That still leaves a lot of room for interpretation, not to mention politics, and many impeachment trials have split along partisan lines. But the process is generally understood to be reserved for serious abuses of power. The first official to be impeached was Tennesse Senator William Blount in 1797 for conspiring with Britain to cease the Spanish colony of Louisiana. Since then, the House has launched impeachment investigations about 60 times, but only 19 have led to actual impeachment proceedings. The eight cases that ended in a conviction and removal from office were all federal judges. And impeachment of a sitting president is even more rare. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for attempting to replace Secretary of War Edwin Stanton without consulting the Senate. Over a century later, Bill Clinton was impeached for making false statements under oath during a sexual harassment trial. Both were ultimately acquitted when the Senate's votes to convict fell short of the required two-thirds majority. And contrary to popular belief, Richard Nixon was never actually impeached for the Watergate scandal. He resigned before it could happen knowing he would almost certainly be convicted. Theoretically, the U.S. government is already designed to prevent abuses of power, limiting different branches through a system of checks and balances, term limits, and free elections. But impeachment can be seen as an emergency brake for when these safeguards fail. |
Porque le enseño a niños como yo a programar | {0: 'Antonio Garcia Vicente es un programador de 8 años de edad, al quien le apasionan las animaciones y los juegos. Pertenece al club de programadores de la Universidad de Valladolid, el Club de Jóvenes Programadores (CJP).'} | TEDxYouth@Valladolid | I have two passions: first football. I am a super fan, let's see if you can guess the team. (Laughter) I am of course, a Real Madrid fan. I am also a goalkeeper at the Villanubla football club. My other passion are computers, video games and programming, which is what I am going to talk about today. During playtime, we kids go crazy about Wii, PSP and Nintendo. We always try to play a little more by finishing our home works faster by cleaning up our bedroom, whatever it takes in order to pass the level, or to beat our previous scores. One day I thought: What if instead of just playing, I could create my own screens, heroes and bad guys, punches, pirouettes and extra lives? Unattainable? No, no. A child my age can do it! While new technologies are everywhere, and grownups use them for their stuff, such as computers in the cars — although my parents still get lost — cell phones, checking up emails, shopping, going through the internet; children use them to play. Because we are children, and that's what we like the most. We all know that for us children, it is second nature to handle those tech devices that many adults — Maybe because we're not afraid to touch, to try things out and see what is in there, or even break them, because parents can later fix everything up. (Laughter) This childlike curiosity helped me create my own games. I realized that I could learn by playing and play while learning. I could experiment, create, share, understand and reason how things are made, and then use that with everything else I was learning. Turns out that all that learning is what adults call Creative Computing. I was once told that programming is like a play. We have a scenario with our actors who will interact upon our instructions. We can disguise them to create animations or add up images, sounds, etc. You probably think: this sounds good, but a little kid, alone in his room, programming — Not exactly social. Well, there is more to it than that. It's an open, public community worldwide, where we can belong and where we can publish our programs, or download programs and play with them, see how they were made, modify or improve them. Nowadays, this community shares more than 10,000 programs, in a community of children, grownups, and professors of colleges, institutes and universities. As I became more and more passionate, I made new friends with whom I shared creations, then I thought that if I taught my schoolmates they could also enjoy as much as I. Besides, programming helps me learn in a very fun way what we were learning at school. It was an aha moment. Last year, when we were learning about human bones in class I came up with a Q&A game, this is it: (Video) I'll show you the game I created to learn the human skeleton bones for a class I had last year. In this game the human body asks you where the bones are. I'll click the green check I'll display it full screen, and it asks you where the jaw is? you have to answer with the right number if it is 10, 11, 1, 2 or 3. I answer 10 which is the right one and it says "Correeeect!" but if your answer is wrong it says: "Wah, wah, wah". I recorded and added every sound to the game, I added right and wrong answers. The program scores right and deducts wrong answers so I can now play and compete with my friends, to see who knows the human bones better. (Applauses) I had so much fun programming the game and it became so helpful for my learning, that I asked my teacher if we could use it in class. I wanted to show everybody, and so I did. We picked a day for me to show my classmates all those projects, I showed them how they were as capable as me to do the same. Of course, they loved it. Children and teachers liked it so much, that this year we founded The Programming Club "El páramo de Villanubla" a group of 26 children, so far, who enjoy programming individually or as a team. Now I am working on a game about space (Video) I am going to show you the game I created with the video sensor, about planets and the solar system. You have to head punch the planets so they don't fall into the sea. I switch to full screen I added right and wrong answers, and here is the sea. The planets start to fall, You aim the camera towards you so it follows your head movements to head punch the planets on the screen, if you hit them, you hear the name and the planet shape switches into a label on the screen. and it scores points for every head punch. But if you fail to punch the planet, you hear them fall into the sea and a point gets deducted from the score. Well, I think you get the idea. (Applause) Isn't it cool? And knowing that I did it, makes it better! Besides I'm going to show it to the 5-year-old kids at school who are learning about the solar system, and I bet this game will help them learn better. This makes me even happier, knowing that my games are not just fun, but useful. Yet, it's not the first time I program something for the little kids at school. Since my parents noticed that I liked it and I was doing well at school, when I turned 7, I got a present. When I first saw it, I was like, What is this, some cables? And they told me: "With this you'll do magic." They were right, I'm going to show you. It was a Makey Makey board. By connecting it to a computer, you can plug cables to anything as original as gummies, play dough, fruit, pencils, water or just by touching them, make programs and games work as if it is magic. I told this to Marga, the teacher of the 4 year olds at my school and she asked me if we could do a special project about music and orchestra instruments. Both teachers and students would make instruments with cardboard and foamy. meanwhile, I had to build the necessary programs so that the instruments would come to life and sound real. So I told this to Juanje, a friend of mine, and we both started working. For us this was an interesting project but it was challenging: because little kids were supposed to listen to us, and we are children too! When everything was set, we gather all the kids and showed them the sound of their instruments. We even taught them that they too had music within. It was mind blowing! Little kids were great. We organized groups so everyone could play their instruments. We were truly seen as magicians who had used some cables and a computer to impress both adults and kids. Well, do you want to se how we did it? I'm going to show you I brought some of those instruments. By the way, I want to thank my school for letting me show you a bit of that magic, something any kid can do just with a little of imagination, cables and a computer To play this super piano made by four year olds, I have to remove my shoes. My feet are clean, eh! (Laughter) Let's see if you know this song. (Music) (Applause) Now I'm going to show you how water makes more sounds than those made when it comes out of the faucet. This song is dedicated to my grandma because next week is her birthday (Laughter) (Applause) (Music) (Applause) I will now need four volunteers. Here and now we are going to hear their sound. Let's see, the four guys over there. (Laughter) (Applause) Pick this one. You pick that one. Let's hear what instrument you sound like. (Noise) Wow! you sound like a noise! (Battery dish) You sound like battery dishes You have no sound. (Laughter) (Drum roll) You sound like a drum. And you, let's see what do you sound like. (Neighing) Oh we have a horse!! (Laughter) (Applause) I hope you enjoyed what I brought to you. See how I was not fooling you? You can imagine, create and share just with some cables, a bit of imagination and a computer. Try it out kids! Stop just being gamers, and become creators of stories, game programs and musical projects. Our imagination is the limit. But go beyond! Show it to the world, upload it to the web for others to see, and more people can play, but knowing that we as kids, can decide too how we want things done. And I ask all the parents that please help us put together programming workshops at schools so every kid can learn this. It is important for your kids. (Applause) Never forget that nothing is impossible, It's all up to our effort and desire of self-improvement, even if we are young, we have a lot to teach in return. Thank you so much for your attention, see you soon. (Applause) |
Creativity builds nations | {0: "Muthoni Drummer Queen's thought-provoking music fuses traditional African drum patterns with modern styles like hip-hop, reggae and blues. "} | TED2019 | Between 2004 and 2008, I unsuccessfully tried to get into the Kenyan music industry. But the recurring answer from producers was I was not Kenyan enough. Meaning what? I didn't sing fully in the slang derivative of Kiswahili and I didn't sing enough party tracks, so they said Kenyans wouldn't listen to a Kenyan who sounded like me. This idea of otherism, the exclusion of a person based on their perceived deviation from the norms, goes to the root of the problems in Kenya. And it runs deep. Kenya was invented by colonialists in 1895, and with it, came the erasure of our identity and the class system built on otherism. So by 1963, when we received our independence, these ideas had already become the new normal. Now, we've tried a lot of different ways to move forward since. We have a common language, currency, infrastructure, basically all the things that make a country a country. But all these efforts at nation-building do not go to the heart of the matter. Which is this: we cannot build what we do not truly love. And we cannot love until we love ourselves. The thing we have to heal, us Kenyans, is our lack of self-love, our deep self-hate and our existential identity crisis. And this is the work of nation-building that only the creative industry can do. The idea that Kenya can only include some of us led me to found a music festival in 2008 called Blankets and Wine, to give a platform to myself and other misfits. Ten years later, we've programmed over 200 bands and put at least 100,000 dollars directly into the hands of artists and managers, who have in turn spent it on technicians, rehearsals, music videos and other things along the music value chain. Our platform has allowed for multiple Kenyan identities to exist, while inspiring the industry to discover and engage the wide variety of Kenyan music. What we do is necessary but insufficient. And we must urgently pivot into a live music circuit. But there are other ways music can help heal the nation. According to a 2018 state of media report, traditional radio is sill by far the biggest distributor of ideas in Kenya, with 47 percent of Kenyans still choosing radio first. This presents an opportunity. We can use radio to help Kenyans hear the diversity that is Kenya. We can reserve 60 percent of all programing on Kenyan radio for Kenyan music. We can break down ethnic barriers by playing Kenyan music done in English, Kiswahili and other ethnic languages, on what is now single-language ethnic radio. Radio can help stimulate interest and demand for Kenyan music by Kenyans, while also providing the much-needed incomes by way of royalties. But more importantly, radio can help us build a more inclusive narrative about Kenya. For you cannot love what you do not know exists. Other creative industries too can do the work. When you consider that 41 percent of Kenyans still choose TV as their primary medium, it's obvious that film has a huge potential. The meager resources that have been put into the sector have already produced world-class acts, like Lupita Nyong'o and Wanuri Kahiu, but we are going to need a lot more incentives and investments to make filming in Kenya easier, so more Kenyan stories can get on the Kenyan TV and spark off the really difficult conversations we need to have with one another. We're going to need to grow a lot more home-grown stars, so we can reverse the idea that we have to blow up abroad before we get the acceptance and validation of home. Fashion too can do the work. We need to make it possible to affordably mass-produce Kenyan clothes for Kenyan consumers, so we don't all have to rely on second-hand imports. The first running shoe made in Kenya needs to be a local and global success as an ode to Kenyan excellence, epitomized by Kenyan runners, who are literally world-class. For these ideas to come to life, jobs will be created, and Kenyan ideas will be exported. But more importantly, Kenyans may finally consider themselves worthy of the love that we reserve for others. Kenya's creative industry is dynamic, cosmopolitan, forward-looking, and without a doubt, a true manufacturing industry of the immediate future. But its true power lies in its ability to help heal the psyche of Kenya, so we can finally build a nation for real. Thank you. (Applause) (Applause) For this song, I'd like us all to take a minute and think about immigrant communities, and especially refugee immigrant communities, and the daily struggle they have to endure, building a life with dignity and meaning away from everything they have loved and known. If you feel any empathy for this idea, I ask to see your fist up in the air with me. (Music) "Million voice." The mandem make some noise With a million, million voice All the mandem make some noise With a million, million voice Can't stop I, won't stop I With a million, million voice Can't stop I, won't stop I With a million, million voice This one dedicated to my people building something Working hard to make sure that their children will lack for nothing When them people come around and treat them like they're basic I just want to LOL and tell them to consider all their options Caution, natural distortion You can't even kill us we survive even abortion Say we cannot make it, watch us how we make it Watch us in a minute come and run and overtake it TED, clap! Can't have enough of it This our only way of life Keeping, keeping on the grind TED, will you clap like this. Can't have enough of it This our only way of life Keeping, keeping on the grind Keeping, keeping on the grind The mandem make some noise Like a million, million voice All the mandem make some noise With a million, million voice Can't stop I, won't stop I With a million, million voice Can't stop I, won't stop I With a million, million voice Can I be your leader Can I be your Caesar If I show you how to make some more will you pledge allegiance Is it always either Me or you or neither If I show you where I'm coming from, will you take a breather? Cos what you'll find — what you'll find What you'll find guarantee will blow your mind! I'll blow your mind — I'll blow your mind And then you'll see the reason I stay on my grind Would you clap! Can't have enough of it It's our only way of life Keeping, keeping on the grind Keeping, keeping on the grind Can't have enough of it It's our only way of life Keeping, keeping on the grind Keeping, keeping on the grind The mandem make some noise (Cheering) (Applause) This next one is partly in Kiswahili, which is what we speak in Kenya. And it's about female friendship and female power. And girls coming together to build something that lasts, a true legacy and intergenerational worth. "Suzie Noma." (Drum music) Sitting at the corner Me and Suzie Noma We ain't got no worries we are looking like the owners Sipping on Coronas Looking at the phone as All them pretty boys come and tell us how they want us Mambo ni kungoja, aki mtangoja Sinaga matime za kuwaste na vioja Planning how we want to take over the world soon Riding on the drums and the clap while the bass goes Hey! Shake it down shake it down like Wait till you, wait till you see my Hey! Shake it down shake it down like Wait till you, wait till you see my If you really know it and you really wanna show it Be the way to go Go and grab somebody, move your body, show somebody Be the way to go On this I know, all this I know, all this I know On this I know, all this I know, all this I know Iyo! Scheming at the corner Me and Suzie Noma We ain't got no money but we do it how we wanna Painting our nails checking our mails as All them pretty boys wanna have us but they fail like Aki mtangoja, leo mtangoja Saa hii tukoworks hakunaga za vioja Planning how we want to take over the world soon Riding on the drums and the clap while the bass goes boom Shake it down shake it down like Wait till you, wait till you see my Hey! Shake it down shake it down like Wait till you, wait till you see my If you really know it and you really wanna show it Be the way to go Go and grab somebody, move your body, show somebody Be the way to go On this I know, all this I know, all this I know On this I know, all this I know, all this I know And now you whine your waist And now you screw your face Exaggerate your waist Resuscitate the place Na wale wako fifty fifty comsi Na wale wako fiti pia sisi Tuko tu sawa mdogo mdogo yaani Hallelu-yawa tumeiva design If you really know it, and you really wanna show it Be the way to go Go and grab somebody, move your body, show somebody Be the way to go On this I know, all this I know, all this I know On this I know, all this I know, all this I know Iyo! (Cheering) (Applause) |
How one tree grows 40 different kinds of fruit | {0: 'Sam Van Aken is a contemporary artist who works beyond traditional modes of art-making, crossing artistic genres and disciplines to develop new perspectives on themes like communication, botany, agriculture, climatology and the ever-increasing impact of technology. '} | TED Salon The Macallan | 100 years ago, there were 2,000 varieties of peaches, nearly 2,000 different varieties of plums and almost 800 named varieties of apples growing in the United States. Today, only a fraction of those remain, and what is left is threatened by industrialization of agriculture, disease and climate change. Those varieties that are threatened include the Blood Cling, a red-flesh peach brought by Spanish missionaries to the Americas, then cultivated by Native Americans for centuries; an apricot that was brought by Chinese immigrants who came to work on the Transcontinental Railroad; and countless varieties of plums that originated in the Middle East and were then brought by Italian, French and German immigrants. None of these varieties are indigenous. In fact, almost all of our fruit trees were brought here, including apples and peaches and cherries. So more than just food, embedded within these fruit is our culture. It's the people who cared for and cultivated them, who valued them so much that they brought them here with them as a connection to their home, and it's the way that they've passed them on and shared them. In many ways, these fruit are our story. And I was fortunate enough to learn about it through an artwork that I created entitled the "Tree of 40 Fruit." The Tree of 40 Fruit is a single tree that grows 40 different varieties of stone fruit. So that's peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines and cherries all growing on one tree. It's designed to be a normal-looking tree throughout the majority of the year, until spring, when it blossoms in pink and white and then in summer, bears a multitude of different fruit. I began the project for purely artistic reasons: I wanted to change the reality of the everyday, and to be honest, create this startling moment when people would see this tree blossom in all these different colors and bear all of these different fruit. I created the Tree of 40 Fruit through the process of grafting. I'll collect cuttings in winter, store them, and then graft them onto the ends of branches in spring. In fact, almost all fruit trees are grafted, because the seed of a fruit tree is a genetic variant of the parent. So when we find a variety that we really like, the way that we propagate it is by taking a cutting off of one tree and putting it onto another — which is kind of crazy to think that every single Macintosh apple came from one tree that's been grafted over and over from generation to generation. But it also means that fruit trees can't be preserved by seed. I've known about grafting as long as I can remember. My great-grandfather made a living grafting peach orchards in Southeastern Pennsylvania. And although I never met him, any time anyone would mention his name, they were quick to note that he knew how to graft as if he had a magical or mystical capability. I decided on the number 40 for the Tree of 40 Fruit because it's found throughout Western religion as not the quantifiable dozen and not the infinite but a number that's beyond counting. It's a bounty or a multitude. But the problem was that when I started, I couldn't find 40 different varieties of these fruit, and this is despite the fact that I live in New York state, which, a century ago, was one of the leading producers of these fruit. So as they were tearing out research orchards and old, vintage orchards, I would collect branches off them and graft them onto trees in my nursery. So this is what the Tree of 40 Fruit look like when they were first planted, and this is what they look like six years later. This is definitely not a sport of immediate gratification — (Laughter) It takes a year to know if a graft has succeeded; it takes two to three years to know if it produces fruit; and it takes up to eight years to create just one of the trees. Each of the varieties grafted to the Tree of 40 Fruit has a slightly different form and a slightly different color. And I realized that by creating a timeline of when all these blossomed in relationship to each other, I can essentially shape or design how the tree appears during spring. And this is how they appear during summer. They produce fruit from June through September. First is cherries, then apricots, Asian plums, nectarines and peaches, and I think I forgot one in there, somewhere ... (Laughter) Although it's an artwork that exists outside of the gallery, as the project continues, it's been conservation by way of the art world. As I've been asked to create these in different locations, what I'll do is I'll research varieties that originated or were historically grown in that area, I'll source them locally and graft them to the tree so that it becomes an agricultural history of the area where they're located. And then the project got picked up online, which was horrifying and humbling. The horrifying part was all of the tattoos that I saw of images of the Tree of 40 Fruit. (Laughter) Which I was like, "Why would you do that to your body?" (Laughter) And the humbling part was all of the requests that I received from pastors, from rabbis and priests who asked to use the tree as a central part within their service. And then it became a meme — and the answer to that question is "I hope not?" [Is your marriage like the Tree of 40 Fruit?] (Laughter) Like all good memes, this has led to an interview on NPR's "Weekend Edition," and as a college professor, I thought I peaked — like, that was the pinnacle of my career — but you never know who's listening to NPR. And several weeks after the NPR interview, I received an email from the Department of Defense. The Defense Advanced Research Project Administration invited me to come talk about innovation and creativity, and it's a conversation that quickly shifted to a discussion of food security. You see, our national security is dependent upon our food security. Now that we've created these monocultures that only grow a few varieties of each crop, if something happens to just one of those varieties, it can have a dramatic impact upon our food supply. And the key to maintaining our food security is preserving our biodiversity. 100 years ago, this was done by everybody that had a garden or a small stand of trees in their backyard, and grew varieties that were passed down through their family. These are plums from just one Tree of 40 Fruit in one week in August. Several years into the project, I was told that I have one of the largest collections of these fruit in the Eastern United States, which, as an artist, is absolutely terrifying. (Laughter) But in many ways, I didn't know what I had. I discovered that the majority of the varieties I had were heirloom varieties, so those that were grown before 1945, which is seen as the dawn of the industrialization of agriculture. Several of the varieties dated back thousands and thousands of years. And finding out how rare they were, I became obsessed with trying to preserve them, and the vehicle for this became art. I would go into old, vintage orchards before they were torn out and I would save the bowl or the trunk section that possessed the original graft union. I started doing pressings of flowers and the leaves to create herbarium specimens. I started to sequence the DNA. But ultimately, I set out to preserve the story through these copper-plate etchings and letterpress descriptions. To tell the story of the George IV peach, which took root between two buildings in New York City — someone walks by, tastes it, it becomes a major commercial variety in the 19th century because it tastes just that good. Then all but vanishes, because it doesn't ship well and it doesn't conform to modern agriculture. But I realize that as a story, it needs to be told. And in the telling of that story, it has to include the experience of being able to touch, to smell and to taste those varieties. So I set out to create an orchard to make these fruit available to the public, and have the aim of placing them in the highest density of people that I could possibly find. Naturally, I started looking for an acre of land in New York City — (Laughter) which, in retrospect, seemed, like, rather ambitious, and probably the reason why nobody was returning my phone calls or emails — (Laughter) until eventually, four years later, I heard back from Governors Island. So Governors Island is a former naval base that was given to the City of New York in 2000. And it opened up all of this land just a five-minute ferry ride from New York. And they invited me to create a project that we're calling the "Open Orchard" that will bring back fruit varieties that haven't been grown in New York for over a century. Currently in progress, The Open Orchard will be 50 multigrafted trees that possess 200 heirloom and antique fruit varieties. So these are varieties that originated or were historically grown in the region. Varieties like the Early Strawberry apple, which originated on 13th Street and Third Avenue. Since a fruit tree can't be preserved by seed, The Open Orchard will act like a living gene bank, or an archive of these fruit. Like the Tree of 40 Fruit, it will be experiential; it will also be symbolic. Most importantly, it's going to invite people to participate in conservation and to learn more about their food. Through the Tree of 40 Fruit, I've received thousands and thousands of emails from people, asking basic questions about "How do you plant a tree?" With less than three percent of the population having any direct tie to agriculture, the Open Orchard is going to invite people to come take part in public programming and to take part in workshops, to learn how to graft, to grow, to prune and to harvest a tree; to take part in fresh eating and blossom tours; to work with local chefs to learn how to use these fruit and to recreate centuries-old dishes that many of these varieties were grown specifically for. Extending beyond the physical site of the orchard, it will be a cookbook that compiles all of those recipes. It will be a field guide that talks about the characteristics and traits of those fruit, their origin and their story. Growing up on a farm, I thought I understood agriculture, and I didn't want anything to do with it. So I became an artist — (Laughter) But I have to admit that it's something within my own DNA. And I don't think that I'm the only one. 100 years ago, we were all much more closely tied to the culture, the cultivation and the story of our food, and we've been separated from that. The Open Orchard creates the opportunity not just to reconnect to this unknown past, but a way for us to consider what the future of our food could be. Thank you. (Applause) |
The Prison Break | {0: 'Alex Rosenthal takes everyday experiences and turns them into mind-bending puzzles.'} | TED-Ed | Upon emerging from stasis, Ethic is the unfortunate recipient of three surprises. The first: a prison cell. The second: complete amnesia. And the third: a mysterious stranger has gotten stuck squeezing through the bars on her window. His name is Hedge, and he has come to help Ethic save the world. But first they have to break out of jail. Hedge turns his hand into a lockpick and outlines the challenge ahead. Each lock in the prison works in the same unusual way. Inside the keyhole is a red dial that can be rotated to one of 100 positions numbered 1 through 100. The key for a given cell spins the dial to the right position, which, when stopped there, makes it turn green and unlocks the door. It would be out of the question to steal keys from a guard, but Hedge has a better idea. Hedge can carry out Ethic‘s commands. If Ethic tells him to walk 5 steps forward, turn right, then walk another 5 steps, that’s exactly what he’ll do. Hedge needs specific instructions though. If Ethic says “pick the lock” or “try every combination” that would be too vague, but “spin the dial 5 positions forward” would work. Once out of the cell, they will only have a few moments to crack the lock for the outer prison door too before the guards catch them. So what instructions will allow Hedge to efficiently open any door? Pause now to figure it out for yourself. Before we explain the solution, here’s a hint. A key programming concept that can help unlock the door is called a loop. This can be one or more instructions that Hedge will iterate— or repeat— a specified number of times, like “jump up and down 100 times.” Or an instruction that Hedge will repeat until a condition is met, such as “keep jumping up and down until it’s 7 o’clock.” Pause now to figure it out for yourself. The first thing that’s clear is that you need to find a way for Hedge to try every combination until one works. What takes a little more effort is how exactly you do so. One solution would be to instruct Hedge to try every combination in succession. Try 1 and check the light. If it turns green, open the door, and if not, try 2. If that doesn’t work try 3. All the way up to 100. But it would be tedious to lay that out in its entirety. Why write more than 100 lines of code, when you can do the same thing with just 3? This is where a loop comes in. There are a few ways to go about this. The lock has 100 positions, so Ethic could say “Check the dial’s color, then spin the dial forward once, for 100 repetitions. Remember where the dial turns green, then have Hedge set it back to that number.” A loop like this, where you specify the number of times it repeats, is called a “for" loop. But an even more efficient loop would have Hedge spin the dial one position at a time until it turns green and as soon as that happens, have him stop and open the door. That way if the door unlocks on 1, he doesn’t need to cycle through all the rest of the numbers. This is an “until” loop, because it involves doing an action until a condition is met. A similar, alternate approach would be to turn the dial while it’s still red, then stop. That’s called a “while” loop. Back to the adventure. Hedge loops through the combinations, and the cell opens at 41. Ethic and Hedge wait until the perfect moment in the guards’ rotation and make a break for it. Soon, Ethic faces a choice: hide inside a mysterious crystal, or try to crack the outer door and make a run for it. Ethic chooses to run. The second door takes Hedge longer, requiring him to spin all the way to 93. But he gets it open and takes the opportunity to explain why he’s rescued Ethic. The world is in turmoil: robots have taken over, and only Ethic can set things right. In order to do so, they’ll need to collect three powerful artifacts that are being used for nefarious purposes across the land. Only then can Ethic return to the world machine— that giant crystal— to set things right. Ethic may have escaped the prison… but what has she gotten herself into? |
How we experience time and memory through art | {0: "Sarah Sze's immersive works challenge the static nature of art."} | TED2019 | I want to start with a question. Where does an artwork begin? Now sometimes that question is absurd. It can seem deceptively simple, as it was when I asked the question with this piece, "Portable Planetarium," that I made in 2010. I asked the question: "What would it look like to build a planetarium of one's own?" I know you all ask that every morning, but I asked myself that question. And as an artist, I was thinking about our effort, our desire, our continual longing that we've had over the years to make meaning of the world around us through materials. And for me, to try and find the kind of wonder, but also a kind of futility that lies in that very fragile pursuit, is part of my art work. So I bring together the materials I find around me, I gather them to try and create experiences, immersive experiences that occupy rooms, that occupy walls, landscapes, buildings. But ultimately, I want them to occupy memory. And after I've made a work, I find that there's usually one memory of that work that burns in my head. And this is the memory for me — it was this sudden kind of surprising experience of being immersed inside that work of art. And it stayed with me and kind of reoccurred in my work about 10 years later. But I want to go back to my graduate school studio. I think it's interesting, sometimes, when you start a body of work, you need to just completely wipe the plate clean, take everything away. And this may not look like wiping the plate clean, but for me, it was. Because I had studied painting for about 10 years, and when I went to graduate school, I realized that I had developed skill, but I didn't have a subject. It was like an athletic skill, because I could paint the figure quickly, but I didn't know why. I could paint it well, but it didn't have content. And so I decided to put all the paints aside for a while, and to ask this question, which was: "Why and how do objects acquire value for us?" How does a shirt that I know thousands of people wear, a shirt like this one, how does it somehow feel like it's mine? So I started with that experiment, I decided, by collecting materials that had a certain quality to them. They were mass-produced, easily accessible, completely designed for the purpose of their use, not for their aesthetic. So things like toothpicks, thumbtacks, pieces of toilet paper, to see if in the way that I put my energy, my hand, my time into them, that the behavior could actually create a kind of value in the work itself. One of the other ideas is, I wanted the work to become live. So I wanted to take it off of the pedestal, not have a frame around it, have the experience not be that you came to something and told you that it was important, but that you discover that it was in your own time. So this is like a very, very old idea in sculpture, which is: How do we breathe life into inanimate materials? And so, I would go to a space like this, where there was a wall, and use the paint itself, pull the paint out off the wall, the wall paint into space to create a sculpture. Because I was also interested in this idea that these terms, "sculpture," "painting," "installation" — none of these mattered in the way we actually see the world. So I wanted to blur those boundaries, both between mediums that artists talk about, but also blur the experience of being in life and being in art, so that when you are in your everyday, or when you are in one of my works, and you saw, you recognized the everyday, you could then move that experience into your own life, and perhaps see the art in everyday life. I was in graduate school in the '90s, and my studio just became more and more filled with images, as did my life. And this confusion of images and objects was really part of the way I was trying to make sense of materials. And also, I was interested in how this might change the way that we actually experience time. If we're experiencing time through materials, what happens when images and objects become confused in space? So I started by doing some of these experiments with images. And if you look back to the 1880s, that's when the first photographs started turning into film. And they were done through studies of animals, the movement of animals. So horses in the United States, birds in France. They were these studies of movement that then slowly, like zoetropes, became film. So I decided, I will take an animal and I'm going to play with that idea of how the image is not static for us anymore, it's moving. It's moving in space. And so I chose as my character the cheetah, because she is the fastest land-dwelling creature on earth. And she holds that record, and I want to use her record to actually make it kind of a measuring stick for time. And so this is what she looked like in the sculpture as she moved through space. This kind of broken framing of the image in space, because I had put up notepad paper and had it actually project on it. Then I did this experiment where you have kind of a race, with these new tools and video that I could play with. So the falcon moves out in front, the cheetah, she comes in second, and the rhino is trying to catch up behind. Then another one of the experiments, I was thinking about how, if we try and remember one thing that happened to us when we were, let's say, 10 years old. It's very hard to remember even what happened in that year. And for me, I can think of maybe one, maybe two, and that one moment has expanded in my mind to fill that entire year. So we don't experience time in minutes and seconds. So this is a still of the video that I took, printed out on a piece of paper, the paper is torn and then the video is projected on top of it. And I wanted to play with this idea of how, in this kind of complete immersion of images that's enveloped us, how one image can actually grow and can haunt us. So I had all of these — these are three out of, like, 100 experiments I was trying with images for over about a decade, and never showing them, and I thought, OK, how do I bring this out of the studio, into a public space, but retain this kind of energy of experimentation that you see when you go into a laboratory, you see when you go into a studio, and I had this show coming up and I just said, alright, I'm going to put my desk right in the middle of the room. So I brought my desk and I put it in the room, and it actually worked in this kind of very surprising way to me, in that it was this kind of flickering, because of the video screens, from afar. And it had all of the projectors on it, so the projectors were creating the space around it, but you were drawn towards the flickering like a flame. And then you were enveloped in the piece at the scale that we're all very familiar with, which is the scale of being in front of a desk or a sink or a table, and you are immersed, then, back into this scale, this one-to-one scale of the body in relation to the image. But on this surface, you had these projections on paper being blown in the wind, so there was this confusion of what was an image and what was an object. So this is what the work looked like when it went into a larger room, and it wasn't until I made this piece that I realized that I'd effectively made the interior of a planetarium, without even realizing that. And I remembered, as a child, loving going to the planetarium. And back then, the planetarium, there was always not only these amazing images on the ceiling, but you could see the projector itself whizzing and burring, and this amazing camera in the middle of the room. And it was that, along with seeing the audience around you looking up, because there was an audience in the round at that time, and seeing them, and experiencing, being part of an audience. So this is an image from the web that I downloaded of people who took images of themselves in the work. And I like this image because you see how the figures get mixed with the work. So you have the shadow of a visitor against the projection, and you also see the projections across a person's shirt. So there were these self-portraits made in the work itself, and then posted, and it felt like a kind of cyclical image-making process. And a kind of an end to that. But it reminded me and brought me back to the planetarium, and that interior, and I started to go back to painting. And thinking about how a painting is actually, for me, about the interior images that we all have. There's so many interior images, and we've become so focused on what's outside our eyes. And how do we store memory in our mind, how certain images emerge out of nowhere or can fall apart over time. And I started to call this series the "Afterimage" series, which was a reference to this idea that if we all close our eyes right now, you can see there's this flickering light that lingers, and when we open it again, it lingers again — this is happening all the time. And an afterimage is something that a photograph can never replace, you never feel that in a photograph. So it really reminds you of the limits of the camera's lens. So it was this idea of taking the images that were outside of me — this is my studio — and then trying to figure out how they were being represented inside me. So really quickly, I'm just going to whiz through how a process might develop for the next piece. So it might start with a sketch, or an image that's burned in my memory from the 18th century — it's Piranesi's "Colosseum." Or a model the size of a basketball — I built this around a basketball, the scale's evidenced by the red cup behind it. And that model can be put into a larger piece as a seed, and that seed can grow into a bigger piece. And that piece can fill a very, very large space. But it can funnel down into a video that's just made from my iPhone, of a puddle outside my studio in a rainy night. So this is an afterimage of the painting made in my memory, and even that painting can fade as memory does. So this is the scale of a very small image from my sketchbook. You can see how it can explode to a subway station that spans three blocks. And you could see how going into the subway station is like a journey through the pages of a sketchbook, and you can see sort of a diary of work writ across a public space, and you're turning the pages of 20 years of art work as you move through the subway. But even that sketch actually has a different origin, it has an origin in a sculpture that climbs a six-story building, and is scaled to a cat from the year 2002. I remember that because I had two black cats at the time. And this is an image of a work from Japan that you can see the afterimage of in the subway. Or a work in Venice, where you see the image etched in the wall. Or how a sculpture that I did at SFMOMA in 2001, and created this kind of dynamic line, how I stole that to create a dynamic line as you descend down into the subway itself. And this merging of mediums is really interesting to me. So how can you take a line that pulls tension like a sculpture and put it into a print? Or then use line like a drawing in a sculpture to create a dramatic perspective? Or how can a painting mimic the process of printmaking? How can an installation use the camera's lens to frame a landscape? How can a painting on string become a moment in Denmark, in the middle of a trek? And how, on the High Line, can you create a piece that camouflages itself into the nature itself and becomes a habitat for the nature around it? And I'll just end with two pieces that I'm making now. This is a piece called "Fallen Sky" that's going to be a permanent commission in Hudson Valley, and it's kind of the planetarium finally come down and grounding itself in the earth. And this is a work from 2013 that's going to be reinstalled, have a new life in the reopening of MOMA. And it's a piece that the tool itself is the sculpture. So the pendulum, as it swings, is used as a tool to create the piece. So each of the piles of objects go right up to one centimeter to the tip of that pendulum. So you have this combination of the lull of that beautiful swing, but also the tension that it constantly could destroy the piece itself. And so, it doesn't really matter where any of these pieces end up, because the real point for me is that they end up in your memory over time, and they generate ideas beyond themselves. Thank you. (Applause) |
Why you should shop at your local farmers market | {0: 'Mohammad Modarres developed the first-ever Zabihah Halal and Glatt Kosher "Interfaith Meat" to make faith-based foods more accessible. '} | TED Residency | It's been about a decade since the last financial crisis, yet this industry has never been bigger. Legislation that was meant to better regulate its largest players has hurt its smaller ones, resulting in most of the industry's assets to be controlled by the top one percent. They've become too big to fail. I'm not referring to big banks, but the world of Big Agriculture. As a public health practitioner who has worked with small-scale farmers in Rwanda and now as a small food business owner who sits at the intersection between our consumers and producers, I've been exposed to one of the most ecologically and economically intensive industries in the world, and throughout my work, I've witnessed a chilling irony. Our farmers, who feed our communities, cannot afford the very foods they grow. Today, a handful of corporations continue to consolidate the entire food supply chain, from the intellectual property of seeds to produce and livestock all the way to the financial institutions who lend to these farmers. And the recent results have been rising bankruptcies for family farms and little control for those who are just trying to survive in the industry. Left unchecked, we will head into another economic collapse, one very similar to the farm crisis of the 1980s, when commodity market prices crashed, interest rates doubled, and many farmers lost everything. Fortunately, there's a very simple, three-part solution you can be part of right now to help us transform our food industry from the bottom up. Step one: shop at your local farmers markets. Buying from your local market and subscribing to a community-supported agricultural produce box, better known as a CSA, may be the single greatest purchasing decision you can make as a consumer today. Last year, American farmers made the least they have in almost three decades, because they now own fewer parts of the supply chain than ever before. Under exclusive contracts with Big Ag and big box stores, farmers are not offered a fair price for their goods. In fact, the average farmer in America makes less than 15 cents of every dollar on a product that you purchase at a store. On the other hand, farmers who sell their goods at a farmers market take home closer to 90 cents of every dollar. But beyond taking home a larger share, farmers use markets as an opportunity to cultivate the next generation of agriculturalists who shepherd our farmlands and our pastures. In our fight against climate change, we need them now more than ever to promote and preserve diverse land use. When multigenerational farms are lost to Big Ag consolidation, our communities suffer in countless ways. Rural America has now jumped above the national average in violent crime. Three out four farmworkers surveyed have been directly impacted by our opioid epidemic. Now oftentimes disguised as accidents, farmer suicide is now on the rise. Step two: shop at your local farmers markets. (Laughter) Produce from a large retail store is harvested before it's ripe to travel more than a thousand miles before it ultimately sits on your shelf roughly two weeks later. Alternatively, because most farmers markets have proximity and production requirements, farmers travel less than 50 miles to offer you local produce with minimal packaging waste. With the advent of online grocers and trending meal kits, consumers are increasingly disconnected with their farmers and the economics of food production. Since the rise of the smartphone revolution, direct-to-consumer goods have stagnated. While local and sustainable foods have been trending for almost a decade, terms like "healthy" and "natural" have no legal framework in the United States. Your best bet for fresh, nutrient-rich foods without the marketing jargon? Go to your farmers market. Buying local is not a new idea, but turning it into a habit in today's world still is. If we want to avoid the high costs of cheap food, protect our environment, rebuild our communities and save our farmers — literally — we're going to need to vote with our food purchases. The success of our food systems is directly attached to us. If we want to break up Big Ag's hold on our food supply chain, then we're going to need to connect with our farmers. We're going to need to rebuild relationships with the hands that feed us three times a day. Plus, two more for snacks. Come on. With a government online database of more than 8,600 farmers markets across the country, you can easily find the nearest one to you. Just think of yourself as an investor in food, where your purchasing power helps create a more equitable society for everyone. Oh! Almost forgot step three, which may surprise you: shop at your local farmers markets. (Laughter) Thank you. (Applause) |
