TED Talk Tuesday: William Ury

William Ury hopes to find common ground in the toughest conflicts by walking.  He implemented this interesting strategy by restaging Abraham's walk to Canaan.  His success has inspired similar walks of unity in different parts of the world.  This is the walk from no to yes.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz explains why regulations and incentives aren't the only answers to our financial, legal, and educational systems.  We should instead focus on our practical wisdom as there is a big difference between just following the rules and doing the right thing.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Neil Pasricha

In this talk, Neil Pasricha describes some of the best moments of his life and then some his worst.  To cope with his grief, he began a blog called 1000 Awesome Things to catalogue the simple joys of life.  His talk is, well, awesome.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Charles Limb

This TED Talk compares the mental processes of memorization and improvisation.  It is fascinating.  The secret to creative success is to dampen your self-monitoring system and go for broke.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker, psychologist and writer, describes the decline in human violence from Biblical times to the present.  With the two wars and global terrorism, one would expect violence to be at an all-time high.  Pinker, on the other hand, shows evidence to the contrary- you are far less likely to die at the hands of another today than at any time in the past.

TED Talk Tuesday: Susan Savage-Rumbaugh

As a primatologist, Susan Savage-Rumbaugh studies the abilities of bonobos.  Bonobos make up a different species of chimpanzees who resolve conflicts through love not war.  As our closest living relatives (sadly our closer relatives all went extinct), bonobos and common chimpanzees provide amazing insights into our humanity.  You will be shocked by some of the behaviors, but they are all interesting.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell finds amazing stories and discusses popular psychology.  He has written The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw.  In this Talk he describes the improvements on Spaghetti Sauce, Coke, and other products while hitting major points on happiness and choice.

Remember, "there is no perfect pickle, only perfect pickles."

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Tony Porter

At TEDxWomen last week, Tony Porter makes a plea to men.  He says that we must get out of the "man box", which leads to the disrespect and abuse of women.  He connects the liberation of women with the liberation of men.

TED Talk Tuesday: Daniel Dennett

Philosopher Dan Dennett not only admires Charles Darwin, he has also grown the famous beard.  In this short talk, Dennett describes Darwin's "strange inversion of reasoning" for why we percieve things as cute, sexy, sweet, or funny.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Denis Dutton

In this week's TED Talk, Denis Dutton tries to explain our fascination with beauty.  A solid definition of beauty includes many different categories of arts and acts, but can actually be quite universal.  He takes us way back to the first stone tool makers to explain a Darwinian view of beauty.

TED Talk Tuesday: Dan Gilbert

In this week's TED Talk, Dan Gilbert analyzes happiness and our brain's amazing adaptation to synthesize happiness.  Given possible futures, most people would expect to be happier having won the lottery compared to becoming paralyzed.  However, ask the people in those situations a year later and they both report equal levels of happiness.  Our brains can block painful memories and enhance the good to help us adjust to changing situations.  Dan Gilbert takes this time to describe our "Psychological Immune System".

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Dean Ornish

Dean Ornish tells us that our genes are not our fate.  Our genes must interact with the environment we live in.  What we do and how we eat can have major effects on which genes get turned on in our cells and thus affect our health.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: A.J. Jacobs

I found this TED Talk by A.J. Jacobs to be incredibly amusing.  Mr. Jacobs is a writer who spent a year of his life following all of the laws of the Old Testament.  Some of them are more difficult to follow than others.  I am sure that it would have been funny to walk through New York City and find this guy dressed in Biblical clothes.  Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Jonathan Haidt

Since it is election day, I figured Jonathan Haidt's talk on Liberals and Conservatives would be interesting. Along with this, he has a website called yourmorals.com on which you can test what traits do you favor and how you line up with self-identified liberals and conservatives.

Please enjoy the talk.  Oh, an please go and vote!

TED Talk Tuesday: Ze Frank

In this TED Talk, Ze Frank describes some of his interactive games and the songs that he has on his sight.  He also describes why he enjoys these connections and why they can be important.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Nina Joblanski

In this TED Talk, Nina Joblanski challenges our view of skin color and with it race.  From an evolutionary perspective, our naked skin provides a great example for the power of natural selection.  Our skin fights to protect us from harmful UV rays while it makes Vitamin D.  The struggle between these two pressures produces the great tapestry of skin colors we see throughout the globe.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Zeresenay Alemseged

A man with an awesome name gives this awesome talk on the roots of humanity.  He and many others have scoured the landscape of the East African Rift Valley searching for any clues about our ancestors.  We seek knowledge of our collective past in order to share in a shared future.

Salaam.

TED Talk Tuesday: James Randi

The Amazing Randi takes on psychics and other frauds during this talk.  James Randi is one of the leading skeptics who try to explain to people that somethings are not only untrue, but dangerous.  He gives an interesting talk at TED2007.

Enjoy!

TED Talk Tuesday: Steven Johnson

This talk from TEDxGlobal by Steven Johnson looks at the creation of good ideas.  He starts off talking about coffee houses and finishes with the ideas that led to GPS.  Linus Pauling once said, "The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas."  This seems to work, not only for the individual, but for social groups as well.

Check it out:

TED Talk Tuesday: Jonathan Klein

In this short TED Talk, Jonathan Klein rolls through the pictures that have shaped history.  He stresses that a photograph cannot actually change the world, but they can change something in us and we can change the world.  An inspiring photograph can change our perception of a problem and stimulate us to action.

Enjoy!