Transcriber: Ellen Maloney Reviewer: Denise RQ
When I was younger, my dad used to show me TED talks all the time.
We'd watch them together in our living room,
and we would discuss what we'd learned.
I loved it, and I learned a lot. About the world but also about myself.
I remember one day he looked at me with tears in his eyes, and he said,
"Son, if you ever get the chance to give a TED talk,
start with a personal anecdote."
(Laughter)
"A memory from your youth.
It does not have to be a true memory, you can make it up if you have to.
But start with an emotional anecdote."
And on that moment, more than ever before, I felt how much he loved me.
(Laughter)
We are living in different times now, we are living in a world of crisis.
Our debt is larger than it ever was before, this is the economical crisis.
There is an ecological crisis, the crisis of global warming.
our temperatures are rising fast.
Then there is clearly a cultural crisis.
There are currently more episodes of "Honey Boo Boo"
than there ever were in the history of time.
(Laughter)
These are big challenges, all of them.
Now I want to show you something creepy.
(Laughter)
The rise in debt, temperature, and "Honey Boo Boo" episodes
coincide perfectly with the rising number of TED talks.
(Laughter)
This is proof we should not trust TED talks.
TED talks cause crisis.
First things first, whatever you do,
do not listen to what people tell you at a TED talk.
Believe me, do not believe anything you hear at TED.
Let us take a look at what a TED talk is exactly,
and what it could be that makes a TED talk so dangerous.
A TED talk usually consists of three things.
Firstly, ideas. TED talks are all about ideas.
"Why we should never sleep again",
"What film directors can learn from cat videos",
"The importance of yoghurt".
These are all ideas.
I tried finding a TED talk without ideas, there are none.
Secondly, words.
You may not have noticed this, but every TED talk consists of words.
Some of those words are said aloud, others are written on slides.
Some are made up by the speaker.
Be careful, people who speak at TED conferences love to make up words.
They really love to make up words.
[Lifecasting, Typochondriac, Folksonomy, Identicon, Brangelina]
If you are not this creative,
you can always revolutionize a word by adding a number at the end.
We call this "Creativity 2.0".
(Laughter)
The third element of a TED talk is something a little more vague.
It is the very specific combination of hope and optimism.
It is the feeling you get when you want to give a standing ovation for a speaker,
or when you want to share his talk on Twitter or Facebook,
or when you are watching an episode of "Extreme Home Makeover".
I call this feeling "Hopetimism".
(Laughter)
And it is a very strong element in TED talks.
(Laughter)
What could it be that makes TED talks so dangerous?
Is it the ideas? Is it the words? Is it the hopetimism?
Yes. It is all three.
Animals do not lie.
Think about it.
Animals do not lie.
They can convey feelings of love to each other, they can help one another.
Animals can protect themselves, they can protect their young,
but they do not lie.
Why not? Because they do not have words.
Words are a lying machine.
We all know the famous Shakespeare quote, "Words are stupid, trust a mime."
(Laughter)
Except he did not say this.
This is what words are good for:
making things that are not true sound like they are true.
Do not trust words. If something sounds true, it isn't.
The second reason TED talks are dangerous is that they are idea-based.
"Now what can he possibly have against ideas?", you will say.
Ideas are wonderful, we should all spread them,
that is why you are here, spreading your little ideas all over the place.
Let us take a look at some of your ideas.
Slavery is an idea,
plastic bags are an idea,
"Gangnam Style"
(Laughter)
is an idea.
These were all massively popular ideas once.
And they were all terrible. You should be ashamed at yourselves.
In fact, ideas are a disease.
They spread in an uncontrollable fashion, and once they start spreading,
there is no way of stopping them.
It is called "going viral" for a reason.
This is where "hopetimism" comes in:
ideas spread because they are satisfying;
the most satisfying ideas come from hopetimisim.
These are the ideas that give us hope for our future.
"There is a heaven."
"We can cure global warming."
"You can be the voice of Holland."
That is hopetimism doing its work.
Making dangerous ideas sound good, sound inspiring, making them spreadable.
If there is one thing I want you to take away from this talk,
one thing you should tell everyone you know,
one thing that should be in every newspaper tomorrow,
it is that we should not spread ideas.
People spread a lot of dangerous ideas, so let us become immune to them.
People believe a lot of dangerous things,
so let us stop believing in things.
I believe if we abandon hope, our world will become a better place.
(Laughter)
I believe if we abandon optimism, we will become better people.
I believe we will become happier, we will become smarter,
and we will become better-looking if we just stop believing in things.
It is time for a Society 2.0.
(Laughter)
Thank you.
(Applause)