How community-led conservation can save wildlife | {0: 'Moreangels Mbizah is the founder of Wildlife Conservation Action, an organization dedicated to conserving biodiversity, promoting human-wildlife coexistence and empowering local communities.'} | TED2019 | I'm a lion conservationist. Sounds cool, doesn't it? Some people may have no idea what that means. But I'm sure you've all heard about Cecil the lion. [Cecil the Lion (2002-2015)] (Lion roaring) He roars no more. On the second of July, 2015, his life was cut short when he was killed by a trophy hunter. They say that you can become attached to the animals you study. That was the case for me with Cecil the lion, having known him and studied him for three years in Hwange National Park. I was heartbroken at his death. But the good thing to come out of this tragedy is the attention that the story brought towards the plight of threatened wild animals. After Cecil's death, I began to ask myself these questions: What if the community that lived next to Cecil the lion was involved in protecting him? What if I had met Cecil when I was 10 years old, instead of 29? Could I or my classmates have changed his fate? Many people are working to stop lions from disappearing, but very few of these people are native to these countries or from the communities most affected. But the communities that live with the lions are the ones best positioned to help lions the most. Local people should be at the forefront of the solutions to the challenges facing their wildlife. Sometimes, change can only come when the people most affected and impacted take charge. Local communities play an important role in fighting poaching and illegal wildlife trade, which are major threats affecting lions and other wildlife. Being a black African woman in the sciences, the people I meet are always curious to know if I've always wanted to be a conservationist, because they don't meet a lot of conservationists who look like me. When I was growing up, I didn't even know that wildlife conservation was a career. The first time I saw a wild animal in my home country was when I was 25 years old, even though lions and African wild dogs lived just a few miles away from my home. This is quite common in Zimbabwe, as many people are not exposed to wildlife, even though it's part of our heritage. When I was growing up, I didn't even know that lions lived in my backyard. When I stepped into Savé Valley Conservancy on a cold winter morning 10 years ago to study African wild dogs for my master's research project, I was mesmerized by the beauty and the tranquility that surrounded me. I felt like I had found my passion and my purpose in life. I made a commitment that day that I was going to dedicate my life to protecting animals. I think of my childhood school days in Zimbabwe and the other kids I was in school with. Perhaps if we had a chance to interact with wildlife, more of my classmates would be working alongside me now. Unless the local communities want to protect and coexist with wildlife, all conservation efforts might be in vain. These are the communities that live with the wild animals in the same ecosystem and bear the cost of doing so. If they don't have a direct connection or benefit from the animals, they have no reason to want to protect them. And if local communities don't protect their wildlife, no amount of outside intervention will work. So what needs to be done? Conservationists must prioritize environmental education and help expand the community's skills to conserve their wildlife. Schoolchildren and communities must be taken to national parks, so they get a chance to connect with the wildlife. At every effort and every level, conservation must include the economies of the people who share the land with the wild animals. It is also critical that local conservationists be part of every conservation effort, if we are to build trust and really embed conservation into communities. As local conservationists, we face many hurdles, from outright discrimination to barriers because of cultural norms. But I will not give up my efforts to bring indigenous communities to this fight for the survival of our planet. I'm asking you to come and stand together with me. We must actively dismantle the hurdles we have created, which are leaving indigenous populations out of conservation efforts. I've dedicated my life to protecting lions. And I know my neighbor would, too, if only they knew the animals that lived next door to them. Thank you. (Applause) |
Ugly history: Japanese American incarceration camps | null | TED-Ed | On December 7, 1941, 16 year-old Aki Kurose shared in the horror of millions of Americans when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. What she did not know, was how that shared experience would soon leave her family and over 120,000 Japanese Americans alienated from their country, both socially and physically. As of 1941, Japanese American communities had been growing in the US for over 50 years. About one-third of them were immigrants, many of whom settled on the West Coast and had lived there for decades. The rest were born as American citizens, like Aki. Born Akiko Kato in Seattle, Aki grew up in a diverse neighborhood where she never thought of herself as anything but American– until the day after the attack, when a teacher told her: “You people bombed Pearl Harbor." Amid racism, paranoia, and fears of sabotage, people labelled Japanese Americans as potential traitors. FBI agents began to search homes, confiscate belongings and detain community leaders without trial. Aki’s family was not immediately subjected to these extreme measures, but on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. The order authorized the removal of any suspected enemies– including anyone of even partial Japanese heritage– from designated ‘military areas.’ At first, Japanese Americans were pushed to leave restricted areas and migrate inland. But as the government froze their bank accounts and imposed local restrictions such as curfews, many were unable to leave– Aki’s family among them. In March, a proclamation forbid Japanese Americans from changing their residency, trapping them in military zones. In May, the army moved Aki and her family, along with over 7,000 Japanese Americans living in Seattle to "Camp Harmony" in Puyallup, Washington. This was one of several makeshift detention centers at former fairgrounds and racetracks, where entire families were packed into poorly converted stables and barracks. Over the ensuing months, the army moved Japanese Americans into long-term camps in desolate areas of the West and South, moving Aki and her family to Minidoka in southern Idaho. Guarded by armed soldiers, many of these camps were still being constructed when incarcerees moved in. These hastily built prisons were overcrowded and unsanitary. People frequently fell ill and were unable to receive proper medical care. The War Relocation Authority relied on incarcerees to keep the camps running. Many worked in camp facilities or taught in poorly equipped classrooms, while others raised crops and animals. Some Japanese Americans rebelled, organizing labor strikes and even rioting. But many more, like Aki’s parents, endured. They constantly sought to recreate some semblance of life outside the camps, but the reality of their situation was unavoidable. Like many younger incarcerees, Aki was determined to leave her camp. She finished her final year of high school at Minidoka, and with the aid of an anti-racist Quaker organization, she was able to enroll at Friends University in Kansas. For Aki’s family however, things wouldn’t begin to change until late 1944. A landmark Supreme Court case ruled that continued detention of American citizens without charges was unconstitutional. In the fall of 1945, the war ended and the camps closed down. Remaining incarcerees were given a mere $25 and a train ticket to their pre-war address, but many no longer had a home or job to return to. Aki’s family had been able to keep their apartment, and Aki eventually returned to Seattle after college. However, post-war prejudice made finding work difficult. Incarcarees faced discrimination and resentment from workers and tenants who replaced them. Fortunately, Japanese Americans weren’t alone in the fight against racial discrimination. Aki found work with one of Seattle’s first interracial labor unions and joined the Congress of Racial Equality. She became a teacher, and over the next several decades, her advocacy for multicultural, socially conscious education would impact thousands of students. However, many ex-incarcerees, particularly members of older generations, were unable to rebuild their lives after the war. Children of incarcerees began a movement calling for the United States to atone for this historic injustice. In 1988, the US government officially apologized for the wartime incarceration– admitting it was the catastrophic result of racism, hysteria, and failed political leadership. Three years after this apology, Aki Kurose was awarded the Human Rights Award from the Seattle Chapter of the United Nations, celebrating her vision of peace and respect for people of all backgrounds. |
What the US health care system assumes about you | {0: 'Mitchell Katz, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, works to eliminate the unfair effects of economic disparities in health care, challenging traditional health care systems to find ways to meet all patients on their own terms.'} | TEDMED 2018 | A few years ago, I was taking care of a woman who was a victim of violence. I wanted her to be seen in a clinic that specialized in trauma survivors. I made the appointment myself because, being the director of the department, I knew if I did it, she would get an appointment right away. The clinic was about an hour and a half away from where she lived. But she took down the address and agreed to go. Unfortunately, she didn't make it to the clinic. When I spoke to the psychiatrist, he explained to me that trauma survivors are often resistant to dealing with the difficult issues that they face and often miss appointments. For this reason, they don't generally allow the doctors to make appointments for the patients. They had made a special exception for me. When I spoke to my patient, she had a much simpler and less Freudian explanation of why she didn't go to that appointment: her ride didn't show. Now, some of you may be thinking, "Didn't she have some other way of getting to that clinic appointment?" Couldn't she have taken an Uber or called another friend? If you're thinking that, it's probably because you have resources. But she didn't have enough money for an Uber, and she didn't have another friend to call. But she did have me, and I was able to get her another appointment, which she kept without difficulty. She wasn't resistant, it's just that her ride didn't show. I wish I could say that this was an isolated incident, but I know from running the safety net systems in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and now New York City, that health care is built on a middle-class model that often doesn't meet the needs of low-income patients. That's one of the reasons why it's been so difficult for us to close the disparity in health care that exists along economic lines, despite the expansion of health insurance under the ACA, or Obamacare. Health care in the United States assumes that, besides getting across the large land expanse of Los Angeles, it also assumes that you can take off from work in the middle of the day to get care. One of the patients who came to my East Los Angeles clinic on a Thursday afternoon presented with partial blindness in both eyes. Very concerned, I said to him, "When did this develop?" He said, "Sunday." I said, "Sunday? Did you think of coming sooner to clinic?" And he said, "Well, I have to work in order to pay the rent." A second patient to that same clinic, a trucker, drove three days with a raging infection, only coming to see me after he had delivered his merchandise. Both patients' care was jeopardized by their delays in seeking care. Health care in the United States assumes that you speak English or can bring someone with you who can. In San Francisco, I took care of a patient on the inpatient service who was from West Africa and spoke a dialect so unusual that we could only find one translator on the telephonic line who could understand him. And that translator only worked one afternoon a week. Unfortunately, my patient needed translation services every day. Health care in the United States assumes that you are literate. I learned that a patient of mine who spoke English without accent was illiterate, when he asked me to please sign a social security disability form for him right away. The form needed to go to the office that same day, and I wasn't in clinic, so trying to help him out, knowing that he was the sole caretaker of his son, I said, "Well, bring the form to my administrative office. I'll sign it and I'll fax it in for you." He took the two buses to my office, dropped off the form, went back home to take care of his son ... I got to the office, and what did I find next to the big "X" on the form? The word "applicant." He needed to sign the form. And so now I had to have him take the two buses back to the office and sign the form so that we could then fax it in for him. It completely changed how I took care of him. I made sure that I always went over instructions verbally with him. It also made me think about all of the patients who receive reams and reams of paper spit out by our modern electronic health record systems, explaining their diagnoses and their treatments, and wondering how many people actually can understand what's on those pieces of paper. Health care in the United States assumes that you have a working telephone and an accurate address. The proliferation of inexpensive cell phones has actually helped quite a lot. But still, my patients run out of minutes, and their phones get disconnected. Low-income people often have to move around a lot by necessity. I remember reviewing a chart of a woman with an abnormality on her mammogram. That chart assiduously documents that three letters were sent to her home, asking her to please come in for follow-up. Of course, if the address isn't accurate, it doesn't much matter how many letters you send to that same address. Health care in the United States assumes that you have a steady supply of food. This is particularly an issue for diabetics. We give them medications that lower their blood sugar. On days when they don't have enough food, it puts them at risk for a life-threatening side effect of hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. Health care in the United States assumes that you have a home with a refrigerator for your insulin, a bathroom where you can wash up, a bed where you can sleep without worrying about violence while you're resting. But what if you don't have that? What if you live on the street, you live under the freeway, you live in a congregant shelter, where every morning you have to leave at 7 or 8am? Where do you store your medicines? Where do you use the bathroom? How do you put your legs up if you have congestive heart failure? Is it any wonder that providing people with health insurance who are homeless does not erase the huge disparity between the homeless and the housed? Health care in the United States assumes that you prioritize your health care. But what about all of you? Let me assume for a moment that you're all taking a medication. Maybe it's for high blood pressure. Maybe it's for diabetes or depression. What if tonight you had a choice: you could have your medication but live on the street, or you could be housed in your home but not have your medication. Which would you choose? I know which one I would choose. This is just a graphic example of the kinds of choices that low-income patients have to make every day. So when my doctors shake their heads and say, "I don't know why that patient didn't keep his follow-up appointments," "I don't know why she didn't go for that exam that I ordered," I think, well, maybe her ride didn't show, or maybe he had to work. But also, maybe there was something more important that day than their high blood pressure or a screening colonoscopy. Maybe that patient was dealing with an abusive spouse or a daughter who is pregnant and drug-addicted or a son who was kicked out of school. Or even maybe they were riding their bicycle through an intersection and got hit by a truck, and now they're using a wheelchair and have very limited mobility. Obviously, these things also happen to middle-class people. But when they do, we have resources that enable us to deal with these problems. We also have the belief that we will live out our normal lifespans. That's not true for low-income people. They've seen their friends and relatives die young of accidents, of violence, of cancers that should have been diagnosed at an earlier stage. It can lead to a sense of hopelessness, that it doesn't really matter what you do. I know I've painted a bleak picture of the care of low-income patients. But I want you to know how rewarding I find it to work in a safety net system, and my deep belief is that we can make the system responsive to the needs of low-income patients. The starting point has to be to meet patients where they are, provide services without obstacles and provide patients what they need — not what we think they need. It's impossible for me to take good care of a patient who is homeless and living on the street. The right prescription for a homeless patient is housing. In Los Angeles, we housed 4,700 chronically homeless persons suffering from medical illness, mental illness, addiction. When we housed them, we found that overall health care costs, including the housing, decreased. That's because they had many fewer hospital visits, both in the emergency room and on the inpatient service. And we gave them back their dignity. No extra charge for that. For people who do not have a steady supply of food, especially those who are diabetic, safety net systems are experimenting with a variety of solutions, including food pantries at primary care clinics and distributing maps of community food banks and soup kitchens. And in New York City, we've hired a bunch of enrollers to get our patients into the supplemental nutrition program known as "food stamps" to most people. When patients and doctors don't understand each other, mistakes will occur. For non-English-speaking patients, translation is as important as a prescription pad. Perhaps more important. And, you know, it doesn't cost anything more to put all of the materials at the level of fourth-grade reading, so that everybody can understand what's being said. But more than anything else, I think low-income patients benefit from having a primary care doctor. Mind you, I think middle-class people also benefit from having somebody to quarterback their care. But when they don't, they have others who can advocate for them, who can get them that disability placard or make sure the disability application is completed. But low-income people really need a team of people who can help them to access the medical and non-medical services that they need. Also, many low-income people are disenfranchised from other community supports, and they really benefit from the care and continuity provided by primary care. A primary care doctor I particularly admire once told me how she believed that her relationship with a patient over a decade was the only healthy relationship that that patient had in her life. The good news is, you don't actually have to be a doctor to provide that special sauce of care and continuity. This was really brought home to me when one of my own long-term patients died at an outside hospital. I had to tell the other doctors and nurses in my clinic that he had passed. But I didn't know that in another part of our clinic, on a different floor, there was a registration clerk who had developed a very special relationship with my patient every time he came in for an appointment. When she learned three weeks later that he had died, she came and found me in my examining room, tears streaming down her cheeks, talking about my patient and the memories that she had of him, the kinds of discussions that they had had about their lives together. My patient had a hard life. He was by his own admission a gangbanger. He had spent a substantial amount of time in prison. He suffered from a very serious illness. He was a drug addict. But despite all that, he rarely missed a visit, and I like to believe that was because he knew at our clinic that he was loved. When our health care systems have the same commitment to low-income patients that that man had to us, two things will happen. First, the system will be responsive to the needs of low-income people. It will speak their language, it will meet their schedules, it will fulfill their needs. Second, we will be providing the kind of care that we went into this profession to do — not just checking the boxes, but really taking care of those we serve. Thank you. (Applause) |
What happens in your brain when you taste food | {0: 'Instead of asking them what they think, Camilla Arndal Andersen covers her subjects in sensors to reveal their unfiltered and subconscious response to food.'} | TED@DuPont | So I had this very interesting experience five years ago. You know, me and my husband, we were out grocery shopping, as we do every other day, but this time, we found this fancy, you know, I'm talking fair-trade, I'm talking organic, I'm talking Kenyan, single-origin coffee that we splurged and got. And that was when the problem started already. You know, my husband, he deemed this coffee blend superior to our regular and much cheaper coffee, which made me imagine a life based solely on fancy coffee and I saw our household budget explode. (Laughter) And worse ... I also feared that this investment would be in vain. That we wouldn't be able to notice this difference after all. Unfortunately, especially for my husband, he had momentarily forgotten that he's married to a neuroscientist with a specialty in food science. (Laughter) Alright? So without further ado, I mean, I just put him to the test. I set up an experiment where I first blindfolded my husband. (Laughter) Then I brewed the two types of coffee and I told him that I would serve them to him one at a time. Now, with clear certainty, my husband, he described the first cup of coffee as more raw and bitter. You know, a coffee that would be ideal for the mornings with the sole purpose of terrorizing the body awake by its alarming taste. (Laughter) The second cup of coffee, on the other hand, was both fruity and delightful. You know, coffee that one can enjoy in the evening and relax. Little did my husband know, however, that I hadn't actually given him the two types of coffee. I had given him the exact same cup of coffee twice. (Laughter) And obviously, it wasn't this one cup of coffee that had suddenly gone from horrible to fantastic. No, this taste difference was a product of my husband's own mind. Of his bias in favor of the fancy coffee that made him experience taste differences that just weren't there. Alright, so, having saved our household budget, and finishing on a very good laugh, me especially — (Laughter) I then started wondering just how we could have received two such different responses from a single cup of coffee. Why would my husband make such a bold statement at the risk of being publicly mocked for the rest of his life? (Laughter) The striking answer is that I think you would have done the same. And that's the biggest challenge in my field of science, assessing what's reality behind these answers that we receive. Because how are we going to make food tastier if we cannot rely on what people actually say they like? To understand, let's first have a look at how we actually sense food. When I drink a cup of coffee, I detect this cup of coffee by receptors on my body, information which is then turned into activated neurons in my brain. Wavelengths of light are converted to colors. Molecules in the liquid are detected by receptors in my mouth, and categorized as one of five basic tastes. That's salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami. Molecules in the air are detected by receptors in my nose and converted to odors. And ditto for touch, for temperature, for sound and more. All this information is detected by my receptors and converted into signals between neurons in my brain. Information which is then woven together and integrated, so that my brain recognizes that yes, I just had a cup of coffee, and yes, I liked it. And only then, after all this neuron heavy lifting, do we consciously experience this cup of coffee. And this is now where we have a very common misconception. People tend to think that what we experience consciously must then be an absolute true reflection of reality. But as you just heard, there are many stages of neural interpretation in between the physical item and the conscious experience of it. Which means that sometimes, this conscious experience is not really reflecting that reality at all. Like what happened to my husband. That's because some physical stimuli may just be so weak that they just can't break that barrier to enter our conscious mind, while the information that does may get twisted on its way there by our hidden biases. And people, they have a lot of biases. Yes, if you're sitting there right now, thinking ... you could probably have done better than my husband, you could probably have assessed those coffees correctly, then you're actually suffering from a bias. A bias called the bias blind spot. Our tendency to see ourselves as less biased than other people. (Laughter) And yeah, we can even be biased about the biases that we're biased about. (Laughter) Not trying to make this any easier. A bias that we know in the food industry is the courtesy bias. This is a bias where we give an opinion which is considered socially acceptable, but it's certainly not our own opinion, right? And I'm challenged by this as a food researcher, because when people say they like my new sugar-reduced milkshake, do they now? (Laughter) Or are they saying they like it because they know I'm listening and they want to please me? Or maybe they just to seem fit and healthy in my ears. I wouldn't know. But worse, they wouldn't even know themselves. Even trained food assessors, and that's people who have been explicitly taught to disentangle the sense of smell and the sense of taste, may still be biased to evaluate products sweeter if they contain vanilla. Why? Well, it's certainly not because vanilla actually tastes sweet. It's because even these professionals are human, and have eaten lot of desserts, like us, and have therefore learned to associate sweetness and vanilla. So taste and smell and other sensory information is inextricably entangled in our conscious mind. So on one hand, we can actually use this. We can use these conscious experiences, use this data, exploit it by adding vanilla instead of sugar to sweeten our products. But on the other hand, with these conscious evaluations, I still wouldn't know whether people actually liked that sugar-reduced milkshake. So how do we get around this problem? How do we actually assess what's reality behind these conscious food evaluations? The key is to remove the barrier of the conscious mind and instead target the information in the brain directly. And it turns out our brain holds a lot of fascinating secrets. Our brain constantly receives sensory information from our entire body, most of which we don't even become aware of, like the taste information that I constantly receive from my gastrointestinal tract. And my brain will also act on all this sensory information. It will alter my behavior without my knowledge, and it can increase the diameter of my pupils if I experience something I really like. And increase my sweat production ever so slightly if that emotion was intense. And with brain scans, we can now assess this information in the brain. Specifically, I have used a brain-scanning technique called electroencephalography, or "EEG" in short, which involves wearing a cap studded with electrodes, 128 in my case. Each electrode then measures the electrical activity of the brain with precision down to the millisecond. The problem is, however, it's not just the brain that's electrically active, it's also the rest of the body as well as the environment that contains a lot of electrical activity all the time. To do my research, I therefore need to minimize all this noise. So I ask my participants to do a number of things here. First off, I ask them to rest their head in a chin rest, to avoid too much muscle movement. I also ask them to, meanwhile, stare at the center of a computer monitor to avoid too much eye movements and eye blinks. And I can't even have swallowing, so I ask my participants to stick the tongue out of their mouth over a glass bowl, and then I constantly let taste stimuli onto the tongue, which then drip off into this bowl. (Laughter) And then, just to complete this wonderful picture, I also provide my participants with a bib, available in either pink or blue, as they please. (Laughter) Looks like a normal eating experience, right? (Laughter) No, obviously not. And worse, I can't even control what my participants are thinking about, so I need to repeat this taste procedure multiple times. Maybe the first time, they're thinking about the free lunch that I provide for participating, or maybe the second time, they're thinking about Christmas coming up and what to get for Mom this year, you know. But common for each response is the response to the taste. So I repeat this taste procedure multiple times. Sixty, in fact. And then I average the responses, because responses unrelated to taste will average out. And using this method, we and other labs, have investigated how long a time it takes from "food lands on our tongue" until our brain has figured out which taste it's experiencing. Turns out this occurs within the first already 100 milliseconds, that's about half a second before we even become aware of it. And next up, we also investigated the taste difference between sugar and artificial sweeteners that in our setup taste extremely similar. In fact, they tasted so similar that half my participants could only barely tell the taste apart, while the other half simply couldn't. But amazingly, if we looked across the entire group of participants, we saw that their brains definitely could tell the taste apart. So with EEG and other brain-scanning devices and other physiological measures — sweat and pupil size — we have new gateways to our brain. Gateways that will help us remove the barrier of the conscious mind to see through the biases of people and possibly even capture subconscious taste differences. And that's because we can now measure people's very first response to food before they've become conscious of it, and before they've started rationalizing why they like it or not. We can measure people's facial expressions, we can measure where they're looking, we can measure their sweat response, we can measure their brain response. And with all these measures, we are going to be able to create tastier foods, because we can measure whether people actually like that sugar-reduced milkshake. And we can create healthier foods without compromising taste, because we can measure the response to different sweeteners and find the sweetener that gives the response that's more similar to the response from sugar. And furthermore, we can just help create healthier foods, because we can help understand how we actually sense food in the first place. Which we know surprisingly little about. For example, we know that there are those five basic tastes, but we strongly suspect that there are more, and in fact, using our EEG setup, we found evidence that fat, besides being sensed by its texture and smell, is also tasted. Meaning that fat could be this new sixth basic taste. And if we figure out how our brain recognizes fat and sugar, and I'm just dreaming here, but could we then one day create a milkshake with zero calories that tastes just like the real deal? Or maybe we figure out that we can't, because we subconsciously detect calories via our receptors in our gastrointestinal tract. The future will show. Our conscious experience of food is just the tip of the iceberg of our total sensation of food. And by studying this total sensation, conscious and subconscious alike, I truly believe that we can make tastier and healthier foods for all. Thank you. (Applause) |
"For Estefani, Third Grade, Who Made Me A Card" | null | TED-Ed | I'm Aracelis Girmay, and this is, "For Estefani, Third Grade, Who Made Me a Card." Elephant on an orange line, underneath a yellow circle, meaning sun. Six green, vertical lines, with color all from the top, meaning flowers. The first time I peel back the five squares of Scotch tape, unfold the crooked-crease fold of art class paper. I am in my living room. It is June. Inside of the card, there is one long word, and then Estefani’s name: Loisfoeribari Estefani Loisfoeribari? Loisfoeribari: The scientific, Latinate way of saying hibiscus. Loisforeribari: A direction, as in: are you going North? South? East? West? Loisfoeribari? I try, over and over, to read the word out loud. Loisfoeribari. LoISFOeribari. LoiSFOEribari. LoisFOERibARI. What is this word? I imagine using it in sentences like, “Man, I have to go back to the house, I forgot my Loisfoeribari.” or “There’s nothing better than rain, hot rain, open windows with music, and a tall glass of Loisfoeribari.” or “How are we getting to Pittsburgh? Should we drive or take the Loisfoeribari?” I have lived four minutes with this word not knowing what it means. It is the end of the year. I consider writing my student, Estefani, a letter that goes: To The BRILLIANT Estefani! Hola, querida, I hope that you are well. I’ve just opened the card that you made me, and it is beautiful. I really love the way you filled the sky with birds. I believe that you are chula, chulita, and super fly! Yes, the card is beautiful. I only have one question for you. What does the word ‘Loisfoeribari’ mean? I try the word again. Loisfoeribari. Loisfoeribari. Loisfoeribari. I try the word in Spanish. Loisfoeribari Lo-ees-fo-eh-dee-bah-dee Lo-ees-fo-eh-dee-bah-dee and then, slowly, Lo is fo e ri bari Lo is fo eribari love is for everybody love is for every every body love love love everybody love everybody love love is love everybody everybody is love love love for love for everybody for love is everybody love is for every love is for every body love love love for body love body body is love love is body every body is love is every love for every love is love for love everybody love love love love for everybody Love is for everybody. |
Why language is humanity's greatest invention | {0: 'David Peterson creates languages for television shows, for films and for fun.'} | TEDxBerkeley | Spoons. Cardboard boxes. Toddler-size electric trains. Holiday ornaments. Bounce houses. Blankets. Baskets. Carpets. Tray tables. Smartphones. Pianos. Robes. Photographs. What do all of these things have in common, aside from the fact they're photos that I took in the last three months, and therefore, own the copyright to? (Laughter) They're all inventions that were created with the benefit of language. None of these things would have existed without language. Imagine creating any one of those things or, like, building an entire building like this, without being able to use language or without benefiting from any knowledge that was got by the use of language. Basically, language is the most important thing in the entire world. All of our civilization rests upon it. And those who devote their lives to studying it — both how language emerged, how human languages differ, how they differ from animal communication systems — are linguists. Formal linguistics is a relatively young field, more or less. And it's uncovered a lot of really important stuff. Like, for example, that human communication systems differ crucially from animal communication systems, that all languages are equally expressive, even if they do it in different ways. And yet, despite this, there are a lot of people who just love to pop off about language like they have an equal understanding of it as a linguist, because, of course, they speak a language. And if you speak a language, that means you have just as much right to talk about its function as anybody else. Imagine if you were talking to a surgeon, and you say, "Listen, buddy. I've had a heart for, like, 40 years now. I think I know a thing or two about aortic valve replacements. I think my opinion is just as valid as yours." And yet, that's exactly what happens. This is Neil deGrasse Tyson, saying that in the film "Arrival," he would have brought a cryptographer — somebody who can unscramble a message in a language they already know — rather than a linguist, to communicate with the aliens, because what would a linguist — why would that be useful in talking to somebody speaking a language we don't even know? Though, of course, the "Arrival" film is not off the hook. I mean, come on — listen, film. Hey, buddy: there are aliens that come down to our planet in gigantic ships, and they want to do nothing except for communicate with us, and you hire one linguist? (Laughter) What's the US government on a budget or something? (Laughter) A lot of these things can be chalked up to misunderstandings, both about what language is and about the formal study of language, about linguistics. And I think there's something that underlies a lot of these misunderstandings that can be summed up by this delightful article in "Forbes," about why high school students shouldn't learn foreign languages. I'm going to pull out some quotes from this, and I want you to see if you can figure out what underlies some of these opinions and ideas. "Americans rarely read the classics, even in translation." So in other words, why bother learning a foreign language when they're not even going to read the classic in the original anyway? What's the point? "Studying foreign languages in school is a waste of time, compared to other things that you could be doing in school." "Europe has a lot of language groups clustered in a relatively small space." So for Americans, ah, what's the point of learning another language? You're not really going to get a lot of bang for your buck out of that. This is my favorite, "A student in Birmingham would have to travel about a thousand miles to get to the Mexican border, and even then, there would be enough people who speak English to get around." In other words, if you can kind of wave your arms around, and you can get to where you're going, then there's really no point in learning another language anyway. What underlies a lot of these attitudes is the conceptual metaphor, language is a tool. And there's something that rings very true about this metaphor. Language is kind of a tool in that, if you know the local language, you can do more than if you didn't. But the implication is that language is only a tool, and this is absolutely false. If language was a tool, it would honestly be a pretty poor tool. And we would have abandoned it long ago for something that was a lot better. Think about just any sentence. Here's a sentence that I'm sure I've said in my life: "Yesterday I saw Kyn." I have a friend named Kyn. And when I say this sentence, "Yesterday I saw Kyn," do you think it's really the case that everything in my mind is now implanted in your mind via this sentence? Hardly, because there's a lot of other stuff going on. Like, when I say "yesterday," I might think what the weather was like yesterday because I was there. And if I'm remembering, I'll probably remember there was something I forgot to mail, which I did. This was a preplanned joke, but I really did forget to mail something. And so that means I'm going to have to do it Monday, because that's when I'm going to get back home. And of course, when I think of Monday, I'll think of "Manic Monday" by the Bangles. It's a good song. And when I say the word "saw," I think of this phrase: "'I see!' said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw." I always do. Anytime I hear the word "saw" or say it, I always think of that, because my grandfather always used to say it, so it makes me think of my grandfather. And we're back to "Manic Monday" again, for some reason. And with Kyn, when I'm saying something like, "Yesterday I saw Kyn," I'll think of the circumstances under which I saw him. And this happened to be that day. Here he is with my cat. And of course, if I'm thinking of Kyn, I'll think he's going to Long Beach State right now, and I'll remember that my good friend John and my mother both graduated from Long Beach State, my cousin Katie is going to Long Beach State right now. And it's "Manic Monday" again. But this is just a fraction of what's going on in your head at any given time while you are speaking. And all we have to represent the entire mess that is going on in our head, is this. I mean, that's all we got. (Laughter) Is it any wonder that our system is so poor? So imagine, if I can give you an analogy, imagine if you wanted to know what is it like to eat a cake, if instead of just eating the cake, you instead had to ingest the ingredients of a cake, one by one, along with instructions about how these ingredients can be combined to form a cake. You had to eat the instructions, too. (Laughter) If that was how we had to experience cake, we would never eat cake. And yet, language is the only way — the only way — that we can figure out what is going on here, in our minds. This is our interiority, the thing that makes us human, the thing that makes us different from other animals, is all inside here somewhere, and all we have to do to represent it is our own languages. A language is our best way of showing what's going on in our head. Imagine if I wanted to ask a big question, like: "What is the nature of human thought and emotion?" What you'd want to do is you'd want to examine as many different languages as possible. One isn't just going to do it. To give you an example, here's a picture I took of little Roman, that I took with a 12-megapixel camera. Now, here's that same picture with a lot fewer pixels. Obviously, neither of these pictures is a real cat. But one gives you a lot better sense of what a cat is than the other. Language is not merely a tool. It is our legacy, it's our way of conveying what it means to be human. And of course, by "our" legacy, I mean all humans everywhere. And losing even one language makes that picture a lot less clear. So as a job for the past 10 years and also as recreation, just for fun, I create languages. These are called "conlangs," short for "constructed languages." Now, presenting these facts back to back, that we're losing languages on our planet and that I create brand-new languages, you might think that there's some nonsuperficial connection between these two. In fact, a lot of people have drawn a line between those dots. This is a guy who got all bent out of shape that there was a conlang in James Cameron's "Avatar." He says, "But in the three years it took James Cameron to get Avatar to the screen, a language died." Probably a lot more than that, actually. "Na'vi, alas, won't fill the hole where it used to be ..." A truly profound and poignant statement — if you don't think about it at all. (Laughter) But when I was here at Cal, I completed two majors. One of them was linguistics, but the other one was English. And of course, the English major, the study of English, is not actually the study of the English language, as we know, it's the study of literature. Literature is just a wonderful thing, because basically, literature, more broadly, is kind of like art; it falls under the rubric of art. And what we do with literature, authors create new, entire beings and histories. And it's interesting to us to see what kind of depth and emotion and just unique spirit authors can invest into these fictional beings. So much so, that, I mean — take a look at this. There's an entire series of books that are written about fictional characters. Like, the entire book is just about one fictional, fake human being. There's an entire book on George F. Babbitt from Sinclair Lewis's "Babbitt," and I guarantee you, that book is longer than "Babbitt," which is a short book. Does anybody even remember that one? It's pretty good, I actually think it's better than "Main Street." That's my hot take. So we've never questioned the fact that literature is interesting. But despite the fact, not even linguists are actually interested in what created languages can tell us about the depth of the human spirit just as an artistic endeavor. I'll give you a nice little example here. There was an article written about me in the California alumni magazine a while back. And when they wrote this article, they wanted to get somebody from the opposing side, which, in hindsight, seems like a weird thing to do. You're just talking about a person, and you want to get somebody from the opposing side of that person. (Laughter) Essentially, this is just a puff piece, but whatever. So, they happened to get one of the most brilliant linguists of our time, George Lakoff, who's a linguist here at Berkeley. And his work has basically forever changed the fields of linguistics and cognitive science. And when asked about my work and about language creation in general, he said, "But there's a lot of things to be done in the study of language. You should spend the time on something real." Yeah. "Something real." Does this remind you of anything? To use the very framework that he himself invented, let me refer back to this conceptual metaphor: language is a tool. And he appears to be laboring under this conceptual metaphor; that is, language is useful when it can be used for communication. Language is useless when it can't be used for communication. It might make you wonder: What do we do with dead languages? But anyway. So, because of this idea, it might seem like the very height of absurdity to have a Duolingo course on the High Valyrian language that I created for HBO's "Game of Thrones." You might wonder what, exactly, are 740,000 people learning? (Laughter) Well, let's take a look at it. What are they learning? What could they possibly be learning? Well, bearing in mind that the other language for this — it's for people that speak English — English speakers are learning quite a bit. Here's a sentence that they will probably never use for communication in their entire lives: "Vala ābre urnes." "The man sees the woman." The little middle line is the gloss, so it's word for word, that's what it says. And they're actually learning some very fascinating things, especially if they're English speakers. They're learning that a verb can come at the very end of a sentence. Doesn't really do that in English when you have two arguments. They're learning that sometimes a language doesn't have an equivalent for the word "the" — it's totally absent. That's something language can do. They're learning that a long vowel can actually be longer in duration, as opposed to different in quality, which is what our long vowels do; they're actually the same length. They're learning that there are these little inflections. Hmm? Hmm? There are inflections called "cases" on the end of nouns — (Laughter) that tell you who does what to whom in a sentence. Even if you leave the order of the words the same and switch the endings, it changes who does what to whom. What they're learning is that languages do things, the same things, differently. And that learning languages can be fun. What they're learning is respect for Language: capital "L" Language. And given the fact that 88 percent of Americans only speak English at home, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. You know why languages die on our planet? It's not because government imposes one language on a smaller group, or because an entire group of speakers is wiped out. That certainly has happened in the past, and it's happening now, but it's not the main reason. The main reason is that a child is born to a family that speaks a language that is not widely spoken in their community, and that child doesn't learn it. Why? Because that language is not valued in their community. Because the language isn't useful. Because the child can't go and get a job if they speak that language. Because if language is just a tool, then learning their native language is about as useful as learning High Valyrian, so why bother? Now ... Maybe language study isn't going to lead to a lot more linguistic fluency. But maybe that's not such a big deal. Maybe if more people are studying more languages, it will lead to more linguistic tolerance and less linguistic imperialism. Maybe if we actually respect language for what it is — literally, the greatest invention in the history of humankind — then in the future, we can celebrate endangered languages as living languages, as opposed to museum pieces. (High Valyrian) Kirimvose. Thank you. (Applause) |
