You Can Easily Learn 100 TED Talks Lessons In 5 Minutes
Which Most People Need 70 Hours to Absorb
Good Morning Folks,
The other week a friend watched 70 hours of TED talks; short, 18-minute talks given by inspirational leaders in the fields of Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED). He watched 296 talks in total, and he recently went through the list of what he watched, weeded out the crappy and boring talks, and created a list of the 100 best things he learned.
This article isn’t entirely about productivity, but I guarantee you’ll learn a thing or two. Here is the second and last post showcasing 100 incredible things my friend learned watching 70 hours of TED talks last week!
==> Race
55. Every day, homeless people are completely ignored, abused, and made to feel invisible.Take it from someone who used to be homeless.
56. According to data, women “systematically underestimate their own abilities”, particularly at work. According to Cheryl Sandberg, women need to sit at the table, make their partner a real partner, and not “leave before they leave” (step back from opportunities because of their family life).
57. Some of the best designs not only look great, but also accommodate your other four senses. They should also feel great, sound great, smell great, and even taste great.
58. We live in the one of the most peaceful times of humanity’s existence, even though it might not seem that way. This talk has the fascinating stats to back that up.
59, 60. Good design has the potential to make people incredibly happy. And some of the best designs are the ones that tell stories.
61. A little danger is good for both kids and grown-ups, and it makes you into a more versatile, well-rounded person.
62. If you want to help people in developing countries, you better have a deep understanding of the values of who you’re helping. Take it from a condom saleswoman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
63. There may be another way to run a successful, modern economy: the Chinese way. Even if you disagree, this talk is fascinating (it’s given from a Chinese perspective).
64. The language you speak affects your ability to save money. Studies have shown that languages that are more future-oriented motivate people to save more money.
65. Hard work is sometimes degraded in society, but unjustifiably so. According to Mike Rowe (the host of Dirty Jobs), hard work is worth it.
66. The way we think about charity is dead-wrong. We reward charities for how little money they spend, instead of for the difference they actually make.
67. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change”, and it’s one of the most powerful qualities you have.
68. 4 a.m. is the most mysterious hour of the day.
69. 30 is not the new 20. Some people see their 20′s as a throwaway decade, even though it’s one of the most formative decades of a person’s life.
70, 71. Additional choice can make people either happier or less happy. Choice can make someone happy when the choices legitimately suit their needs better, and it can make someone less happy when it makes them more paralyzed (which happens a lot more than you think).
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==>Technology
72. It turns out you can use two slices of pizza as a slide clicker, make music with ketchup, and make a piano keyboard with a banana!
73. If your medical data could anonymously be used by any researcher seeking a hypothesis, there would be a “wave of healthcare innovation”.
74. Since more and more websites are trying to tailor their content to you, you may get caught up in a digital “filter bubble” and not get “exposed to information that could challenge or broaden [your] worldview”.
76. Google is working on a car that drives itself, and it actually works very well.
77. A trend to watch: 3D printing. The ability for you to be able to print 3D items at home isn’t that far away.
78. Incredible things happen when you create an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Here’s the story behind Wikipedia.
79. There are a lot of videos about cats and twerking, but web video is also an incredible tool for learning and global innovation.
80. Everywhere you go online, you’re tracked; a lot more than you might suspect. Web tracking isn’t 100% evil, but websites certainly track you a ton, so it’s worth informing yourself what they use that information for.
81. Every electronic device you own is incredibly complex, with parts sourced from all around the world, so rebuilding anything you own from scratch is nearly impossible, as one guy found out.
82. You might put in orders on Amazon without much thought, but after you place an order, an incredibly intricate, hidden world of box-packing churns away to deliver your order.
83. Computers keep getting smarter; so fast that they often seem to be approaching (and exceeding) how smart humans are. But although they may be getting faster, they’re not as clever or creative as humans are.
84. Electrical sockets used to be shaped like lightbulb holders, because that used to be the only thing we plugged in.
85, 86. You can make plastic out of mushrooms, and the process is very good for the environment. This is great, because plastic has huge, surprising consequences for the environment.
87. It’s possible to stream wireless data from a light bulb (though it requires a line-of-sight between your device and the light).
==> Earth (and beyond)
88. Fish are delicious, but the way we’re farming them is unsustainable, not to mention bad for Nemo. Luckily, there’s a revolutionary (and fascinating) fish farming system in Spain that solves this.
89. Some fish and other ocean critters are positively enchanting. Want to see what I mean? Here is 5.5 minutes of footage of fascinating underwater creatures, including fish that change colors, creatures that camouflage to fit their environment, and fish that light up in the black of the ocean.
==> Flower
90. 80-90% of undersea creatures light up.
91. In my opinion (after watching this TED talk), one of the most interesting underwater creatures is the octopus.
92. Bees have been around for 50 million years, but they recently started dying en masse because of “parasitic mites, viral and bacterial diseases, and exposure to pesticides and herbicides”.
93. Flowers play beautiful tricks to attract insects to spread their pollen.
94. How a fly flies is fascinating, and according to Michael Dickinson, “perhaps one of the greatest feats of evolution“.
95. An asteroid 6 miles wide could end civilization on Earth in an instant.
96. The scientific odds are not against, but incredibly in favor of alien life.
97. One of Saturn’s moons has a giant volcano that shoots out ice instead of lava. And that’s just one cool part about the planet.
98. You can run a program on your computer that helps the University of California, Berkeley analyze radio telescope data for aliens.
99. Curiosity-driven science pays for itself, and drives incredible innovation for years to come.
100. Embrace the mystery that exists in the world. J.J. Ahrams has a mystery box that he hasn’t opened in 35 years, because the potentialof what’s inside the box is unlimited. which is worth way more than what’s actually in the box.
Have a GREAT day, be happy and…
Love Life!
Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer
*TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference on the West Coast each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize. More at Ted.com
