TED started giving nearly anyone a platform, which changed it from a curated set of higher-quality presentations into something more like YouTube. There are a ton of TED presentations full of debunked science. The entire vibe of TED talks seems a bit self-congratulatory and without substance, IMO. There's also TEDx, which has the same problems but worse.
There are still good TED talks, but you have to sort through TED the same way you sort through YouTube... and at that point, YouTube starts looking a lot better.
A lot of academics and scientists I know dislike TED talks. First the name means (T)echnology, (E)ntertainment, and (D)esign -- which are all proximal to, but quite different from, actual science. If anything, it turns science into consumer products, and gloms it with self-help and entertainment in a quasi-megachurch format (hint: "innovation" is the savior; and everything is cast as innovation, esp. technological). Second, it induces a race to the bottom in terms of simplification and overselling conclusion / significance (compare with the perspective that knowledge production requires deep backgrounds to truly understand, and that the results of most experiments / analyses / models of the real world are fairly nuanced). Third, the stuff that comes from their franchising (TEDx) contains some real garbage.
TEDx talks (like the linked one is) are not proper TED talks, there are affiliated events all over hosting them. While there are many good TEDx talks, many of them aren't what you would expect when hearing the TED name. Especially bad is it that some TEDx events let quacks talk, which gives them a kind of legitimacy based on TED's reputation even though they're saying bullshit. Of course, this commingling has also tainted TED's brand.
The other thing is that most TED talks follow a certain formula. They do because it works, but watching many of them it sticks out and can be a bit annoying. There's probably a meta TED talk pointing out this somewhere.
You know, there is utility to letting the "quacks" talk, right?
Ever had a thought that just kept popping up in your head, that you then mentally suppress because "Dear <insert religious figure here>, how horrifying."
After doing that it keeps coming back again and again? Usually after a shorter and shorter period of time, because it becomes an indexing thought for recollections of all the times you've squashed it or thought about all the ways in which it was wrong?
Ever then talkedabout itwith someone else then had a cathartic release from the sharing, and possibly even a moment of relief that someone else besides you stumbled on <horrible thought> too?
It's the same dynamic. Just writ at a societal scale. It's why no censorship is a truly good idea. Bad ideas crop up organically as we've got a constant influx of new members of society seing the same warts, the same problems, following the same dead ends each and every one of us has. How are they to recognize a false start without being exposed to them?
The part that frightens people is that previously, you never had it possible for the whole world's population of false starters to get into one place and coordinate in real-time. You had an implicit depletion of critical mass activity that ensured the feedback loop for these ideas petered out, or remained tightly constrained to just the local nuts. The world we're in means that barrier has fallen, so everybody has to be able to cope with the entire planet's equivalent of the crazies all the time realistically.
It's a learned skill. Only practice gets you better at it, and I assure you, however good you think you are, cut the estimate in half. Odds are you've got fundamental blind spots you haven't even run into the craziness for yet.
I attended one TED back when they were super exclusive, because they were super exclusive. The good lesson: super exclusive for the sake of it a waste of time.*
TED talks were pretty much of the “I am doing this cool thing and isn’t it so exciting?” That actually does sound pretty cool: the world is full of exciting things I’ve never heard of or have heard of but never appreciated.
The reality, both in the old TED and the new: the talks are almost all structured in the same mode: “you are smart for listening to this info that other people don’t appreciate.” Validating the listener for spending their time listening.
If I wanted that I’d go on a walk with my dog. Which I do instead.
* things can be exclusive just because there’s finite space and you want to have people who contribute (e.g don’t invite me to a medievalists convention; I’ll have fun but won’t add to the discussion). This works if it’s not self-congratulatory and if people pro actively mix it up over time to bring in new ppl.
There are still good TED talks, but you have to sort through TED the same way you sort through YouTube... and at that point, YouTube starts looking a lot better.