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Being at TED Aspen … Day Three

Posted by Joseph Riggio on Friday, February 29, 2008

It’s been a wild trip here in Aspen. Yesterday afternoon more brilliant presentations ... although to be fair some were better than others ... and the conclusion of the day’s program were the presentations by three of the TED prize winners. If nothing else the folks who hang around TED are doing things ... exciting things, interesting things, compassionate things ... but definitely not sitting around twiddling their thumbs ...

Hey all,

One of the most intensely moving presentations IMO was given by Phil Zimbardo a social psychologist who worked at Standford for years and was the architect of the Standford Prison Experiment. He talked about “The Lucifer Effect” about “How Good People Turn Evil.” The most powerful part of this presentation for me were the raw photographs from Abu Ghraib ... truly disturbing images. Yet listening to Phil explain how people turn to evil was fascinating ... and even hopeful by the end of his presentation. He concluded with an idea I loved ... Heroic Imagination.

The intention of this entire session “Will Evil Prevail” was both terrifying and hopeful. The presenters included:

Irwin Redlener public health doctor, a specialist on disaster medicine who works with policymakers about the preparedness and lack of preparedness of dealing with potential disasters and the failure of the systems designed to deal with them.

Samantha Power the head of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy a former and current journalist she’s been a close observer of U.S. foreign policy. She spoke to the need to have people on the ground who can and will address the need for collaboration, reconciliation and peace-making.

All in all these presentation opened the way for the afternoon presentations by the TED Prize winners:

Neil Turok a cosmologist, who has established a program to create a post graduate center in South Africa for advanced math and science, with the intention that in our lifetime we will see world-class scientists coming out of Africa where this education has not been present until just now.

Dave Eggers best-selling author of “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and other books, who established a writing and tutoring lab in San Francisco to offering after-school programs to local students for free that has since opened six more chapters in cities across the U.S.

Karen Armstrong former nun and religious thinker and author, who is working towards large scale ecumenical understanding ... bringing together all the religions of the world into common conversation about humanity.

WOW! ... what a day of data and information flowing in from every quarter. As I said yesterday this has to be one of the major conference events on the planet ... if you think.

After all that the group divided into smaller groups that gathered at some local Aspen restaurants for some social time and dinner. A good time seemed to be had by all ... but more importantly from the reports I got back this morning people had yet another opportunity to connect with one another making the case for TED being a place that revolves around people connecting.

This morning it all began again ... the first session was all about “How do we create?” ... with presentations by John Knoll, visual effects wizard from StarWars/Lucas Film fame ... Amy Tan, novelist and author of “The Joy Luck Club” among other best selling books ... Yves Behar, designer who’s work includes the Jawbone bluetooth headset in addition to other award winning products and projects ... Robert J. Lang, origami artist and you’ve got to visit his website - this is not what you think about when you think about what origami is ... Tod Machover composer and inventor who built a technology called hyperinstruments and a software for making music even when you’re not a musician with a brilliant display that you’ll simply have to wait until it appears on TED.com to see for yourselves ...

This afternoon it continues ... a smorgasbord of ideas ... and I’ll report a bit more of what we’re experiencing in Aspen later today or tomorrow ... now I have to get back to the show ...

Joseph Riggio

Aspen, Colorado

(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

I’m not sure it’s the same thing as the Lucifer Effect but Howard Bloom wrote a worthwhile book called, The Lucifer Effect on the nature of evil and its deep roots in humanity. He also wrote a favorite of mine, Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. Bloom’s books are compelling, well-written and encyclopedic.

Devon White on Tuesday, March 04, 2008

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