Reducing corruption takes a specific kind of investment | {0: 'Efosa Ojomo researches and writes about how innovation transforms organizations and creates inclusive prosperity for many.'} | TED Salon Brightline Initiative | So in 2011, someone broke into my sister's office at the university where she teaches in Nigeria. Now thankfully, the person was caught, arrested and charged to court. When I get into court, the clerks who were assigned to my sister's case informed her that they wouldn't be able to process the paperwork unless she paid a bribe. Now, at first she thought it was part of a practical joke. But then she realized they were serious. And then she became furious. I mean, think about it: here she was, the recent victim of a crime, with the very people who were supposed to help her, and they were demanding a bribe from her. That's just one of the many ways that corruption impacts millions of people in my country. You know, growing up in Nigeria, corruption permeated virtually every element of the society. Reports of politicians embezzling millions of dollars were common. Police officers stealing money or extorting money from everyday hardworking citizens was routine practice. I felt that development could never actually happen, so long as corruption persisted. But over the past several years, in my research on innovation and prosperity, I've learned that corruption is actually not the problem hindering our development. In fact, conventional thinking on corruption and its relationship to development is not only wrong, but it's holding many poor countries backwards. So, the thinking goes like this: in a society that's poor and corrupt, our best shot at reducing corruption is to create good laws, enforce them well, and this will make way for development and innovation to flourish. Now, it makes sense on paper, which is why many governments and development organizations invest billions of dollars annually on institutional reform and anti-corruption programs. But many of these programs fail to reduce corruption, because we have the equation backwards. You see, societies don't develop because they've reduced corruption. They're able to reduce corruption because they've developed. And societies develop through investments in innovation. Now, at first, I thought this was impossible. Why would anyone in their right mind invest in a society where, at least on the surface, it seems a terrible place to do business? You know, a society where politicians are corrupt and consumers are poor? But then, the more I learned about the relationship between innovation and corruption, the more I started to see things differently. Here's how this played out in sub-Saharan Africa as the region developed its telecommunications industry. In the late 1990s, fewer than five percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa had phones. In Nigeria, for example, the country had more than 110 million people but fewer than half a million phones in the whole nation. Now, this scarcity fueled widespread corruption in the industry. I mean, public officials who worked for the state-owned phone companies demanded bribes from people who wanted phones. And because most people couldn't afford to pay the bribes, phones were only available to those who were wealthy. Then an entrepreneur named Mo Ibrahim decided that he would set up a telecommunications company on the continent. Now, when he told his colleagues about his idea, they just laughed at him. But Mo Ibrahim was undeterred. And so in 1998, he set up Celtel. The company provided affordable mobile phones and cell service to millions of Africans, in some of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the region — I mean countries such as Congo, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Uganda. You see, in our research, we call what Mo Ibrahim built a "market-creating innovation." Market-creating innovations transform complicated and expensive products into products that are simple and affordable, so that many more people in society could access them. Now in this case, phones were expensive before Celtel made them much more affordable. As other investors — some of his colleagues, actually — saw that it was possible to create a successful mobile phone company on the continent, they flooded in with billions of dollars of investments. And this led to significant growth in the industry. From barely nothing in 2000, today, virtually every African country now has a vibrant mobile telecommunications industry. The sector now supports close to one billion phone connections, it has created nearly four million jobs and generates billions of dollars in taxes every year. These are taxes that governments can now reinvest into the economy to build their institutions. And here's the thing: because most people no longer have to bribe public officials just to get a phone, corruption — at least within this industry — has reduced. Now, if Mo Ibrahim had waited for corruption to be fixed in all of sub-Saharan Africa before he invested, he would still be waiting today. You know, most people who engage in corruption know they shouldn't. I mean, the public officials who were demanding bribes from people to get phones and the people who were paying the bribes — they knew they were breaking the law. But they did it anyways. The question is: Why? The answer? Scarcity. See, whenever people would benefit from gaining access to something that scarce, this makes corruption attractive. You know, in poor countries, we complain a lot about corrupt politicians who embezzle state funds. But in many of those countries, economic opportunity is scarce, and so corruption becomes an attractive way to gain wealth. We also complain about civil servants like police officers, who extort money from everyday hardworking citizens. But most civil servants are grossly underpaid and are leading desperate lives. And so for them, extortion or corruption is a good way to make a living. You know, this phenomenon also plays itself out in wealthy countries as well. When rich parents bribe university officials — (Laughter) When rich parents bribe university officials so their children can gain admission into elite colleges, the circumstance is different, but the principle is the same. I mean, admission into elite colleges is scarce, and so bribery becomes attractive. The thing is, I'm not trying to say there shouldn't be things that are scarce in society or things that are selective. What I'm just trying to explain is this relationship between corruption and scarcity. And in most poor countries, way too many basic things are scarce. I mean things like food, education, health care, economic opportunity, jobs. This creates the perfect breeding ground for corruption to thrive. Now, in no way does this excuse corrupt behavior. It just helps us understand it a bit better. Investing in businesses that make things affordable and accessible to so many more people attacks this scarcity and creates the revenues for governments to reinvest in their economies. Now, when this happens on a countrywide level, it can revolutionize nations. Consider the impact in South Korea. Now, in the 1950s, South Korea was a desperately poor country, and it was very corrupt. The country was ruled by an authoritarian government and engaged in bribery and embezzlement. In fact, economists at the time said South Korea was trapped in poverty, and they referred to it as "an economic basket case." When you looked at South Korea's institutions, even as late as the 1980s, they were on par with some of the poorest and most corrupt African countries at the time. But as companies like Samsung, Kia, Hyundai invested in innovations that made things much more affordable for so many more people, South Korea ultimately became prosperous. As the country grew prosperous, it was able to transition from an authoritarian government to a democratic government and has been able to reinvest in building its institutions. And this has paid off tremendously. For instance, in 2018, South Korea's president was sentenced to 25 years in prison on corruption-related charges. This could never have happened decades ago when the country was poor and ruled by an authoritarian government. In fact, as we looked at most prosperous countries today, what we found was, they were able to reduce corruption as they became prosperous — not before. And so where does that leave us? I know it may sound like I'm saying we should just ignore corruption. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm suggesting, though, is that corruption, especially for most people in poor countries, is a work-around. It's a utility in a place where there are fewer better options to solve a problem. Investing in innovations that make products much more affordable for many people not only attacks this scarcity but it creates a sustainable source of revenue for governments to reinvest into the economies to strengthen their institutions. This is the critical missing piece in the economic development puzzle that will ultimately help us reduce corruption. You know, I lost hope in Nigeria when I was 16. And in some ways, the country has actually gotten worse. In addition to widespread poverty and endemic corruption, Nigeria now actually deals with terrorist organizations like Boko Haram. But somehow, I am more hopeful about Nigeria today than I have ever been before. When I see organizations investing in innovations that are creating jobs for people and making things affordable — I mean organizations like Lifestores Pharmacy, making drugs and pharmaceuticals more affordable for people; or Metro Africa Xpress, tackling the scarcity of distribution and logistics for many small businesses; or Andela, creating economic opportunity for software developers — I am optimistic about the future. I hope you will be, too. Thank you. (Applause) |
This ancient rock is changing our theory on the origin of life | {0: "Tara Djokic discovered direct evidence that indicates some of Earth's oldest life once thrived in hot springs on land."} | TEDxSydney | The Earth is 4.6 billion years old, but a human lifetime often lasts for less than 100 years. So why care about the history of our planet when the distant past seems so inconsequential to everyday life? You see, as far as we can tell, Earth is the only planet in our solar system known to have sparked life, and the only system able to provide life support for human beings. So why Earth? We know Earth is unique for having plate tectonics, liquid water on its surface and an oxygen-rich atmosphere. But this has not always been the case, and we know this because ancient rocks have recorded the pivotal moments in Earth's planetary evolution. And one of the best places to observe those ancient rocks is in the Pilbara of Western Australia. The rocks here are 3.5 billion years old, and they contain some of the oldest evidence for life on the planet. Now, often when we think of early life, we might imagine a stegosaurus or maybe a fish crawling onto land. But the early life that I'm talking about is simple microscopic life, like bacteria. And their fossils are often preserved as layered rock structures, called stromatolites. This simple form of life is almost all we see in the fossil record for the first three billion years of life on Earth. Our species can only be traced back in the fossil record to a few hundred thousand years ago. We know from the fossil record, bacteria life had grabbed a strong foothold by about 3.5 to four billion years ago. The rocks older than this have been either destroyed or highly deformed through plate tectonics. So what remains a missing piece of the puzzle is exactly when and how life on Earth began. Here again is that ancient volcanic landscape in the Pilbara. Little did I know that our research here would provide another clue to that origin-of-life puzzle. It was on my first field trip here, toward the end of a full, long week mapping project, that I came across something rather special. Now, what probably looks like a bunch of wrinkly old rocks are actually stromatolites. And at the center of this mound was a small, peculiar rock about the size of a child's hand. It took six months before we inspected this rock under a microscope, when one of my mentors at the time, Malcolm Walter, suggested the rock resembled geyserite. Geyserite is a rock type that only forms in and around the edges of hot spring pools. Now, in order for you to understand the significance of geyserite, I need to take you back a couple of centuries. In 1871, in a letter to his friend Joseph Hooker, Charles Darwin suggested: "What if life started in some warm little pond with all sort of chemicals still ready to undergo more complex changes?" Well, we know of warm little ponds. We call them "hot springs." In these environments, you have hot water dissolving minerals from the underlying rocks. This solution mixes with organic compounds and results in a kind of chemical factory, which researchers have shown can manufacture simple cellular structures that are the first steps toward life. But 100 years after Darwin's letter, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, or hot vents, were discovered in the ocean. And these are also chemical factories. This one is located along the Tonga volcanic arc, 1,100 meters below sea level in the Pacific Ocean. The black smoke that you see billowing out of these chimneylike structures is also mineral-rich fluid, which is being fed off by bacteria. And since the discovery of these deep-sea vents, the favored scenario for an origin of life has been in the ocean. And this is for good reason: deep-sea vents are well-known in the ancient rock record, and it's thought that the early Earth had a global ocean and very little land surface. So the probability that deep-sea vents were abundant on the very early Earth fits well with an origin of life in the ocean. However ... our research in the Pilbara provides and supports an alternative perspective. After three years, finally, we were able to show that, in fact, our little rock was geyserite. So this conclusion suggested not only did hot springs exist in our 3.5 billion-year-old volcano in the Pilbara, but it pushed back evidence for life living on land in hot springs in the geological record of Earth by three billion years. And so, from a geological perspective, Darwin's warm little pond is a reasonable origin-of-life candidate. Of course, it's still debatable how life began on Earth, and it probably always will be. But it is clear that it's flourished; it has diversified, and it has become ever more complex. Eventually, it reached the age of the human, a species that has begun to question its own existence and the existence of life elsewhere: Is there a cosmic community waiting to connect with us, or are we all there is? A clue to this puzzle again comes from the ancient rock record. At about 2.5 billion years ago, there is evidence that bacteria had begun to produce oxygen, kind of like plants do today. Geologists refer to the period that followed as the Great Oxidation Event. It is implied from rocks called banded iron formations, many of which can be observed as hundreds-of-meter-thick packages of rock which are exposed in gorges that carve their way through the Karijini National Park in Western Australia. The arrival of free oxygen allowed two major changes to occur on our planet. First, it allowed complex life to evolve. You see, life needs oxygen to get big and complex. And it produced the ozone layer, which protects modern life from the harmful effects of the sun's UVB radiation. So in an ironic twist, microbial life made way for complex life, and in essence, relinquished its three-billion-year reign over the planet. Today, we humans dig up fossilized complex life and burn it for fuel. This practice pumps vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and like our microbial predecessors, we have begun to make substantial changes to our planet. And the effects of those are encompassed by global warming. Unfortunately, the ironic twist here could see the demise of humanity. And so maybe the reason we aren't connecting with life elsewhere, intelligent life elsewhere, is that once it evolves, it extinguishes itself quickly. If the rocks could talk, I suspect they might say this: life on Earth is precious. It is the product of four or so billion years of a delicate and complex co-evolution between life and Earth, of which humans only represent the very last speck of time. You can use this information as a guide or a forecast — or an explanation as to why it seems so lonely in this part of the galaxy. But use it to gain some perspective about the legacy that you want to leave behind on the planet that you call home. Thank you. (Applause) |
The first and last king of Haiti | null | TED-Ed | The royal couple of Haiti rode into their coronation to thunderous applause. After receiving his ornate crown and scepter, Henry Christophe ascended his throne, towering 20 meters in the air. But little did the cheering onlookers know that the first king of Haiti would also be its last. Enslaved at birth on the island of Grenada, Christophe spent his childhood being moved between multiple Caribbean islands. Just 12 years old in 1779, he accompanied his master to aid the American revolutionaries in the Battle of Savannah. This prolonged siege would be Christophe’s first encounter with violent revolution. There are few surviving written records about Christophe’s life immediately after the war. Over the next decade, we know he worked as a mason and a waiter at a hotel in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, as Haiti was then known. In 1791, when the colony’s slaves rose up in rebellion, Christophe got another opportunity to fight for freedom. Led by Toussaint Louverture, the rebels fought against plantation owners, as well as British and Spanish forces seeking control of the island. Christophe quickly rose through the ranks, proving himself the equal of more experienced generals. By 1793, Louverture had successfully liberated all of Saint-Domingue’s enslaved people, and by 1801 he’d established the island as a semi-autonomous colony. But during this time, Napoleon Bonaparte had assumed power in France, and made it his mission to restore slavery and French authority throughout the empire. French attempts to reinstate slavery met fierce resistance, with General Christophe even burning the capital city to prevent military occupation. Finally, the rebellion and an outbreak of yellow fever forced French soldiers to withdraw— but the fight was not without casualties. Louverture was captured, and left to die in a French prison; a fate that Christophe’s nine-year-old son would share only a few years later. Following the revolution, Christophe and generals Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Alexandre Pétion rose to prominent positions in the new government. In 1804, Dessalines was proclaimed the emperor of independent Haiti. But his desire to hold exclusive power alienated his supporters. Eventually, Dessalines’ rule incited a political conspiracy that ended in his assassination in 1806. The subsequent power struggle led to a Civil War, which split the country in two. By 1807, Christophe was governing as president of the north in Cap-Haïtien, and Pétion was ruling the south from Port-au-Prince. Pétion tried to stay true to the revolution’s democratic roots by modeling his republic after the United States. He even supported anti-colonial revolutionaries in other nations. These policies endeared him to his people, but they slowed trade and economic growth. Christophe, conversely, had more aggressive plans for an independent Haiti. He redistributed land to the people, while retaining state control of agriculture. He also established trade with many foreign nations, including Great Britain and the United States, and pledged non-interference with their foreign policies. He even built a massive Citadel in case the French tried to invade again. To accomplish all of this, Christophe instituted mandatory labor, and to strengthen his authority, he crowned himself king in 1811. During his reign, he lived in an elegant palace called Sans Souci along with his wife and their three remaining children. Christophe’s kingdom oversaw rapid development of trade, industry, culture, and education. He imported renowned European artists to Haiti’s cultural scene, as well as European teachers, in order to establish public education. But while the king was initially popular among his subjects, his labor mandates were an uncomfortable reminder of the slavery Haitians fought to destroy. Over time, his increasingly authoritarian policies lost support, and his opponents to the south gained strength. In October 1820, his reign finally reached its tragic conclusion. Months after a debilitating stroke left him unable to govern, key members of his military defected to southern forces. Betrayed and despondent, the king committed suicide. Today, the traces of Christophe’s complicated history can still be found in the crumbling remains of his palaces, and in Haiti’s legacy as the first nation to permanently abolish slavery. |
Are we living in a simulation? | null | TED-Ed | We live in a vast universe, on a small wet planet, where billions of years ago single-celled life forms evolved from the same elements as all non-living material around them, proliferating and radiating into an incredible ray of complex life forms. All of this— living and inanimate, microscopic and cosmic— is governed by mathematical laws with apparently arbitrary constants. And this opens up a question: If the universe is completely governed by these laws, couldn’t a powerful enough computer simulate it exactly? Could our reality actually be an incredibly detailed simulation set in place by a much more advanced civilization? This idea may sound like science fiction, but it has been the subject of serious inquiry. Philosopher Nick Bostrom advanced a compelling argument that we’re likely living in a simulation, and some scientists also think it’s a possibility. These scientists have started thinking about experimental tests to find out whether our universe is a simulation. They are hypothesizing about what the constraints of the simulation might be, and how those constraints could lead to detectable signs in the world. So where might we look for those glitches? One idea is that as a simulation runs, it might accumulate errors over time. To correct for these errors the simulators could adjust the constants in the laws of nature. These shifts could be tiny— for instance, certain constants we’ve measured with accuracies of parts per million have stayed steady for decades, so any drift would have to be on an even smaller scale. But as we gain more precision in our measurements of these constants, we might detect slight changes over time. Another possible place to look comes from the concept that finite computing power, no matter how huge, can’t simulate infinities. If space and time are continuous, then even a tiny piece of the universe has infinite points and becomes impossible to simulate with finite computing power. So a simulation would have to represent space and time in very small pieces. These would be almost incomprehensibly tiny. But we might be able to search for them by using certain subatomic particles as probes. The basic principle is this: the smaller something is, the more sensitive it will be to disruption— think of hitting a pothole on a skateboard versus in a truck. Any unit in space-time would be so small that most things would travel through it without disruption— not just objects large enough to be visible to the naked eye, but also molecules, atoms, and even electrons and most of the other subatomic particles we’ve discovered. If we do discover a tiny unit in space-time or a shifting constant in a natural law, would that prove the universe is a simulation? No— it would only be the first of many steps. There could be other explanations for each of those findings. And a lot more evidence would be needed to establish the simulation hypothesis as a working theory of nature. However many tests we design, we’re limited by some assumptions they all share. Our current understanding of the natural world on the quantum level breaks down at what’s known as the planck scale. If the unit of space-time is on this scale, we wouldn’t be able to look for it with our current scientific understanding. There’s still a wide range of things that are smaller than what’s currently observable but larger than the planck scale to investigate. Similarly, shifts in the constants of natural laws could occur so slowly that they would only be observable over the lifetime of the universe. So they could exist even if we don’t detect them over centuries or millennia of measurements. We're also biased towards thinking that our universe’s simulator, if it exists, makes calculations the same way we do, with similar computational limitations. Really, we have no way of knowing what an alien civilization’s constraints and methods would be— but we have to start somewhere. It may never be possible to prove conclusively that the universe either is, or isn’t, a simulation, but we’ll always be pushing science and technology forward in pursuit of the question: what is the nature of reality? |
How we're helping local reporters turn important stories into national news | {0: 'Gangadhar Patil runs 101Reporters, a growing network of 1400 odd rural reporters in India that sources original stories from these local reporters for national and international media.'} | TED2019 | I'm a journalist. And I know how frustrating it gets when most of your stories go unnoticed. I felt it when I worked as a local reporter in my hometown Belgaum, in India. I thought maybe joining a national newspaper would help. So I went through professional training and worked with India's three national newspapers. During my five-year stint, I used to travel for my stories. It was in early 2012 I traveled 1,000 miles from Mumbai to a coastal village in south India. I was there to do a story on environmental risk of a nuclear power plant. When I spoke to a local activist, he said the story of hundreds of villagers protesting against a nuclear power plant was reported by local media six months before national TV channels picked it up. I had similar experiences when I traveled for other stories. It confirmed my belief that a local reporter knows a story much before it is picked up by national media. But like me, they did not have a platform to share them. According to a 2011 media study, only two percent of India's mainstream media coverage is about rural issues. Even though almost 70 percent of India's population, 1.3 billion population, live in villages. This is disturbing for a democratic country like India, where transparency is key to ensure justice to everyone, especially the poor. I was convinced that there's a need to build a platform to bring out this important story at the national level. So I quit my job with "Economic Times" in December 2014. For the next six months, I freelanced and also built a database of 20,000 local reporters across India. During that time, I saw editors who were looking for more and more contributors as news organizations cut down cost by getting rid of hundreds of full-time reporters. I saw an opportunity to highlight these important stories if I can train these local reporters and connect them with the mainstream media. And that is exactly what we are doing. Our tech platform, for the first time, discovers a local reporter, grooms them, and helps them write for national and international publications. A team of experienced editors works closely with these local reporters on each and every story filed by them. This process not only helps the local reporters learn reporting skills but also gives credibility to their stories. In June 2017, one of our local reporters, Saurabh Sharma, won an international award from the European Commission for his story on the hardships faced by young girls living on the street. We're also trying to correct market for these local reporters, by paying them three times more than the existing rates. Better pay and recognition is giving them confidence to dig deeper and expose corruption in the system and society. We recently reported a story from Northeast India where children have to cross a river in a huge cooking pot, risking their life every day, because there's no bridge, there's no boat. The story was picked up by mainstream media and it caught the attention of a local elected representative who promised to build a bridge. In the last three years of our operations, we have reported more than 2,500 such stories. To publish them for a wider reach and impact, we have partnered with 16 leading media houses, who are happy to take them, as it brings their cost down, by not editing or managing reporters. Today, we have more than 1,200 reporters in our network, covering stories like the nuclear power plant, from places that are either ignored by mainstream media or never covered. In the next five years, we plan to have one reporter in each of the 5,500 subdistricts in India, covering the entire nation, to ensure that none of these important stories go unnoticed. Next time you see a story from the countryside, please do not ignore it. Do read and share them, they might be breaking stories. This way, we can ensure none of the important stories go unnoticed. Thank you. (Applause) |
The transformative power of video games | {0: 'Herman Narula builds new technology for the online games and virtual worlds that will massively impact the way we live, socialize and entertain each other.'} | TED2019 | Hello. My name is Herman, and I've always been struck by how the most important, impactful, tsunami-like changes to our culture and our society always come from those things that we least think are going to have that impact. I mean, as a computer scientist, I remember when Facebook was just image-sharing in dorm rooms, and depending upon who you ask, it's now involved in toppling elections. I remember when cryptocurrency or automated trading were sort of ideas by a few renegades in the financial institutions in the world for automated trading, or online, for cryptocurrency, and they're now coming to quickly shape the way that we operate. And I think each of you can recall that moment where one of these ideas felt like some ignorable, derisive thing, and suddenly, oh, crap, the price of Bitcoin is what it is. Or, oh, crap, guess who's been elected. The reality is that, you know, from my perspective, I think that we're about to encounter that again. And I think one of the biggest, most impactful changes in the way we live our lives, to the ways we're educated, probably even to how we end up making an income, is about to come not from AI, not from space travel or biotech — these are all very important future inventions — but in the next five years, I think it's going to come from video games. So that's a bold claim, OK. I see some skeptical faces in the audience. But if we take a moment to try to look at what video games are already becoming in our lives today, and what just a little bit of technological advancement is about to create, it starts to become more of an inevitability. And I think the possibilities are quite electrifying. So let's just take a moment to think about scale. I mean, there's already 2.6 billion people who play games. And the reality is that's a billion more than five years ago. A billion more people in that time. No religion, no media, nothing has spread like that. And there's likely to be a billion more when Africa and India gain the infrastructure to sort of fully realize the possibilities of gaming. But what I find really special is — and this often shocks a lot of people — is that the average age of a gamer, like, have a guess, think about it. It's not six, it's not 18, it's not 12. It's 34. [Average age of an American gamer] It's older than me. And that tells us something, that this isn't entertainment for children anymore. This is already a medium like literature or anything else that's becoming a fundamental part of our lives. One stat I like is that people who generally picked up gaming in the last sort of 15, 20 years generally don't stop. Something changed in the way that this medium is organized. And more than that, it's not just play anymore, right? You've heard some examples today, but people are earning an income playing games. And not in the obvious ways. Yes, there's e-sports, there's prizes, there's the opportunity to make money in a competitive way. But there's also people earning incomes modding games, building content in them, doing art in them. I mean, there's something at a scale akin to the Florentine Renaissance, happening on your kid's iPhone in your living room. And it's being ignored. Now, what's even more exciting for me is what's about to happen. And when you think about gaming, you're probably already imagining that it features these massive, infinite worlds, but the truth is, games have been deeply limited for a very long time in a way that kind of we in the industry have tried very hard to cover up with as much trickery as possible. The metaphor I like to use, if you'd let me geek out for a moment, is the notion of a theater. For the last 10 years, games have massively advanced the visual effects, the physical immersion, the front end of games. But behind the scenes, the actual experiential reality of a game world has remained woefully limited. I'll put that in perspective for a moment. I could leave this theater right now, I could do some graffiti, get in a fight, fall in love. I might actually do all of those things after this, but the point is that all of that would have consequence. It would ripple through reality — all of you could interact with that at the same time. It would be persistent. And those are very important qualities to what makes the real world real. Now, behind the scenes in games, we've had a limit for a very long time. And the limit is, behind the visuals, the actual information being exchanged between players or entities in a single game world has been deeply bounded by the fact that games mostly take place on a single server or a single machine. Even The World of Warcraft is actually thousands of smaller worlds. When you hear about concerts in Fortnite, you're actually hearing about thousands of small concerts. You know, individual, as was said earlier today, campfires or couches. There isn't really this possibility to bring it all together. Let's take a moment to just really understand what that means. When you look at a game, you might see this, beautiful visuals, all of these things happening in front of you. But behind the scenes in an online game, this is what it looks like. To a computer scientist, all you see is just a little bit of information being exchanged by a tiny handful of meaningful entities or objects. You might be thinking, "I've played in an infinite world." Well it's more that you've played on a treadmill. As you've been walking through that world, we've been cleverly causing the parts of it that you're not in to vanish, and the parts of it in front of you to appear. A good trick, but not the basis for the revolution that I promised you in the beginning of this talk. But the reality is, for those of you that are passionate gamers and might be excited about this, and for those of you that are afraid and may not be, all of that is about to change. Because finally, the technology is in place to go well beyond the limits that we've previously seen. I've dedicated my career to this, there are many others working on the problem — I'd hardly take credit for it myself, but we're at the point now where we can finally do this impossible hard thing of weaving together thousands of disparate machines into single simulations that are convenient enough to not be one-offs, but to be buildable by anybody. And to be at the point where we can start to experience those things that we can't yet fathom. Let's just take a moment to visualize that. I'm talking about not individual little simulations but a massive possibility of huge networks of interaction. Massive global events that can happen inside that. Things that even in the real world become challenging to produce at that kind of scale. And I know some of you are gamers, so I'm going to show you some footage of some things that I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to do, from some of our partners. TED and me had a back-and-forth on this. These are a few things that not many people have seen before, some new experiences powered by this type of technology. I'll just [take] a moment to show you some of this stuff. This is a single game world with thousands of simultaneous people participating in a conflict. It also has its own ecosystem, its own sense of predator and prey. Every single object you see here is simulated in some way. This is a game being built by one of the biggest companies in the world, NetEase, a huge Chinese company. And they've made an assistant creative simulation where groups of players can cocreate together, across multiple devices, in a world that doesn't vanish when you're done. It's a place to tell stories and have adventures. Even the weather is simulated. And that's kind of awesome. And this is my personal favorite. This is a group of people, pioneers in Berlin, a group called Klang Games, and they're completely insane, and they'll love me for saying that. And they found a way to model, basically, an entire planet. They're going to have a simulation with millions of non-player characters and players engaging. They actually grabbed Lawrence Lessig to help understand the political ramifications of the world they're creating. This is the sort of astounding set of experiences, well beyond what we might have imagined, that are now going to be possible. And that's just the first step in this technology. So if we step beyond that, what happens? Well, computer science tends to be all exponential, once we crack the really hard problems. And I'm pretty sure that very soon, we're going to be in a place where we can make this type of computational power look like nothing. And when that happens, the opportunities ... It's worth taking a moment to try to imagine what I'm talking about here. Hundreds of thousands or millions of people being able to coinhabit the same space. The last time any of us as a species had the opportunity to build or do something together with that may people was in antiquity. And the circumstances were less than optimal, shall we say. Mostly conflicts or building pyramids. Not necessarily the best thing for us to be spending our time doing. But if you bring together that many people, the kind of shared experience that can create ... I think it exercises a social muscle in us that we've lost and forgotten. Going even beyond that, I want to take a moment to think about what it means for relationships, for identity. If we can give each other worlds, experiences at scale where we can spend a meaningful amount of our time, we can change what it means to be an individual. We can go beyond a single identity to a diverse set of personal identities. The gender, the race, the personality traits you were born with might be something you want to experiment differently with. You might be someone that wants to be more than one person. We all are, inside, multiple people. We rarely get the opportunity to flex that. It's also about empathy. I have a grandmother who I have literally nothing in common with. I love her to bits, but every story she has begins in 1940 and ends sometime in 1950. And every story I have is like 50 years later. But if we could coinhabit, co-experience things together, that undiminished by physical frailty or by lack of context, create opportunities together, that changes things, that bonds people in different ways. I'm struck by how social media has amplified our many differences, and really made us more who we are in the presence of other people. I think games could really start to create an opportunity for us to empathize again. To have shared adversity, shared opportunity. I mean, statistically, at this moment in time, there are people who are on the opposite sides of a conflict, who have been matchmade together into a game and don't even know it. That's an incredible opportunity to change the way we look at things. Finally, for those of you who perhaps are more cynical about all of this, who maybe don't think that virtual worlds and games are your cup of tea. There's a reality you have to accept, and that is that the economic impact of what I'm talking about will be profound. Right now, thousands of people have full-time jobs in gaming. Soon, it will be millions of people. Wherever there's a mobile phone, there will be a job. An opportunity for something that is creative and rich and gives you an income, no matter what country you're in, no matter what skills or opportunities you might think you have. Probably the first dollar most kids born today make might be in a game. That will be the new paper route, that will be the new opportunity for an income at the earliest time in your life. So I kind of want to end with almost a plea, really, more than thoughts. A sense of, I think, how we need to face this new opportunity a little differently to some we have in the past. It's so hypocritical for yet another technologist to stand up on stage and say, "The future will be great, technology will fix it." And the reality is, this is going to have downsides. But those downsides will only be amplified if we approach, once again, with cynicism and derision, the opportunities that this presents. The worst thing that we could possibly do is let the same four or five companies end up dominating yet another adjacent space. (Applause) Because they're not just going to define how and who makes money from this. The reality is, we're now talking about defining how we think, what the rules are around identity and collaboration, the rules of the world we live in. This has got to be something we all own, we all cocreate. So, my final plea is really to those engineers, those scientists, those artists in the audience today. Maybe some of you dreamed of working on space travel. The reality is, there are worlds you can build right here, right now, that can transform people's lives. There are still huge technological frontiers that need to be overcome here, akin to those we faced when building the early internet. All the technology behind virtual worlds is different. So, my plea to you is this. Let's engage, let's all engage, let's actually try to make this something that we shape in a positive way, rather than once again have be done to us. Thank you. (Applause) |
A radical plan to end plastic waste | {0: 'Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest is an Australian businessman, philanthropist and entrepreneur, widely considered one of the country’s greatest change agents.', 1: 'After a long career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2002 and has developed it as a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas worth spreading.'} | We the Future | Chris Anderson: So, you've been obsessed with this problem for the last few years. What is the problem, in your own words? Andrew Forrest: Plastic. Simple as that. Our inability to use it for the tremendous energetic commodity that it is, and just throw it away. CA: And so we see waste everywhere. At its extreme, it looks a bit like this. I mean, where was this picture taken? AF: That's in the Philippines, and you know, there's a lot of rivers, ladies and gentlemen, which look exactly like that. And that's the Philippines. So it's all over Southeast Asia. CA: So plastic is thrown into the rivers, and from there, of course, it ends up in the ocean. I mean, we obviously see it on the beaches, but that's not even your main concern. It's what's actually happening to it in the oceans. Talk about that. AF: OK, so look. Thank you, Chris. About four years ago, I thought I'd do something really barking crazy, and I committed to do a PhD in marine ecology. And the scary part about that was, sure, I learned a lot about marine life, but it taught me more about marine death and the extreme mass ecological fatality of fish, of marine life, marine mammals, very close biology to us, which are dying in the millions if not trillions that we can't count at the hands of plastic. CA: But people think of plastic as ugly but stable. Right? You throw something in the ocean, "Hey, it'll just sit there forever. Can't do any damage, right?" AF: See, Chris, it's an incredible substance designed for the economy. It is the worst substance possible for the environment. The worst thing about plastics, as soon as it hits the environment, is that it fragments. It never stops being plastic. It breaks down smaller and smaller and smaller, and the breaking science on this, Chris, which we've known in marine ecology for a few years now, but it's going to hit humans. We are aware now that nanoplastic, the very, very small particles of plastic, carrying their negative charge, can go straight through the pores of your skin. That's not the bad news. The bad news is that it goes straight through the blood-brain barrier, that protective coating which is there to protect your brain. Your brain's a little amorphous, wet mass full of little electrical charges. You put a negative particle into that, particularly a negative particle which can carry pathogens — so you have a negative charge, it attracts positive-charge elements, like pathogens, toxins, mercury, lead. That's the breaking science we're going to see in the next 12 months. CA: So already I think you told me that there's like 600 plastic bags or so for every fish that size in the ocean, something like that. And they're breaking down, and there's going to be ever more of them, and we haven't even seen the start of the consequences of that. AF: No, we really haven't. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, they're a bunch of good scientists, we've been working with them for a while. I've completely verified their work. They say there will be one ton of plastic, Chris, for every three tons of fish by, not 2050 — and I really get impatient with people who talk about 2050 — by 2025. That's around the corner. That's just the here and now. You don't need one ton of plastic to completely wipe out marine life. Less than that is going to do a fine job at it. So we have to end it straightaway. We've got no time. CA: OK, so you have an idea for ending it, and you're coming at this not as a typical environmental campaigner, I would say, but as a businessman, as an entrepreneur, who has lived — you've spent your whole life thinking about global economic systems and how they work. And if I understand it right, your idea depends on heroes who look something like this. What's her profession? AF: She, Chris, is a ragpicker, and there were 15, 20 million ragpickers like her, until China stopped taking everyone's waste. And the price of plastic, minuscule that it was, collapsed. That led to people like her, which, now — she is a child who is a schoolchild. She should be at school. That's probably very akin to slavery. My daughter Grace and I have met hundreds of people like her. CA: And there are many adults as well, literally millions around the world, and in some industries, they actually account for the fact that, for example, we don't see a lot of metal waste in the world. AF: That's exactly right. That little girl is, in fact, the hero of the environment. She's in competition with a great big petrochemical plant which is just down the road, the three-and-a-half-billion-dollar petrochemical plant. That's the problem. We've got more oil and gas in plastic and landfill than we have in the entire oil and gas resources of the United States. So she is the hero. And that's what that landfill looks like, ladies and gentlemen, and it's solid oil and gas. CA: So there's huge value potentially locked up in there that the world's ragpickers would, if they could, make a living from. But why can't they? AF: Because we have ingrained in us a price of plastic from fossil fuels, which sits just under what it takes to economically and profitably recycle plastic from plastic. See, all plastic is is building blocks from oil and gas. Plastic's 100 percent polymer, which is 100 percent oil and gas. And you know we've got enough plastic in the world for all our needs. And when we recycle plastic, if we can't recycle it cheaper than fossil fuel plastic, then, of course, the world just sticks to fossil fuel plastic. CA: So that's the fundamental problem, the price of recycled plastic is usually more than the price of just buying it made fresh from more oil. That's the fundamental problem. AF: A slight tweak of the rules here, Chris. I'm a commodity person. I understand that we used to have scrap metal and rubbish iron and bits of copper lying all round the villages, particularly in the developing world. And people worked out it's got a value. It's actually an article of value, not of waste. Now the villages and the cities and the streets are clean, you don't trip over scrap copper or scrap iron now, because it's an article of value, it gets recycled. CA: So what's your idea, then, to try to change that in plastics? AF: OK, so Chris, for most part of that PhD, I've been doing research. And the good thing about being a businessperson who's done OK at it is that people want to see you. Other businesspeople, even if you're kind of a bit of a zoo animal species they'd like to check out, they'll say, yeah, OK, we'll all meet Twiggy Forrest. And so once you're in there, you can interrogate them. And I've been to most of the oil and gas and fast-moving consumer good companies in the world, and there is a real will to change. I mean, there's a couple of dinosaurs who are going to hope for the best and do nothing, but there's a real will to change. So what I've been discussing is, the seven and a half billion people in the world don't actually deserve to have their environment smashed by plastic, their oceans rendered depauperate or barren of sea life because of plastic. So you come down that chain, and there's tens of thousands of brands which we all buy heaps of products from, but then there's only a hundred major resin producers, big petrochemical plants, that spew out all the plastic which is single use. CA: So one hundred companies are right at the base of this food chain, as it were. AF: Yeah. CA: And so what do you need those one hundred companies to do? AF: OK, so we need them to simply raise the value of the building blocks of plastic from oil and gas, which I call "bad plastic," raise the value of that, so that when it spreads through the brands and onto us, the customers, we won't barely even notice an increase in our coffee cup or Coke or Pepsi, or anything. CA: Like, what, like a cent extra? AF: Less. Quarter of a cent, half a cent. It'll be absolutely minimal. But what it does, it makes every bit of plastic all over the world an article of value. Where you have the waste worst, say Southeast Asia, India, that's where the wealth is most. CA: OK, so it feels like there's two parts to this. One is, if they will charge more money but carve out that excess and pay it — into what? — a fund operated by someone to tackle this problem of — what? What would that money be used for, that they charge the extra for? AF: So when I speak to really big businesses, I say, "Look, I need you to change, and I need you to change really fast," their eyes are going to peel over in boredom, unless I say, "And it's good business." "OK, now you've got my attention, Andrew." So I say, "Right, I need you to make a contribution to an environmental and industry transition fund. Over two or three years, the entire global plastics industry can transition from getting its building blocks from fossil fuel to getting its building blocks from plastic. The technology is out there. It's proven." I've taken two multibillion-dollar operations from nothing, recognizing that the technology can be scaled. I see at least a dozen technologies in plastic to handle all types of plastic. So once those technologies have an economic margin, which this gives them, that's where the global public will get all their plastic from, from existing plastic. CA: So every sale of virgin plastic contributes money to a fund that is used to basically transition the industry and start to pay for things like cleanup and other pieces. AF: Absolutely. Absolutely. CA: And it has the incredible side benefit, which is maybe even the main benefit, of creating a market. It suddenly makes recyclable plastic a giant business that can unlock millions of people around the world to find a new living collecting it. AF: Yeah, exactly. So all you do is, you've got fossil fuel plastics at this value and recycled plastic at this value. You change it. So recycled plastic is cheaper. What I love about this most, Chris, is that, you know, we waste into the environment 300, 350 million tons of plastic. On the oil and gas companies own accounts, it's going to grow to 500 million tons. This is an accelerating problem. But every ton of that is polymer. Polymer is 1,000 dollars, 1,500 dollars a ton. That's half a trillion dollars which could go into business and could create jobs and opportunities and wealth right across the world, particularly in the most impoverished. Yet we throw it away. CA: So this would allow the big companies to invest in recycling plants literally all over the world — AF: All over the world. Because the technology is low-capital cost, you can put it in at rubbish dumps, at the bottom of big hotels, garbage depots, everywhere, turn that waste into resin. CA: Now, you're a philanthropist, and you're ready to commit some of your own wealth to this. What is the role of philanthropy in this project? AF: I think what we have to do is kick in the 40 to 50 million US dollars to get it going, and then we have to create absolute transparency so everyone can see exactly what's going on. From the resin producers to the brands to the consumers, everyone gets to see who is playing the game, who is protecting the Earth, and who doesn't care. And that'll cost about a million dollars a week, and we're going to underwrite that for five years. Total contribution is circa 300 million US dollars. CA: Wow. Now — (Applause) You've talked to other companies, like to the Coca-Colas of this world, who are willing to do this, they're willing to pay a higher price, they would like to pay a higher price, so long as it's fair. AF: Yeah, it's fair. So, Coca-Cola wouldn't like Pepsi to play ball unless the whole world knew that Pepsi wasn't playing ball. Then they don't care. So it's that transparency of the market where, if people try and cheat the system, the market can see it, the consumers can see it. The consumers want a role to play in this. Seven and a half billion of us. We don't want our world smashed by a hundred companies. CA: Well, so tell us, you've said what the companies can do and what you're willing to do. What can people listening do? AF: OK, so I would like all of us, all around the world, to go a website called noplasticwaste.org. You contact your hundred resin producers which are in your region. You will have at least one within an email or Twitter or a telephone contact from you, and let them know that you would like them to make a contribution to a fund which industry can manage or the World Bank can manage. It raises tens of billions of dollars per year so you can transition the industry to getting all its plastic from plastic, not from fossil fuel. We don't need that. That's bad. This is good. And it can clean up the environment. We've got enough capital there, we've got tens of billions of dollars, Chris, per annum to clean up the environment. CA: You're in the recycling business. Isn't this a conflict of interest for you, or rather, a huge business opportunity for you? AF: Yeah, look, I'm in the iron ore business, and I compete against the scrap metal business, and that's why you don't have any scrap lying around to trip over, and cut your toe on, because it gets collected. CA: This isn't your excuse to go into the plastic recycling business. AF: No, I am going to cheer for this boom. This will be the internet of plastic waste. This will be a boom industry which will spread all over the world, and particularly where poverty is worst because that's where the rubbish is most, and that's the resource. So I'm going to cheer for it and stand back. CA: Twiggy, we're in an era where so many people around the world are craving a new, regenerative economy, these big supply chains, these big industries, to fundamentally transform. It strikes me as a giant idea, and you're going to need a lot of people cheering you on your way to make it happen. Thank you for sharing this with us. AF: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chris. (Applause) |
