I attended several TEDx events over the past decade and viewed/listened to many other TED talks. While I have paid TED less and less attention in recent years, as I've increasingly found the format to be rather overproduced and formulaic, there have undoubtedly been some thought-provoking talks along the way, including, for me, the following:
- David Deutsch's dramatic illustration of a "typical" place in the universe
- Dan Gilbert's synthesised happiness
- Barry Schwartz making the case that too much choice is a bad thing.
- Dan Dennett on memes
- Kevin Kelly on "what technology wants"
- Hans Rosling's integrated world
- Robert Wright's history as non-zero-sumness
- Michael Pollan's plants'-eye view
- Deborah Gordon's ant colonies as a metaphor for our brains
- James Howard Kunstler's demolition of soul-less architecture
- Rory Sutherland's recasting of advertising as saving the planet
- VS Ramachandran's "Gandhi" neurons
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