Misanthropy Today

If you spend any time on the internet, you’ve probably ran into one of these “TED Talks”, which start off sort of condescending and don’t deliver enough to make you feel okay about being treated like common street trash during the intro.

They all start off something like this:

Ok…

In other words not you or anybody you know of, especially since it’s in Monterey. People like you don’t go to fancy out of the way places like Monterey.

After watching many of these videos this is arguable since according to my calculations these talks don’t yield much value for me.

However, the first time you see it your mind races: Gold? Drugs? Nuclear Secrets? Russian Sex Slaves? Blackmail pics of Google founders w/ hookers?

:::::Long Pause:::::::::

KRRRRR.. Private Hornsby, please prepare the deck for the TED money-shot. Over.

Roger that Captain Flanagan. Changing the powerpoint slide color from black to dark blue (giggles), adding clipart. Over.

You begin to wonder if one of their ideas was to use a light bulb with a map of the western United States and a bit of Mexico as iconography for “ideas”.

If it was, this is truly a novel and daring departure from a simple light bulb as the classic iconography for an idea.

But theres more:

Ah crappy, I thought I was gonna see a high brow learning video. Oh well I better pack my dumb poor ass up, turn off my AOL and put on my bib overalls and ——-

JACKPOT! But why this sudden burst of generosity after hording the good ideas for so many years? Can we even lift the lightbulb idea?

Sure go ahead.

Other groundbreaking ideas delivered to a dour crowd that only responds at the usual “Aha!” cues and corny jokes are these groundbreaking topics:

• Paola Antonelli treats design as art

• Arthur Benjamin does “Mathemagic”

• Larry Brilliant makes the case for optimism

• Richard Branson’s life at 30,000 feet

• Bob Thurman says we can be Buddhas

Anyhow, hey TED Talks, can you keep it down a little. I’m watching a different video of a kid walking around a mall with a fart machine.

Which is a pretty good idea too, if you think about it.

Related posts:

1. Misanthropy Links Of The Week 9-15-07
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