A personal plea for humanity at the US-Mexico border | {0: 'Juan Enriquez thinks and writes about the profound changes that genomics and brain research will bring about in business, technology, politics and society.'} | TED Salon Border Stories | This one's personal. I know what it's like to have the government say, "We're going to kill you in the morning." I know what it's like to leave a country on six hours' notice and land on someone's couch. Because of that, I wrote a book on why countries do well and why they don't. Let me summarize 250 pages. Countries have to be compassionate, they have to be kind, they have to be smart, they have to be brave. Want to know what doesn't work? When you govern through fear and you govern through cruelty, it just doesn't work. You can play Genghis Khan for a while, you can play Stalin for a while, you can play Pinochet for a while. It does not work in the long run. And it doesn't work in the long run because to govern through fear and cruelty, you have to create a division. You have to take big chunks of the country and convince them that they're not like them. That they shouldn't associate with them, they shouldn't talk to them. That those people are nasty, those people are criminals, those people are rapists. And the country is in danger because of them. And if you spend millions of dollars doing that in your country, you will make enemies abroad, and you will create divisions within. And that has consequences. Three quarters of the flags and the borders and the anthems around the United Nations today, they were not there a few decades ago. Those lines that are there today, those flags were created because somebody said, "the Scotts are not like us," "the Welsh are not like us," "the Basques are not like us," "the northern Italians are not like us," "the Muslims are not like us," the blacks, the whites, the Christians. You create "us versus them" ... you destroy nations. Part of the problem from creating us versus them is it's hard to do. What you have to do is you have to make people believe absurdities. And once people believe absurdities, then they start to commit atrocities. That's the dynamic of this thing. You can't create "us versus them" — you can't have the massacres you had in Rwanda, you can't have the massacres you had in Yugoslavia — unless if you create this dynamic. Let me summarize current immigration policy. Let's deter "Them" by being as cruel as we can possibly be, and let's target their children. They are going after the children. You have US lawyers arguing that kids do not need soap or hugs or showers, adult help or a release date. Somebody gets pulled over for a broken tail light, who's worked here for 20 years, gets thrown into jail, maybe for life, with no legal representation. The terrorists that blew up the World Trade Center get lawyers. These kids, these parents, they don't get lawyers. Governments are telling some of the most desperate, hurt people on earth, "I took your child, pay me 800 dollars for a DNA test before you get it back." Three-year-olds are appearing in court. Look, we've all watched these courtroom dramas. And it's exciting, because the wise judge sits up there, and the defense lawyer attacks and the prosecutor counterattacks, and then you figure out how it's going to happen. I want you to understand what is happening right now. Prosecutor's there — it's the tough prosecutor. Accusing, attacking, on behalf of we the people. The judge is up there, Judge Muckety-muck, with his black robes, and he's questioning the defendant from up there. And the defendant is three years old and the eyes don't reach the side of the table. The defendant does not speak the language. The earphones for the translator have fallen off the defendant's head, because there are no headphones for three-year-olds in US courtrooms, because they are not supposed to defend themselves. This makes a mockery of justice, it makes a mockery of the prosecution system, it makes a mockery of who we are as a nation. These are absurdities. These are atrocities. This is unbelievable. And we're looking at a bunch of statistics, but I want you to understand, this is happening to the housekeeper who brought up your kids. This is happening to the gardener who took care of your house. This is happening to the guy who washed the dishes in the fancy restaurant you went to last week. This is happening to the people who deliver the newspaper in the mornings. This is your community, these are the people who have lived side by side with you. Treated you well, treated you with respect, taken care of your kids, taken care of your grandparents. This is Luis, this is Laura, this is Jaime. This isn't some abstract, "Oh, it's happening at the border" — this is happening in our community, right now. And the danger in this stuff is once you start normalizing absurdities and atrocities, people think that those instruments are legitimate. So you get school boards sending out letters like this: "Dear Parent, because your kid owes lunch money to the cafeteria, the result may be that your child will be taken away and put in foster care." This is going out from school boards because people think, "Well, that seems to be an instrument of deterrence." When you board an airplane, before kids, before first class, soldiers in uniform board. Some of them are immigrants. Here's a contract: join the army, serve your term, be honorably discharged, get citizenship. We are rescinding those contracts after they have been signed. And if those soldiers are killed in action, we are deporting their wives, and sometimes, their children. These are the people who protect us. These are the people that we honor. These are the brave. And this is how we're treating them. These are not the people who cross the border illegally. Once you start allowing this kind of behavior, it normalizes into a society, and it rips the society apart. Countries are built on the hard work and grit of immigrants; we are all immigrants. We just came at different times. Fifty-five percent of this country's main businesses, the most successful businesses in this country, the unicorns, are built by people who came as foreign students or as immigrants, and they're the founders or the cofounders. Well, here's what's happened over the last three years to the best brains in the world. Forty-two percent of them did not get visas or chose not to get visas. This is how you wipe out an economy. This isn't about kids and borders. It's about us. This is about who we are, who we the people are, as a nation and as individuals. This is not an abstract debate. A lot of us like to think if we had been back when Hitler was rising to power, we would have been out in the street, we would have opposed him, we would have stopped Mengele. A lot of us like to think, if we had been around during the '60s, we would have been with the Freedom Riders. We would have been at that bridge in Selma. Well, guess what? Here's your chance. It's now. And as you're thinking about this stuff, it's not just the giant acts, it's not just go and block the bridge or chain yourself to something. It's what you do in your daily lives. The Harvard Art Museum just opened a show on how artists think about immigration and building a home somewhere else. And people come out of that show and they're pretty shaken. There was a blank wall at the end. And the curators did something that usually doesn't happen — they improvised. They drew four lines, and put in two words: "I belong." So you come out of this exhibit, and you can take a picture in front of it. I can't tell you the impact that has on people — I watched people come out of this, and some of them sat in front of that picture, took a picture, and they had a great, big grin on their face, and some people just had tears. Some people hugged and brought in strangers, others brought in their family. Small acts of kindness go a long, long, long way. There is pain going on in your community like you cannot believe. So next time you're with a cab driver who may be one of "Them," according to certain people, give that person an extra five bucks. Next time you see a hotel maid, thank her and tip her double. Next time you see your gardener, you see your nanny, you see somebody like this, give them a great, big hug, and tell them they belong. Make them feel like they belong. It's time for big policies, but it's also time for big acts of kindness. Because we have to reclaim who we are, we have to reclaim this nation. (Voice breaking) And we cannot sit there and watch this shit going on. This has got to stop, it's got to stop now. Thank you. (Applause) |
Why should you read Dante's "Divine Comedy"? | null | TED-Ed | “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here… ” Inscribed above the Gate of Hell, these ominous words warn dark tidings for Dante as he begins his descent into inferno. Yet despite the grim tone, this prophecy sets into motion what is perhaps the greatest love story ever told; an epic journey that encompasses both the human and the divine. But for Dante to reach benevolent salvation, he must first find his way through Hell. This landscape of torture is the setting for "Inferno," the first in a three-part narrative poem written by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century. Casting himself as the protagonist, Dante travels deeper and deeper into Hell’s abyss, witnessing obscene punishments distinct to each of its nine realms. Beginning in Limbo, he travels through the circles of Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, and Fraud, to the horrific ninth circle of Treachery, where sinners are trapped under the watchful eyes of Satan himself. The following two parts, "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso," continue Dante’s journey, as he scales the Mount of Purgatory and ascends the nine celestial spheres of Heaven. Written together over 10 years, these 3 sections comprise the "Divine Comedy"– an allegorical imagining of the soul’s journey towards God. But Dante’s "Divine Comedy" is more than just religious allegory. It’s also a witty, scathing commentary on Italian politics. A soldier and statesman from Florence, Dante was staunchly faithful to God, but often critical of the Roman Catholic Church. He particularly disliked its rampant nepotism and practice of simony, the buying and selling of religious favours such as pardons from sin. Many groups took advantage of these corrupt customs, but few supported them as much as the Guelfi Neri, or Black Guelphs. This was a political and religious faction which sought to expand the pope’s political influence. Dante was a member of the Guelfi Bianchi, or White Guelphs– who believed Florence needed more freedom from Roman influence. As a public representative for the White Guelphs, Dante frequently spoke out against the pope’s power, until the Black Guelphs leveraged their position to exile him from Florence in 1302. But rather than silencing him, this lifelong exile led to Dante’s greatest critique of all. Dishonored and with little hope of return, the author freely aired his grievances with the Church and Italian society. Writing the "Divine Comedy" in Italian, rather than the traditional Latin of the educated elite, Dante ensured the widest possible audience for his biting political commentary. In the "Inferno’s" circle of the Wrathful, Dante eagerly witnesses sinners tear Black Guelph Filippo Argenti limb from limb. In the circle of Fraud, Dante converses with a mysterious sinner burning in the circle’s hottest flames. He learns that this is Pope Nicholas III, who tells Dante that his two successors will take his place when they die— all three guilty of simony and corruption. Despite the bleak and sometimes violent imagery in "Inferno," the "Divine Comedy" is also a love story. Though Dante had an arranged marriage with the daughter of a powerful Florentine family, he had also been unrequitedly in love with another woman since he was nine years old: Beatrice Portinari. Despite allegedly meeting just twice, she became Dante’s lifelong muse, serving as the inspiration and subject for many of his works. In fact, it’s Beatrice who launches his intrepid journey into the pits of Hell and up the terraces of Mount Purgatory. Portrayed as a powerful, heavenly figure, she leads Dante through "Paradiso’s" concentric spheres of Heaven until he is finally face-to-face with God. In the centuries since its publication, the "Divine Comedy’s" themes of love, sin, and redemption have been embraced by numerous artists– from Auguste Rodin and Salvador Dali, to Ezra Pound and Neil Gaiman. And the poet himself received his own belated, earthly redemption in 2008, when the city of Florence finally revoked Dante’s antiquated exile. |
What Bruce Lee can teach us about living fully | {0: 'Shannon Lee’s mission is to provide access for people to Bruce Lee’s philosophy through education and entertainment.'} | TED Salon Brightline Initiative | Bruce Lee is my father, and he is best well-known as a martial artist and an action film star, as I'm sure most of you know. He died when I was four years old, but I have a really deep memory of him. I don't have those long-form, storied memories that you do when you're older, but the memory that I do have is of the feeling of him. I remember his energy, his presence, his love — the safety of it, the power of it, the radiance of it. And to me that memory is very deep and personal. And it is the memory of the quality of his essential nature. What a lot of people don't know about my father is that he was also a philosopher. He had a very ever-evolving philosophy that he lived, and it is that distinction — that he lived his philosophy and didn't just espouse his philosophy — that made him the force of nature that he was, and still engages us today. His wisdom has salvaged me many times in my life: when my brother died, when my heart's been broken, whenever I have faced a challenge to my mind, my body or my spirit, the way that he expressed himself has lifted me up. And so I come to you today not as a researcher or an educator or a guru or even a life coach, but as a student of Bruce Lee — as his daughter, and also as a student of my own life. So ... my big burning question that I want you all to consider today is ... how are you? Let me elaborate. Whenever anyone would ask my mom what my father was like, she would say, "How he was in front of the camera, how you saw him in his films, how you saw him in his interviews was, in fact, exactly how he was." There were not multiple Bruce Lees. There was not public Bruce Lee and private Bruce Lee, or teacher Bruce Lee and actor Bruce Lee and family man Bruce Lee. There was just one unified, total Bruce Lee. And that Bruce Lee had a very deep, philosophical life practice called self-actualization. You've probably heard that term before. It's also known as how to be yourself in the best way possible. And that Bruce Lee said this: "When I look around, I always learn something and that is to be always yourself, and to express yourself and have faith in yourself. Don't go out and find a successful personality and duplicate it, but rather start from the very root of your being, which is 'How can I be me?'" Many of us have done some soul-searching or at least some incessant thinking and worrying about things like our purpose, our passion, our impact, our values and our "reason for being." And that is sometimes considered our why. Why am I here? Why this life? What am I meant to be doing? If we can grab a little piece of that information, it can help to ground us and root us, and it can also point us in a direction, and typically what it points us to is our what. What we manifest in the world, what we have. So our job, our home, our hobbies and the like. But there's this little space in between the why and the what that often doesn't get our full attention, and that is our ... how. How we get there and the quality of that doing. And I want to offer that this is actually the most important part of the equation when it comes to our personal growth, our sense of wholeness and even the long-term impact that we make. How is the action that bridges the gap from the internal to the external. And bridging the gap is a very important concept for martial artists like my father. It's how you get from point A to point B. It's how you get from here to your target under the most vital of circumstances. And so it makes all the difference. Do you get there as an amateur? Are you sloppy? Are you wild, chaotic, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you're not lucky? Or are you a warrior? Are you confident? Are you focused? Are you skilled? Are you intuitive? Are you expressive, creative, aware? So I want to talk to you today about your how in your life. So we do a little bit of — we spend a little time in existential crisis over "Why am I here? What am I meant to be doing?" and we put a ton of effort into our what — our job, our career, our partner that we have and the hobbies we pursue. But I want us to consider that our how is the expression of our why in every what, whether we're aware of it or not. And so let's take an example. Let's say that I have a value of kindness. I'm all about kindness, I feel really natural being kind, I want to see more kindness in the world. Is that kindness — is that value in the result or is it in the doing? Are you trying to be kind when it's hard to be kind? Can you do something you don't want to do kindly, like fire someone? Can you leave a relationship with kindness? If kindness is the value, then are you trying to express it in the whole spectrum of your doing — and trying to do that? Or are you just doing it when it's easy? So I want us to think about that for a moment and consider, you know, if we come home and we're kind and generous and loving with our kids, but then we go to work and we are dismissive and rude to our assistant and we treat them like a subhuman, then there is a fragmentation in the beingness of our value. And so I want us to consider that how we are in our lives is in fact how we are. Meaning, if I am the kind of person that walks down the street and smiles at people and says "hi" as I walk past them on the sidewalk, then that is how I am. But if I'm also the kind of person who makes fun of my brother every chance that I get behind his back, that is also the kind of person that I am. And ultimately how we are makes up the totality of the picture of who we are. And so I want to talk about how do we unite these pieces if we have any fragmentation. I want to understand how we embody ourselves as our one and only self. How do we actualize the whole self? My father said, "All goals apart from the means are an illusion. There will never be means to ends — only means. And I am means. I am what I started with and when it is all over, I will be all that is left." So you can employ a systematic approach to training and practicing, but you can't employ a systematic approach to actually living because life is a process not a goal. It is a means and not an end. So "to obtain enlightenment" — and I'm going to say self-actualize, to be self-actualized or to obtain wholeness — "emphasis should fall NOT on the cultivation of the particular department" — all of our whats — "which then merges into the totality of who we are as a total human being, but rather, on the total human being that then enters into and unites those particular departments." You are your how. You — if you have some consciousness and you want to bring some practice, if you want to step into that warrior space around your how — how you express in every aspect of your life — then you get to be the artist of that expression. You get to step into that and claim it and exercise it and bring that beingness through your doingness into your havingness. And there you will find the most profound of your growth, you will find a sense of wholeness and ultimately, you will leave a lasting impact on your environment. My father was his how. He applied the execution of who he was to every aspect of his life. He was way more than that kung fu guy from the '70s. He was someone who worked very hard at actualizing his inner self and expressing it out into the world. And that laid the foundation for what continues to inspire us, engage us, excite us and attract us to him. He was the embodied example of living fully. He said, "I am means." And there are only means. So I'm going to ask you one more time. Thank you for listening, and please consider, for you, across the spectrum of your doing, how are you? Thank you. (Applause) |
How we're using DNA tech to help farmers fight crop diseases | {0: 'TED Senior Fellow Laura Boykin uses technology to help farmers in East Africa have more food to feed their families.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | I get out of bed for two reasons. One, small-scale family farmers need more food. It's crazy that in 2019 farmers that feed us are hungry. And two, science needs to be more diverse and inclusive. If we're going to solve the toughest challenges on the planet, like food insecurity for the millions living in extreme poverty, it's going to take all of us. I want to use the latest technology with the most diverse and inclusive teams on the planet to help farmers have more food. I'm a computational biologist. I know — what is that and how is it going to help end hunger? Basically, I like computers and biology and somehow, putting that together is a job. (Laughter) I don't have a story of wanting to be a biologist from a young age. The truth is, I played basketball in college. And part of my financial aid package was I needed a work-study job. So one random day, I wandered to the nearest building to my dorm room. And it just so happens it was the biology building. I went inside and looked at the job board. Yes, this is pre-the-internet. And I saw a three-by-five card advertising a job to work in the herbarium. I quickly took down the number, because it said "flexible hours," and I needed that to work around my basketball schedule. I ran to the library to figure out what an herbarium was. (Laughter) And it turns out an herbarium is where they store dead, dried plants. I was lucky to land the job. So my first scientific job was gluing dead plants onto paper for hours on end. (Laughter) It's so glamorous. This is how I became a computational biologist. During that time, genomics and computing were coming of age. And I went on to do my masters combining biology and computers. During that time, I worked at Los Alamos National Lab in the theoretical biology and biophysics group. And it was there I had my first encounter with the supercomputer, and my mind was blown. With the power of supercomputing, which is basically thousands of connected PCs on steroids, we were able to uncover the complexities of influenza and hepatitis C. And it was during this time that I saw the power of using computers and biology combined, for humanity. And I wanted this to be my career path. So, since 1999, I've spent the majority of my scientific career in very high-tech labs, surrounded by really expensive equipment. So many ask me how and why do I work for farmers in Africa. Well, because of my computing skills, in 2013, a team of East African scientists asked me to join the team in the plight to save cassava. Cassava is a plant whose leaves and roots feed 800 million people globally. And 500 million in East Africa. So that's nearly a billion people relying on this plant for their daily calories. If a small-scale family farmer has enough cassava, she can feed her family and she can sell it at the market for important things like school fees, medical expenses and savings. But cassava is under attack in Africa. Whiteflies and viruses are devastating cassava. Whiteflies are tiny insects that feed on the leaves of over 600 plants. They are bad news. There are many species; they become pesticide resistant; and they transmit hundreds of plant viruses that cause cassava brown streak disease and cassava mosaic disease. This completely kills the plant. And if there's no cassava, there's no food or income for millions of people. It took me one trip to Tanzania to realize that these women need some help. These amazing, strong, small-scale family farmers, the majority women, are doing it rough. They don't have enough food to feed their families, and it's a real crisis. What happens is they go out and plant fields of cassava when the rains come. Nine months later, there's nothing, because of these pests and pathogens. And I thought to myself, how in the world can farmers be hungry? So I decided to spend some time on the ground with the farmers and the scientists to see if I had any skills that could be helpful. The situation on the ground is shocking. The whiteflies have destroyed the leaves that are eaten for protein, and the viruses have destroyed the roots that are eaten for starch. An entire growing season will pass, and the farmer will lose an entire year of income and food, and the family will suffer a long hunger season. This is completely preventable. If the farmer knew what variety of cassava to plant in her field, that was resistant to those viruses and pathogens, they would have more food. We have all the technology we need, but the knowledge and the resources are not equally distributed around the globe. So what I mean specifically is, the older genomic technologies that have been required to uncover the complexities in these pests and pathogens — these technologies were not made for sub-Saharan Africa. They cost upwards of a million dollars; they require constant power and specialized human capacity. These machines are few and far between on the continent, which is leaving many scientists battling on the front lines no choice but to send the samples overseas. And when you send the samples overseas, samples degrade, it costs a lot of money, and trying to get the data back over weak internet is nearly impossible. So sometimes it can take six months to get the results back to the farmer. And by then, it's too late. The crop is already gone, which results in further poverty and more hunger. We knew we could fix this. In 2017, we had heard of this handheld, portable DNA sequencer called an Oxford Nanopore MinION. This was being used in West Africa to fight Ebola. So we thought: Why can't we use this in East Africa to help farmers? So, what we did was we set out to do that. At the time, the technology was very new, and many doubted we could replicate this on the farm. When we set out to do this, one of our "collaborators" in the UK told us that we would never get that to work in East Africa, let alone on the farm. So we accepted the challenge. This person even went so far as to bet us two of the best bottles of champagne that we would never get that to work. Two words: pay up. (Laughter) (Applause) Pay up, because we did it. We took the entire high-tech molecular lab to the farmers of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, and we called it Tree Lab. So what did we do? Well, first of all, we gave ourselves a team name — it's called the Cassava Virus Action Project. We made a website, we gathered support from the genomics and computing communities, and away we went to the farmers. Everything that we need for our Tree Lab is being carried by the team here. All of the molecular and computational requirements needed to diagnose sick plants is there. And it's actually all on this stage here as well. We figured if we could get the data closer to the problem, and closer to the farmer, the quicker we could tell her what was wrong with her plant. And not only tell her what was wrong — give her the solution. And the solution is, burn the field and plant varieties that are resistant to the pests and pathogens she has in her field. So the first thing that we did was we had to do a DNA extraction. And we used this machine here. It's called a PDQeX, which stands for "Pretty Damn Quick Extraction." (Laughter) I know. My friend Joe is really cool. One of the biggest challenges in doing a DNA extraction is it usually requires very expensive equipment, and takes hours. But with this machine, we've been able to do it in 20 minutes, at a fraction of the cost. And this runs off of a motorcycle battery. From there, we take the DNA extraction and prepare it into a library, getting it ready to load on to this portable, handheld genomic sequencer, which is here, and then we plug this into a mini supercomputer, which is called a MinIT. And both of these things are plugged into a portable battery pack. So we were able to eliminate the requirements of main power and internet, which are two very limiting factors on a small-scale family farm. Analyzing the data quickly can also be a problem. But this is where me being a computational biologist came in handy. All that gluing of dead plants, and all that measuring, and all that computing finally came in handy in a real-world, real-time way. I was able to make customized databases and we were able to give the farmers results in three hours versus six months. (Applause) The farmers were overjoyed. So how do we know that we're having impact? Nine moths after our Tree Lab, Asha went from having zero tons per hectare to 40 tons per hectare. She had enough to feed her family and she was selling it at the market, and she's now building a house for her family. Yeah, so cool. (Applause) So how do we scale Tree Lab? The thing is, farmers are scaled already in Africa. These women work in farmer groups, so helping Asha actually helped 3,000 people in her village, because she shared the results and also the solution. I remember every single farmer I've ever met. Their pain and their joy is engraved in my memories. Our science is for them. Tree Lab is our best attempt to help them become more food secure. I never dreamt that the best science I would ever do in my life would be on that blanket in East Africa, with the highest-tech genomic gadgets. But our team did dream that we could give farmers answers in three hours versus six months, and then we did it. Because that's the power of diversity and inclusion in science. Thank you. (Applause) (Cheers) |
Revelations from a lifetime of dance | {0: 'Judith Jamison uses dance as a medium for honoring the past, celebrating the present and fearlessly reaching into the future.', 1: 'Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater grew from a now-fabled 1958 performance at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Led by Alvin Ailey and a group of young African-American modern dancers, that performance changed forever the perception of American dance.'} | TED2019 | (Music: "Wade in the Water" by Ella Jenkins) Wade in the water Wade in the water, children Wade in the water God's a-gonna trouble the water Oh, why don't you wade in the water Wade in the water, children Wade in the water God's a-gonna trouble the water See that man all dressed in white God's a-gonna trouble the water He looks like a man of the Israelite God's a-gonna trouble the water Wade in the water Wade in the water, children Wade in the water God's a-gonna trouble the water See that man all dressed in red God's a-gonna trouble the water It looks like the man that Moses led God's a-gonna trouble the water Wade in the water Wade in the water, children Wade in the water God's a-gonna trouble the water Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel Daniel, Daniel Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel Then why not every man? Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel Daniel, Daniel Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel Why not every man? Man went down to the river Man went down to the river Man went down to the river Went down there for to pray Man went down to the river Man went down to the river Man went down to the river To wash his sins away He washed all day, he washed all night He washed till his hands were sore He washed all day, he washed all night Till he couldn't wash a-no more Man went down to the river Man went down to the river Man went down to the river (Music fades) (Applause) (Juliet Blake) And now, let's give a warm welcome to the artistic director emerita of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Judith Jamison. (Applause) Judith Jamison: Thanks. How are y'all? (Audience cheers) JJ: Yeah, you know you've just been to church? (Laughter) You just saw a baptism, yes? This is from this wonderful piece Mr. Ailey created in 1960, called "Revelations." Mr. Ailey was 29 years old when he choreographed this masterpiece. It's been danced all over the world and understood universally, because he understood the humanity in us all. "Revelations" is a reflection of a journey we all take in life, and, hopefully, triumphantly. That was the magic of Alvin Ailey. He was able to see you, in the audience, see me, as the dancer, and see the connection between us, and choreographed works that connected us all. So you felt he was telling your story, while I felt I was dancing mine. I started dancing when I was six years old in Philadelphia. I was skinny ... (Laughter) Dark chocolate, and a kid with legs up to my armpits. And the very first performance I had, at the Judimar School of Dance, was in a red checkered shirt, dungarees, pink ballet shoes, and we were dancing to "I'm an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande." I loved every minute of it. I mean, I literally did love every minute of it, especially when I heard the applause, and I knew right there, when I was six, I said, "That's for me." (Laughter) At six, you're not thinking that's going to be a career of your lifetime, but that was perfect for that moment. I danced my way through school, and through college, and it still didn't dawn on me that that's what I actually wanted to do. I went to an audition, which I was dreadful in — it's the only audition I've had in my life — and when I was let go from that audition — because I thought when they were saying, "Thank you very much," that meant for me to stay. (Laughter) I ran up the steps, and there was a man sitting on the steps. And I barely noticed him. He was an observer. Three days later, that man called me and asked me, would I like to join the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. That's how it happened, folks, that's it. There's no drama or trauma. (Applause) So I spent 15 years dancing with the company, and then I directed it for something like 21 years. If you were black and African American and a dancer, any time between the '40s and the '70s, you had much to say, because your complete voice was not being heard. And you were not being represented as you truly were. Alvin Ailey had the courage, right in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, to present the truth about who we were — that our creativity, our beauty, our intelligence, our talents were an intrinsic part of the panoply of American culture. Our mantra has always been to educate, to entertain, and to lift our audiences. Mr. Ailey believed that dance came from the people and needed to be delivered back to the people. We didn't dance in a vacuum. It was our mission to serve people. We call it outreach now, but it's always been a part of who we were and still are, 60 years later, to this day. Being inclusive of our audiences — it's always been an important part of the company. We ask ourselves, who are we dancing for? Why are we dancing, if not to show people what it is to be human and to connect with the audiences that we dance for. We've always felt responsible to make sure the community understood that what we do is a part of their heritage. We just don't do this, also, in America, we do it all over the world. We tour more than any other dance company in the world. After Nelson Mandela was released from prison, I thought, well, this is the time to go to South Africa. And that was some outreach. We went to Johannesburg, Soweto, and some other townships that were really in dire straits. And it dawned on me, as we were there, I'm going like, "Here we are in the seat of Mother Africa, and we're trying to teach these people how to dance?" (Laughter) But it was our African Americanness that they were interested in, and the culture that we had developed over the last 400 years. We toured all over the world many times, and whether we're in Europe or South America or Asia or somewhere else, audiences are thrilled and excited. You sounded thrilled and excited. Sometimes with tears in their eyes, because this nonverbal communication really works. And it's about embracing everyone. Alvin didn't need to explain to us what was going on at the time in the '60s and the '70s; it was obvious why were doing his work. He knew what the truth of the time was about, and he was unafraid to reveal it through dance. He tapped into every emotion he had and we had, and from angerness to happiness, to grief and everything in between, he knew us. He took our history and turned it into powerful dance. He and I overlapped generationally. We didn't have to talk about things so much, because we understood implicitly our shared responsibilities. So when he asked me to take over the company before he passed in 1989, I felt prepared to carry it forward. Alvin and I were like parts of the same tree. He, the roots and the trunk, and we were the branches. I was his muse. We were all his muses. The ballet "Cry," which some of you might have seen — you're going to see an excerpt of it — it was made on me, and Alvin dedicated it to all black women, especially our mothers. When Alvin and I went in the studio, of course he wasn't thinking, "Here I am, creating an iconic work." Do you know any artist that does that? You don't go into the studio to create anything but what's coming truthfully from your heart and your spirit. And you trust that you have a dancer you can share that with. Rehearsal space is a sacred space, not to be intruded upon, because it's about talking to each other through spirit. You better have some technique on top of that so you can do the dance. (Laughter) He brought his Alvin to "Cry" and I brought my Judy to it. I just did the steps. And this was a birthday present for his mother, because he couldn't afford to get her a tactile gift. When I performed it the first time, it was physically and emotionally draining. I hadn't yet run through the whole piece from beginning to end. The ballet is 16 minutes long. It's about a proud woman who has been to hell and back, from her journey across the Atlantic. She's exhausted, she's a queen, and in this section, you're going to see she is triumphant. She made it, and she is, in that last step that she does, beating away anything negative with her tremendous strength. And in the last step, she digs into the earth and she reaches into the sky ... because she's clearing space for the next journey. I performed it in 1971, and we are still clearing space. Now let me leave you with one last thought. Here we are, in the 21st century, still fighting for civil rights. Not a day goes by that we are not made aware of the struggle that continues. I believe that dance can elevate our human experience beyond words. And when you're sitting in the dark, in the theater, having a personal experience, you don't feel blocked or misunderstood. You feel open, alive, and, we hope, inspired. Thank you. (Applause) (Music: "Right on. Be free." by East Harlem) I wanna go where the north wind blows I wanna know what the falcon knows I wanna go where the wild goose goes High flyin' bird, high flyin' bird, fly on I want the clouds over my head I don't want no store bought bed I'm gonna live until I'm dead Mother, mother, mother Save your child Right on, be free Right on, be free Right on, be free I don't want no store bought bed Right on I want the clouds over my head Be free Ain't no time to be afraid Mother, mother, mother Save your child (Music) I don't want no store bought bed Right on I want the clouds over my head Be free Ain't no time to be afraid Mother save your child I wanna see a rainbow in the sky I wanna watch the clouds go by It might make my load a little light Lord, Lord, Lord Where will I be tomorrow night? Right on Be free Right on, be free Right on, be free Right on, be free Right on, be free Right on, be free Right on, be free (Music fades) (Applause) (Cheers) (Applause) (Cheers) (Applause) |
After billions of years of monotony, the universe is waking up | {0: 'A pioneer in quantum computation and quantum information theory, David Deutsch now seeks to define the boundaries between the possible and the impossible.'} | TED2019 | I'm thrilled to be talking to you by this high-tech method. Of all humans who have ever lived, the overwhelming majority would have found what we are doing here incomprehensible, unbelievable. Because, for thousands of centuries, in the dark time before the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, people had low expectations. For their lives, for their descendants' lives. Typically, they expected nothing significantly new or better to be achieved, ever. This pessimism famously appears in the Bible, in one of the few biblical passages with a named author. He's called Qohelet, he's an enigmatic chap. He wrote, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there something of which it is said, 'Look, this is new.' No, that thing was already done in the ages that came before us." Qohelet was describing a world without novelty. By novelty I mean something new in Qohelet's sense, not merely something that's changed, but a significant change with lasting effects, where people really would say, "Look, this is new," and, preferably, "good." So, purely random changes aren't novelty. OK, Heraclitus did say a man can't step in the same river twice, because it's not the same river, he's not the same man. But if the river is changing randomly, it really is the same river. In contrast, if an idea in a mind spreads to other minds, and changes lives for generations, that is novelty. Human life without novelty is life without creativity, without progress. It's a static society, a zero-sum game. That was the living hell in which Qohelet lived. Like everyone, until a few centuries ago. It was hell, because for humans, suffering is intimately related to staticity. Because staticity isn't just frustrating. All sources of suffering — famine, pandemics, incoming asteroids, and things like war and slavery, hurt people only until we have created the knowledge to prevent them. There's a story in Somerset Maugham's novel "Of Human Bondage" about an ancient sage who summarizes the entire history of mankind as, "He was born, he suffered and he died." And it goes on: "Life was insignificant and death without consequence." And indeed, the overwhelming majority of humans who have ever lived had lives of suffering and grueling labor, before dying young and in agony. And yes, in most generations nothing had any novel consequence for subsequent generations. Nevertheless, when ancient people tried to explain their condition, they typically did so in grandiose cosmic terms. Which was the right thing to do, as it turns out. Even though their actual explanations, their myths, were largely false. Some tried to explain the grimness and monotony of their world in terms of an endless cosmic war between good and evil, in which humans were the battleground. Which neatly explained why their own experience was full of suffering, and why progress never happened. But it wasn't true. Amazingly enough, all their conflict and suffering were just due to the way they processed ideas. Being satisfied with dogma, and just-so stories, rather than criticizing them and trying to guess better explanations of the world and of their own condition. Twentieth-century physics did create better explanations, but still in terms of a cosmic war. This time, the combatants were order and chaos, or entropy. That story does allow for hope for the future. But in another way, it's even bleaker than the ancient myths, because the villain, entropy, is preordained to have the final victory, when the inexorable laws of thermodynamics shut down all novelty with the so-called heat death of the universe. Currently, there's a story of a local battle in that war, between sustainability, which is order, and wastefulness, which is chaos — that's the contemporary take on good and evil, often with the added twist that humans are the evil, so we shouldn't even try to win. And recently, there have been tales of another cosmic war, between gravity, which collapses the universe, and dark energy, which finally shreds it. So this time, whichever of those cosmic forces wins, we lose. All those pessimistic accounts of the human condition contain some truth, but as prophecies, they're all misleading, and all for the same reason. None of them portrays humans as what we really are. As Jacob Bronowski said, "Man is not a figure in the landscape — he is the shaper of the landscape." In other words, humans are not playthings of cosmic forces, we are users of cosmic forces. I'll say more about that in a moment, but first, what sorts of thing create novelty? Well, the beginning of the universe surely did. The big bang, nearly 14 billion years ago, created space, time and energy, everything physical. And then, immediately, what I call the first era of novelty, with the first atom, the first star, the first black hole, the first galaxy. But then, at some point, novelty vanished from the universe. Perhaps from as early as 12 or 13 billion years ago, right up to the present day, there's never been any new kind of astronomical object. There's only been what I call the great monotony. So, Qohelet was accidentally even more right about the universe beyond the Sun than he was about under the Sun. So long as the great monotony lasts, what has been out there really is what will be. And there is nothing out there of which it can truly be said, "Look, this is new." Nevertheless, at some point during the great monotony, there was an event — inconsequential at the time, and even billions of years later, it had affected nothing beyond its home planet — yet eventually, it could cause cosmically momentous novelty. That event was the origin of life: creating the first genetic knowledge, coding for biological adaptations, coding for novelty. On Earth, it utterly transformed the surface. Genes in the DNA of single-celled organisms put oxygen in the air, extracted CO2, put chalk and iron ore into the ground, hardly a cubic inch of the surface to some depth has remained unaffected by those genes. The Earth became, if not a novel place on the cosmic scale, certainly a weird one. Just as an example, beyond Earth, only a few hundred different chemical substances have been detected. Presumably, there are some more in lifeless locations, but on Earth, evolution created billions of different chemicals. And then the first plants, animals, and then, in some ancestor species of ours, explanatory knowledge. For the first time in the universe, for all we know. Explanatory knowledge is the defining adaptation of our species. It differs from the nonexplanatory knowledge in DNA, for instance, by being universal. That is to say, whatever can be understood, can be understood through explanatory knowledge. And more, any physical process can be controlled by such knowledge, limited only by the laws of physics. And so, explanatory knowledge, too, has begun to transform the Earth's surface. And soon, the Earth will become the only known object in the universe that turns aside incoming asteroids instead of attracting them. Qohelet was understandably misled by the painful slowness of progress in his day. Novelty in human life was still too rare, too gradual, to be noticed in one generation. And in the biosphere, the evolution of novel species was even slower. But both things were happening. Now, why is there a great monotony in the universe at large, and what makes our planet buck that trend? Well, the universe at large is relatively simple. Stars are so simple that we can predict their behavior billions of years into the future, and retrodict how they formed billions of years ago. So why is the universe simple? Basically, it's because big, massive, powerful things strongly affect lesser things, and not vice versa. I call that the hierarchy rule. For example, when a comet hits the Sun, the Sun carries on just as before, but the comet is vaporized. For the same reason, big things are not much affected by small parts of themselves, i.e., by details. Which means that their overall behavior is simple. And since nothing very new can happen to things that remain simple, the hierarchy rule, by causing large-scale simplicity, has caused the great monotony. But, the saving grace is the hierarchy rule is not a law of nature. It just happens to have held so far in the universe, except here. In our biosphere, molecule-sized objects, genes, control vastly disproportionate resources. The first genes for photosynthesis, by causing their own proliferation, and then transforming the surface of the planet, have violated or reversed the hierarchy rule by the mind-blowing factor of 10 to the power 40. Explanatory knowledge is potentially far more powerful because of universality, and more rapidly created. When human knowledge has achieved a factor 10 to the 40, it will pretty much control the entire galaxy, and will be looking beyond. So humans, and any other explanation creators who may exist out there, are the ultimate agents of novelty for the universe. We are the reason and the means by which novelty and creativity, knowledge, progress, can have objective, large-scale physical effects. From the human perspective, the only alternative to that living hell of static societies is continual creation of new ideas, behaviors, new kinds of objects. This robot will soon be obsolete, because of new explanatory knowledge, progress. But from the cosmic perspective, explanatory knowledge is the nemesis of the hierarchy rule. It's the destroyer of the great monotony. So it's the creator of the next cosmological era, the Anthropocene. If one can speak of a cosmic war, it's not the one portrayed in those pessimistic stories. It's a war between monotony and novelty, between stasis and creativity. And in this war, our side is not destined to lose. If we choose to apply our unique capacity to create explanatory knowledge, we could win. Thanks. (Applause) |
