Every TED conference opens with "The Elephant March" from Verdi's Aida and it never fails to have the same effect on me: an overwhelming feeling of new possibilities.
In his opening remarks, TED curator Chris Anderson met the zeitgeist head on, talking about his rage at the fact that every idea about how to deal with our big problems is crushed on a wall of cynicism and complexity.
After lunch, I caught up with Chris in the organizers' war room in the basement of the convention center in Long Beach. I asked him what, in the amazingly diverse TED program, would be the sessions that most directly counter the predicament he laid out.
"Session 11," he said. "It's the one on simplicity. We are choking ourselves in a web of complexity. Our financial system is so complex it can't be regulated. The health care plan is so complex no one understands it. Our politics is so complex it's become a complete mess."
"George Whitesides, the chemist, will set out the science of simplicity," he continued. "How do we recognize it? How do we tap into it?"
I asked him who else would help address the challenge.
"Philip Howard," he said. "His talk is an important call to rethink the role of law. The application of our laws has become so perverse, it chokes off innovation."
As always, the great thing about TED is that it forces you to take a few days to go beyond this week's political dramas -- and pseudo-dramas (e.g. Sarah Palin's crib notes). "Politicians come and go," Chris told me, "ideas last forever -- and are the real drivers of history."
So once again innovation is the undercurrent at TED -- from the new medical innovations that will be profiled here, and that, according to Chris, "promise to slash costs by 90 percent" (hey, even 20 percent would be great!) to the innovation platform put forward at The Economist's lunch by global correspondent Vijay Vaitheeswaran: "Need, speed, and greed for good as opposed to 'greed is good.'"
TED is the perfect antidote to cynicism. The one thing you're never going to hear here is: "I love your idea, but it will never fly... you'll never get it past middle America... you'll never get it past Olympia Snowe!"
As a result, for at least four days, there is no room for the victim's stance. And you really do embrace all over again the potential of technology, open sources, and transparency to transform our broken systems.
So when you hear David Cameron promise to deliver all those things if he's elected Prime Minister, as he did this morning, you find yourself believing him and forgetting for a moment that Barack Obama promised to deliver all those things if elected president.
But still, if openness and transparency can't beat the lobbyists and the shadow elites, nothing will. So once more into the breach... to the tune of Aida's "Elephant March."
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
Alison Rose Levy: Michelle Obama Steps Up As Health Champion
I cheered when I learned of First Lady Michelle Obama's new initiative, Let's Move, aimed at the mounting epidemic of childhood obesity. It's a breakthrough for government to address obesity's systemic causes.
If you get time, please read this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-vognar/understanding-why-peacock_b_464881.html
It's related to the TED conference as well as your political, economic and social concerns. It's about how arbitrary and unnecessary our political, economic and social problems are. It's called "Understanding Why Peacocks Have Sex Can Change the World." The one thing I took from Tiger Woods's sex scandal was how surface values fail to satisfy. Here, world fame, wealth, championship-level success and a beautiful wife were not enough to satisfy. The essay isn't about Tiger. It's about the relation between surface values and the suffering in our lives.
I'm a new Huff Post blogger, Northwestern grad. We need to spread these ideas. Thanks for making this site that allows me to try.
David
Wiki has a partial list of the CFR's membership here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations.
America does not know the power of this 3000 member Shadow Elite organization. It advertises itself as a non-profit think-tank. Nothing could be farther from the truth for this organization serves to control the Administration of each incoming President. CFR hands the President over 300 names for key Secretary and Under-Secretary positions as well as other key profiles.
CFR membership gathers inside intelligence from international, banking, stock market, government, corporate, CIA and and the corporate media arrayed in that membership provides effective cover of CFR overt/covert actions in controlling all U.S. government affairs.
This unprecedented intelligence pool held in private hands is the sole reason that your government cannot react to all those issues as you would expect.
The Wiki list is far from complete but it gets your attention quickly while looking over those names. And look at this VP gloating over covering up his CFR directorship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbnpN07J_zg&feature=related .
It is CFR that has withered democracy in America and there is so much more to this story.
With all due respect, we need less think tank BS and more common sense. The simple truth is that we no longer have the intestinal fortitude as a country to reign in spending. We are spending ourselves into oblivion. California is on the brink of bankruptcy. Vallejo, CA has already gone bankrupt.
http://calpensions.com/2009/05/21/vallejo-bankruptcy-trend-or-lost-cause/
You may want to ask the government Union officials if they think Bankruptcy is the way to go... ITS NOT.... EVERYONE LOSES. This town is falling apart as real estate values plummet and the upper and middle class flee the chaos. Entitlement programs, corporate welfare and the Progressive mentality to social engineer life's inequities towards a common denominator is KILLING THIS COUNTRY.
