Sam Richards: A Radical Experiment in Empathy

You can view this TED Talk at: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sam_richards_a_radical_experiment_in_empathy.html


Sam Richards' speaking style does a great job of engaging the audience. He gestures with his hands and moves around very purposefully to get his point across, especially when he is trying to get the audience to understand a particularly difficult point. He speakes very confidently and his intonation greately adds to his presentation thorugh allowing me not only to see his passion but also see his topic with a more complete perspective. While watching, I did not feel as though I were watching a presentation, but rather as though I were talking to him directly without all the fanfare. Because of all these elements in his speech, I could immediately understand and appreciate what he was trying to get across. He also waited for the audience to think several times during his presentation, instead of just plowing on without including the audience in his discussion, allowing me to understand what he was talking about while he was talking, not after he had finished.

While watching this video I was stunned by my ability to understand people that I never thought I would. It makes me wonder what might be possible when we all choose to see the good in everyone, even in our worst enimies. If we can have such empathy for others then there is nothing we cannot do.

I have found myself thinking about this TED talk many days after I finished watching it because it really does give me a perspective on the situations that I encounter every day. I find myself trying to use this excersize to greaten my ability to empathize with others. I have found that this does a great job of allowing me to appreciate who I am and how I relate to other people. It has helped me to understand others, even if I do not agree with them. It is amazing to be able to say to someone that you understand their fear and their want to fit in, despite how impossible it is to actually fit in. To understand that the person on top doesn't necesarily want to be there, because it separates them from everyone else, and yet to equally understand how the person on the very bottom feels left out as well. It has helped me to really understand the motivation that drives people to do everything in life, the good and the bad.

It has also helped me to further understand the meaning of dualities within my life and how they came to be there. When I feel overwhelmed, I am able to see that it is just part of a cycle, and that soon I will also feel productive. When I am upset, I am able to understand why I feel that way, not just react based entirely on my feelings. I am able to see the external events that lead me to feel that way, and thus overcome my feelings by distancing myself from them and looking at them more objectively, even while I am feeling them (again, dualities). This allows me to respond instead of just react, and I have found that this allows much of what I am fustrated about to become more rational, something I can respond to, not just something that influences me. I have found a deep sense of calm whenever I am able to comprend the feelings of others and myself, as if by understanding these relationships between feelings I am able to change those feelings by changing my perspective.

I have also found that this TED talk has helped me to truly understand others and the reasons they do what they do, allowing me to see the world as everyone would see it, so that I am able to make sense of the chaos of the world around me. I also find his remarks helpful when I consider the beliefs of cultures around the world. I can see why everyone would belive what they do the way that they do, and this allows me to further appreciate something that I have long believed to be true: everyone is justified in their beliefs because that is what they genuinely believe, and with that belief, reality comes into focus. I am able to comprehend on a deeper level how this belief takes form and act on it accordingly.

If this becomes something that we can all do, then the world will surely be a better place. If we can strive to  see the emotions of others and respond to them instead of just reacting based on our own feelings we would be able to come to more peacful decisions about how to live our lives, apprectating each moment for what it means and how it took shape, instead of just rushing by.

Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world

Clay Shirky’s presentation style is very confusing. The presentation behind him did little to add to his presentation. He stayed in one place and did not vary his inflection very much. Understanding the sequence of his ideas was also difficult, and I found myself spending a large amount of time while watching the video thinking about how his graph could be improved, wondering why he chose LOL cats (something that I still do not understand), wishing that he would pace or emphasize so that I could understand what he was trying to say. He had good ideas, but they got lost in his presentation, in fact, I had to watch his presentation twice before understanding what he was trying to say. Once I did understand what he was trying to say, however, the reasons for his gestures and slides began to make sense. The problem with this is, of course, that the average person is not going to take the time to look at it twice, so the message has to be conveyed in such a method that the point of the TED talk is evident and meaningful to the audience when they are viewing it for the first time.

After watching this video, if find myself wondering how the internet could help us change the world. Of course, as Shirky points out, there are many individual sites that are already doing this. But I can’t stop wondering what might happen if we could connect all that energy and time into a cause, if everyone had the time and the motivation to change the world. I suppose that this might also create more problems than it solves. Facebook, for example causes significant problems to student education, child safety, and child privacy. I don’t know a single person with a Facebook (including myself) that has not had a fight, a break-up, or other serious incident while using their Facebook account. This fact is constantly ignored, even though it is very important to the way that we could change the world. This desire to post information and photos on the internet and share them with friends represents a potential for change on a massive scale. What is needed, and what Shirky helps with, is for people to become consciously aware of their ability. While the concept that the things you post on the internet are not just for you and your friends to see may be scary, I think that this also holds potential for how people will see their potential through the internet. If people became truly conscious that what they write on the internet is not just for someone a couple blocks away to see, not just for your relatives in another state to see, but for the entire world to see. While the internet may allow many companies to outsource their workforce, the internet also allows the creativity, open-minded attitude, and intrinsic motivations of people around the globe to come together to make a difference.

