When TED cancelled my license on the eve of this event, in a retrenchment that started with Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock, this program, that was challenging to the status quo, regrouped under my auspice and at my expense. Little David has been stewing ever since about how to handle this Goliath. [Information about other Sue Speaks Events can be found here.]
My story with TED is a chapter in a tale that involves the cusp we are on between the materialist paradigm that is failing us and the life-sustaining one that is to come. It has to do with the constricting hold the Skeptics have on evolutionary progress, with their tentacles not only into TED but into WIKIPEDIA, too. These are icons of cultural thought and we all are suffering, getting skewed senses of what really matters. Only some “ideas worth spreading” get out at TED, and only some people realize how our understanding is being manipulated.
It’s a long story, which you can get from my links, or perhaps you have been following this saga, where the sentiments have been overwhelmingly anti-TED. If you know enough to be riled up, I encourage emails to Chris@TED.com, that get delivered to Chris Anderson, who owns TED. You can expect a cut-and-paste response that’s as squirrely as the cancellation was, with the cherry on top being that TED, no longer sponsoring the event, got Livestream to cancel what thousands poised to watch never could. Forward Chris’s response to me and I’ll send you what I said to him.
Dear TED: Please post the talks you took exception to, and tell people to weigh in on them. If there’s a lot of agreement with your position, I won’t take any more issue with your concern that I could have hurt your credibility with your other producers. From my perspective, you have kept something valuable from being seen. This was not right to do to viewers, to my speakers, and to me. If I get prevailing support from viewers, I would like to reopen the financial window to talk about money you will reimburse me.
OUR MISSION STATEMENT:
More for you is more for me. – Charles Eisenstein
Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm? will illuminate the urgent need to change our fundamental value system or worldview to one in which humanity pulls together rather than separately. This view would supersede the current worldview where whoever has the most toys wins. The new view is based on what science tells us about a quantum universe, with everything being interconnected and all of us being interdependent. A new science-based vision won’t take hold, though, until people know and understand that there are more humane alternatives available. This is what our presentations will focus on. Our hope is that our presenters will impact the world’s thinking about how we interact as global community. They will demonstrate and propose action on how practical programs and technologies can be implemented in communities everywhere.
Whatever the problem, community is the answer. – Meg Wheatley
Why is TED so successful in drawing people to live events? It can’t be just to learn. We have TV for TED Talks, not to mention all the other info that comes to us from the tube. Coming to live events must be about mingling. We hope this will be the first of many TEDxWestHollywood events so that an activist community develops. Be prepared not only to be informed, but to share yourself as you engage with others.