[scott_s]

There is a difference between being controversial and being partisan. The talk directly calls out Republicans. Based on what Chris Anderson said, they would welcome a talk on that controversial subject, but it couldn't call out political parties.

[pauljonas]

But that is the problem, in a nutshell.

We don't want to "call out political parties", so we will ignore the truth that one of the political parties has deviated so far off course, in its anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-equality pursuit.

But let us not speak of it.

[scott_s]

Attacking a political party invites various cognitive biases related to tribalism - both for the people who like and dislike that party. It makes it more difficult for an audience to evaluate your arguments on their own merit.

[pauljonas]

This is an affliction by which people muddle objectivity with neutrality. One can adopt a neutral (NPOV as they say in Wikipedia land) vantage point, yet be terribly biased, even if it is simply confined to what is filtered out. One can be biased to an intellectual (or political) plank, yet be objective in evaluating arguments and evidence.

Yes, tribalism can induce such ills as well as invoke cognitive dissonance, but it is not a default setting.

[fleitz]

No it isn't the problem, at least not according to TED, TEDs mission is not to spread the gospel about political parties. Want to spread the truth about Republicans and Democrats? Go on CNN. That's what it's there for, you can shout about how Republicans are anti-intellectual and Democrats are communists all day long on CNN, however TED doesn't want to be CNN.

There's a big difference between saying Republicans are anti-intellectual and saying anti-intellectualism is bad for the following reasons. TED is all for the latter and completely against the former.

[pauljonas]

Don't want to get "too political"? Then don't trumpet how you're in the "business of ideas"…

[blueben]

Non-sequitur.

[smsm42]

ITYM "my opinion is that". When you confuse your opinion with "the truth", that's where the problem starts. And when you are so far off course that you dismiss everybody disagreeing as anti-pretty-much-everything good, pure evil they are - you might not notice that there's something wrong about it, but other people would. Not all people are suffering from partisan blindness. Some can see that on many points are many valid opinions, and while one opinion can win in the eyes of the majority over the other and define what the priorities of the policy are - that is very far from totally denying the party that disagreeing with you any shred of possibility of having real argument.

[chc]

Go ahead and speak of it. Nobody's stopping you. It just won't get you on TED's website.

[rosser]

Anybody who actually thinks about issues in terms of the entrenched, incumbent parties in the US political system is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Virtually everything that's broken in America today is in some fashion a consequence of the bi-polar stranglehold on power the country has been subject to, more or less since its founding.

[borism]

except it calls out both Republicans AND Democrats.

[webXL]

...to be more Democrat-ish.

And there are other parties.