TED Global Oxford Day 1

So here are a few impressions from "the TED front"......

Juan Enriquez (Harvard) made an impassioned and data driven pitch that there will be more national flags tomorrow than there are today - and what happened to the British Empire, after 1905? Could its demise have been forseen? Juan's point is that what we do today puts in motion the events of 50 years from now. He thus challenged the conventional wisdom that the US will exist in its current form mid century. For example, the US is the first country that has the worlds' reserve currency, yet it is also a debtor nation. China makes, India computes, Japan innovates - and the US borrows for shopping trips?

Irshad Manji (Journalist, Muslim, Lesbian) took quite some personal risk to challenge the audience to seek a more moderate form of Islam, reverting back to "Ijtihad" (pronounced "ij-tee-had") as Islam’s lost tradition of independent thinking. She made the telling point that it seems that Islam today is the most literal religion in interpreting its scriptures, assuming that the Q'uran is religion 3.0? Yet most every other religion has moved on (via interpretation). She also argued strongly for pluralism ....

Stephen Levitt was his usual clear self, buildng on his outstanding book ("Freakonomics"). He made the telling point that Science runs new experiments to establish the truth, whereas Economics studies the historic facts .... For my taste however he was too narrow in making his case ( .... against car seats in cars for children over 2?).

Alison Jackson managed to delight, challenge and even annoy with her exploration of the theme of celebrity - she creates photographs with look alikes that suggest what might be behind the scenes - the Queen on the toilet, Sven in his underpants, Michael Jackson fussing with his nose.

Seth Godin challenged the audience to define 1) what are they really working on right now and 2) what is their personal story that will make a real difference? Stories which come alive make the world go round.

Richard Dawkins was his usual thoughtful and uniquely insightful self, in stressing that, as humans, we can only intuitively understand the middle ground - neither the "nano" nor the "cosmic". He suggested that humans invent their own realities to make sense of the complex world we live in - which gets ever more complicated as new knowledge unfolds. "Successive generations have to come to terms with the increasing queerness of the Universe."

He also suggested that different species have different software to allow them to handle their world - consider the two dimensional world of a pond skater whose life is ruled by surface tension ....

And his later comment on the irrelevance of religion was classic!

Jaqueline Novogratz made an impassioned and well argued case that business models which work for developing countries are the key, not traditional aid. She is the CEO of the Acumen Fund, a non-profit focused on creating sustainable solutions to improve the lives of the poor.

David Deutsch was brilliant - with only a dark stage as his "prop" he completely convinced the audience that we live in just one of trillions of possible worlds. We need Matter, Energy and Evidence to create new knowledge - and the universe has an abundance of all three.

He also challenged us to address problems properly. For example, if Global Warming is for real, then dealing with the last 50 years of "why" is not enough (i.e. Kyoto gas protocols). The issue is how we lower the planet's temperature. Mirrors in space? David's thesis - problems are both inevitable and fixable - is compelling.

Asraf Ghani re-interpreted the problems of the developing world (he is finance minister of Afghanistan) ... and his comment that $1 of entrepreurial investment is worth $20 of traditional aid was pivotal.

Hans Ulrich Obrist showed great passion for getting artists in front of the general population, in both traditional and novel forms. However, his case for the uniqueness of Chinese Museum Construction was less compelling.

Kate Walsh was wonderful - a voice for the future and a song writing skill we will hear more of.

A thought provoking day, with the richness and complexity that the agenda promised. And several "calls to action" helped ground the proceedings in the real world.

More anon.

TED GLOBAL

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