Another topic that Shirky’s talk brought to my attention is the possibility of a world where the greatest things in life, the most heroic and meaningful acts, come not from people who are being paid to perform them, but from those who do them because they want to do good. I think that this shift in perspective, if appreciated on a global scale, might lead to the reversal of a commonly held belief: That success in life depends on making money. Maybe this will change the perspectives of children growing up. Maybe then a child would say, “When I grow up, I am going to do something good for the world because I am passionate about it,” instead of, “When I grow up, I am going to invent something so that I can make lots of money,” and this shift in behavior will be appreciated by parents who realize that the world will be a place of good, hardworking, generous people working to better each other’s lives.

This video is important because it brings to the surface many of the things that we already know subconsciously, but do not have a way of recognizing on a conscious level. These ideas are important because they connect what we know with what we appreciate. Through his many examples, Shirky shows that the ability of people to volunteer and contribute in shared projects has the ability to change the world. The problem with our mindset, and the problem that I was having while watching this video is understanding just how big the internet really is, and comprehending its true potential for change, and the limitless applications that such a device has for our world. One thing that caught my eye is Shirky’s statement that “even the stupidest creative act is still a creative act.” Our internal motivation to do creative things is a motivation that has long been ignored as irrelevant, or at least inconsequential when compared with the rest of our skills as human beings, but it is this passion to create and imagine that has driven the human race as long as it has existed. There is something within us that makes us believe that we must be something larger than ourselves. That can only be realized with the power of creativity. The greatest inventors of all time were at first mediocre. Edison failed hundreds of times before succeeding in creating a single light bulb. Da Vinci failed to finish many of his masterpieces. The Wright Brothers failed to make several planes fly before they finally succeeded. Half of the missions sent to Mars have failed. And yet, if we keep trying there is the possibility of success. Just because we as a society are not good at something now does not mean that we cannot become good at it with practice. This is what the internet gives us. It gives us the ability to practice being one world. It helps us to understand that there is a world beyond our borders and it allows individuals to make sure that this world is not neglected. It gives a voice to a world population so that it may finally understand that people are all human beings, and that we all want the same basic things. We want food, water, shelter, safety, and the ability to create.

What Shirky brings to light is that this freedom to experiment will give light to society’s potential for change and our ability to appreciate our social connections. If we can consciously realize our subconscious tendencies to value the social over the economic, the civic over the communal, the intrinsic over the extrinsic, then perhaps we can overcome our roles as rational, self-maximizing actors.

“Free cultures get what they celebrate,” so let us appreciate our ability to promote change in ourselves and in the world with the tools that we have at our fingertips.  

Daniel Pink: Science of Motivation

Dan Pink's speaking style is very different, are his ideas, and the two work together to show both his enthusiasm and what his ideas mean for the world. He sets up his speech as if he is presenting to a jury, and continually refers to that. He uses his hands and drastic voice intonation to prove his point. He begins by stating exactly why people might think his ideas are misguided and addresses those views at the outset of his speech by claiming that his point is not feeling or philosophy, but a true fact. Throughout the performance his motions, his meld of sarcastic and serious intonation and constant jokes are all hallmarks of his speaking style.

He begins be describing an experiment and discussion how certain people react to solving problems compared to other people. Problems that require thought needed less monetary rewards, where as simple tasks without thought required monetary rewards. I find this interesting because it shows how the mind approaches problems. It shows that you do need to have a broader way of thinking, especially if you actually plan on thinking. I also find myself thinking about how we begin to decide things for ourselves, and why we choose what we do. It makes me think that it is far more plausible in today's world to get a job that I love doing, if only because I will not have to take a mindless, thought narrowing job. It makes we wonder just how many people in this world do what they do because they love to do it, and how many simply do it because that is what they have been taught to do, which leads me to my next issue: The role this plays in education.

How often do you actually learn something simply by sitting in class and listening? Not very often. Nor do you learn from engaging only with normal, mindless responses. You only learn when you have to think really hard about a problem. You only learn when you are pushed to the limit. The problem is that the motivation that students are being given tells them that they do not have to try harder. All they need do is follow the pattern, and then they can get on with what they really care about. Tests rarely, if ever measure learning. All they measure is who happened to find the perfect balance the night before between cramming and sleep. In my career as a student, I have found absolutely no correlation between grades and learning - not even with the same teacher. Learning isn't what schools promote. Currently, what schools promote is logical, boxed-in thought that results in correct answers for only those who do not think. But for those of us who decide to choose to respond in a more abstract, two-sided way are beaten down, and told that this is wrong, and that it is something we must not do. If our teachers don't do this, then our friends will, if not our friends, our parents, or perhaps worst of all ourselves. We do not learn how to be humans in school. We learn how to impersonate parrots. And this is Daniel Pink’s point: that we do not do things the way that our current research says that it will work.

So where is the line between engaged action and apathy? That fine line is the foundation of success. Your involvement in many of the activities you love is not required. Many activities are not rewarded the way that they should be. Why, then does this flawed technique still partially work. When you think about what you do every day, are you doing it because you will get something or because you want to? Most likely there is at least one thing that everyone does simply because they want to, but how often does that task require depth of thought? That depth of thought was discouraged by money on the other side, but why would you want to have that which you do not have if it will only destroy your focus. So why do we still do it?