The Resistance | {0: 'Alex Rosenthal takes everyday experiences and turns them into mind-bending puzzles.'} | TED-Ed | After breaking Ethic out of prison, Hedge flies them both towards a frontier settlement in the shadow of the Bradbarrier, the great wall that encircles the nation. All the settlers there will soon gather for the monthly feeding. The people of the wall spend their days gathering up works of art and literature, from all across the land. On feeding day, the furnace-bots arrive, ravenous. If they eat, the lights stay on, and the food gets delivered. If they starve, the people do too. Hedge’s fuel supply runs out just as he and Ethic reach the outskirts of town, and they come in for a crash landing. Luckily, everyone is too busy preparing for the feeding to notice. Today’s feeding is where Ethic can find the leader of an underground resistance movement. This person knows the location of the first of three powerful artifacts. The problem is, Hedge and Ethic don’t know the resistance leader’s name or appearance. But Hedge has gathered the following information: The leader has green eyes. If the leader has red hair, their name has at least one consecutive double letter. If the leader wear glasses, their name has exactly 2 vowels. Otherwise, their name has exactly 3 vowels. There is exactly one person for whom these are all true. As a fugitive, Ethic can’t sneak into the crowd without drawing attention to herself. But she can give instructions to Hedge. And one tool she has is what programmers call a conditional. That’s a statement of the form “If A, then B.” Flowcharts are great illustrations of how those work. This conditional translates to: if A is true, carry out instruction B. There are also conditionals that account for different possibilities. This says, “If A is true, perform instruction B. Otherwise, carry out instruction C.” So what instructions does she give Hedge so he can find the resistance leader? Pause now to figure it out for yourself. With a problem like this, it can help to simplify first. What if Hedge just has to examine this one person? What information does he need to collect about her? He might ask, “Does she have green eyes?” What other questions should Hedge ask to find the resistance leader, and how can he track those answers? Pause now to figure it out for yourself. It may seem intuitive how you’d approach this problem as a human. But Hedge isn’t a human, and so the challenge comes from needing to give him systematic instructions that will work in any scenario. Hedge needs to examine the settlers, one at a time, until he discovers the right person. In other words, like with the lock on the prison cell, this is a loop that repeats the same instructions. Only this time the loop will involve a series of questions in the form of conditionals, and will end as soon as Hedge finds his target. But first, you’ll want to organize your information. Each person has a set of characteristics: Eye color, hair color, glasses, and name. Does this person have green eyes? If so, mark a check next to “eye color." If not, mark an X there. If they have red hair, does their name contain a double letter? If so, mark a check next to “hair color.” If they don’t have a double letter, mark an X next to “hair color.” Anyone with red hair and no double letter can’t be the resistance leader. But notice that if they have blue hair, Hedge will skip this question and go on to the next one. For the last question, we can say, “If they wear glasses, does their name have exactly 2 vowels? If they don’t have glasses, does their name have exactly 3 vowels?” There will be people in the crowd with glasses and 1 vowel, or no glasses and 2 vowels. But they’re not who we’re looking for, so they’ll get X’s. The resistance leader must be someone with either check marks or blanks next to every question. Blanks are ok, because if someone has blue hair, the rule about red hair doesn’t apply to them. You could have Hedge ask every question about every person, and then choose the person with only checks and blanks. But there’s a way to save yourself lots of time: as soon as Hedge marks an X, have him move on to the next person. You don’t need to know the answer to every question; just one X means they’re not the target of your search. Hedge buzzes through the crowd, and within minutes finds Adila, the resistance leader, and brings her back to Ethic. Adila agrees to help them steal the first artifact— the node of power— but under one condition: that Ethic and Hedge jump-start the revolution by reprogramming the furnace-bots that terrorize the town. And right on cue, the robots descend. |
Why our future relies on the genetic diversity of food | {0: 'Esther Meduna has loved plants since childhood, a love which eventually led her to study botany in Zurich, where she gave tours for schools through the university’s botanical gardens. Esther came to ProSpecieRara with an extremely broad professional experience in the fields of botany, databases and didactics. Previously, she has worked as a high school teacher, at the Swiss Youth in Science Foundation and in applied biodiversity research.\nFavourite TED Talk: Birke Baehr, What’s wrong with our food system? '} | TEDxBasel | If we still lived as hunters and gatherers on wild plums and animals alone, then there would be only about 25 million people on earth today. Now the population is over seven billion, which is due to a change in our way of life from over 10,000 years ago. Some of your and my ancestors saw the potential in certain wild plants and animals and started domesticating them. This happened through continuous cultivation and selection of those plants with a special capacity - only a small part of wild plants and animals can be domesticated at all. Let's have a look at this plant, for example. Isn't it amazing that out of this wild cabbage, kale, cauliflower and all the other cabbage varieties were developed? This development into a culture plant did, of course, not happen overnight but took thousands of years, and it took several hundreds of generations of humans. That's why they are a real cultural heritage, just like the Eiffel Tower or a Van Gogh painting. So, maybe the next time you bite into a cauliflower, be aware that you're eating a kind of Mona Lisa. (Laughter) Through domestication process, a huge diversity arose. For almost every part of the world, species and varieties that fit the special conditions were found. In Switzerland, for example, there were distinct varieties in almost every village, like the Küttiger carrot or the Uster apple. I like to watch the reactions of people at exhibitions of traditional varieties. It is clearly split by age. Older the people say, 'Oh, I remember this variety from my grandmother's garden.' And younger people, they are just amazed and say, 'I didn't know there were so many different ones', and then they take out their phone and take a picture. (Laughter) But apart from being a cultural heritage or simply being beautiful, do we really need this much diversity? Would not one single variety of each crop be enough? What happens if a population depends too much on a single variety was highlighted in Ireland in the mid 19th century. The Irish were mostly cultivating a potato variety called the Lumper. Potatoes of the same variety are clones and thus genetically identical. So when a new disease arrived with the potato blight, it had a very easy game, and it destroyed the crops in consecutive years. The sad consequence was that about a million people died, and one and a half million Irish had to emigrate. We can see from this that nature does not agree with monocultures, as they can be easily wiped out by a single disease. The natives in South America, for example, do not grow only one single potato variety but many, many different ones. Like this, they always have a yield, as the varieties differ in their reaction to pests and drier or wetter years. A more current example to show that monocultures are only short living is the banana. It may well be that in a few years, you will not be able to eat one anymore. The trade relies to 95 percent on a single variety which is grown on large plantations. These are now threatened by the Panama disease. There is no other variety to replace it at the moment. And to make my point for diversity very clear, let's look at it from a completely different angle. If you were so lucky to be a millionaire, you would not put all your money on the same stock, but you would diversify because the risk of losing everything is too big. But, in agriculture, instead of diversifying and minimising the risk, what we are doing is the exact opposite. And this funnel represents the concentration which is taking place at every level. Firstly, it represents the people working in agriculture. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was 60 percent of the population. Now, it is down to three percent. And it stands for the seed companies. In 1970, there were 7,000 companies, and none had a market share of over 0.5%. Now, the top five hold 60 percent of the market. And it stands for the huge loss in diversity. In the last 150 years, we lost 75 percent of all varieties ever selected by humans. They have gone forever. One reason for this huge loss is the industrialisation of every culture and with it the appearance of modern hybrid seeds. For farmers and gardeners, hybrid seeds are a dead end because they do not stay true to type when you take the seeds. You have to buy them every year, and thus, they are an extremely good business model, as you have to rely on the companies. Traditional varieties, on the other hand, can be regrown by everybody who wants to, year after year, by saving your own seeds. With traditional varieties, many ways are possible, and this is what makes them powerful. They can be the base for a more sustainable agricultural future. We do not know what challenges lie ahead and what new traits will be necessary, but the more diversity we can safeguard now, the better the chances are that we will have the suitable varieties at hand for the future. And that is why I would like this funnel to be reversed again. With urban gardening and farming and community supported agriculture, reversing this process has already started. And that is why we from the ProSpecieRara Foundation try to save as many different traditional varieties as possible. At the moment we're safeguarding 1,600 different vegetable varieties in our seed library here in Basel, and the number is still growing. We think it's important to sow the seeds every year so that they can adapt to changing environment. We would need a very large garden to be able to do so, but fortunately, we have the help of over 500 volunteers who grow the varieties in their own garden and then send the saved seeds back to us. Without them, our work and that of other seed saving organisations would not be possible. You can also be part in reversing this process. To be honest, seed saving is quite difficult with most crops, but some are rather easy. Tomatoes, for example, are very simple and very rewarding. Have you ever eaten a sun-ripe tomato fresh from the plant? The taste of it excels that of the supermarket type by far. And instead of eating only red and round ones, you can choose from a huge variety in color, shape and size. I'm sure you would find one that suits you. All you need is a sunny spot on your balcony or in front of your house, a pot, earth and water. When a tomato is ripe, the seeds are ripe as well. So if you want to get the seeds from a very good variety, you just put the seeds in a glass and let them sit for one or two days. Then you rinse them and let them dry. As nature is abundant, you will get a large amount of seeds, which you can share with your friends and family and resow next spring. By sowing and sharing them, you will keep a link alive to what your and my ancestors have been doing for thousands of years, and bring it into the future. I hope you will give it a try. Thank you. (Applause) |
What causes an economic recession? | null | TED-Ed | For millennia, the people of Britain had been using bronze to make tools and jewelry, and as a currency for trade. But around 800 BCE, that began to change: the value of bronze declined, causing social upheaval and an economic crisis— what we would call a recession today. What causes recessions? This question has long been the subject of heated debate among economists, and for good reason. A recession can be a mild decline in economic activity in a single country that lasts months, a long-lasting downturn with global ramifications that last years, or anything in between. Complicating matters further, there are countless variables that contribute to an economy’s health, making it difficult to pinpoint specific causes. So it helps to start with the big picture: recessions occur when there is a negative disruption to the balance between supply and demand. There’s a mismatch between how many goods people want to buy, how many products and services producers can offer, and the price of the goods and services sold, which prompts an economic decline. An economy’s relationship between supply and demand is reflected in its inflation rates and interest rates. Inflation happens when goods and services get more expensive. Put another way, the value of money decreases. Still, inflation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, a low inflation rate is thought to encourage economic activity. But high inflation that isn’t accompanied with high demand can both cause problems for an economy and eventually lead to a recession. Interest rates, meanwhile, reflect the cost of taking on debt for individuals and companies. The rate is typically an annual percentage of a loan that borrowers pay to their creditors until the loan is repaid. Low interest rates mean that companies can afford to borrow more money, which they can use to invest in more projects. High interest rates, meanwhile, increase costs for producers and consumers, slowing economic activity. Fluctuations in inflation and interest rates can give us insight into the health of the economy, but what causes these fluctuations in the first place? The most obvious causes are shocks like natural disaster, war, and geopolitical factors. An earthquake, for example, can destroy the infrastructure needed to produce important commodities such as oil. That forces the supply side of the economy to charge more for products that use oil, discouraging demand and potentially prompting a recession. But some recessions occur in times of economic prosperity— possibly even because of economic prosperity. Some economists believe that business activity from a market’s expansion can occasionally reach an unsustainable level. For example, corporations and consumers may borrow more money with the assumption that economic growth will help them handle the added burden. But if the economy doesn’t grow as quickly as expected, they may end up with more debt than they can manage. To pay it off, they’ll have to redirect funds from other activities, reducing business activity. Psychology can also contribute to a recession. Fear of a recession can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if it causes people to pull back investing and spending. In response, producers might cut operating costs to help weather the expected decline in demand. That can lead to a vicious cycle as cost cuts eventually lower wages, leading to even lower demand. Even policy designed to help prevent recessions can contribute. When times are tough, governments and central banks may print money, increase spending, and lower central bank interest rates. Smaller lenders can in turn lower their interest rates, effectively making debt “cheaper” to boost spending. But these policies are not sustainable and eventually need to be reversed to prevent excessive inflation. That can cause a recession if people have become too reliant on cheap debt and government stimulus. The Bronze recession in Britain eventually ended when the adoption of iron helped revolutionize farming and food production. Modern markets are more complex, making today’s recessions far more difficult to navigate. But each recession provides new data to help anticipate and respond to future recessions more effectively. |
The psychological impact of child separation at the US-Mexico border | {0: 'Luis H. Zayas remains a proud active mental health practitioner through his evaluations of immigrant children and families facing deportation, and of refugee and asylum-seeking mothers and children in detention centers.'} | TED Salon Border Stories | For over 40 years, I've been a clinical social worker and a developmental psychologist. And it seemed almost natural for me to go into the helping professions. My parents had taught me to do good for others. And so I devoted my career to working with families in some of the toughest circumstances: poverty, mental illness, immigration, refugees. And for all those years, I've worked with hope and with optimism. In the past five years, though, my hope and my optimism have been put to the test. I've been so deeply disappointed in the way the United States government is treating families who are coming to our southern border, asking for asylum — desperate parents with children, from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, who only want to bring their kids to safety and security. They are fleeing some of the worst violence in the world. They've been attacked by gangs, assaulted, raped, extorted, threatened. They have faced death. And they can't turn to their police because the police are complicit, corrupt, ineffective. Then they get to our border, and we put them in detention centers, prisons, as if they were common criminals. Back in 2014, I met some of the first children in detention centers. And I wept. I sat in my car afterwards and I cried. I was seeing some of the worst suffering I'd ever known, and it went against everything I believed in my country, the rule of law and everything my parents taught me. The way the United States has handled the immigrants seeking asylum in our country over the past five years — it's wrong, just simply wrong. Tonight, I want to tell you that children in immigration detention are being traumatized. And we are causing the trauma. We in America — actually, those of us here tonight — will not necessarily be on the same page with respect to immigration. We'll disagree on how we're going to handle all those people who want to come to our country. Frankly, it doesn't matter to me whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, liberal or conservative. I want secure borders. I also want to keep the bad actors out. I want national security. And of course, you'll have your ideas about those topics, too. But I think we can agree that America should not be doing harm. The government, the state, should not be in the business of hurting children. It should be protecting them, no matter whose children they are: your children, my grandchildren and the children of families just looking for asylum. Now, I could tell you story after story of children who have witnessed some of the worst violence in the world and are now sitting in detention. But two little boys have stayed with me over these past five years. One of them was Danny. Danny was seven and a half years old when I met him in a detention center in Karnes City, Texas, back in 2014. He was there with his mother and his brother, and they had fled Honduras. You know, Danny is one of these kids that you get to love instantly. He's funny, he's innocent, he's charming and very expressive. And he's drawing pictures for me, and one of the pictures he drew for me was of the Revos Locos. The Revos Locos: this is the name that they gave to gangs in the town that he was in. I said to Danny, "Danny, what makes them bad guys?" Danny looked at me with puzzlement. I mean, the look was more like, "Are you clueless or just stupid?" (Laughter) He leaned in and he whispered, "Don't you see? They smoke cigarettes." (Laughter) "And they drink beer." Danny had learned, of course, about the evils of drinking and smoking. Then he said, "And they carry guns." In one of the pictures, the stick figures of the Revos Locos are shooting at birds and at people. Danny told me about the day his uncle was killed by those Revos Locos and how he ran from his house to his uncle's farmhouse, only to see his uncle's dead body, his face disfigured by bullets. And Danny told me he saw his uncle's teeth coming out the back of his head. He was only six at the time. Sometime after that, one of those Revos Locos beat little Danny badly, severely, and that's when his parents said, "We have got to leave or they will kill us." So they set out. But Danny's father was a single-leg amputee with a crutch, and he couldn't manage the rugged terrain. So he said to his wife, "Go without me. Take our boys. Save our boys." So Mom and the boys set off. Danny told me he looked back, said goodbye to his father, looked back a couple of times until he lost sight of his father. In detention, he had not heard from his father. And it's very likely that his father was killed by the Revos Locos, because he had tried to flee. I can't forget Danny. The other boy was Fernando. Now, Fernando was in the same detention center, roughly the same age as Danny. Fernando was telling me about the 24 hours he spent in isolation with his mother in the detention center, placed there because his mother had led a hunger strike among the mothers in the detention center, and now she was cracking under the pressure of the guards, who were threatening and being very abusive towards her and Fernando. As Fernando and I are talking in the small office, his mother burst in, and she says, "They hear you! They're listening to you." And she dropped to her hands and knees, and she began to look under the table, groping under all the chairs. She looked at the electric sockets, at the corner of the room, the floor, the corner of the ceiling, at the lamp, at the air vent, looking for hidden microphones and cameras. I watched Fernando as he watched his mother spiral into this paranoid state. I looked in his eyes and I saw utter terror. After all, who would take care of him if she couldn't? It was just the two of them. They only had each other. I could tell you story after story, but I haven't forgotten Fernando. And I know something about what that kind of trauma, stress and adversity does to children. So I'm going to get clinical with you for a moment, and I'm going to be the professor that I am. Under prolonged and intense stress, trauma, hardship, adversity, harsh conditions, the developing brain is harmed, plain and simple. Its wiring and its architecture are damaged. The child's natural stress response system is affected. It's weakened of its protective factors. Regions of the brain that are associated with cognition, intellectual abilities, judgment, trust, self-regulation, social interaction, are weakened, sometimes permanently. That impairs children's future. We also know that under stress, the child's immune system is suppressed, making them susceptible to infections. Chronic illnesses, like diabetes, asthma, cardiovascular disease, will follow those children into adulthood and likely shorten their lives. Mental health problems are linked to the breakdown of the body. I have seen children in detention who have recurrent and disturbing nightmares, night terrors, depression and anxiety, dissociative reactions, hopelessness, suicidal thinking and post-traumatic stress disorders. And they regress in their behavior, like the 11-year-old boy who began to wet his bed again after years of continence. And the eight-year-old girl who was buckling under the pressure and was insisting that her mother breastfeed her. That is what detention does to children. Now, you may ask: What do we do? What should our government do? Well, I'm just a mental health professional, so all I really know is about children's health and development. But I have some ideas. First, we need to reframe our practices. We need to replace fear and hostility with safety and compassion. We need to tear down the prison walls, the barbed wire, take away the cages. Instead of prison, or prisons, we should create orderly asylum processing centers, campus-like communities where children and families can live together. We could take old motels, old army barracks, refit them so that children and parents can live as family units in some safety and normality, where kids can run around. In these processing centers, pediatricians, family doctors, dentists and nurses, would be screening, examining, treating and immunizing children, creating records that will follow them to their next medical provider. Social workers would be conducting mental health evaluations and providing treatment for those who need it. Those social workers would be connecting families to services that they're going to need, wherever they're headed. And teachers would be teaching and testing children and documenting their learning so that the teachers at the next school can continue those children's education. There's a lot more that we could do in these processing centers. A lot more. And you probably are thinking, this is pie-in-the-sky stuff. Can't blame you. Well, let me tell you that refugee camps all over the world are holding families like those in our detention centers, and some of those refugee camps are getting it right far better than we are. The United Nations has issued reports describing refugee camps that protect children's health and development. Children and parents live in family units and clusters of families are housed together. Parents are given work permits so they can earn some money, they're given food vouchers so they can go to the local stores and shop. Mothers are brought together to cook healthy meals for the children, and children go to school every day and are taught. Afterwards, after school, they go home and they ride bikes, hang out with friends, do homework and explore the world — all the essentials for child development. We can get it right. We have the resources to get it right. What we need is the will and the insistence of Americans that we treat children humanely. You know, I can't forget Danny or Fernando. I wonder where they are today, and I pray that they are healthy and happy. They are only two of the many children I met and of the thousands we know about who have been in detention. I may be saddened by what's happened to the children, but I'm inspired by them. I may cry, as I did, but I admire those children's strength. They keep alive my hope and my optimism in the work I do. So while we may differ on our approach to immigration, we should be treating children with dignity and respect. We should do right by them. If we do, we can prepare those children who remain in the United States, prepare them to become productive, engaged members of our society. And those who will return to their countries whether voluntarily or not will be prepared to become the teachers, the merchants, the leaders in their country. And I hope together all of those children and parents could give testimony to the world about the goodness of our country and our values. But we have to get it right. So we can agree to disagree on immigration, but I hope we can agree on one thing: that none of us wants to look back at this moment in our history, when we knew we were inflicting lifelong trauma on children, and that we sat back and did nothing. That would be the greatest tragedy of all. Thank you. (Applause) |
How we can eliminate child sexual abuse material from the internet | {0: 'Julie Cordua is dedicated to building the tools, partnerships and communities that will eliminate child sexual abuse from the internet.'} | TED2019 | [This talk contains mature content] Five years ago, I received a phone call that would change my life. I remember so vividly that day. It was about this time of year, and I was sitting in my office. I remember the sun streaming through the window. And my phone rang. And I picked it up, and it was two federal agents, asking for my help in identifying a little girl featured in hundreds of child sexual abuse images they had found online. They had just started working the case, but what they knew was that her abuse had been broadcast to the world for years on dark web sites dedicated to the sexual abuse of children. And her abuser was incredibly technologically sophisticated: new images and new videos every few weeks, but very few clues as to who she was or where she was. And so they called us, because they had heard we were a new nonprofit building technology to fight child sexual abuse. But we were only two years old, and we had only worked on child sex trafficking. And I had to tell them we had nothing. We had nothing that could help them stop this abuse. It took those agents another year to ultimately find that child. And by the time she was rescued, hundreds of images and videos documenting her rape had gone viral, from the dark web to peer-to-peer networks, private chat rooms and to the websites you and I use every single day. And today, as she struggles to recover, she lives with the fact that thousands around the world continue to watch her abuse. I have come to learn in the last five years that this case is far from unique. How did we get here as a society? In the late 1980s, child pornography — or what it actually is, child sexual abuse material — was nearly eliminated. New laws and increased prosecutions made it simply too risky to trade it through the mail. And then came the internet, and the market exploded. The amount of content in circulation today is massive and growing. This is a truly global problem, but if we just look at the US: in the US alone last year, more than 45 million images and videos of child sexual abuse material were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and that is nearly double the amount the year prior. And the details behind these numbers are hard to contemplate, with more than 60 percent of the images featuring children younger than 12, and most of them including extreme acts of sexual violence. Abusers are cheered on in chat rooms dedicated to the abuse of children, where they gain rank and notoriety with more abuse and more victims. In this market, the currency has become the content itself. It's clear that abusers have been quick to leverage new technologies, but our response as a society has not. These abusers don't read user agreements of websites, and the content doesn't honor geographic boundaries. And they win when we look at one piece of the puzzle at a time, which is exactly how our response today is designed. Law enforcement works in one jurisdiction. Companies look at just their platform. And whatever data they learn along the way is rarely shared. It is so clear that this disconnected approach is not working. We have to redesign our response to this epidemic for the digital age. And that's exactly what we're doing at Thorn. We're building the technology to connect these dots, to arm everyone on the front lines — law enforcement, NGOs and companies — with the tools they need to ultimately eliminate child sexual abuse material from the internet. Let's talk for a minute — (Applause) Thank you. (Applause) Let's talk for a minute about what those dots are. As you can imagine, this content is horrific. If you don't have to look at it, you don't want to look at it. And so, most companies or law enforcement agencies that have this content can translate every file into a unique string of numbers. This is called a "hash." It's essentially a fingerprint for each file or each video. And what this allows them to do is use the information in investigations or for a company to remove the content from their platform, without having to relook at every image and every video each time. The problem today, though, is that there are hundreds of millions of these hashes sitting in siloed databases all around the world. In a silo, it might work for the one agency that has control over it, but not connecting this data means we don't know how many are unique. We don't know which ones represent children who have already been rescued or need to be identified still. So our first, most basic premise is that all of this data must be connected. There are two ways where this data, combined with software on a global scale, can have transformative impact in this space. The first is with law enforcement: helping them identify new victims faster, stopping abuse and stopping those producing this content. The second is with companies: using it as clues to identify the hundreds of millions of files in circulation today, pulling it down and then stopping the upload of new material before it ever goes viral. Four years ago, when that case ended, our team sat there, and we just felt this, um ... ... deep sense of failure, is the way I can put it, because we watched that whole year while they looked for her. And we saw every place in the investigation where, if the technology would have existed, they would have found her faster. And so we walked away from that and we went and we did the only thing we knew how to do: we began to build software. So we've started with law enforcement. Our dream was an alarm bell on the desks of officers all around the world so that if anyone dare post a new victim online, someone would start looking for them immediately. I obviously can't talk about the details of that software, but today it's at work in 38 countries, having reduced the time it takes to get to a child by more than 65 percent. (Applause) And now we're embarking on that second horizon: building the software to help companies identify and remove this content. Let's talk for a minute about these companies. So, I told you — 45 million images and videos in the US alone last year. Those come from just 12 companies. Twelve companies, 45 million files of child sexual abuse material. These come from those companies that have the money to build the infrastructure that it takes to pull this content down. But there are hundreds of other companies, small- to medium-size companies around the world, that need to do this work, but they either: 1) can't imagine that their platform would be used for abuse, or 2) don't have the money to spend on something that is not driving revenue. So we went ahead and built it for them, and this system now gets smarter with the more companies that participate. Let me give you an example. Our first partner, Imgur — if you haven't heard of this company, it's one of the most visited websites in the US — millions of pieces of user-generated content uploaded every single day, in a mission to make the internet a more fun place. They partnered with us first. Within 20 minutes of going live on our system, someone tried to upload a known piece of abuse material. They were able to stop it, they pull it down, they report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But they went a step further, and they went and inspected the account of the person who had uploaded it. Hundreds more pieces of child sexual abuse material that we had never seen. And this is where we start to see exponential impact. We pull that material down, it gets reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and then those hashes go back into the system and benefit every other company on it. And when the millions of hashes we have lead to millions more and, in real time, companies around the world are identifying and pulling this content down, we will have dramatically increased the speed at which we are removing child sexual abuse material from the internet around the world. (Applause) But this is why it can't just be about software and data, it has to be about scale. We have to activate thousands of officers, hundreds of companies around the world if technology will allow us to outrun the perpetrators and dismantle the communities that are normalizing child sexual abuse around the world today. And the time to do this is now. We can no longer say we don't know the impact this is having on our children. The first generation of children whose abuse has gone viral are now young adults. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection just did a recent study of these young adults to understand the unique trauma they try to recover from, knowing that their abuse lives on. Eighty percent of these young adults have thought about suicide. More than 60 percent have attempted suicide. And most of them live with the fear every single day that as they walk down the street or they interview for a job or they go to school or they meet someone online, that that person has seen their abuse. And the reality came true for more than 30 percent of them. They had been recognized from their abuse material online. This is not going to be easy, but it is not impossible. Now it's going to take the will, the will of our society to look at something that is really hard to look at, to take something out of the darkness so these kids have a voice; the will of companies to take action and make sure that their platforms are not complicit in the abuse of a child; the will of governments to invest with their law enforcement for the tools they need to investigate a digital first crime, even when the victims cannot speak for themselves. This audacious commitment is part of that will. It's a declaration of war against one of humanity's darkest evils. But what I hang on to is that it's actually an investment in a future where every child can simply be a kid. Thank you. (Applause) |
A circular economy for salt that keeps rivers clean | {0: 'By combining science, circular thinking and disruptive innovation, Tina Arrowood helps envision a world in which fresh river water is not scarce, but well-managed.'} | TED@DuPont | Growing up in northern Wisconsin, I've naturally developed a connection to the Mississippi River. When I was little, my sister and I would have contests to see who could spell "M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i" the fastest. When I was in elementary school, I got to learn about the early explorers and their expeditions, Marquette and Joliet, and how they used the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River and its tributaries to discover the Midwest, and to map a trade route to the Gulf of Mexico. In graduate school, I was fortunate to have the Mississippi River outside my research laboratory window at the University of Minnesota. During that five-year period, I got to know the Mississippi River. I got to know its temperamental nature and where it would flood its banks at one moment, and then shortly thereafter, you would see its dry shorelines. Today, as a physical organic chemist, I'm committed to use my training to help protect rivers, like the Mississippi, from excessive salt that can come from human activity. Because, you know, salt is something that can contaminate freshwater rivers. And freshwater rivers, they have only salt levels of .05 percent. And at this level, it's safe to drink. But the majority of the water on our planet is housed in our oceans, and ocean water has a salinity level of more than three percent. And if you drank that, you'd be sick very quick. So, if we are to compare the relative volume of ocean water to that of the river water that's on our planet, and let's say we are able to put the ocean water into an Olympic-size swimming pool, then our planet's river water would fit in a one-gallon jug. So you can see it's a precious resource. But do we treat it like a precious resource? Or rather, do we treat it like that old rug that you put in your front doorway and wipe your feet off on it? Treating rivers like that old rug has severe consequences. Let's take a look. Let's see what just one teaspoon of salt can do. If we add one teaspoon of salt to this Olympic-size swimming pool of ocean water, the ocean water stays ocean water. But if we add that same one teaspoon of salt to this one-gallon jug of fresh river water, suddenly, it becomes too salty to drink. So the point here is, because rivers, the volume is so small compared to the oceans, it is especially vulnerable to human activity, and we need to take care to protect them. So recently, I surveyed the literature to look at the river health around the world. And I fully expected to see ailing river health in regions of water scarcity and heavy industrial development. And I saw that in northern China and in India. But I was surprised when I read a 2018 article where there's 232 river-sampling sites sampled across the United States. And of those sites, 37 percent had increasing salinity levels. What was more surprising is that the ones with the highest increases were found on the east part of the United States, and not the arid southwest. The authors of this paper postulate that this could be due to using salt to deice roads. Potentially, another source of this salt could come from salty industrial wastewaters. So as you see, human activities can convert our freshwater rivers into water that's more like our oceans. So we need to act and do something before it's too late. And I have a proposal. We can take a three-step river-defense mechanism, and if industrial-water users practice this defense mechanism, we can put our rivers in a much safer position. This involves, number one, extracting less water from our rivers by implementing water recycle and reuse operations. Number two, we need to take the salt out of these salty industrial wastewaters and recover it and reuse it for other purposes. And number three, we need to convert salt consumers, who currently source our salt from mines into salt consumers that source our salt from recycled salt sources. This three-part defense mechanism is already in play. This is what northern China and India are implementing to help to rehabilitate the rivers. But the proposal here is to use this defense mechanism to protect our rivers, so we don't need to rehabilitate them. And the good news is, we have technology that can do this. It's with membranes. Membranes that can separate salt and water. Membranes have been around for a number of years, and they're based on polymeric materials that separate based on size, or they can separate based on charge. The membranes that are used to separate salt and water typically separate based on charge. And these membranes are negatively charged, and help to repel the negatively charged chloride ions that are in that dissolved salt. So, as I said, these membranes have been around for a number of years, and currently, they are purifying 25 million gallons of water every minute. Even more than that, actually. But they can do more. These membranes are based under the principle of reverse osmosis. Now osmosis is this natural process that happens in our bodies — you know, how our cells work. And osmosis is where you have two chambers that separate two levels of salt concentration. One with low salt concentration and one with high salt concentration. And separating the two chambers is the semipermeable membrane. And under the natural osmosis process, what happens is the water naturally transports across that membrane from the area of low salt concentration to the area of high salt concentration, until an equilibrium is met. Now reverse osmosis, it's the reverse of this natural process. And in order to achieve this reversal, what we do is we apply a pressure to the high-concentration side and in doing so, we drive the water the opposite direction. And so the high-concentration side becomes more salty, more concentrated, and the low-concentration side becomes your purified water. So using reverse osmosis, we can take an industrial wastewater and convert up to 95 percent of it into pure water, leaving only five percent as this concentrated salty mixture. Now, this five percent concentrated salty mixture is not waste. So scientists have also developed membranes that are modified to allow some salts to pass through and not others. Using these membranes, which are commonly referred to as nanofiltration membranes, now this five percent concentrated salty solution can be converted into a purified salt solution. So, in total, using reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes, we can convert industrial wastewater into a resource of both water and salt. And in doing so, achieve pillars one and two of this river-defense mechanism. Now, I've introduced this to a number of industrial-water users, and the common response is, "Yeah, but who is going to use my salt?" So that's why pillar number three is so important. We need to transform folks that are using mine salt into consumers of recycled salt. So who are these salt consumers? Well, in 2018 in the United States, I learned that 43 percent of the salt consumed in the US was used for road salt deicing purposes. Thirty-nine percent was used by the chemical industry. So let's take a look at these two applications. So, I was shocked. In the 2018-2019 winter season, one million tons of salt was applied to the roads in the state of Pennsylvania. One million tons of salt is enough to fill two-thirds of an Empire State Building. That's one million tons of salt mined from the earth, applied to our roads, and then it washes off into the environment and into our rivers. So the proposal here is that we could at least source that salt from a salty industrial wastewater, and prevent that from going into our rivers, and rather use that to apply to our roads. So at least when the melt happens in the springtime and you have this high-salinity runoff, the rivers are at least in a better position to defend themselves against that. Now, as a chemist, the opportunity though that I'm more psyched about is the concept of introducing circular salt into the chemical industry. And the chlor-alkali industry is perfect. Chlor-alkali industry is the source of epoxies, it's the source of urethanes and solvents and a lot of useful products that we use in our everyday lives. And it uses sodium chloride salt as its key feed stack. So the idea here is, well, first of all, let's look at linear economy. So in a linear economy, they're sourcing that salt from a mine, it goes through this chlor-alkali process, made into a basic chemical, which then can get converted into another new product, or a more functional product. But during that conversion process, oftentimes salt is regenerated as the by-product, and it ends up in the industrial wastewater. So, the idea is that we can introduce circularity, and we can recycle the water and salt from those industrial wastewater streams, from the factories, and we can send it to the front end of the chlor-alkali process. Circular salt. So how impactful is this? Well, let's just take one example. Fifty percent of the world's production of propylene oxide is made through the chlor-alkali process. And that's a total of about five million tons of propylene oxide on an annual basis, made globally. So that's five million tons of salt mined from the earth converted through the chlor-alkali process into propylene oxide, and then during that process, five million tons of salt that ends up in wastewater streams. So five million tons is enough salt to fill three Empire State Buildings. And that's on an annual basis. So you can see how circular salt can provide a barrier to our rivers from this excessive salty discharge. So you might wonder, "Well, gosh, these membranes have been around for a number of years, so why aren't people implementing wastewater reuse? Well, the bottom line is, it costs money to implement wastewater reuse. And second, water in these regions is undervalued. Until it's too late. You know, if we don't plan for freshwater sustainability, there are some severe consequences. You can just ask one of the world's largest chemical manufacturers who last year took a 280-million dollar hit due to low river levels of the Rhine River in Germany. You can ask the residents of Cape Town, South Africa, who experienced a year-over-year drought drying up their water reserves, and then being asked not to flush their toilets. So you can see, we have solutions here, with membranes, where we can provide pure water, we can provide pure salt, using these membranes, both of these, to help to protect our rivers for future generations. Thank you. (Applause) |
