SAGARAGAS

Last week, I heard two very thought provoking talks on Technology Entertainment and Design (TED). For late comers like me, a quick note about TED. Every year TED hosts conference and events which showcases best in technology, entertainment and design. The site puts up all the talks for those who cannot make it (common man like me cannot make it anyways).

Let’s get back to the talks. The first talk was by Barry Schwartz who talked about paradox of choice. He says that for progress of our civilization, one needs freedom. And with freedom comes the power of choice. However, this choice is actually doing more harm than good in today’s world. More choices lead to more frustration and less satisfaction. He has even written a book, aptly titled ‘The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less” Get the talk here.

The other speaker was Sir Ken Robinson, who talked about how school kills creativity. He said that our education system was established in the era of industrialization, hence the subjects which we study in school and colleges are the ones which facilitates in getting us a job. Subjects like Mathematics, Science, etc are given more importance than Arts, Painting, and Drawing etc. Why dance is not taught everyday in the school like Algebra? Why Arts is the least accepted field in most of the countries? Get the talk here.

You can watch these talks on the TED site for free and it runs without any interruptions. You can also download on your desktop for later viewing. (Not all talks)