13 Posts found for Source: TED

What we call silence is just the limit of our hearing.

Author: Doris Mitsch | Source: TED | Subjects: Concepts, Senses

Why are so many people pessimistic? I think there are three reasons why. One is that most of what progress is about is about what does not happen. It’s about all the things that could have happened that didn’t happen today. It’s about the two-year-old child who did not die of smallpox. It’s about the family farmers whose year of surplus food was not stolen … [ Read more ]

Author: Kevin Kelly | Source: TED | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

All of us spend so much of our lives trying to make our future selves happy. We don’t stop to ask if it is possible that in 20 or 30 years our future selves are going to look back at us with bewilderment, with resentment, that our future selves will ask us, what made you think that is what I would want?

[…]

I believe if … [ Read more ]

Author: Shankar Vedantam | Source: TED | Subjects: Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior

When we look backwards, we can see enormous changes in who we have become. But when we look forwards, we tend to imagine that we are going to be the same people in the future. Sure, we imagine that the world will be different… but we don’t imagine that we ourselves will have different perspectives, different views, different preferences in the future. I call this … [ Read more ]

Author: Shankar Vedantam | Source: TED | Subject: Psychology | Behavior

Inequality, we’re taught to believe, is the necessary price of civilization.

Author: David Wengrow | Source: TED | Subjects: Economics | Economy, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

The Sufis say, “Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance.”

Author: Elif Shafak | Source: TED | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge

Identity politics divides us. Fiction connects. One is interested in sweeping generalizations. The other, in nuances. One draws boundaries. The other recognizes no frontiers. Identity politics is made of solid bricks. Fiction is flowing water.

Author: Elif Shafak | Source: TED | Subjects: Literature | Arts, Politics & Public Policy

Chekhov said, “The solution to a problem and the correct way of posing the question are two completely separate things. And only the latter is an artist’s responsibility.”

Author: Elif Shafak | Source: TED | Subject: Art

When you’re a latecomer to a language, what happens is you live there with a continuous and perpetual frustration. As latecomers, we always want to say more, you know, crack better jokes, say better things, but we end up saying less because there’s a gap between the mind and the tongue. And that gap is very intimidating. But if we manage not to be frightened … [ Read more ]

Author: Elif Shafak | Source: TED | Subject: Language

If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be ‘for’ or ‘against.’ The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ is the mind’s worst disease.

Author: Sēngcàn (Sent -ts’an) | Source: TED | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement

Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people but stories can also repair that broken dignity.

Author: Chimamanda Adichie | Source: TED | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Stories

The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. […] The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.

Author: Chimamanda Adichie | Source: TED | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Life & Society, Personal Improvement, Psychology | Behavior, Race Relations, Relationships

What would a sustainable, universally beneficial economy look like? “Like a doughnut,” says Oxford economist Kate Raworth. In an eye-opening talk, she explains how we can move countries out of the hole—where people are falling short on life’s essentials—and create regenerative, distributive economies that work within the planet’s ecological limits.

Author: Kate Raworth | Source: TED (April2018) | Subjects: Audio, Economics | Economy, Environment | Sustainability, Politics & Public Policy