How to 3D print human tissue | null | TED-Ed | There are currently hundreds of thousands of people on transplant lists, waiting for critical organs like kidneys, hearts, and livers that could save their lives. Unfortunately, there aren’t nearly enough donor organs available to fill that demand. What if instead of waiting, we could create brand-new, customized organs from scratch? That’s the idea behind bioprinting, a branch of regenerative medicine currently under development. We’re not able to print complex organs just yet, but simpler tissues including blood vessels and tubes responsible for nutrient and waste exchange are already in our grasp. Bioprinting is a biological cousin of 3-D printing, a technique that deposits layers of material on top of each other to construct a three-dimensional object one slice at a time. Instead of starting with metal, plastic, or ceramic, a 3-D printer for organs and tissues uses bioink: a printable material that contains living cells. The bulk of many bioinks are water-rich molecules called hydrogels. Mixed into those are millions of living cells as well as various chemicals that encourage cells to communicate and grow. Some bioinks include a single type of cell, while others combine several different kinds to produce more complex structures. Let’s say you want to print a meniscus, which is a piece of cartilage in the knee that keeps the shinbone and thighbone from grinding against each other. It’s made up of cells called chondrocytes, and you’ll need a healthy supply of them for your bioink. These cells can come from donors whose cell lines are replicated in a lab. Or they might originate from a patient’s own tissue to create a personalized meniscus less likely to be rejected by their body. There are several printing techniques, and the most popular is extrusion-based bioprinting. In this, bioink gets loaded into a printing chamber and pushed through a round nozzle attached to a printhead. It emerges from a nozzle that’s rarely wider than 400 microns in diameter, and can produce a continuous filament roughly the thickness of a human fingernail. A computerized image or file guides the placement of the strands, either onto a flat surface or into a liquid bath that’ll help hold the structure in place until it stabilizes. These printers are fast, producing the meniscus in about half an hour, one thin strand at a time. After printing, some bioinks will stiffen immediately; others need UV light or an additional chemical or physical process to stabilize the structure. If the printing process is successful, the cells in the synthetic tissue will begin to behave the same way cells do in real tissue: signaling to each other, exchanging nutrients, and multiplying. We can already print relatively simple structures like this meniscus. Bioprinted bladders have also been successfully implanted, and printed tissue has promoted facial nerve regeneration in rats. Researchers have created lung tissue, skin, and cartilage, as well as miniature, semi-functional versions of kidneys, livers, and hearts. However, replicating the complex biochemical environment of a major organ is a steep challenge. Extrusion-based bioprinting may destroy a significant percentage of cells in the ink if the nozzle is too small, or if the printing pressure is too high. One of the most formidable challenges is how to supply oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in a full-size organ. That’s why the greatest successes so far have been with structures that are flat or hollow— and why researchers are busy developing ways to incorporate blood vessels into bioprinted tissue. There’s tremendous potential to use bioprinting to save lives and advance our understanding of how our organs function in the first place. And the technology opens up a dizzying array of possibilities, such as printing tissues with embedded electronics. Could we one day engineer organs that exceed current human capability, or give ourselves features like unburnable skin? How long might we extend human life by printing and replacing our organs? And exactly who—and what— will have access to this technology and its incredible output? |
How a handful of fishing villages sparked a marine conservation revolution | {0: 'TED Fellow Alasdair Harris is a social entrepreneur and ocean conservationist working at the interface of marine protection and poverty alleviation.'} | We the Future | I'm a marine biologist here to talk to you about the crisis in our oceans, but this time perhaps not with a message you've heard before, because I want to tell you that if the survival of the oceans depended only on people like me, scientists trading in publications, we'd be in even worse trouble than we are. Because, as a scientist, the most important things that I've learned about keeping our oceans healthy and productive have come not from academia, but from fishermen and women living in some of the poorest countries on earth. I've learned that as a conservationist, the most important question is not, "How do we keep people out?" but rather, "How do we make sure that coastal people throughout the world have enough to eat?" Our oceans are every bit as critical to our own survival as our atmosphere, our forests or our soils. Their staggering productivity ranks fisheries with farming as a mainstay of food production for humanity. Yet something's gone badly wrong. We're accelerating into an extinction emergency, one that my field has so far failed abysmally to tackle. At its core is a very human and humanitarian crisis. The most devastating blow we've so far dealt our oceans is through overfishing. Every year, we fish harder, deeper, further afield. Every year, we chase ever fewer fish. Yet the crisis of overfishing is a great paradox: unnecessary, avoidable and entirely reversible, because fisheries are one of the most productive resources on the planet. With the right strategies, we can reverse overfishing. That we've not yet done so is, to my mind, one of humanity's greatest failures. Nowhere is this failure more apparent than in the warm waters on either side of our equator. Our tropics are home to most of the species in our ocean, most of the people whose existence depends on our seas. We call these coastal fishermen and women "small-scale fishers," but "small-scale" is a misnomer for a fleet comprising over 90 percent of the world's fishermen and women. Their fishing is generally more selective and sustainable than the indiscriminate destruction too often wrought by bigger industrial boats. These coastal people have the most to gain from conservation because, for many of them, fishing is all that keeps them from poverty, hunger or forced migration, in countries where the state is often unable to help. We know that the outlook is grim: stocks collapsing on the front lines of climate change, warming seas, dying reefs, catastrophic storms, trawlers, factory fleets, rapacious ships from richer countries taking more than their share. Extreme vulnerability is the new normal. I first landed on the island of Madagascar two decades ago, on a mission to document its marine natural history. I was mesmerized by the coral reefs I explored, and certain I knew how to protect them, because science provided all the answers: close areas of the reef permanently. Coastal fishers simply needed to fish less. I approached elders here in the village of Andavadoaka and recommended that they close off the healthiest and most diverse coral reefs to all forms of fishing to form a refuge to help stocks recover because, as the science tells us, after five or so years, fish populations inside those refuges would be much bigger, replenishing the fished areas outside, making everybody better off. That conversation didn't go so well. (Laughter) Three-quarters of Madagascar's 27 million people live on less than two dollars a day. My earnest appeal to fish less took no account of what that might actually mean for people who depend on fishing for survival. It was just another squeeze from outside, a restriction rather than a solution. What does protecting a long list of Latin species names mean to Resaxx, a woman from Andavadoaka who fishes every day to put food on the table and send her grandchildren to school? That initial rejection taught me that conservation is, at its core, a journey in listening deeply, to understand the pressures and realities that communities face through their dependence on nature. This idea became the founding principle for my work and grew into an organization that brought a new approach to ocean conservation by working to rebuild fisheries with coastal communities. Then, as now, the work started by listening, and what we learned astonished us. Back in the dry south of Madagascar, we learned that one species was immensely important for villagers: this remarkable octopus. We learned that soaring demand was depleting an economic lifeline. But we also learned that this animal grows astonishingly fast, doubling in weight every one or two months. We reasoned that protecting just a small area of fishing ground for just a few months might lead to dramatic increases in catches, enough to make a difference to this community's bottom line in a time frame that might just be acceptable. The community thought so too, opting to close a small area of reef to octopus fishing temporarily, using a customary social code, invoking blessings from the ancestors to prevent poaching. When that reef reopened to fishing six months later, none of us were prepared for what happened next. Catches soared, with men and women landing more and bigger octopus than anyone had seen for years. Neighboring villages saw the fishing boom and drew up their own closures, spreading the model virally along hundreds of miles of coastline. When we ran the numbers, we saw that these communities, among the poorest on earth, had found a way to double their money in a matter of months, by fishing less. Imagine a savings account from which you withdraw half your balance every year and your savings keep growing. There is no investment opportunity on earth that can reliably deliver what fisheries can. But the real magic went beyond profit, because a far deeper transformation was happening in these communities. Spurred on by rising catches, leaders from Andavadoaka joined force with two dozen neighboring communities to establish a vast conservation area along dozens of miles of coastline. They outlawed fishing with poison and mosquito nets and set aside permanent refuges around threatened coral reefs and mangroves, including, to my astonishment, those same sights that I'd flagged just two years earlier when my evangelism for marine protection was so roundly rejected. They created a community-led protected area, a democratic system for local marine governance that was totally unimaginable just a few years earlier. And they didn't stop there: within five years, they'd secured legal rights from the state to manage over 200 square miles of ocean, eliminating destructive industrial trawlers from the waters. Ten years on, we're seeing recovery of those critical reefs within those refuges. Communities are petitioning for greater recognition of the right to fish and fairer prices that reward sustainability. But all that is just the beginning of the story, because this handful of fishing villages taking action has sparked a marine conservation revolution that has spread over thousands of miles, impacting hundreds of thousands of people. Today in Madagascar, hundreds of sites are managed by communities applying this human rights-based approach to conservation to all kinds of fisheries, from mud crabs to mackerel. The model has crossed borders through East Africa and the Indian Ocean and is now island-hopping into Southeast Asia. From Tanzania to Timor-Leste, from India to Indonesia, we're seeing the same story unfold: that when we design it right, marine conservation reaps dividends that go far beyond protecting nature, improving catches and driving waves of social change along entire coastlines, strengthening confidence, cooperation and the resilience of communities to face the injustice of poverty and climate change. I've been privileged to spend my career catalyzing and connecting these movements throughout the tropics, and I've learned that as conservationists, our goal must be to win at scale, not just to lose more slowly. We need to step up to this global opportunity to rebuild fisheries: with field workers to stand with communities and connect them, to support them to act and learn from one another; with governments and lawyers standing with communities to secure their rights to manage their fisheries; prioritizing local food and job security above all competing interests in the ocean economy; ending subsidies for grotesquely overcapitalized industrial fleets and keeping those industrial and foreign vessels out of coastal waters. We need agile data systems that put science in the hands of communities to optimize conservation to the target species or habitat. We need development agencies, donors and the conservation establishment to raise their ambition to the scale of investment urgently required to deliver this vision. And to get there, we all need to reimagine marine conservation as a narrative of abundance and empowerment, not of austerity and alienation; a movement guided by the people who depend on healthy seas for their survival, not by abstract scientific values. Of course, fixing overfishing is just one step to fixing our oceans. The horrors of warming, acidification and pollution grow each day. But it's a big step. It's one we can take today, and it's one that will give a much-needed boost to those exploring scalable solutions to other dimensions of our ocean emergency. Our success propels theirs. If we throw up our hands in despair, it's game over. We solve these challenges by taking them on one by one. Our overwhelming dependence on our ocean is the solution that has been hiding in plain sight, because there's nothing small about small-scale fishers. They're a hundred million strong and provide nutrition to billions. It's this army of everyday conservationists who have the most at stake. Only they have the knowledge and global reach needed to reshape our relationship with our oceans. Helping them achieve this is the most powerful thing we can do to keep our oceans alive. Thank you. (Applause) |
A love story for the coral reef crisis | {0: 'Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist and policy expert.'} | TED2019 | I want to tell you a love story. But it doesn't have a happy ending. Once upon a time, I was a stubborn five-year-old who decided to become a marine biologist. Thirty-four years, 400 scuba dives and one PhD later, I'm still completely enamored with the ocean. I spent a decade working with fishing communities in the Caribbean, counting fish, interviewing fishermen, redesigning fishing gear and developing policy. I've been helping to figure out what sustainable management can look like for places where food security, jobs and cultures all depend on the sea. In the midst of all this, I fell in love. With a fish. There are over 500 fish species that live on Caribbean reefs, but the ones I just can't get out of my head are parrotfish. Parrotfish live on coral reefs all over the world, there are 100 species, they can grow well over a meter long and weigh over 20 kilograms, but that's the boring stuff. I want to tell you five incredible things about these fish. First, they have a mouth like a parrot's beak, which is strong enough to bite coral, although mostly they're after algae. They are the lawn mowers of the reef. This is key, because many reefs are overgrown with algae due to nutrient pollution from sewage and fertilizer that runs off of land. And there just aren't enough herbivores like parrotfish left out on the reefs to mow it all down. OK, second amazing thing. After all that eating, they poop fine white sand. A single parrotfish can produce over 380 kilograms of this pulverized coral each year. Sometimes, when scuba diving, I would look up from my clipboard and just see contrails of parrotfish poop raining down. So next time you're lounging on a tropical white-sand beach, maybe thank of parrotfish. (Laughter) Third, they have so much style. Mottled and striped, teal, magenta, yellow, orange, polka-dotted, parrotfish are a big part of what makes coral reefs so colorful. Plus, in true diva style, they have multiple wardrobe changes throughout their life. A juvenile outfit, an intermediate getup, and a terminal look. Fourth, with this last wardrobe change comes a sex change from female to male, termed sequential hermaphroditism. These large males then gather harems of females to spawn. Heterosexual monogamy is certainly not nature's status quo. And parrotfish exemplify some of the beauty of diverse reproductive strategies. Fifth, and the most incredible, sometimes when parrotfish cozy up into a nook in the reef at night, they secrete a mucus bubble from a gland in their head that envelops their entire body. This masks their scent from predators and protects them from parasites, so they can sleep soundly. I mean, how cool is this? (Laughter) So this is a confession of my love for parrotfish in all their flamboyant, algae-eating, sand-pooping, sex-changing glory. (Laughter) But with this love comes heartache. Now that groupers and snappers are woefully overfished, fishermen are targeting parrotfish. Spearfishing took out the large species, midnight blue and rainbow parrotfish are now exceedingly rare, and nets and traps are scooping up the smaller species. As both a marine biologist and a single person, I can tell you, there aren't that many fish in the sea. (Laughter) And then, there's my love for their home, the coral reef, which was once as vibrant as Caribbean cultures, as colorful as the architecture, and as bustling as carnival. Because of climate change, on top of overfishing and pollution, coral reefs may be gone within 30 years. An entire ecosystem erased. This is devastating, because hundreds of millions of people around the world depend on reefs for their nutrition and income. Let that sink in. A little bit of good news is that places like Belize, Barbuda and Bonaire are protecting these VIPs — Very Important Parrotfish. Also, more and more places are establishing protected areas that protect the entire ecosystem. These are critical efforts, but it's not enough. As I stand here today, only 2.2 percent of the ocean is protected. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the large fish, and 80 percent of the coral on Caribbean reefs, is already gone. We're in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. And we, humans, are causing it. We also have the solutions. Reverse climate change and overfishing, protect half the ocean and stop pollution running from land. But these are massive undertakings requiring systemic changes, and we're really taking our sweet time getting around to it. Each of us can contribute, though. With our votes, our voices, our food choices, our skills and our dollars. We must overhaul both corporate practices and government policies. We must transform culture. Building community around solutions is the most important thing. I am never going to give up working to protect and restore this magnificent planet. Every bit of habitat we preserve, every tenth of a degree of warming we prevent, really does matter. Thankfully, I'm not motivated by hope, but rather a desire to be useful. Because I don't know how to give an honest talk about my beloved parrotfish and coral reefs that has a happy ending. Thank you. (Applause) |
How nanoparticles could change the way we treat cancer | {0: 'Joy Wolfram leads a nanomedicine research lab with the goal of developing innovative nanoparticles that bring the next generation of treatments directly to the clinic.'} | TEDxJacksonville | It was a Sunday afternoon back in April of this year. My phone was ringing, I picked it up. The voice said, "It's Rebecca. I'm just calling to invite you to my funeral." I said, "Rebecca, what are you talking about?" She said, "Joy, as my friend, you have to let me go. It's my time." The next day, she was dead. Rebecca was 31 years old when she died. She had an eight-year struggle with breast cancer. It came back three times. I failed her. The scientific community failed her. And the medical community failed her. And she's not the only one. Every five seconds, someone dies of cancer. Today, we medical researchers are committed to having Rebecca and people like her be one of the last patients that we fail. The US government alone has spent over 100 billion on cancer research since the 1970s, with limited progress in regards to patient survival, especially for certain types of very aggressive cancers. So we need a change because, clearly, what we've been doing so far has not been working. And what we do in medicine is to send out firefighters, because cancer is like a big fire. And these firefighters are the cancer drugs. But we're sending them out without a fire truck — so without transportation, without ladders and without emergency equipment. And over 99 percent of these firefighters never make it to the fire. Over 99 percent of cancer drugs never make it to the tumor because they lack transportation and tools to take them to the location they're aiming for. Turns out, it really is all about location, location, location. (Laughter) So we need a fire truck to get to the right location. And I'm here to tell you that nanoparticles are the fire trucks. We can load cancer drugs inside nanoparticles, and nanoparticles can function as the carrier and necessary equipment to bring the cancer drugs to the heart of the tumor. So what are nanoparticles, and what does it really mean to be nano-sized? Well, there are many different types of nanoparticles made out of various materials, such as metal-based nanoparticles or fat-based nanoparticles. But to really illustrate what it means to be nano-sized, I took one of my hair strands and placed it under the microscope. Now, I have very thin hair, so my hair is approximately 40,000 nanometers in diameter. So this means, if we take 400 of our nanoparticles and we stack them on top of each other, we get the thickness of a single hair strand. I lead a nanoparticle laboratory to fight cancer and other diseases at Mayo Clinic here in Jacksonville. And at Mayo Clinic, we really have the tools to make a difference for patients, thanks to the generous donations and grants to fund our research. And so, how do these nanoparticles manage to transport cancer drugs to the tumor? Well, they have an extensive toolbox. Cancer drugs without nanoparticles are quickly washed out of the body through the kidneys because they're so small. So it's like water going through a sieve. And so they don't really have time to reach the tumor. Here we see an illustration of this. We have the firefighters, the cancer drugs. They're circulating in the blood, but they're quickly washed out of the body and they don't really end up inside the tumor. But if we put these cancer drugs inside nanoparticles, they will not get washed out by the body because the nanoparticles are too big. And they will continue to circulate in the blood, giving them more time to find the tumor. And here we see the cancer drug, the firefighters, inside the fire truck, the nanoparticles. They're circulating in the blood, they don't get washed out and they actually end up reaching the tumor. And so what other tools do nanoparticles have? Well, they can protect cancer drugs from getting destroyed inside the body. There are certain very important but sensitive drugs that are easily degraded by enzymes in the blood. So unless they have this nanoparticle protection, they will not be able to function. Another nanoparticle tool are these surface extensions that are like tiny hands with fingers that grab on to the tumor and fit exactly onto it, so that when the nanoparticles are circulating, they can attach onto the cancer cells, buying the cancer drugs more time to do their job. And these are just some of the many tools that nanoparticles can have. And today, we have more than 10 clinically approved nanoparticles for cancer that are given to patients all over the world. Yet, we have patients, like Rebecca, who die. So what are the major challenges and limitations with currently approved nanoparticles? Well, a major challenge is the liver, because the liver is the body's filtration system, and the liver recognizes and destroys foreign objects, such as viruses, bacteria and also nanoparticles. And the immune cells in the liver eat the nanoparticles, preventing them from reaching the tumor. And here we see an illustration where the kidney is no longer a problem, but these fire trucks, the nanoparticles, get stuck in the liver and, actually, less of them end up reaching the tumor. So a future strategy to improve nanoparticles is to temporarily disarm the immune cells in the liver. So how do we disarm these cells? Well, we looked at drugs that were already clinically approved for other indications to see if any of them could stop the immune cells from eating the nanoparticles. And unexpectedly, in one of our preclinical studies, we found that a 70-year-old malaria drug was able to stop the immune cells from internalizing the nanoparticles so that they could escape the liver and continue their journey to their goal, the tumor. And here we see the illustration of blocking the liver. The nanoparticles don't go there, and they instead end up in the tumor. So, sometimes, unexpected connections are made in science that lead to new solutions. Another strategy for preventing nanoparticles from getting stuck in the liver is to use the body's own nanoparticles. Yes — surprise, surprise. You, and you and you, and all of us have a lot of nanoparticles circulating in our bodies. And because they're part of our bodies, the liver is less likely to label them as foreign. And these biological nanoparticles can be found in the saliva, in the blood, in the urine, in pancreatic juice. And we can collect them from the body and use them as fire trucks for cancer drugs. And in this case, the immune cells in the liver are less likely to eat the biological nanoparticles. So we're using a Trojan-horse-based concept to fool the liver. And here we see the biological nanoparticles circulating in the blood. They don't get recognized by the liver, and they end up in the tumor. And in the future, we want to exploit nature's own nanoparticles for cancer drug delivery, to reduce side effects and save lives by preventing the cancer drugs from being in the wrong location. However, a major problem has been: How do we isolate these biological nanoparticles in large quantities without damaging them? My lab has developed an efficient method for doing this. We can process large quantities of liquids from the body to produce a highly concentrated, high-quality formulation of biological nanoparticles. And these nanoparticles are not yet in clinical use, because it takes an average of 12 years to get something from the lab to your medicine cabinet. And this is the type of challenge that requires teamwork from scientists and physicians, who dedicate their lives to this battle. And we keep going, thanks to inspiration from patients. And I believe that if we keep working on these nanomedicines, we will be able to reduce harm to healthy organs, improve quality of life and save future patients. I like to imagine that if these treatments had been available for Rebecca, that call from her could have been an invitation not to her funeral, but her wedding. Thank you. (Applause) |
The Maya myth of the morning star | null | TED-Ed | Chak Ek’ rose from the underworld to the surface of the eastern sea and on into the heavens. His brother K’in Ahaw followed. Though Chak Ek’ had risen first, K’in Ahaw outshone him, and the resentful Chak Ek’ descended back to the underworld to plot against his brother. In Mayan mythology, Chak Ek’ represents Venus and K’in Ahaw represents the sun. Known as both the morning and the evening star, Venus moves through the sky, sometimes visible before sunrise, sometimes after sunset, and occasionally not at all. The ancient Maya identified this roughly 584 day cycle more than a thousand years ago and it still accurately predicts when and where Venus will appear in the sky around the world. Five of these cycles make up almost exactly eight years, and the Maya also recognized this larger cycle. They assigned Chak Ek’ five different forms, one for each cycle of Venus, that were repeated every eight years. Within the 584 day cycle, Venus is visible in the evening sky for 250 days, then disappears for 8 days before reappearing as the Morning Star. The ancient Maya ascribed particular significance to this point in this cycle: the first time Venus appears before sunrise after being invisible. On this day, Chak Ek’ rose again from the underworld, wielding a spearthrower and darts. To bring discord to the world, he decided to attack his brother and his brother’s allies. His first target was K’awiil, god of sustenance and lightning. Rising in the late rainy season, Chak Ek’ aimed his spear and struck K’awiil, causing damage to the food and a period of chaos in the social order until K’awiil was reborn. 584 days after attacking K’awiil, Chak Ek’ turned his attention back to his brother, the Sun. Each night, the Sun took the form of jaguar and journeyed through the underworld. Chak Ek’ speared the jaguar sun as it rose at dawn towards the end of the dry season. The Sun was wounded, plunging the world into a period of chaos and warfare. Chak Ek’s third victim was the god of maize, who provided sustenance for all humankind. Chak Ek’ speared him at the time of the harvest. He was buried in the underworld, and maize—the staple of life— was no longer available to Earth’s inhabitants. But the maize god emerged after three months in the place of new beginnings– the eastern cave known as Seven Water Place– bringing food once again to earth. When the turtle Ak Na'ak rose in the sky to mark the summer solstice, Chak Ek’ claimed his fourth victim. With the death of this good omen, the Sun, the food supply, and the people were buried within the earth, and the forces of chaos reigned. But out of the chaos rose a new order established by Hun Ajaw, one of the hero twins known to all for having vanquished the lords of the underworld. A new race of humans was created, made from maize. This state of balance was not to last, however. Chak Ek’s fifth and final victim was a mysterious stranger from the west, and his death in the heart of the dry season shook the order established by Hun Ajaw. The gods, the lords, and the maize were buried in the underworld. But this victory for Chak Ek’ would also prove temporary. The two brothers, Venus and the Sun, were caught in an endless cycle as they battled for supremacy, re-enacting the same five struggles, while the world alternated between order and chaos with the rising of the Morning Star. |
How we're using dogs to sniff out malaria | {0: 'Professor James Logan leads an internationally renowned research program at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, presents television programs and has a passion for science and natural history.'} | TEDxLondon | Malaria is still one of the biggest killers on the planet. Despite us making significant progress in the last 20 years, half the world's population is still at risk from this disease. In fact, every two minutes, a child under the age of two dies from malaria. Our progress has undoubtedly stalled. Now we face many challenges when it comes to tackling malaria, but one of the problems that we have is actually finding people who are infected with malaria in the first place. So, for example, if people have some level of immunity to the disease, then they can develop an infection and become infectious and still pass it on but not actually develop any symptoms, and that can be a big problem, because how do you find those people? It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Now scientists have been trying to solve this problem for some years, but what I want to talk to you about today is that the solution to this problem may have been right under our noses this whole time. Now that was a bit of a heavy start, with lots of really important statistics, so I want us all to just relax a little bit and that'll help me to relax a little bit as well. So why don't we just all take a nice deep breath in ... Wow. (Laughs) And sigh, and, whoo, going to get blown away there. OK, now I want you to do it again, but this time, I want you to do it just through your nose, and I want you to really sense the environment around you. And in fact, I want you to really smell the person who's sitting next to you. Even if you don't know them, I don't care. Lean in, get your nose right into their armpit, come on, stop being so British about it, get your nose into the armpit, have a good old sniff, see what you can smell. (Laughter) Now each and every one of us would have had a very different sensory experience there. Some of us would have smelled something rather pleasant, perhaps somebody's perfume. But some of us might have smelled something a little bit less pleasant, perhaps somebody's bad breath or body odor. Maybe you even smelled your own body odor. (Laughter) But, you know, there's probably a good reason that some of us don't like certain body smells. Throughout history, there have been many examples of diseases being associated with a smell. So, for example, typhoid apparently smells like baked brown bread, and that's quite a nice smell, isn't it, but it starts to get a little bit worse. TB smells like stale beer, and yellow fever smells like the inside of a butcher shop, like raw meat. And in fact, when you look at the sort of words that are used to describe diseases, you tend to find these words: "rotting," "foul," "putrid" or "pungent." So it's no surprise, then, that smell and body odor gets a bit of bad reputation. If I was to say to you, "You smell," now, you're going to take that not exactly as a compliment, are you. But you do smell. You've just found that out. You do smell. It's a scientific fact. And I'd quite like to turn that on its head. What if we could actually think about smell in a positive way, put it to good use? What if we could detect the chemicals that are given off by our bodies when we're ill, and use that to diagnose people? Now we'd need to develop good sensors that would allow us to do this, but it turns out that the world's best sensors actually already exist, and they're called animals. Now animals are built to smell. They live their everyday lives according to their nose. They sense the environment, which tells them really important information about how to stay alive, essentially. Just imagine you're a mosquito and you've just flown in from outside and you've entered this room. Now you're going to be entering a really complex world. You're going to be bombarded with smells from everywhere. We've just found out that we're really smelly beasts. Each one of us is producing different volatile chemicals. It's not just one chemical, like BO — lots and lots of chemicals. But it's not just you, it's the seats you're sitting on, the carpet, the glue that holds the carpet to the floor, the paint on the walls, the trees outside. Everything around you is producing an odor, and it's a really complex world that the mosquito has to fly through, and it has to find you within that really complex world. And each and every one of you will know — Come on, hands up, who always gets bitten by mosquitoes? And who never gets bitten? There's always one or two really annoying people that never get bitten. But the mosquito has a really hard job to find you, and that's all to do with the way you smell. People who don't attract mosquitoes smell repellent, and what we know is that — (Laughter) I should clarify, repellent to mosquitoes, not to people. (Laughter) And what we know now is that that is actually controlled by our genes. But mosquitoes are able to do that because they have a highly sophisticated sense of smell, and they're able to see through all the, sort of, odor sludge to find you, that individual, and bite you as a blood meal. But what would happen if one of you was infected with malaria? Well, let's just have a quick look at the malaria life cycle. So it's quite complex, but basically, what happens is a mosquito has to bite somebody to become infected. Once it bites an infected person, the parasite travels through the mouth part into the gut and then bursts through the gut, creates cysts, and then the parasites replicate, and then they make a journey from the gut all the way to the salivary glands, where they are then injected back into another person when the mosquito bites, because it injects saliva as it bites. Then, inside the human, it goes through a whole other cycle, a whole other part of the life cycle, so it goes through a liver stage, changes shape, and then comes out into the bloodstream again, and eventually, that person will become infectious. Now, one thing we know about the parasite world is that they are incredibly good at manipulating their hosts to enhance their own transmission, to make sure that they get passed onwards. If this was to happen in the malaria system, it might make sense that it would be something to do with odor that they manipulate, because odor is the key. Odor is the thing that links us between mosquitoes. That's how they find us. This is what we call the malaria manipulation hypothesis, and it's something that we've been working on over the last few years. So one of the first things that we wanted to do in our study was to find out whether an infection with malaria actually makes you more attractive to mosquitoes or not. So in Kenya, with our colleagues, we designed an experiment where we had participants, children in Kenya, sleep inside tents. The odor from the tent was blown into a chamber which contained mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes would behaviorally respond. They would fly towards or fly away from the odors, depending on whether they liked them or not. Now some of the participants were infected with malaria, and some of them were uninfected, but importantly, none of the children had any symptoms whatsoever. Now when we found and saw the results, it was really quite staggering. People who were infected with malaria were significantly more attractive than people who were uninfected. So let me explain this graph. We have "number of mosquitoes attracted to the child," and we have two sets of data: before treatment and after treatment. On the far left-hand side, that bar represents a group of people who are uninfected, and as we move towards the right-hand side, these people have become infected and they're moving towards the stage that they're infectious. So right at the stage when people are infectious is when they are significantly more attractive. In this study, then, what we did is we obviously gave the children treatment to clear the parasites, and then we tested them again, and what we found was that highly attractive trait that was there disappeared after they had cleared the infection. So it wasn't just that the people were more attractive, it was that the parasite was manipulating its host in some way to make it more attractive to mosquitoes, standing out like a beacon to attract more mosquitoes so that it could continue its life cycle. The next thing we wanted to do was find out what it was the mosquito was actually smelling. What was it detecting? So to do that, we had to collect the body odor from the participants, and we did this by wrapping bags around their feet, which allowed us to collect the volatile odors from their feet, and feet are really important to mosquitoes. They really love the smell of feet. (Laughter) Especially cheesy feet. Anybody got cheesy feet back there? Mosquitoes love that smell. So we focused on the feet, and we collected the body odor. Now when it comes to mosquitoes and olfaction, their sense of smell, it's very complex. It would be really nice if there was just one chemical that they detected, but it's not that simple. They have to detect a number of chemicals in the right concentration, the right ratios, the right combinations of chemicals. So you can sort of think about it like a musical composition. So, you know, if you get the note wrong or you play it too loud or too soft, it doesn't sound right. Or a recipe: if you get an ingredient wrong or you cook it too long or too little, it doesn't taste right. Well, smell is the same. It's made up of a suite of chemicals in the right combination. Now our machines in the lab are not particularly good at picking out this sort of signal — it's quite complex. But animals can, and what we do in my laboratory is we connect microelectrodes to the antennae of a mosquito. Imagine how fiddly that is. (Laughter) But what we also do is connect them to individual cells within the antennae, which is incredible. You don't want to sneeze when you're doing this, that's for sure. But what this does is it allows us to measure the electrical response of the smell receptors in the antennae, and so we can see what a mosquito is smelling. So I'm going to show you what this looks like. Here's an insect's cell, and it will respond in a second when I press this button, and you'll see it sort of ticking over with this response. An odor will be blown over the cell, and it will go a bit crazy, sort of blow a raspberry, and then it will go back to its resting potential when we stop the odor. (Rapid crackling) (Low-pitch crackling) (Rapid crackling) OK, there we go, so you can go home now and say that you've seen an insect smelling and even hearing an insect smelling — it's a weird concept, isn't it? But this works really well, and this allows us to see what the insect is detecting. Now using this method with our malaria samples, we were able to find out what the mosquito was detecting, and we found the malaria-associated compounds, mainly aldehydes, a group of compounds that smelled, that signified the malaria signal here. So now we know what the smell of malaria is, and we've used the mosquito as a biosensor to tell us what the smell of malaria actually is. Now I'd like to imagine that you could, I don't know, put a harness on a little mosquito and put it on a lead and take it out and see if we can sniff people in a community — that goes on in my head — and see whether we could actually find people with malaria, but, of course, that's not really possible. But there is an animal that we can do that with. Now dogs have an incredible sense of smell, but there's something more special about them: they have an ability to learn. And most of you people will be familiar with this concept at airports, where dogs will go down a line and sniff out your luggage or yourself for drugs and explosives or even food as well. So we wanted to know, could we actually train dogs to learn the smell of malaria? And so we've been working with a charity called Medical Detection Dogs to see whether we can train them to learn the smell of malaria. And we went out to the Gambia and did some more odor collection on children that were infected and uninfected, but this time, we collected their odor by making them wear socks, nylon stockings, to collect their body odor. And we brought them back to the UK and then we handed them to this charity to run the experiment. Now I could show you a graph and tell you about that experiment works, but that'd be a bit dull, wouldn't it. Now, they do say never work with children or animals live, but we're going to break that rule today. So please welcome onto the stage Freya ... (Applause) and her trainers Mark and Sarah. (Applause) Of course, this is the real star of the show. (Laughter) OK, so now what I'm going to ask is if you can all just be a little bit quiet, not move around too much. This is a very, very strange environment for Freya. She's having a good look at you guys now. So let's stay as calm as possible. That would be great. So what we're going to do here is basically, we're going to ask Freya to move down this line of contraptions here, and in each one of these contraptions, we have a pot, and in the pot is a sock that has been worn by a child in the Gambia. Now three of the socks have been worn by children who were uninfected, and just one of the socks was worn by a child who was infected with malaria. So just as you would see an airport, imagine these were people, and the dog is going to go down and have a good sniff. And let's see if you can see when she senses the malaria, and if she senses the malaria. This is a really tough test for her in this very strange environment, so I'm going to hand it over now to Mark. (Laughs) Number three. OK. (Applause) There we go. I didn't know which pot that was in. Mark didn't know. This was a blind test, genuinely. Sarah, was that correct? Sarah: Yes. JL: That was correct. Well done, Freya. That is fantastic. Whew. (Applause) That is really wonderful. Now Sarah is going to actually change the pots around a little bit, and she's going to take the one with malaria away, and we're just going to have four pots that are containing socks from children that had no malaria, so in theory, Freya should go down the line and not stop at all. And this is really important, because we also need to know people who are not infected, she needs to be able to do that. And this is a tough test. These socks have been in the freezer for a couple of years now, and this is a tiny bit of a sock as well. So imagine if this was a whole person, giving off a big signal. So this is really incredible. OK, over to you, Mark. (Laughs) (Applause) Brilliant. Fantastic. (Applause) Really super. Thank you so much, guys. Big round of applause for Freya, Mark and Sarah. Well done, guys. (Applause) What a good girl. She's going to get a treat later. Fantastic. So you've just seen that for your own eyes. That was a real live demonstration. I was quite nervous about it. I'm so glad that it worked. (Laughter) But it is really incredible, and when we do this, what we find is that these dogs can correctly tell us when somebody is infected with malaria 81 percent of the time. It's incredible. 92 percent of the time, they can tell us correctly when somebody does not have an infection. And those numbers are actually above the criteria set by the World Health Organization for a diagnostic. So we really are looking at deploying dogs in countries, and particularly at ports of entry, to detect people who have malaria. This could be a reality. But we can't deploy dogs everywhere, and so what we're also looking to do and working on at the moment is the development of technology, wearable tech that would empower the individual to allow them to self-diagnose. Imagine a patch that you wear on the skin that would detect in your sweat when you're infected with malaria and change color. Or something a little more technical, perhaps: a smartwatch that would alert you when you're infected with malaria. And if we can do this digitally, and we can collect data, imagine the amount of data that we can collect on a global scale. This could completely revolutionize the way that we track the spread of diseases, the way that we target our control efforts and respond to disease outbreaks, ultimately helping to lead to the eradication of malaria, and even beyond malaria, for other diseases that we already know have a smell. If we can harness the power of nature to find out what those smells are, we could do this and make this a reality. Now, as scientists, we're tasked with coming up with new ideas, new concepts, new technologies to tackle some of the world's greatest problems, but what never ceases to amaze me is that often nature has already done this for us, and the answer ... is right under our nose. Thank you. (Applause) |
Hawking's black hole paradox explained | null | TED-Ed | Scientists work on the boundaries of the unknown, where every new piece of knowledge forms a path into a void of uncertainty. And nothing is more uncertain– or potentially enlightening– than a paradox. Throughout history, paradoxes have threatened to undermine everything we know, and just as often, they’ve reshaped our understanding of the world. Today, one of the biggest paradoxes in the universe threatens to unravel the fields of general relativity and quantum mechanics: the black hole information paradox. To understand this paradox, we first need to define what we mean by "information." Typically, the information we talk about is visible to the naked eye. For example, this kind of information tells us that an apple is red, round, and shiny. But physicists are more concerned with quantum information. This refers to the quantum properties of all the particles that make up that apple, such as their position, velocity and spin. Every object in the universe is composed of particles with unique quantum properties. This idea is evoked most significantly in a vital law of physics: the total amount of quantum information in the Universe must be conserved. Even if you destroy an object beyond recognition, its quantum information is never permanently deleted. And theoretically, knowledge of that information would allow us to recreate the object from its particle components. Conservation of information isn’t just an arbitrary rule, but a mathematical necessity, upon which much of modern science is built. But around black holes, those foundations get shaken. When an apple enters a black hole, it seems as though it leaves the universe, and all its quantum information becomes irretrievably lost. However, this doesn’t immediately break the laws of physics. The information is out of sight, but it might still exist within the black hole’s mysterious void. Alternatively, some theories suggest that information doesn’t even make it inside the black hole at all. Seen from outside, it’s as if the apple’s quantum information is encoded on the surface layer of the black hole, called the event horizon. As the black hole’s mass increases, the surface of the event horizon increases as well. So it’s possible that as a black hole swallows an object, it also grows large enough to conserve the object’s quantum information. But whether information is conserved inside the black hole or on its surface, the laws of physics remain intact– until you account for Hawking Radiation. Discovered by Stephen Hawking in 1974, this phenomenon shows that black holes are gradually evaporating. Over incredibly long periods of time black holes lose mass as they shed particles away from their event horizons. Critically, it seems as though the evaporating particles are unrelated to the information the black hole encodes– suggesting that a black hole and all the quantum information it contains could be completely erased. Does that quantum information truly disappear? If not, where does it go? While the evaporation process would take an incredibly long time, the questions it raises for physics are far more urgent. The destruction of information would force us to rewrite some of our most fundamental scientific paradigms. But fortunately, in science, every paradox is an opportunity for new discoveries. Researchers are investigating a broad range of possible solutions to the Information Paradox. Some have theorized that information actually is encoded in the escaping radiation, in some way we can’t yet understand. Others have suggested the paradox is just a misunderstanding of how general relativity and quantum field theory interact. Respectively, these two theories describe the largest and smallest physical phenomena, and they’re notoriously difficult to combine. Some researchers argue that a solution to this and many other paradoxes will come naturally with a “unified theory of everything.” But perhaps the most mind-bending theory to come from exploring this paradox is the holographic principle. Expanding on the idea that the 2D surface of an event horizon can store quantum information, this principle suggests that the very boundary of the observable universe is also a 2D surface encoded with information about real, 3D objects. If this is true, it’s possible that reality as we know it is just a holographic projection of that information. If proven, any of these theories would open up new questions to explore, while still preserving our current models of the universe. But it’s also possible that those models are wrong! Either way, this paradox has already helped us take another step into the unknown. |
