No more TED Talks Please
Throughout high school and college, I’ve had to watch plenty of TED Talks. For some reason, educators believe that having students watch a TED Talk is an adequate substitute for actually teaching students. It’s just pure laziness. TED Talks are the education-sector version of Saturday Night Live–which is pretty much the opposite of funny.
Anyways, what are TED Talks? A TED Talk is a particular type of short form speech (18 minutes or less) given at TED and TEDx Conferences around the world. The TED Foundation hosts TED Conference while TEDx are independently hosted.
TED Talks have become so ubiquitous in the American Education system. Yet, I have never heard anyone actually critique TED Talks for what they are: “Pseudo-Intellectual Cringe”.
TED Talks often have the following traits: a click-bait sounding title, content that’s pure leftist propaganda, and a seemingly intellectual flair to the talks–which makes viewers believe that the speaker is intelligent.
Think I’m wriong? Here’s a list of just some of the recommended TED Talks on the main TED Website:
A. The (De)Colonizing of Beauty
B. Women and girls, you are a part of the climate solution
C. Why the Children of Immigrants Experience Guilt
D. Language around gender and identity evolves
E. How AI can shatter barriers to equality
F. To Save the Climate, we have to reimagine capitalism
If you couldn’t tell, I was about to pull my hair by the end of this list.
But seriously, TED Talks are a joke for the most part. It baffles me that educators revere TED Talks as this never-ending font of knowledge that students need to tap into.
TED Talks make me feel like I have a room temperature IQ after watching one. Every, single, time.
Of course, not all TED Talks are terrible. It’s just that many (and potentially most of them are)
A Worst Hits of TED Talks
To close this post, I wanted to include a list of my least favorite TED Talks:
- Bill Gates wants to De-populate the world (watch from 4:30 mark to the 5 minute mark)
2. A lady attempting to rationalize Pedophilia (I’m not joking; just watch the video to see it for yourself)
3. A Guy trying to justify Eating Bugs (Side note, this material just writes itself)
*Honorable Mention: Ghislaine Maxwell’s TED Talk
Link to an archived video of Maxwell’s TED Talk
For those unfamiliar, Ghislaine Maxwell was a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. She was charged by the US federal government for sex trafficking underage girls–specifically for grooming young girls to be exploited by Epstein.
In 2013, Maxwell gave a TED Talk on behalf of a nonprofit organization called the “TerraMar Project”–of which she was the founder.
Maxwell’s TED Talk was uninspiring from an objective standpoint. Her TED Talk was just a typical environmentalist pitch; nothing special there. She mainly talked about the ocean and how we “bad humans” are wrecking the environment.
However, I find it interesting that such a morally debauched person like Maxwell was ever allowed to give a TED Talk.
Also, her TED Talk has been virtually wiped off the Internet. It’s probably because the TED organization doesn’t want people to know that she ever gave a TED Talk. Having any association with Ghislaine Maxwell is not a good look.
Conclusion
Overall, there’s so many cringe-inducing TED Talks out there. I won’t going into more detail there.
However, what truly concerns me is how TED Talks seek to normalize disgusting stuff–from eating bugs and depopulating the Earth to environmentalist alarmism and pedophilia.
My hope is that educators stop showing TED Talks to students. TED Talks are either lame, self-help/motivational-style speeches at best (which most are) and degenerate propaganda at the worst.