Dan Pink suggests that what we need is a change, a shift to intrinsic motivation. A shift to Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. The concept that management is man-made and is not necessarily the driving force behind motivation makes me think about grades, and what makes them keep going, despite their influence of the church.

Dan suggests that if you, instead of trying to build something while focusing on what comes at the end of the experiment, therefore there must be something inherent in us that helps us to decide what is important and what we should do.  

Deb Roy: The Birth of a Word

You can find this TED talk at: http://blog.ted.com/2011/03/10/deb-roy/

Here is my response:

Deb Roy uses his prepared graphics in a very effective manner, refering to them often and using them to tell his story, but not relying on them entirely for his presentation. His passion is evident in his stance and in his voice. He gestures with his hands to show his points, adding further clarity to the demonstration. He also adds personal stories (caught on tape) that many people can relate to.

Far more important than his speaking style, however, is his message. He taped every moment of his son's life from the day they brought him home from the hospital until he went off to kindergarden. He then processed the data by transcripting it and could see exactly when his son began to utter each word, and how his pronounciation progressed throughout time. He could also pinpoint the rooms in which any word was said the most, the rooms with the most activity, etc. Then, he took this knowledge to a larger scale and applied it to mass media, charting how topics were exposed to people, how many times a given show or news story was mentioned on other channels and by other people, in effect examining the nature of language and where it comes from.

Language is very important to our lives today, in fact it is very difficult for most people to go without saying a simple common word, "like" for example. Many of us do not even realize how many times we use that word in a day, or how often we use it improperly. But our use of it had to come from somewhere, most likely the people around us, seeing as we are not born knowing how to speak. Deb Roy's research in this feild is amazing because it answers questions that many of us have wondered about, yet never really been able to answer. For example, I often find that I am speaking like someone else in my life would normally speak to me. Every once and a while I will say something and find myself thinking something like, "Wow, that sounded a lot like something so-and-so would have said...." Well, perhaps it is. According to Deb Roy, many of the ways his son began to speak mimicked the way his parents or nanny spoke,  suggesting that not only language itself, but also the way that we use it is learned largely from those around us.

Another interesting idea that Deb Roy brings up is that there is also a similar ripple effect in mainstram culture and in our everyday lives. When you hear about something interesting, you tell someone else, when they hear it they tell another person. But when you think about where that information came from, it had to originally come from an idea that someone had. Usually to become wide spread, it is broadcast on TV or put on the internet, making it easy to track. In fact, so many people are online in the world today, that quite a lot of the way that we think as human beings could be gathered simply from what we post on the internet or send through a network that can be tracked. Some people find the notion that their phones and computers can be tracked a scary one, but I think that research such as Deb Roy's could shed some light on why we feel so violated when we realize that our internet is not entirely our own, and that yes, it is shared by millions of other people who can see it too.

Perhaps the internet is the key to understanding the human race. Perhaps security cameras hold secrets about how humans act, and really the answers to many of our problems lie inside our fears. Who knows?

Sir Ken Robinson: Schools Kill Creativity

Sir Ken Robinson promotes his ideas by supporting them with stories and certain truths that seem to be universal. He speaks in a very passionate, purposeful way. To get his point across he uses evidence that relates to his audience and is relatively well-known. He engages his audience in his production, talking to them about what they can do, not simply say what he think should be done. This speaking style makes his performance interesting to watch and easy to understand. Here are a few of his points:

One of the most interesting points that Sir Ken Robinson brings up is that the world will change and we have to be able to recognize that the only way for us to survive is to change the way we are approaching the future. A lot of what we need to do change is our perceptions of the world that are so ingrained in us that we do not question them. Statements such as "creativity just as important as literacy" may seem illogical, but such a statement certainly does evoke some thought over how our education system is set up. It helps us to begin to question the way the education system works. Sir Ken Robinson claims that the education system today educates creativity out of students be discouraging mistakes and wrong answers. Before children are taught in this way, if they don’t know something, they will try it to see if they will succeed or not, but as they get older they grow out of this childish fantasy and accept that you cannot be wrong because being wrong would mean the end of your future. Schools today are set up in a way that discourages students that are not already good at things from attempting them because if they do they might make a mistake. But, according to Robinson, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you cannot really accomplish anything in life other than what you already could do. He points out that there is the same level of importance placed on all subjects in all countries,  not just a few. The reason for this, he says, is that the education system is educating students to become people who can meet the needs of the industrial era, in other words, people who “live in their heads and slightly to one side.” The real challenge is getting a job that reflects your strengths as an individual. To do this you must acknowledge your brilliance (creative, logical, sequential or abstract), and realize that no longer do degrees have the same pull as they used to. To survive in today’s day and age, you must accept your inner intelligence. Robinson also remarks that intelligence is dynamic and distinct. It is not something limited to who you are today. Intelligence is simply the "Process of having original ideas that have value." That leaves you with two challenges: discovering your talent and preparing for the future. To find your talent, you simply need to utilize the gift of imagination. The key to the future is to see today’s children as hope, and to help them make their whole future with their whole mind.

Watch the entire video at: Sir Ken Robinson