Fashion that celebrates all body types -- boldly and unapologetically | {0: 'Becca McCharen-Tran is creating a world where people of all shapes, sizes, gender expressions, ages, ability levels, races and ethnicities are empowered on the runway and beyond.'} | TED Salon The Macallan | As fashion designers, our decisions have the power to change our culture. We choose who is cast in our runway shows and campaigns, and ultimately, who is celebrated and considered beautiful, and who is not. Having this platform is a responsibility. One that can be utilized to exclude people or to empower others. Growing up, I was obsessed with fashion. I pored over all different types of fashion magazines at my local Barnes and Noble. To be fashionable was to be tall, skinny, with long, shiny hair. That's what I saw as the ideal, and it was reinforced everywhere I looked. And to be honest, it still is. I wanted to be like the models, so I stopped eating. It was a dark time in my life; my eating disorder consumed me. All I could think about was counting every single calorie, and waking up early before school every day so I could run a few miles. It took me years to finally release the grip that the eating disorder had over my life. But when it did, it freed up so much brain space to think about what I was truly passionate about. For so long, the fashion industry has worked hard to set an ideal of beauty that celebrates thin, young, white, cisgender, able-bodied models as the ideal. It's impossible not to be bombarded with images of models that have been photoshopped to where there's not a single pore, fat roll or stretch mark in sight. You don't need to look hard to find examples. This definition of beauty is damaging, dangerous and destructive, and we need to explode it immediately. (Applause) I'm glad you agree. (Laughter) One of the worst things I've realized over the years is that my experience with disordered eating is not an anomaly. In fact, it's par for the course. I think there's a study that says 91 percent of women, and likely those of all gender identities, are unhappy with the way they look. It's unforgivable that we live in a society where it's normal or expected for teenagers to grow up hating themselves. We've been fighting for fat acceptance and women's body autonomy since the '60s. And there has been headway. We have plus-size models like Ashley Graham and musicians with body-positive messages, like Lizzo, breaking into the mainstream. Thank God. (Laughter) There's brands like Area that have released campaigns without any Photoshop retouching. But we're still inundated with unrealistic expectations. I love this quote by Lizzo, who said, "Body positivity only exists because body negativity is the norm." So how do we change the stigma around looking different or not fitting into this narrow definition of beauty? I believe it's by celebrating beauty in all different forms, bold and unapologetically. But many fashion designers continue to reinforce this narrow definition of beauty. From the way they are taught in school and into the real world, they drape on mannequins that are only size four, or sketch on bodies that are super stretched out and not anatomically proportioned. Different-size bodies aren't taken into account during the design process. They're not thought of. So who are these designers designing for? But the conversation around exclusivity in fashion doesn't begin and end with size. It's about seeing people of all different gender expressions, different ability levels, different ages, different races and ethnicities, celebrated for their own unique beauty. In my own work as a fashion designer, I started a brand called Chromat, and we're committed to empowering women, femmes and nonbinary #ChromatBABES, of all shapes and sizes, through perfectly fit garments for every body. Swimwear has become a huge focus for me, because of the power that this single garment can have over the way people feel about themselves. We wanted to take our focus on celebrating all body types to a garment that's fraught with insecurity. On our runways, you see curves, cellulite and scars worn proudly. We're a runway show, yes, but we're also a celebration. I didn't start designing 10 years ago with the mission to change the entire industry. But the models we cast at the time, who just happened to be my friends who had begged to be in my shows, were so radical to some people, and, unfortunately, still are different or strange to some, that it became a huge part of what we're known for. However, inclusivity means nothing if it's only surface level. Behind the scenes, from the photographer, to the casting director, to the interns, who is making the decisions behind the scenes is just as important. It's imperative to include diverse decision-makers in the process, and it's always better to collaborate with different communities, rather than trying to speak for them. And this is an important piece of the puzzle that many young designers may not think about when they're first starting their careers, but hiring a plus-size or a transgender photographer, or a woman of color as your casting director, or a black makeup artist — hey, Fatima Thomas — who intimately understands how important it is to be able to work with all skin tones: it's essential to creating a holistically inclusive output, like this one. As a fashion designers that do a lot of swim, we wanted to rewrite the rules around having a bikini body. So we cast a team of babe guards to enforce guidelines around inclusion and acceptance at the pool. Instead of "no diving" and "no running," how about "celebrate cellulite," "body policing prohibited," and "intolerance not tolerated." And this was enforced by babe guards Mama Cax, Denise Bidot, Geena Rocero, Ericka Hart and Emme, all activists in their own right. I've always felt it was important to show a range of different bodies in our runway shows and campaigns. But it actually wasn't until recently that we were able to expand our size range in a major way. We first launched our curve collection five years ago; we were so excited. But when it launched, it fell flat. Nobody was interested. None of our department stores stocked above a size large, and if they did, it was somewhere else in the building entirely. In fact, one time our sales team said, "You know, it's so cool you have trans models and curve models on the runway — I love what you're doing. But when the buyers come in to see the collection for market, they want to be sold a dream, they want to see something that they aspire to be." Implying that our models weren't that. But I've realized it's so much more important to open up this dream to more people. I want the consumer to know that it's not your body that needs to change — it's the clothes. (Applause) There needs to be more fashion options at all sizes and in all retailers. So finally, in 2018, Nordstrom actually placed an order up to 3X. And this was a huge game changer for us to have a major retailer invest in adding these units, so we could go to the factory — now we go up to 4X, which is about a size 32. Having that investment helped us to change and realign our entire design process. We now have different-sized bodies to sketch and drape on in the studio. And if more fashion schools taught these skills, more designers would have the ability to design for all bodies. (Applause) So as fashion designers, it's our job to utilize our platform to explode this narrow and restrictive definition of beauty. My goal is that one day, teenagers growing up don't feel the same pressure that I did to conform. And I hope that our work contributes to the fashion industry's opening up to celebrate many different identities. Thank you. (Applause and cheers) |
The danger of AI is weirder than you think | {0: 'While moonlighting as a research scientist, Janelle Shane found fame documenting the often hilarious antics of AI algorithms.'} | TED2019 | So, artificial intelligence is known for disrupting all kinds of industries. What about ice cream? What kind of mind-blowing new flavors could we generate with the power of an advanced artificial intelligence? So I teamed up with a group of coders from Kealing Middle School to find out the answer to this question. They collected over 1,600 existing ice cream flavors, and together, we fed them to an algorithm to see what it would generate. And here are some of the flavors that the AI came up with. [Pumpkin Trash Break] (Laughter) [Peanut Butter Slime] [Strawberry Cream Disease] (Laughter) These flavors are not delicious, as we might have hoped they would be. So the question is: What happened? What went wrong? Is the AI trying to kill us? Or is it trying to do what we asked, and there was a problem? In movies, when something goes wrong with AI, it's usually because the AI has decided that it doesn't want to obey the humans anymore, and it's got its own goals, thank you very much. In real life, though, the AI that we actually have is not nearly smart enough for that. It has the approximate computing power of an earthworm, or maybe at most a single honeybee, and actually, probably maybe less. Like, we're constantly learning new things about brains that make it clear how much our AIs don't measure up to real brains. So today's AI can do a task like identify a pedestrian in a picture, but it doesn't have a concept of what the pedestrian is beyond that it's a collection of lines and textures and things. It doesn't know what a human actually is. So will today's AI do what we ask it to do? It will if it can, but it might not do what we actually want. So let's say that you were trying to get an AI to take this collection of robot parts and assemble them into some kind of robot to get from Point A to Point B. Now, if you were going to try and solve this problem by writing a traditional-style computer program, you would give the program step-by-step instructions on how to take these parts, how to assemble them into a robot with legs and then how to use those legs to walk to Point B. But when you're using AI to solve the problem, it goes differently. You don't tell it how to solve the problem, you just give it the goal, and it has to figure out for itself via trial and error how to reach that goal. And it turns out that the way AI tends to solve this particular problem is by doing this: it assembles itself into a tower and then falls over and lands at Point B. And technically, this solves the problem. Technically, it got to Point B. The danger of AI is not that it's going to rebel against us, it's that it's going to do exactly what we ask it to do. So then the trick of working with AI becomes: How do we set up the problem so that it actually does what we want? So this little robot here is being controlled by an AI. The AI came up with a design for the robot legs and then figured out how to use them to get past all these obstacles. But when David Ha set up this experiment, he had to set it up with very, very strict limits on how big the AI was allowed to make the legs, because otherwise ... (Laughter) And technically, it got to the end of that obstacle course. So you see how hard it is to get AI to do something as simple as just walk. So seeing the AI do this, you may say, OK, no fair, you can't just be a tall tower and fall over, you have to actually, like, use legs to walk. And it turns out, that doesn't always work, either. This AI's job was to move fast. They didn't tell it that it had to run facing forward or that it couldn't use its arms. So this is what you get when you train AI to move fast, you get things like somersaulting and silly walks. It's really common. So is twitching along the floor in a heap. (Laughter) So in my opinion, you know what should have been a whole lot weirder is the "Terminator" robots. Hacking "The Matrix" is another thing that AI will do if you give it a chance. So if you train an AI in a simulation, it will learn how to do things like hack into the simulation's math errors and harvest them for energy. Or it will figure out how to move faster by glitching repeatedly into the floor. When you're working with AI, it's less like working with another human and a lot more like working with some kind of weird force of nature. And it's really easy to accidentally give AI the wrong problem to solve, and often we don't realize that until something has actually gone wrong. So here's an experiment I did, where I wanted the AI to copy paint colors, to invent new paint colors, given the list like the ones here on the left. And here's what the AI actually came up with. [Sindis Poop, Turdly, Suffer, Gray Pubic] (Laughter) So technically, it did what I asked it to. I thought I was asking it for, like, nice paint color names, but what I was actually asking it to do was just imitate the kinds of letter combinations that it had seen in the original. And I didn't tell it anything about what words mean, or that there are maybe some words that it should avoid using in these paint colors. So its entire world is the data that I gave it. Like with the ice cream flavors, it doesn't know about anything else. So it is through the data that we often accidentally tell AI to do the wrong thing. This is a fish called a tench. And there was a group of researchers who trained an AI to identify this tench in pictures. But then when they asked it what part of the picture it was actually using to identify the fish, here's what it highlighted. Yes, those are human fingers. Why would it be looking for human fingers if it's trying to identify a fish? Well, it turns out that the tench is a trophy fish, and so in a lot of pictures that the AI had seen of this fish during training, the fish looked like this. (Laughter) And it didn't know that the fingers aren't part of the fish. So you see why it is so hard to design an AI that actually can understand what it's looking at. And this is why designing the image recognition in self-driving cars is so hard, and why so many self-driving car failures are because the AI got confused. I want to talk about an example from 2016. There was a fatal accident when somebody was using Tesla's autopilot AI, but instead of using it on the highway like it was designed for, they used it on city streets. And what happened was, a truck drove out in front of the car and the car failed to brake. Now, the AI definitely was trained to recognize trucks in pictures. But what it looks like happened is the AI was trained to recognize trucks on highway driving, where you would expect to see trucks from behind. Trucks on the side is not supposed to happen on a highway, and so when the AI saw this truck, it looks like the AI recognized it as most likely to be a road sign and therefore, safe to drive underneath. Here's an AI misstep from a different field. Amazon recently had to give up on a résumé-sorting algorithm that they were working on when they discovered that the algorithm had learned to discriminate against women. What happened is they had trained it on example résumés of people who they had hired in the past. And from these examples, the AI learned to avoid the résumés of people who had gone to women's colleges or who had the word "women" somewhere in their resume, as in, "women's soccer team" or "Society of Women Engineers." The AI didn't know that it wasn't supposed to copy this particular thing that it had seen the humans do. And technically, it did what they asked it to do. They just accidentally asked it to do the wrong thing. And this happens all the time with AI. AI can be really destructive and not know it. So the AIs that recommend new content in Facebook, in YouTube, they're optimized to increase the number of clicks and views. And unfortunately, one way that they have found of doing this is to recommend the content of conspiracy theories or bigotry. The AIs themselves don't have any concept of what this content actually is, and they don't have any concept of what the consequences might be of recommending this content. So, when we're working with AI, it's up to us to avoid problems. And avoiding things going wrong, that may come down to the age-old problem of communication, where we as humans have to learn how to communicate with AI. We have to learn what AI is capable of doing and what it's not, and to understand that, with its tiny little worm brain, AI doesn't really understand what we're trying to ask it to do. So in other words, we have to be prepared to work with AI that's not the super-competent, all-knowing AI of science fiction. We have to be prepared to work with an AI that's the one that we actually have in the present day. And present-day AI is plenty weird enough. Thank you. (Applause) |
The pride and power of representation in film | {0: 'Jon M. Chu makes up stories for a living -- and if the success of his film "Crazy Rich Asians" is any indication, those stories are true game-changers.'} | TED2019 | The Silicon Valley and the internet gave me superpowers, tools to go to battle with, a suit to take bullets with and a giant signal in the sky that told me when it was time to fight. Now, I can't actually prove any of this. I am not a "scientist," I don't have "facts." In fact, my Rotten Tomato score is running around 50 percent right now, so I'm not sure why they let me in. (Laughter) But if we're talking about colliding with a power that's bigger than us, then I'm in the right place, because this last year, I had an interesting year with a movie called "Crazy Rich Asians" that I did — (Applause and cheers) Thank you, thank you. And if we're talking about connection specifically today, then I know my story is only possible because of a collection of connections that happened throughout my life, and so hopefully by telling a little bit of my story, it will help someone else find their path a little sooner than I did. My story begins when I opened the holy book for the first time ... The holy book of gadgets, of course, "Sharper Image." (Laughter) Yes, those who know. It was a magical magazine of dreams and had things in there that you knew could not possibly exist, but it was right there. You could order it — come in the mail. And some things that probably should have never existed, like "Gregory," a lifelike, portable mannequin who deters crime by his strong, masculine appearance. This is a real — (Laughter) This is a real thing, by the way. (Laughter) But my eyes were set on the Sima Video Ed/it 2. This thing was so cool at the age of 10. You could connect all your VHS players together and cut something together, so I called my parents and convinced them to buy this for me. But before I get into that, let me give you a little rundown about my parents. They came to the United States when they were young, they're from Taiwan and China and they settled in Los Altos, California — the Silicon Valley before the Silicon Valley — and they started a restaurant called Chef Chu's. 50 years later, today, they still work at the restaurant, they're still there, and I grew up there, so it was great. Talk about connection — this place was a hub of connection. People coming there to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, business deals, eating, drinking — connection. And I got to grow up in that environment. And my parents always said America is the greatest place in the world. You can — if you love anything, you can work hard and you can accomplish anything you want. So, they raised five all-American kids. I am the youngest — you can see I'm the one with the eyes closed there — and they named actually my sister and I, Jennifer and Jonathan, after Jennifer and Jonathan Hart from that TV show "Hart to Hart." (Laughter) So that's how much they loved America, apparently. And they thought that we were The Kennedys — my mom specifically — so she dressed us up all the time like each other and she put us in etiquette classes and ballroom dance classes, made sure that we had the right dental plan — (Laughter) This is a real picture of me. That is not fake. Thank God for that one. And I was in charge of the video camera every time we went on vacations, so I would collect all these videos and had nothing to do with it. Thus, the Sima Video Ed/it 2. I convinced them to get it for me, and I spent all night trying to wrangle all the VCRs from my brother's and sister's room, tangled in wires, and now I had something to show them. So I brought them into the living room one night, it was probably 1991, somewhere around there, and I sit them down in the living room — my heart was pounding, my breaths were deep — sort of like right now — and I pressed play and something extraordinary happened actually. They cried. And cried. They cried not because it was the most amazing home video edit ever — although it was pretty good — (Laughter) but because they saw our family as a normal family that fit in and belonged on the screen in front of them, just like the movies that they worshipped and the TV shows that they named us after. I remember as the youngest of these five kids feeling heard for the first time. There was this place where all these things in my head could go into the great, electric somewhere-out-there and exist and escape, and I knew from this moment on, I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, whether I was going to get paid for it or not. So I had this passion and now I needed some tools, and my dad went to work. He continued to brag about my home video editing skills to the customers at Chef Chu's, and luckily this is the Silicon Valley, so they're working on stuff, hardware and software — these are all engineers. And they offered to give me things for digital video editing. This is like the mid-'90s, early '90's, where this stuff didn't exist for kids like me. So I'd get this beta software and hardware from places like HP and Sun and Russell Brown at Adobe. And I had no manual, so I'd figure it out and I fell in love with it even more. I went to USC School of Cinematic Arts and started to go there, and my mom and dad would always call me randomly and remind me that I've got to do movies about my Chinese heritage. That China was going to be a huge market for movies one day. I was like, "Yeah right, guys". (Laughter) Always listen to your parents. (Laughter) I wanted to be Zemeckis, Lucas and Spielberg. The last thing I wanted to talk about was my own cultural identity, my ethnicity. And honestly, I had no one else to talk — there was no one at school that I could really open up to, and even if I did, like, what would I say? So I ignored it and I moved on with my life. Cut to 15 years later, I made it in Hollywood. I got discovered by Spielberg, I worked with The Rock and Bruce Willis and Justin Bieber. I even came to the TED stage to present my dance company LXD, and it was great. And then a couple years ago, I felt a little bit lost, creatively. The engine was going down a little bit, and I got a sign ... I heard from voices from the sky ... or more it was like, birds. OK, fine, it was Twitter. And Twitter — (Laughter) It was Constance Wu on Twitter, it was Daniel Dae Kim, it was Jenny Yang, who's here today, it was Alan Yang — all of these people who were writing their frustrations with representation in Hollywood. And it really hit me. I thought these things but never really registered — I was really focused on — and I felt lucky to be working, and so then I realized — yeah, what is wrong with Hollywood? Why aren't they doing this? And then I looked at myself in the mirror and realized I am Hollywood. I literally — I popped my collar before I came out here, that's how Hollywood I am. (Laughter) Is it still up? OK, good. (Applause) For all these years I felt I had been given so much, and what was I giving back to the film business that I loved? I felt lucky to be here, but at this moment, I realized that I was not just lucky to be here, I had the right to be here. No, I earned the right to be here. All those sleepless nights, all those parties I missed on Fridays, every friend and girlfriend I lost because I was editing — I earned the right to be here not just to have a voice but to say something, and say something important, and I had, actually, the power — the superpower to change things if I really, really wanted to. When you try to tell stories about yourself and people who look like you and look like your family, it can be scary, and all those feelings of being alone came back. But the internet is what told me — sent the sign that there was going to be a whole army waiting for me to support me and to love me for it. And so I found Kevin Kwan's amazing novel "Crazy Rich Asians," and we went to work. We put this movie together. All-Asian cast — the first all-Asian cast in 25 years with a contemporary story — (Applause and cheers) But when we started it was not a guarantee at all. There was no comp for this kind of movie. Every time we did surveys and stuff, the audiences weren't going to show up. In fact, even in our test screenings where you give free tickets to people to watch your movie, we had a one to 25 ratio, meaning after 25 asks, only one person said yes, which is super low for these types of things. Asian people who knew the book didn't trust Hollywood at all, Asian people who didn't know the book thought the title was offensive and other people who weren't Asian just didn't think it was for them. So we were pretty screwed. Luckily, Warner Brothers didn't turn away from us. But then the electric somewhere struck again, and this army of Asian-American writers, reporters, bloggers, who over the years had worked their way up through their respective publications, went to work, unbeknownst to me. And they started to post things. Also, some tech founders out here started to post stuff on social media, write stuff about us in articles in the "LA Times," in "The Hollywood Reporter" and "Entertainment Weekly." It was like this grassroots uprising of making ourselves news. What an amazing thing to witness. And the swell of support turned into this conversation online between all these Asian Americans where we could actually debate and discuss what stories we wanted to tell, what stories should be told or not, what kind of — are we allowed to make fun of ourselves? What about casting? What are we allowed to do? And we didn't agree — and we still don't, but that wasn't the point. The point was the conversation was happening. And this conversation stream became an infrastructure. It took all these different groups that were trying to achieve the same thing and put us all together in this connective tissue. And again, not perfect, but the start of how we determine our own representation on the big screen. It became more physical when I went to the movie theater. I'll never forget going — opening weekend, and I went into the theater, and it's not just Asians — all types of people — and I go in and sit down, and people laughed, people cried, and when I went into the lobby, people stayed. It's like they didn't want to leave. They just hugged each other, high-fived each other, took selfies, they debated it, they laughed about it. All these different things. I had such an intimate relationship with this movie, but I didn't understand when we were making it what we were making until it was happening — that it was the same thing that my parents felt when they watched our family videos in that living room that day. Seeing us on the screen has a power to it, and the only way I can describe it is pride. I have always understood this word intellectually — I've probably talked about this word, but to actually feel pride — and those of you who have felt it know — it's like you just want to like, touch everybody and grab and run around. It's like a very — I can't explain — it's just a very physical feeling, all because of a long pattern of connection. Film was a gift given to me, and through the years I've learned a lot of things. You can plan, you can write scripts, you can do your storyboards, but at a certain point, your movie will speak back to you, and it's your job to listen. It's this living organism and it sort of presents itself, so you better catch it before it slips through your hands, and that's the most exciting part about making movies. When I look at life, it's not that different actually. I've been led through these sort of breadcrumbs of connections through people, through circumstances, through luck. And it changed when I realized that once you start listening to the silent beats and the messy noises around you, you realize that there's this beautiful symphony already written for you. A direct line to your destiny. Your superpower. Now, film was a gift given to me, sort of spurred on by my parents and supported by my community. I got to be who I wanted to be when I needed to be it. My mom posted something on Facebook the other day, which is usually a really bad thing to say out loud — scary, she should not have a Facebook, but — (Laughter) She posted this thing, and it was a meme, you know, one of those funny things, and it said, "You can't change someone who doesn't want to change, but never underestimate the power of planting a seed." And as I was doing the finishing touches on this talk, I realized that all the powerful connections in my life were through generosity and kindness and love and hope. So when I think about my movies "Crazy Rich Asians" and "In the Heights" which I'm working on right now — (Applause and cheers) Yes, it's a good one. All I want to do is show joy and hope in them, because I refuse to believe that our best days are behind us, but in fact, around the corner. Because you see love — love is the superpower that was given to me. Love is the superpower that was passed onto me. Love is the only thing that can stop a speeding bullet before it even exits the chamber. Love is the only thing that can leap over a building and have a whole community look up into the sky, join hands, and have the courage to face something that's impossibly bigger than themselves. So I have a challenge for myself and for anyone here. As you're working on your thing, on your company, and you're forging this thing to life, and you're making the impossible possible, let's just not forget to be kind to each other, because I believe that is the most powerful form of connection we can give to this planet. In fact, our future depends on it. Thank you. (Applause and cheers) Thank you. (Applause) |
How motivation can fix public systems | {0: "BCG's Abhishek Gopalka advises governments on innovative approaches to deliver better outcomes for citizens."} | TED@BCG Mumbai | Take a minute and think of yourself as the leader of a country. And let's say one of your biggest priorities is to provide your citizens with high-quality healthcare. How would you go about it? Build more hospitals? Open more medical colleges? Invest in clinical innovation? But what if your country's health system was fundamentally broken? Whether it's doctor absenteeism, drug stock-outs or poor quality of care. Where would you start then? I'm a management consultant, and for the last three years, I've been working on a project to improve the public heath system of Rajasthan, a state in India. And during the course of the project, we actually discovered something profound. More doctors, better facilities, clinical innovation — they are all important. But nothing changes without one key ingredient. Motivation. But motivation is a tricky thing. If you've led a team, raised a child or tried to change a personal habit, you know that motivation doesn't just appear. Something has to change to make you care. And if there's one thing that all of us humans care about, it's an inherent desire to shine in front of society. So that's exactly what we did. We decided to focus on the citizen: the people who the system was supposed to serve in the first place. And today, I'd like to tell you how Rajasthan has transformed its public health system dramatically by using the citizen to trigger motivation. Now, Rajasthan is one of India's largest states, with a population of nearly 80 million. That's larger than the United Kingdom. But the similarities probably end there. In 2016, when my team was called in to start working with the public health system of Rajasthan, we found it in a state of crisis. For example, the neonatal mortality rate — that's the number of newborns who die before their first month birthday — was 10 times higher than that of the UK. No wonder then that citizens were saying, "Hey, I don't want to go to a public health facility." In India, if you wanted to see a doctor in a public health facility, you would go to a "PHC," or "primary health center." And at least 40 patients are expected to go to a PHC every day. But in Rajasthan, only one out of four PHCs was seeing this minimum number of patients. In other words, people had lost faith in the system. When we delved deeper, we realized that lack of accountability is at the core of it. Picture this. Sudha, a daily-wage earner, realizes that her one-year-old daughter is suffering from uncontrollable dysentery. So she decides to take the day off. That's a loss of about 350 rupees or five dollars. And she picks up her daughter in her arms and walks for five kilometers to the government PHC. But the doctor isn't there. So she takes the next day off, again, and comes back to the PHC. This time, the doctor is there, but the pharmacist tells her that the free drugs that she's entitled to have run out, because they forgot to reorder them on time. So now, she rushes to the private medical center, and as she's rushing there, looking at her daughter's condition worsening with every passing hour, she can't help but wonder if she should have gone to the private medical center in the first place and payed the 350 rupees for the consultation and drugs. No one is held accountable for this incredible failure of the system. Costing time, money and heartache to Sudha. And this is something that just had to be fixed. Now, as all good consultants, we decided that data-driven reviews had to be the answer to improve accountability. So we created these fancy performance dashboards to help make the review meetings of the health department much more effective. But nothing changed. Discussion after discussion, meeting after meeting, nothing changed. And that's when it struck me. You see, public systems have always been governed through internal mechanisms, like review meetings. And over time, their accountability to the citizen has been diluted. So why not bring the citizen back into the equation, perhaps by using the citizen promises? Couldn't that trigger motivation? We started with what I like to call the coffee shop strategy. You've probably seen one of these signs in a coffee shop, which says, "If you don't get your receipt, the coffee is free." Now, the cashier has no option but to give you a receipt each time. So we took this strategy and applied it to Rajasthan. We worked with the government on a program to revive 300 PHCs across the state, and we got them to paint very clear citizen promises along the wall. "We assure you that you will have a doctor each time." "We assure you that you will get your free drugs each time." "We assure you that you will get your free diagnostics each time." And finally, we worked with elected representatives to launch these revived PHCs, who shared the citizen promises with the community with a lot of fanfare. Now, the promise was out there in the open. Failure would be embarrassing. The system had to start delivering. And deliver it did. Doctor availability went up, medicines came on hand, and as a result, patient visits went up by 20 percent in less than a year. The public health system was getting back into business. But there was still a long distance to go. Change isn't that easy. An exasperated doctor once told me, "I really want to transform the maternal health in my community, but I just don't have enough nurses." Now, resources like nurses are actually controlled by administrative officers who the doctors report to. And while the doctors were now motivated, the administrative officers simply weren't motivated enough to help the doctors. This is where the head of the public health department, Ms. Veenu Gupta, came up with a brilliant idea. A monthly ranking of all districts. And this ranking would assess the performance of every district on each major disease and each major procedure. But here's the best part. We made the ranking go public. We put the ranking on the website, we put the ranking on social media, and before you knew it, the media got involved, with newspaper articles on which districts were doing well and which ones weren't. And we didn't just want the rankings to impact the best- and the worst-performing districts. We wanted the rankings to motivate every district. So we took inspiration from soccer leagues, and created a three-tiered ranking system, whereby every quarter, if a district's performance were to decline, you could get relegated to the lower tier. But if the district's performance were to improve, you could get promoted to the premiere league. The rankings were a big success. It generated tremendous excitement, and districts began vying with each other to be known as exemplars. It's actually very simple, if you think about it. If the performance data is only being reviewed by your manager in internal settings, it simply isn't motivating enough. But if that data is out there, in the open, for the community to see, that's a very different picture. That just unlocks a competitive spirit which is inherent in each and every one of us. So now, when you put these two together, the coffee shop strategy and public competition, you now had a public health system which was significantly more motivated to improve citizen health. And now that you had a more motivated health system, it was actually a system that was now much more ready for support. Because now, there is a pull for the support, whether it's resources, data or skill building. Let me share an example. I was once at a district meeting in the district of Ajmer. This is one of the districts that had been rising rapidly in the rankings. And there were a group of passionate doctors who were discussing ideas on how to better support their teams. One of the doctors had up-skilled health workers to tackle the problem of nurse shortages. Another doctor was using WhatsApp in creative ways to share information and ideas with his frontline workers. For example, where are the children who are missing from immunization? And how do you convince the mothers to actually bring their children for immunization? And because their teams were now significantly motivated, they were simply lapping up the support, because they wanted to perform better and better. Broken systems certainly need more resources and tools. But they won't drive much impact if you don't first address the motivation challenge. Once the motivation tide begins to shift, that's when you get the real returns off resources and tools. But I still haven't answered a key question. What happened to the performance of Rajasthan's public health system? In 2016, when our work began, the government of India and the World Bank came out with a public health index. Rajasthan was ranked 20th out of 21 large states. But in 2018, when the next ranking came out, Rajasthan showed one of the highest improvements among all large states in India, leapfrogging four positions. For example, it showed one of the highest reductions in neonatal mortality, with 3,000 additional newborn lives being saved every year. Typically, public health transformations take a long time, even decades. But this approach had delivered results in two years. But here's the best part. There is actually nothing Rajasthan-specific about what we learned. In fact, this approach of using the citizen to trigger motivation is not even limited to public health systems. I sincerely believe that if there is any public system, in any country, that is in inertia, then we need to bring back the motivation. And a great way to trigger the motivation is to increase transparency to the citizen. We can do this with education and sanitation and even political representation. Government schools can compete publicly on the basis of student enrollment. Cities and towns, on the basis of cleanliness. And politicians on the basis of a scorecard of how exactly they're improving citizen lives. There are many broken systems out there in the world. We need to bring back their motivation. The citizen is waiting. We must act today. Thank you very much. (Applause) |
How you can help transform the internet into a place of trust | {0: 'Claire Wardle is an expert on user-generated content and verification working to help improve the quality of information online.'} | TED2019 | No matter who you are or where you live, I'm guessing that you have at least one relative that likes to forward those emails. You know the ones I'm talking about — the ones with dubious claims or conspiracy videos. And you've probably already muted them on Facebook for sharing social posts like this one. It's an image of a banana with a strange red cross running through the center. And the text around it is warning people not to eat fruits that look like this, suggesting they've been injected with blood contaminated with the HIV virus. And the social share message above it simply says, "Please forward to save lives." Now, fact-checkers have been debunking this one for years, but it's one of those rumors that just won't die. A zombie rumor. And, of course, it's entirely false. It might be tempting to laugh at an example like this, to say, "Well, who would believe this, anyway?" But the reason it's a zombie rumor is because it taps into people's deepest fears about their own safety and that of the people they love. And if you spend as enough time as I have looking at misinformation, you know that this is just one example of many that taps into people's deepest fears and vulnerabilities. Every day, across the world, we see scores of new memes on Instagram encouraging parents not to vaccinate their children. We see new videos on YouTube explaining that climate change is a hoax. And across all platforms, we see endless posts designed to demonize others on the basis of their race, religion or sexuality. Welcome to one of the central challenges of our time. How can we maintain an internet with freedom of expression at the core, while also ensuring that the content that's being disseminated doesn't cause irreparable harms to our democracies, our communities and to our physical and mental well-being? Because we live in the information age, yet the central currency upon which we all depend — information — is no longer deemed entirely trustworthy and, at times, can appear downright dangerous. This is thanks in part to the runaway growth of social sharing platforms that allow us to scroll through, where lies and facts sit side by side, but with none of the traditional signals of trustworthiness. And goodness — our language around this is horribly muddled. People are still obsessed with the phrase "fake news," despite the fact that it's extraordinarily unhelpful and used to describe a number of things that are actually very different: lies, rumors, hoaxes, conspiracies, propaganda. And I really wish we could stop using a phrase that's been co-opted by politicians right around the world, from the left and the right, used as a weapon to attack a free and independent press. (Applause) Because we need our professional news media now more than ever. And besides, most of this content doesn't even masquerade as news. It's memes, videos, social posts. And most of it is not fake; it's misleading. We tend to fixate on what's true or false. But the biggest concern is actually the weaponization of context. Because the most effective disinformation has always been that which has a kernel of truth to it. Let's take this example from London, from March 2017, a tweet that circulated widely in the aftermath of a terrorist incident on Westminster Bridge. This is a genuine image, not fake. The woman who appears in the photograph was interviewed afterwards, and she explained that she was utterly traumatized. She was on the phone to a loved one, and she wasn't looking at the victim out of respect. But it still was circulated widely with this Islamophobic framing, with multiple hashtags, including: #BanIslam. Now, if you worked at Twitter, what would you do? Would you take that down, or would you leave it up? My gut reaction, my emotional reaction, is to take this down. I hate the framing of this image. But freedom of expression is a human right, and if we start taking down speech that makes us feel uncomfortable, we're in trouble. And this might look like a clear-cut case, but, actually, most speech isn't. These lines are incredibly difficult to draw. What's a well-meaning decision by one person is outright censorship to the next. What we now know is that this account, Texas Lone Star, was part of a wider Russian disinformation campaign, one that has since been taken down. Would that change your view? It would mine, because now it's a case of a coordinated campaign to sow discord. And for those of you who'd like to think that artificial intelligence will solve all of our problems, I think we can agree that we're a long way away from AI that's able to make sense of posts like this. So I'd like to explain three interlocking issues that make this so complex and then think about some ways we can consider these challenges. First, we just don't have a rational relationship to information, we have an emotional one. It's just not true that more facts will make everything OK, because the algorithms that determine what content we see, well, they're designed to reward our emotional responses. And when we're fearful, oversimplified narratives, conspiratorial explanations and language that demonizes others is far more effective. And besides, many of these companies, their business model is attached to attention, which means these algorithms will always be skewed towards emotion. Second, most of the speech I'm talking about here is legal. It would be a different matter if I was talking about child sexual abuse imagery or content that incites violence. It can be perfectly legal to post an outright lie. But people keep talking about taking down "problematic" or "harmful" content, but with no clear definition of what they mean by that, including Mark Zuckerberg, who recently called for global regulation to moderate speech. And my concern is that we're seeing governments right around the world rolling out hasty policy decisions that might actually trigger much more serious consequences when it comes to our speech. And even if we could decide which speech to take up or take down, we've never had so much speech. Every second, millions of pieces of content are uploaded by people right around the world in different languages, drawing on thousands of different cultural contexts. We've simply never had effective mechanisms to moderate speech at this scale, whether powered by humans or by technology. And third, these companies — Google, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp — they're part of a wider information ecosystem. We like to lay all the blame at their feet, but the truth is, the mass media and elected officials can also play an equal role in amplifying rumors and conspiracies when they want to. As can we, when we mindlessly forward divisive or misleading content without trying. We're adding to the pollution. I know we're all looking for an easy fix. But there just isn't one. Any solution will have to be rolled out at a massive scale, internet scale, and yes, the platforms, they're used to operating at that level. But can and should we allow them to fix these problems? They're certainly trying. But most of us would agree that, actually, we don't want global corporations to be the guardians of truth and fairness online. And I also think the platforms would agree with that. And at the moment, they're marking their own homework. They like to tell us that the interventions they're rolling out are working, but because they write their own transparency reports, there's no way for us to independently verify what's actually happening. (Applause) And let's also be clear that most of the changes we see only happen after journalists undertake an investigation and find evidence of bias or content that breaks their community guidelines. So yes, these companies have to play a really important role in this process, but they can't control it. So what about governments? Many people believe that global regulation is our last hope in terms of cleaning up our information ecosystem. But what I see are lawmakers who are struggling to keep up to date with the rapid changes in technology. And worse, they're working in the dark, because they don't have access to data to understand what's happening on these platforms. And anyway, which governments would we trust to do this? We need a global response, not a national one. So the missing link is us. It's those people who use these technologies every day. Can we design a new infrastructure to support quality information? Well, I believe we can, and I've got a few ideas about what we might be able to actually do. So firstly, if we're serious about bringing the public into this, can we take some inspiration from Wikipedia? They've shown us what's possible. Yes, it's not perfect, but they've demonstrated that with the right structures, with a global outlook and lots and lots of transparency, you can build something that will earn the trust of most people. Because we have to find a way to tap into the collective wisdom and experience of all users. This is particularly the case for women, people of color and underrepresented groups. Because guess what? They are experts when it comes to hate and disinformation, because they have been the targets of these campaigns for so long. And over the years, they've been raising flags, and they haven't been listened to. This has got to change. So could we build a Wikipedia for trust? Could we find a way that users can actually provide insights? They could offer insights around difficult content-moderation decisions. They could provide feedback when platforms decide they want to roll out new changes. Second, people's experiences with the information is personalized. My Facebook news feed is very different to yours. Your YouTube recommendations are very different to mine. That makes it impossible for us to actually examine what information people are seeing. So could we imagine developing some kind of centralized open repository for anonymized data, with privacy and ethical concerns built in? Because imagine what we would learn if we built out a global network of concerned citizens who wanted to donate their social data to science. Because we actually know very little about the long-term consequences of hate and disinformation on people's attitudes and behaviors. And what we do know, most of that has been carried out in the US, despite the fact that this is a global problem. We need to work on that, too. And third, can we find a way to connect the dots? No one sector, let alone nonprofit, start-up or government, is going to solve this. But there are very smart people right around the world working on these challenges, from newsrooms, civil society, academia, activist groups. And you can see some of them here. Some are building out indicators of content credibility. Others are fact-checking, so that false claims, videos and images can be down-ranked by the platforms. A nonprofit I helped to found, First Draft, is working with normally competitive newsrooms around the world to help them build out investigative, collaborative programs. And Danny Hillis, a software architect, is designing a new system called The Underlay, which will be a record of all public statements of fact connected to their sources, so that people and algorithms can better judge what is credible. And educators around the world are testing different techniques for finding ways to make people critical of the content they consume. All of these efforts are wonderful, but they're working in silos, and many of them are woefully underfunded. There are also hundreds of very smart people working inside these companies, but again, these efforts can feel disjointed, because they're actually developing different solutions to the same problems. How can we find a way to bring people together in one physical location for days or weeks at a time, so they can actually tackle these problems together but from their different perspectives? So can we do this? Can we build out a coordinated, ambitious response, one that matches the scale and the complexity of the problem? I really think we can. Together, let's rebuild our information commons. Thank you. (Applause) |
