We Need to Talk About TED
8th June 2018
Benjamin Bratton blows the whistle.
In our culture, talking about the future is sometimes a polite way of saying things about the present that would otherwise be rude or risky.
But have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED talks actually happens? So much potential and enthusiasm, and so little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what ideas can do all by themselves wrong?
I write about entanglements of technology and culture, how technologies enable the making of certain worlds, and at the same time how culture structures how those technologies will evolve, this way or that. It’s where philosophy and design intersect.
So the conceptualization of possibilities is something that I take very seriously. That’s why I, and many people, think it’s way past time to take a step back and ask some serious questions about the intellectual viability of things like TED.
So my TED talk is not about my work or my new book – the usual spiel – but about TED itself, what it is and why it doesn’t work.
TED Talks are one of the chief technobabble vehicles for prog-splaining and making Lefty dweebs feel good about themselves. Bratton scrubs the lipstick off of the pig and lets it all hang out.