Arianna - life is not fair.. its just a fact; and government largess will never fix life's inequities. If we have the courage to act decisively with strong leadership, we might just be able to keep from killing the golden goose for our children and their children. Like it or not, THERE JUST ISN'T ENOUGH GOVERNMENT MONEY to fix life's problems for everyone!!!!! Sacrifices will have to be made by ALL
Spending, is indeed a problem but so is income. What I'd ask of you is why are there so many states that do not contribute anything to the federal coffers, but instead systematically drain hundreds of billions in federal spending?
What if those states weaned themselves off of the dole and actually contributed to the country? Would those social programs you decry still be unaffordable?
If fiscal responsibility was the goal in HC then we'd be moving to something closer to single-payer to cut our expense by some 4-7% of our GDP. That's as much as our entire military budget!
The costs of not having those social programs are even higher than providing them. Having a population that's sick, bankrupt from medical expenses, unable to eat or train for a new job are going to cost us all far more in the long run than helping people early.
But no country can grow through cost cutting, innovation is critical to a robust economy that can provide the world new technologies, new advances in medicine and engineering. That increases our wealth which makes those social programs even more viable.
TED is about innovation and that's as not just as American as apple pie but critical to providing jobs and income to our nation for the future.
Today's America is NOT the America of WWII. The game is totally different. Facts: corporations now run the system. They game the system. They rule the system. Gov't, which is the engine of vast change, is no longer being manned by those who might be able to implement those sweeping changes.
Corporations run the show now.
So, call me - once again - one of the cynics, but there is no possible way that a oligarchy is going to use its treasure for the common good. Not in America. Not while there are shareholders needing stock gains and Republicans shouting 'socialism'.
Scientific minds don't operate like CEOs or MBAs. That's why they're smart. Scientists didn't bring the world's economy to its knees. Our gov't didn't do it either. It was corporations. That's because they RUN THE WHOLE THING.
What makes it all seem complex are all the ways transparency, disclosure and oversight are removed from the processes.
How about starting with passing a simple bill stating kicking off or hiking the prices of people due to "pre-existing conditions" is illegal?
There is still time for something simple that would be hard to make people misunderstand and embarrassing or toxic for senators not to support.
Yes, why not a bunch of simply stated bills. After all, the complexity is one of the things that is used against the whole idea. They couldn't have done that about a bill on preexisting conditions, and another specifically just setting up a public option, something to give the insurance companies some competition. They would have complained about its existence, but they wouldn't have been able to make a big issue about complexity
A simple Medicare to age zero via buyin at selfsupporting rates was the way to go - but that scared our corporate President Obama.
TED is a wonderful frame of mind. All of those who congregate within the TED Experience do so because dream work has some sort of meaning to them. Unfortunately dream work is dream work and as it is, such dreaming is but an exaltatation to those who like to dream but are not really capable of executing the dream due primarily to the fact that they surround themselves with fellow dreamers who are at best, inpractical and at worst, nuts.
The dreams of most Americans do not exist within the realm of TED. They exist instead within the realm of non TED. As they do, the solar collector is not viewed as an instrument of world peace anymore than the wind turbine is viewed as an instrument that will eventually prevent global warming. To the average American neither of these two instruments and the technologies associated with producing them have anything whatsoever to do with making money. And, of course the reason is that dreamers congregate at TED symposiums rather than congregating at average American lumberyards.
You're a nice person Ariana and you produce a high quality product here at The Huffington Post. But do you as an editor actually know how to install a solar collector?
Campaign Reform--the horse was stole out of the barn when the Conservative Justices ruled in favor of Corporations to finance campaigns and candidates that best suit their agendas. So what do we have now? This is another issue for Congress to deal with in addition to every thing else. We need to exercise better judgment of the people we elect and stop voting based on passion; but rather who’s best qualified to serve work on our behalf. I know…I’m dreaming.
We just can't do government.
My slogan is 'That I can lead an American to the truth, but I can't make em think.'
-RLee
http://therleepost.blogspot.com
That's it in a nutshell. I would love to be optimistic but I would feel as exposed as a ostrich with it's head in sand.
Until EVERYONE starts talking and blogging and marching for Campaign Reform we are just spinning our wheels discussing any thing that might challenge the special interests.
Any progressive idea, especially any that challenges the monopolies is going to be either shelved or changed beyond all recognition.
NOTHING will be accomplished until we have campaign reform.
Our so-called representatives have to represent what is good for our country. If we could outlaw the legal bribery of special interests our representatives would do what is best for us because it would be best for them.
Forget about anything of value for the average citizen until that happens.
When special interests of any stripe, who I agree with or not, are allowed legally to buy the Peoples House, any American should stand up in protest. I do not understand the American people who so stupidly let their democracy be taken away from them.
http://fixcongressfirst.org
http://www.fairelectionsnow.org/volunteer/petition
Fair Elections Now Act (FENA) sign the petition
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” FDR
“Idiocy can be the worst sort of corruption” Which means that our citizens are as corrupt as our government.
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. George Bernard Shaw
sigh