The Greek myth of Talos, the first robot | null | TED-Ed | Hephaestus, god of technology, was hard at work on his most ingenious invention yet. He was creating a new defense system for King Minos, who wanted fewer intruders on his island kingdom of Crete. But mortal guards and ordinary weapons wouldn’t suffice, so the visionary god devised an indomitable new defender. In the fires of his forge, Hephaestus cast his invention in the shape of a giant man. Made of gleaming bronze; endowed with superhuman strength, and powered by ichor, the life fluid of the gods, this automaton was unlike anything Hephaestus had forged before. The god named his creation Talos: the first robot. Three times a day, the bronze guardian marched around the island's perimeter searching for interlopers. When he identified ships approaching the coast, he hurled massive boulders into their path. If any survivors made it ashore, he would heat his metal body red-hot and crush victims to his chest. Talos was intended to fulfill his duties day after day, with no variation. But despite his robotic behavior, he possessed an internal life his victims could scarcely imagine. And soon, the behemoth would encounter a ship of invaders that would test his mettle. The bedraggled crew of Jason, Medea, and the Argonauts were returning from their hard-won quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Their adventure had taken many dark turns, and the weary sailors were desperate to rest in a safe harbor. They’d heard tales of Crete’s invulnerable bronze colossus, and made for a sheltered cove. But before they could even drop anchor, Talos spotted them. While the Argonauts cowered at the approach of the awesome automaton, the sorceress Medea spotted a glinting bolt on the robot’s ankle— and devised a clever gambit. Medea offered Talos a bargain: she claimed that she could make Talos immortal in exchange for removing the bolt. Medea's promise resonated deep within his core. Unaware of his own mechanical nature, and human enough to long for eternal life, Talos agreed. While Medea muttered incantations, Jason removed the bolt. As Medea suspected, the bolt was a weak point in Hephaestus’ design. The ichor flowed out like molten lead, draining Talos of his power source. The robot collapsed with a thunderous crash, and the Argonauts were free to travel home. This story, first recorded in roughly 700 BCE, raises some familiar anxieties about artificial intelligence— and even provides an ancient blueprint for science fiction. But according to historians, ancient robots were more than just myths. By the 4th century BCE, Greek engineers began making actual automatons including robotic servants and flying models of birds. None of these creations were as famous as Talos, who appeared on Greek coins, vase paintings, public frescoes, and in theatrical performances. Even 2,500 years ago, Greeks had already begun to investigate the uncertain line between human and machine. And like many modern myths about artificial intelligence, Talos’ tale is as much about his robotic heart as it is about his robotic brain. Illustrating the demise of Talos on a vase of the fifth century BCE, one painter captured the dying automaton’s despair with a tear rolling down his bronze cheek. |
The link between fishing cats and mangrove forest conservation | {0: 'Ashwin Naidu founded the Fishing Cat Conservancy to empower local people in South and Southeast Asia to help fishing cats and their globally critical mangrove habitat.'} | TED2019 | (Imitates fishing cat) That's my impersonation of a fishing cat, which actually sounds more like this. (Prerecorded fishing cat sounds) It's a cat that loves water, loves to fish, and lives in some of the most unique and valuable ecosystems on earth: the wetlands and mangrove forests of South and Southeast Asia. Aren't they fishing awesome? (Laughter) Fishing cats are one of about 40 species of wildcats. Like tigers and lions, only much smaller. They're probably around twice the size of our average domestic cat. In Indonesia, people call them "kucing bakau," which literally translates to "the cat of the mangroves." But I like to call them the tigers of the mangroves. Now, we don't know fishing cats as well as we do tigers, but what we've learned is that these cats can be a flagship species to a globally important ecosystem, and a visual bait attached to a strong line for conservation. Are you hooked yet? (Laughter) Like many endangered species, fishing cats are threatened by habitat loss, mainly because of our international demand for farmed fish and shrimp, and the deforestation of nearly half the historic mangrove cover in South and Southeast Asia. Mangroves, on the other hand, are much more than just habitat to the fishing cat. They are home to a fantastic array of species, like jackals, turtles, shorebirds and otters. (Laughter) Mangroves also prevent soil erosion, and they can be the first line of defense between storm surges, tsunamis and the millions of people who live next to these forests for their day-to-day survival. The fact that puts the icing on the cake — or the earth, I should say — is that mangroves can store upwards of five to ten times more carbon dioxide than tropical forests. So protecting one acre of mangroves may well be like protecting five or more acres of tropical forests. Would you like to eliminate you entire life's carbon footprint? Well, mangroves can offer you one of the best bangs for your conservation buck. Deforestation, extinction and climate change are all global problems that we can solve by giving value to our species and ecosystems and by working together with the local people who live next to them. This is one of three river deltas in coastal South India where communities came together to change the face and potentially, the fate of this planet. In less than a decade, with international support, the state forest departments and the local communities worked together to restore over 20,000 acres of unproductive fish and shrimp farms back into mangroves. About five years ago, guess who we discovered in these restored mangroves? When we shared images of these fishing cats with local people, we were able to build pride among them about a globally revered endangered species and ecosystem in their backyards. We were also able to build trust with some people to help them lead alternative livelihoods. Meet Santosh, a 19-year-old boy who not only became a conservation professional after working with us for just over a year but also went on to involve many local fishermen in helping study and protect fishing cats. Meet Moshi, a tribal poacher, who not only stopped hunting and became our most prized conservationist, but also used his traditional knowledge to educate his entire community to stop hunting fishing cats, otters and the many other threatened species that live in the mangroves in his backyard. Fish and shrimp farmers, like Venkat, are now willing to work with us conservationists to test the sustainable harvest of ecosystem services like crabs, and possibly even honey, from mangroves. Incentives that could get them to protect and plant mangroves where they have been lost. A win-win-win for fishing cats, local people and the global community. These stories show us that we can all be part of a future where fishing cats and the lost mangrove forests are protected and restored by fishermen themselves, creating carbon sinks that can help offset our ecological footprints. So while the fishing cat may be small, I hope that we've been able to help make it a big deal. One that we can all invest in to help sustain our lives on earth a little longer. Or as our friend here would say ... (Prerecorded fishing cat sounds) Thank you. (Applause) |
How we experience awe -- and why it matters | {0: 'Beau Lotto seeks to pull aside the curtain of why we see what we do in order to create the possibility and agency in deciding what to perceive next.', 1: 'Based in Montreal, the Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group is a world leader in live entertainment.'} | TED2019 | Before I get started: I'm really excited to be here to just actually watch what's going to happen, from here. So with that said, we're going to start with: What is one of our greatest needs, one of our greatest needs for our brain? And instead of telling you, I want to show you. In fact, I want you to feel it. There's a lot I want you to feel in the next 14 minutes. So, if we could all stand up. We're all going to conduct a piece of Strauss together. Alright? And you all know it. Alright. Are you ready? Audience: Yeah! Beau Lotto: Alright. Ready, one, two, three! It's just the end. (Music: Richard Strauss "Also Sprach Zarathustra") Right? You know where it's going. (Music) Oh, it's coming! (Music stops abruptly) Oh! (Laughter) Right? Collective coitus interruptus. OK, you can all sit down. (Laughter) We have a fundamental need for closure. (Laughter) We love closure. (Applause) I was told the story that Mozart, just before he'd go to bed, he'd go to the piano and go, "da-da-da-da-da." His father, who was already in bed, would think, "Argh." He'd have to get up and hit the final note to the chord before he could go back to sleep. (Laughter) So the need for closure leads us to thinking about: What is our greatest fear? Think — what is our greatest fear growing up, even now? And it's the fear of the dark. We hate uncertainty. We hate to not know. We hate it. Think about horror films. Horror films are always shot in the dark, in the forest, at night, in the depths of the sea, the blackness of space. And the reason is because dying was easy during evolution. If you weren't sure that was a predator, it was too late. Your brain evolved to predict. And if you couldn't predict, you died. And the way your brain predicts is by encoding the bias and assumptions that were useful in the past. But those assumptions just don't stay inside your brain. You project them out into the world. There is no bird there. You're projecting the meaning onto the screen. Everything I'm saying to you right now is literally meaningless. (Laughter) You're creating the meaning and projecting it onto me. And what's true for objects is true for other people. While you can measure their "what" and their "when," you can never measure their "why." So we color other people. We project a meaning onto them based on our biases and our experience. Which is why the best of design is almost always about decreasing uncertainty. So when we step into uncertainty, our bodies respond physiologically and mentally. Your immune system will start deteriorating. Your brain cells wither and even die. Your creativity and intelligence decrease. We often go from fear to anger, almost too often. Why? Because fear is a state of certainty. You become morally judgmental. You become an extreme version of yourself. If you're a conservative, you become more conservative. If you're a liberal, you become more liberal. Because you go to a place of familiarity. The problem is that the world changes. And we have to adapt or die. And if you want to shift from A to B, the first step is not B. The first step is to go from A to not A — to let go of your bias and assumptions; to step into the very place that our brain evolved to avoid; to step into the place of the unknown. But it's so essential that we go to this place that our brain gave us a solution. Evolution gave us a solution. And it's possibly one of the most profound perceptual experiences. And it's the experience of awe. (Music) (Applause) (Music) (Applause) (Music) (Applause) (Music) (Applause) (Cheers) (Applause) Beau Lotto: Ah, how wonderful, right? So right now, you're probably all feeling, at some level or another, awe. Right? So what's happening inside your brain right now? And for thousands of years, we've been thinking and writing and experiencing awe, and we know so little about it. And so to try to understand what is it and what does it do, my Lab of Misfits had just the wonderful opportunity and the pleasure to work with who are some of the greatest creators of awe that we know: the writers, the creators, the directors, the accountants, the people who are Cirque Du Soleil. And so we went to Las Vegas, and we recorded the brain activity of people while they're watching the performance, over 10 performances of "O," which is iconic Cirque performance. And we also measured the behavior before the performance, as well as a different group after the performance. And so we had over 200 people involved. So what is awe? What is happening inside your brain right now? It's a brain state. OK? The front part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for your executive function, your attentional control, is now being downregulated. The part of your brain called the DMN, default mode network, which is the interaction between multiple areas in your brain, which is active during, sort of, ideation, creative thinking in terms of divergent thinking and daydreaming, is now being upregulated. And right about now, the activity in your prefrontal cortex is changing. It's becoming asymmetrical in its activity, biased towards the right, which is highly correlated when people step forward into the world, as opposed to step back. In fact, the activity across the brains of all these people was so correlated that we're able to train an artificial neural network to predict whether or not people are experiencing awe to an accuracy of 75 percent on average, with a maximum of 83 percent. So what does this brain state do? Well, others have demonstrated, for instance, Professors Haidt and Keltner, have told us that people feel small but connected to the world. And their prosocial behavior increases, because they feel an increased affinity towards others. And we've also shown in this study that people have less need for cognitive control. They're more comfortable with uncertainty without having closure. And their appetite for risk also increases. They actually seek risk, and they are better able at taking it. And something that was really quite profound is that when we asked people, "Are you someone who has a propensity to experience awe?" They were more likely to give a positive response after the performance than they were [before]. They literally redefined themselves and their history. So, awe is possibly the perception that is bigger than us. And in the words of Joseph Campbell, "Awe is what enables us to move forward." Or in the words of a dear friend, probably one of our greatest photographers, still living photographers, Duane Michaels, he said to me just the other day that maybe it gives us the curiosity to overcome our cowardice. So who cares? Why should we care? Well, consider conflict, which seems to be so omnipresent in our society at the moment. If you and I are in conflict, it's as if we're at the opposite ends of the same line. And my aim is to prove that you're wrong and to shift you towards me. The problem is, you are doing exactly the same. You're trying to prove that I'm wrong and shift me towards you. Notice that conflict is the setup to win but not learn. Your brain only learns if we move. Life is movement. So, what if we could use awe, not to get rid of conflict — conflict is essential, conflict is how your brain expands, it's how your brain learns — but rather, to enter conflict in a different way? And what if awe could enable us to enter it in at least two different ways? One, to give us the humility and courage to not know. Right? To enter conflict with a question instead of an answer. What would happen then? To enter the conflict with uncertainty instead of certainty. And the second is, in entering conflict that way, to seek to understand, rather than convince. Because everyone makes sense to themselves, right? And to understand another person, is to understand the biases and assumptions that give rise to their behavior. And we've actually initiated a pilot study to look to see whether we could use art-induced awe to facilitate toleration. And the results are actually incredibly positive. We can mitigate against anger and hate through the experience of awe generated by art. So where can we find awe, given how important it is? So, what if ... A suggestion: that awe is not just to be found in the grandeur. Awe is essential. Often, it's scale — the mountains, the sunscape. But what if we could actually rescale ourselves and find the impossible in the simple? And if this is true, and our data are right, then endeavors like science, adventure, art, ideas, love, a TED conference, performance, are not only inspired by awe, but could actually be our ladders into uncertainty to help us expand. Thank you very much. (Applause) Please, come up. (Applause) (Cheers) (Applause) |
Humanity at the intersection of science and archaeology | {0: 'Alisa Kazarina is a microbiologist whose desire is to explore how microbes influence human health and how investigating ancient human-related microorganisms could help researchers to study these relationships. \r\nIn her job at the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Center,\xa0Alisa investigates the remains of ancient human-related microbes that can be found within archaeological material with the help of a new multi-disciplinary area of research – biomolecular archaeology. \r\nIn parallel, Alisa Kazarina is working towards her PhD thesis\xa0investigating the evolution of human-related microbial communities (i.e. human microbiome) and to detect and study ancient human pathogens like Mycobacterium tuberculosis.'} | TEDxRiga | Imagine a parallel universe that coexists in the same place as our universe, in the same space, at the same time. This universe is overcrowded with life forms. It is invisible and intangible like the finest layer of reality, which we cannot notice. But it is there, and it maintains the functionality of our everyday world. Without it, we just wouldn't exist. Now, would you be surprised if I told you that actually everything I said before is true? Because I'm about to tell you this. I'm talking about the world of microbes - a separate world, yet so deeply connected to us. And the story of this connection expands far away into the past. But thanks to modern science, we are now able to read this story like a history book. Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present biomolecular archeology, the science behind this history book. And I am here to share with you what fascinating things we can try to manage with this powerful modern science. But let's start with the term itself: biomolecular archeology. It's not even easy to pronounce, not to mention to try to understand the essence of this phrase. There might not be a problem with the archeology part, right? We've all seen it in movies, we know what it is about, but what is "biomolecular" anyway? The first thing that comes to mind: it is something about biology and molecules. And this is actually correct. A biological molecule, or a biomolecule, is any molecule that is present in a living organism. Now, there are all sorts of molecules in your body, but undoubtedly, the most informative one is DNA. So, let's bring it back together. Biomolecular archeology enables us to study the DNA recovered from archeological samples. And not only native human DNA, which, of course, all by itself gives lots of study perspectives, but also the DNA of microbes that lived side by side with that human. This science is relatively young. About ten years ago, a massive breakthrough happened in genomic research technology. A method appeared which is called NGS, next generation sequencing, and this method significantly cuts time and costs of any genomic research. For example, have you ever heard about the Human Genome Project? It was quite a popular topic for science fiction some time ago. This project launched in 1990 with the goal to decrypt all genomic information in a human organism. At that time, with the technology of the time, it took ten years and three billion dollars to reach the goals of this project. With NGS, all of that can be done in just one day at the cost of 15,000 dollars. On the fertile soil of next generation sequencing arose biomolecular archeology because there is a great lot of genomic information to be analyzed and it just wouldn't be possible to manage such research with olden day technology. Now we are able to manage such research OK, "But why?" you could ask me. "What benefits can we get out of this information? What can we use it for?" The answer appears to be quite wide. Consider human health as a complex and dynamic system. Apart from genetically determined factors that are stored in our DNA, our health is severely influenced by many other factors, like our lifestyle, our diet, and our fellow microbes. One hundred trillion cells, one and 14 zeros, that's the approximate number of microorganisms in your body, ten times greater than the number of your own cells. Your microbial baggage occupies almost 2% of your body weight, that's about one and a half kilograms, approximately the weight of your liver. Or your brain. And all these are microbes. Just think about it for a second! Human microbiome, that's the modern term for all microbial communities inhabiting your body, has earned a close attention over the last decade. It seems that we are only beginning to discover the mysterious role that is given to microbes in the performance of our health. In 2007, the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. launched the Human Microbiome Project to finally study its relation to our health conditions. And since then, it has only become clearer that our notion about our fellow microbes is inexcusably poor. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, even compared the researchers involved in the project with the 15th century explorers discovering the outline of a new continent. It is now being suggested that a range of modern, widespread diseases, starting from obesity, Crohn's disease, other gastrointestinal problems to all sorts of allergies, autoimmune diseases, or maybe even cancer, may appear to be consequences of microbiome changes. But where do these changes come from? When did they first appear? What was the triggering factor? These are the questions we are trying to find answers to at the moment. This topic always triggers a memory of my first conscious experience with the microbial world around. My mother, like any attentive parent, tried her best to warn me against the invisible dangers of the world, and she told me a story that every time I do not wash hands before eating something, I become a reason of global microbial migration. (Laughter) An uncountable number of microbial families come together, pack their suitcases, their TVs, their favorite toys, and leave their houses forever to move to a new area which is thought to be my body. Now, I was a child with a very vivid imagination, and this story influenced me so much that I was obsessed with handwashing for a really long time. It actually took me years to overcome the thought that I'm doing something wrong when I initiate this microbial migration, and to understand finally that they are actually willing to come, they've got friends there waiting for them. I'm not trying to convince you not to ever wash your hands again, of course not. But let's try to be moderate with it. We lack this microbial diversity nowadays. And as we know from ecology, the most diverse systems are the most stable ones. This might be one of the reasons for our so-called diseases of civilization. And this is exactly the type of hypothesis for biomolecular archeology to deal with. It turns out that there is a unique archaeological material that so preciously stores the enormous amount of information related to ancient human microbiome, and this material is ancient dental plaque, thanks to the fact that oral cavity hygiene was not on the list of top priorities for humans of the past. Their oral microbiome has already been partly fossilized during their lifetime in the form of dental calculus, which, in turn, stays in soil as well preserved as the skeletons themselves. Sadly, we can't help these fellas anymore. But they can help us by providing unique and precious information about their microbes and their health, and maybe we will have a chance to help others in the future thanks to them. There is one more vast human health-related aspect where biomolecular archaeology takes its rightful place, and this field of research expands into the valley of ancient deadly pathogens. It is true that the vast majority of microbes either provide us some kind of benefit or do not really care whether there is a human around. But there are some ancient deadly microbes that still remain an urgent problem nowadays all around the world. For example, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. One and a half million deaths in 2014. And OK, OK, I know, the first reaction I always get is like, "Wait, aren't there antibiotics?" or "I heard there is even a vaccine; is this disease still dangerous to us after all?" The answer is yes; tuberculosis is closer than you think. Because of some mysterious genetic phenomenon, there are people that can carry around this microbe their entire lives without developing any symptoms, and there are people that develop symptoms straight ahead after infection. Let me give you a real example of a tuberculosis microepidemic. Let's say a person somehow got infected. He works as a teacher in a junior school. Half a year later, one of his pupils develops symptoms. A few months later, the older sister of the pupil. A few more months later, two friends of the sister. This is how it spreads. When I was just starting my research on this topic, I myself was very surprised to know that tuberculosis worldwide remains one of the major health concerns, that on the list of infectious diseases, it is the second most common death cause after HIV. Yes, the fight continues. Did you know we have a tuberculosis clinic right here in Latvia, just outside Riga, where many doctors and other specialists fight tuberculosis on a daily basis? To finally beat this harmful bacteria, it is crucial to understand how it evolved, how it developed resistance to antibiotics, how it spread. And these are the questions where biomolecular archaeology can help us a lot. At the moment, working in the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, we have managed to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis in one archaeological sample from the 17th century. We are now in the process of defining its whole genome, so we can understand what type of tuberculosis reigned at that time over the Latvian territories and where it came from. Obviously, biomolecular archaeology impacts humanities as well, such as history and anthropology. These, for example, are the excavations on the Saint Ģertrūdes Cemetery a few years ago. They started very spontaneously. There was an idea to build a shopping center in that area, and there was also information that there might be some medieval burial sites. So the Latvian Institute of History received a request to check it out. And they did actually find a medieval burial site, quite a massive one. Our archaeologists dug out over 500 skeletons, and found 2,000 more skeletons buried separately in a giant wooden box. But what was it? This couldn't be war because the skeletons lacked war lesions on their bones. Was it hunger? Epidemic? Archaeology itself cannot take this research any further, we have to intervene with biomolecular methods. Only then can we trace the true reason. The research process that implements the goals of the science is fascinating, even by itself. It all starts with ancient bones and teeth from cemeteries all around Latvia. We then cut out small pieces of these bones and shred them in special scientific mills to get bone powder. We then extract all the DNA that is captured in a specific bone powder sample, and then we sequence it. Sequencing is the process where the machine reads the DNA code and translates it into a four-letter code. By the way, it is absolutely fascinating how all genetic information of human beings and all other living creatures on the planet Earth can be written down using the alphabet containing four letters only. It's absolutely not surprising that the result of the sequencing is absolutely unreadable - gigabytes of text consisting of these four letters. It then takes time and effort to analyze these data with a variety of computational methods and programming approaches. And at the very end, we get a pretty readable list of all the microorganisms from a specific sample. The field of my research contains three sciences at once: archaeology, biology and computer science, all mixed, merged and connected. It's like the science itself merging and connecting humanity throughout centuries. Science is like a pyramid: you cannot lay the upper block without a foundation of the blocks beneath. And building this pyramid of healthcare throughout the entire human civilization, I believe biomolecular archaeology just opened up a new frontier for us. Where do we go from here? It's a question of choice, but I believe that any destination holds fascinating discoveries. But just for now, please remember that you are never alone. (Laughter) You've got a hundred trillion friends that are always there for you. Think about it next time you want to wash your hands. Thank you. (Applause) |
What I learned from digging under New York City's streets | {0: 'Alyssa Loorya is an archaeologist digging beneath the grid of New York, uncovering the most unlikely of artifacts.'} | TEDxNewYork | As New Yorkers, we're often busy looking up at the development going on around us. We rarely stop to consider what lies beneath the city streets. And it's really hard to imagine that this small island village would one day become a forest of skyscrapers. Yet, as an urban archaeologist, that's exactly what I do. I consider landscapes, artifacts to tell the stories of the people who walked these streets before us. Because history is so much more than facts and figures. When people think of archaeology, they usually think of dusty old maps, far off lands, ancient civilizations. You don't think New York City and construction sites. Yet, that's where all the action happens and we're never sure exactly what we're going to find beneath the city streets. Like this wooden well ring which was the base for the construction of a water well. It provided us an opportunity to take a sample of the wood for tree-ring dating, and get a date to confirm the fact that we had indeed found a series of 18th-century structures beneath Fulton Street. Archaeology is about everyday people using everyday objects, like the child who may have played with this small toy, or the person who consumed the contents of this bottle. This bottle contained water imported from Germany and dates to 1790. Now okay, we know New Yorkers always had to go to great lengths to get fresh drinking water. Small island, you really couldn't drink the well water, it was to brackish. But the notion that New Yorkers were importing bottled water from Europe, more then two hundred years ago, is truly a testament to the fact that New York City is a cosmopolitan city, always has been, where you could get practically anything from anywhere. If you and I were to walk through City Hall Park, you might see an urban park and government offices. I see New York City's largest and most complex archaeological site. And it's significant not because it's City Hall, but because of the thousands of poor prisoners and British soldiers who lived and died here. Before it was City Hall Park, the area was known as The Common, and it was pretty far outside the city limits. In the 17th century, it was a place for public protests and execution. And its remote location made it an ideal spot for the city to construct its first poor house. And it's from that period, circa 1735, that we find these bone buttons. These were made by poor persons in the almshouse. Poor persons in the almshouse were assigned various tasks to earn their keep, among them, shredding old rope for reuse, dressing hemp, picking oakum, making bone buttons, in the thought that hard work would reform these poor persons into productive members of society. The almshouse served several groups: poor needy persons, sturdy beggars, idle wandering vagabonds. And reasons to be admitted? Insanity, pregnancy, or being a widow or an orphan who could no longer pay their way. Which makes this piece all the more interesting. This child's plate was found within the walls of the Bridewell. The Bridewell was one of the most feared and notorious prisons of its time, and it happened to have been right next door to the almshouse. In fact, there were prisons on either side of the almshouse, and at times, these institutions were so overcrowded. Prisoners and poor persons were sharing the same spaces. And while there is a lot of clamor about how can you expose children to hardened criminals, let's not forget that children as young as twelve were convicted to the Bridewell for stealing bread. What all this gives us is an insight into life in the 18th century, what it was like to be poor in the 18th century, perhaps being segregated from a portion of society, perhaps being assigned tasks to earn their keep. It was a time when three-fifths of New York City's population were living at or near the subsistence level, if not below. And 10% of the population owned more than half of the city's wealth. The past has a lot to teach us about our present and our future. I'm a firm believer that in order to have a sustainable future, we must have a well-understood past. Archaeology affords us New Yorkers and pretty much anyone in an urban center the opportunity to incorporate the knowledge of our past into our present-day dialogues, into the dialogues about our futures, incorporate the information into our shared spaces, and hopefully, it can bring all of our diverse communities within New York City, again, within any city closer together. And if I can get just one person to think a little bit differently about what they see when they walk down the city streets, or through an urban park, then I've done my job of sharing the past. Thank you. (Applause) |
How to bring affordable, sustainable electricity to Africa | {0: 'As the Research Director of the Energy for Growth Hub, Rose M. Mutiso works with a global network of experts finding solutions for energy deficits across Africa and Asia. She is also cofounder of the Mawazo Institute, helping African women to become scholars and thought leaders.'} | TEDSummit 2019 | So right now, nearly one billion people globally don't have access to electricity in their homes. And in sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of the population remain in the dark. So you probably all know this image from NASA. There's a name for this darkness. It's called "energy poverty," and it has massive implications for economic development and social well-being. One unique aspect of the energy poverty problem in sub-Saharan Africa — and by the way, in this talk when I "energy," I mean "electricity" — one thing that's unique about it is there isn't much legacy infrastructure already in place in many countries of the region. So, for example, according to 2015 data, the total installed electricity capacity in sub-Saharan Africa is only about 100 gigawatts. That's similar to that of the UK. So this actually presents a unique opportunity to build an energy system in the 21st century almost from scratch. The question is: How do you do that? We could look back to the past and replicate the ways in which we've managed to bring stable, affordable electricity to a big part of the world's population. But we all know that that has some well-known terrible side effects, such as pollution and climate change, in addition to being costly and inefficient. With Africa's population set to quadruple by the end of the century, this is not a theoretical question. Africa needs a lot of energy, and it needs it fast, because its population is booming and its economy needs to develop. So for most countries, the general trajectory of electrification has been as follows. First, large-scale grid infrastructure is put in place, usually with significant public investment. That infrastructure then powers productive centers, such as factories, agricultural mechanization, commercial enterprises and the like. And this then stimulates economic growth, creating jobs, raising incomes and producing a virtuous cycle that helps more people afford more appliances, which then creates residential demand for electricity. But in sub-Saharan Africa, despite decades of energy projects, we haven't really seen these benefits. The energy projects have often been characterized by waste, corruption and inefficiency; our rural electrification rates are really low, and our urban rates could be better; the reliability of our electricity is terrible; and we have some of the highest electricity prices in the whole world. And on top of all of this, we are now facing the impacts of the growing climate catastrophe head-on. So Africa will need to find a different path. And, as it turns out, we are now witnessing some pretty exciting disruption in the African energy space. This new path is called off-grid solar, and it's enabled by cheap solar panels, advances in LED and battery technology, and combined with innovative business models. So these off-grid solar products typically range from a single light to home system kits that can charge phones, power a television or run a fan. I want to be clear: off-grid solar is a big deal in Africa. I have worked in the sector for years, and these products are enabling us to extend basic energy services to some of the world's poorest, raising their quality of life. This is a very good and a very important thing. However, off-grid solar will not solve energy poverty in Africa, and for that matter, neither will a top-down effort to connect every unserved household to the grid. See, I'm not here to rehash that played-out "on-versus-off-grid" or "old-versus-new" debate. Instead, I believe that our inability to grapple with and truly address energy poverty in Africa stems from three main sources. First, we don't really have a clear understanding of what energy poverty is, or how deep it goes. Second, we are avoiding complex systemic issues and prefer quick fixes. And third, we are misdirecting concerns about climate change. Combined, these three mistakes are leading us to impose a Western debate on the future of energy and falling back on paternalistic attitudes towards Africa. So let me try and unpack these three questions. First, what exactly is energy poverty? The main energy poverty targeted indicator is enshrined in the UN's Seventh Sustainable Development Goal, or SDG 7. It calls for 100 percent of the world's population to have access to electricity by the year 2030. This binary threshold, however, ignores the quality, reliability or utility of the power, though indicators are currently being developed that will try and capture these things. However, the question of when a household is considered "connected" is not quite clear-cut. So, for example, last year the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared all of the villages in India electrified, the criteria for electrification being a transformer in every village plus its public centers and 10 percent — 10 percent — of its households connected. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency, which tracks progress against SDG 7, defines energy access as 50 kilowatt hours per person per year. That's enough to power some light bulbs and charge a phone, perhaps run a low-watt TV or fan for a few hours a day. Now, providing entry-level access is an important first step, but let's not romanticize the situation. By any standard, a few lights and not much else is still living in energy poverty. And what's more, these energy poverty indicators and targets cover only residential use. And yet, households account for just about one quarter of the world's electricity consumption. That's because most of our power is used in industries and for commerce. Which brings me to my main point: countries cannot grow out of poverty without access to abundant, affordable and reliable electricity to power these productive centers, or what I call "Energy for Growth." As you can see from this graph, there's simply no such thing as a low-energy, high-income country. It doesn't exist. And yet, three billion people in the world currently live in countries without reliable, affordable electricity — not just to power their homes but also their factories, their office buildings, their data centers and other economic activities. Merely electrifying households and microenterprises cannot solve this deeper energy poverty. To solve energy poverty, we need to deliver reliable, affordable electricity at scale, to power economy-wide job creation and income growth. This need, however, bumps against an emerging narrative that, faced with climate change, we all need to transition from large, centralized power systems to small-scale distributed power. The growth of off-grid solar in Africa — and let me repeat, off-grid solar is a good thing — but that growth fits nicely into this narrative and has led to those claims that Africa is leapfrogging the old ways of energy and building its power system from the ground up, one solar panel at a time. It's a nice, solicitous narrative, but also quite naïve. Like many narratives of technological disruption, often inspired by Silicon Valley, it takes for granted the existing systems that underpin all of this transformation. You see, when it comes to innovating and energy, the West is working around the edges of a system that is tried and tested. And so all the sexy stuff — the rooftop solar, the smart household devices, the electric vehicles — all of this is built on top of a massive and absolutely essential grid, which itself exists within a proven governance framework. Even the most advanced countries in the world don't have an example of an energy system that is all edges and no center at scale. So ultimately, no approach — be it centralized or distributed, renewable or fossil-based — can succeed in solving energy poverty without finding a way to deliver reliable, affordable electricity to Africa's emerging industrial and commercial sectors. So, it's not just lights in every rural home. It's power for Africa's cities that are growing fast and increasingly full of young, capable people in desperate need of a job. This in turn will require significant interconnectivity and economies of scale, making a robust and modern grid a crucial piece of any energy poverty solution. So, our second mistake is falling for the allure of the quick fix. You see, energy poverty exists within a complex socioeconomic and political context. And part of the appeal of new electrification models such as off-grid solar, for example, is they can often bypass the glacial pace and inefficiency of government. See, with small systems you can skip the bureaucracies and the utilities and sell directly to customers. But to confront energy poverty, you cannot ignore governments, you cannot ignore institutions, you cannot ignore the many players involved in making, moving and using electricity at scale, which is a way to say that when it comes to providing energy for growth, it's not just about innovating the technology, it's about the slow and hard work of improving governance, institutions and the broader macroenvironment. OK, so this is all good and nice, you say. But what about climate change? How do we ensure a high-energy future for everyone while also curbing our emissions? Well, we'll have to make some complex tradeoffs, but I believe that a high-energy future for Africa is not mutually exclusive to a low-carbon future. And make no mistake: the world cannot expect Africa to remain in energy poverty because of climate change. (Applause) Actually, the facts show that the opposite is true. Energy will be essential for Africa to adapt to climate change and build resilience. You see, rising temperatures will mean increased demand for space cooling and cold storage. Declining water tables will mean increased pumped irrigation. And extreme weather and rising sea levels will require a significant expansion and reinforcement of our infrastructure. These are all energy-intensive activities. So balancing climate change and Africa's pressing need to transition to a high-energy future will be tough. But doing so is nonnegotiable; we will have to find a way. The first step is broadening the terms of the debate away from this either-or framing. And we also must stop romanticizing solutions that distract us from the core challenges. And let's not also forget that Africa is endowed with vast natural resources, including significant renewable potential. For example, in Kenya, where I'm from, geothermal power accounts for half of our electricity generation, and with hydro being the other major source, we are already mainly powered by renewable energy. We also just brought online Africa's largest wind farm and East Africa's biggest solar facility. (Applause) In addition, new technology means that we can now run and design our power systems and use energy more efficiently than ever, doing more with less. Energy efficiency will be an important tool in the fight against climate change. So in closing, I'd just like to say that Africa is a real place with real people, navigating complex challenges and major transitions, just like any other region of the world. (Applause) And while each country and each region has its social, economic and political quirks, the physics of electricity are the same everywhere. (Laughter) (Applause) And the energy needs of our economies are just as intensive as those of any other economy. So, the expansion of household electrification through a mix of on- and off-grid solutions has had an incredible impact in Africa. But they are nowhere near sufficient for solving energy poverty. To solve energy poverty, we need generation of electricity from diverse sources at scale and modern grids to power a high-energy future, in which Africans can enjoy modern living standards and well-paying jobs. Africans deserve this, and with one of every four people in the world projected to be African by the year 2100, the planet needs it. Thank you. (Applause) |
Claws vs. nails | null | TED-Ed | Consider the claw. Frequently found on four-limbed animals around the world, it’s one of nature’s most versatile tools. Bears use claws for digging as well as defense. An eagle’s needle-like talons can pierce the skulls of their prey. And lions can retract their massive claws for easy movement, before flicking them out to hunt. Even the ancestors of primates used to wield these impressive appendages, until their claws evolved into nails. So what in our evolutionary past led to this manicured adaptation, and what can nails do that their sharper cousins can’t? When nails first appeared in the fossil record around 55.8 million years ago, claws had already been present for over 260 million years in the ancestors of mammals and reptiles. But despite the gulf of time between their emergence, these adaptations are both part of the same evolutionary story. Both nails and claws are made of keratin— a tough, fibrous protein also found in horns, scales, hooves and hair. This protein is produced by a wedge of tissue called the keratin matrix. Rich in blood vessels and nutrients, this protein factory produces an endless stream of keratin, which is tightly packed into cells called keratinocytes. These high-density cells give nails and claws their trademark toughness. Since nails evolved from claws, both adaptations produce keratinocytes in the same way. The cells grow out from the matrix, emerging from the skin where they die and harden into a water-resistant sheath. The primary difference between the two keratin coverings is really just their shape, which depends on the shape of the bone at the end of the animal’s digits. In claws, the bed of keratinocytes conforms to a narrow finger bone, wrapping around the end of the digit and radiating outwards to form a cone-shaped structure. Animals with nails, on the other hand, have much broader digits, and keratinocytes only cover the top surface of their wide bones. It’s possible that nails have simply persisted as a side effect of primates evolving wider, more dexterous fingers. But given what we know about the habitats of our primate ancestors, it’s more likely that nails came with their own powerful advantages. High in the forest canopy where these primates lived, wide finger bones and expansive finger pads were ideal for gripping narrow branches. And nails improved that grip even further. By providing a rigid surface to press against, primates could splay out their pads to create even more contact with the trees. Additionally, nails improved the sensitivity of their digits by providing an extra surface to detect changes in pressure while climbing. This combination of sensitivity and dexterity gave our ancestors the precise motor control needed to snatch up insects, pinch berries and seeds, and keep a firm grip on slim branches. The evolution of nails and the evolution of opposable thumbs and toes are closely linked. And when our ancestors moved down from the trees, this flexible grasp enabled them to create and wield complex tools. Even if it was possible for wide fingers to sport claws, their sharp points would’ve likely interfered with these primates’ regular tasks. Claws are ideal for piercing, puncturing, and hooking, but their points make grabbing difficult, and potentially dangerous. However, both claws and nails are used in some unexpected ways. Manatees use nails to grasp their food, and researchers think elephant toenails may sense vibrations in the ground to help them hear. Meanwhile, some primates, like the aye-ayes of Madagascar, have re-acquired claws. They use these extra-long appendages to tap branches and trunks, while listening for hollow sections with their bat-like ears. When they hear an opening, they burrow into the tree and skewer grubs with their needle-like middle finger. We’ve only scratched the surface of all the incredible ways nails and claws are used throughout the animal kingdom. But as for which of these adaptations is better? That’s an answer we may never nail down. |
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