Ducks Go Quack, Chickens Say Cluck - Onion Talks - Ep. 3

The Onion recently began parodying TED talks. This one is my favorite so far: [this video] . The Onion parodies are definitely not entirely fair, but they do a good job of pointing out that a lot of TED talks are definitely more on the aspirational side of things. I've definitely seen a few TED talks where the speakers' abilities basically covered up the fact that they weren't actually saying anything. I was kind of heartened to see the onion parodies, because I had wondered if I was the only one whose bs detectors were going off. This isn't to say you should be dismissive of TED talks out of hand, or that they're all crap, or anything. I actually think that if they didn't let a few bs-ers in it would be a sign that they weren't taking enough risks. But it is important to keep in mind that some talks are little more than hand waving. And you definitely shouldn't automatically assume it's brilliant just because it has the TED brand behind it.

I agree TED is a bit of a nexus for it. In my circles I see a sort of backlash (or maybe, better, buyer's remorse) directed at TED being fairly broad, hitting many people who wouldn't read more than a few sentences of Morozov. But then Morozov thrusts a dagger into that wound for a subset of people. For people who never liked any of that stuff and just think society is going downhill with all this technological nonsense, Morozov has less appeal, because you've already got Nicholas Carr and many other people for that angle. You mention ideas vs. packaging/motives, but I think I've gotten more skeptical about the style of idea as well. Skepticism of the marketing/book/speaking-tour angle probably plays a role in that, but the ideas increasingly seem sort of fluffy. I like to think TED was better back when I was more positive on it, but I've re-watched a few older talks I recall liking, and they seem to have aged poorly, at least for me. I don't have anything against popularizing science, but I can't find much in the TED archives anymore that reminds me of what I think of as good popularized science, up to the gold standard of a Carl Sagan. It more often reminds me of motivational speakers and self-help gurus, the kinds of ideas you see on a CNN segment or something: new science says [amazing revelation that will change your life] . The Onion parody floating around [1] caricatures some of the rhetorical style pretty well. The style somehow seemed fresh at the time, but looking b