Date: 2025-07-02 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00003027
Ideas
TED ... Ideas worth spreading
THE COMMENT STREAM ... Forbes on The Real Reason That Nick Hanauer's TED Talk Was 'Censored'? It's Shoddy And Dumb
COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Georg Brunmayr4:56 AM Great speech! Should not be a controversial topic as this is rather straight forward if you think about it for a second
Arpit Srivastava4:56 AM (edited) But the audience didn't sound like it was offended. The attendees were applauding and laughing (not mockingly). :-)
Nicolas André5:00 AM+3 offended people probably left half way thru the speech. This has way too much logic and common sense to resonate with some people ;-)
Steve Mayne5:32 AM+11
- FOX News Blowhard: BLAH BLAH BLAH 1%. BLACK BLAH BLAH job creators.
- Me: Excuse me? What did you just call them?
- FNB: Job creators. That's what they--
- Me: What's the goal of a CEO or corporation?
- FNB: To create jobs.
- Me: It's to create profit. You know that. So does everyone out there. That's what capitalism is all about. That's Business 101, isn't it? I ask because I've never taken Business 101.
- FNB: Yes, but when you create profit, you create jobs. Pinhead.
- Me: Not necessarily. If to create profit, a CEO has to elminate jobs, or ship them overseas, he'll do that. In a heartbeat. That's part of what's been going on for the last 30 years. So why do you call them job creators?
- FNB: BLAH BLAH socialism BLAH BLAH Obama BLAH BLAH Jimmy Carter.
- Me: You call them 'job creators' because it's politically expedient to do so in a time of high unemployment. But it's a lie. You know it's a lie. And so does everyone watching.
Simone Robutti5:34 AM+3 This speech has not been published because 'too boring' and because it lacked a scientific approach. The author then proceeded to accuse the guys who select TED talks to be published, saying they are elitists and such: 'HURR FIGHT THE POWER, TED SUX LOOK AT HOW BIASED THEY ARE, THEY DEFEND THE INTERESTS OF THE 1% DURR DURR This guy is a faggot, his talk makes almost no sense and he can't speak in public. Anyway he's a good flamer and he got what he wanted: attention. He just scammed you and let you think you were 'fighting for the poors' while, actually, you were just advertising him. Expand this comment »
Brian Redfern5:35 AM What is interesting is the extent to which the 1% are driven by sexual addiction, they have to make incredibly more than anyone else often to feed a massive appetite for sex and drugs.
Steve Mayne5:37 AM+3 I hear they eat babies too, +Brian Redfern.
Koushik Dutta5:54 AM (edited)+6 +Simone Robutti 'Too boring'? The audience enjoyed it. I found it interesting. And there are many TED talks that 'lack a scientific approach'. TED isn't a scientific conference. It is about 'ideas worth spreading'. Apparently, so long as the ideas do not cause the financiers distaste.
Robert Belcher5:58 AM+3 http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/05/17/the-real-reason-that-ted-talk-was-censored-its-shoddy-and-dumb/
Simone Robutti5:58 AM +Koushik Dutta Ideas without a foundation of truth are ideas not worth spreading, otherwise it's just propaganda.
Koushik Dutta6:09 AM (edited)+8 +Simone Robutti Which part was he dishonest about?
1. Capitalists don't create jobs, unless they absolutely have to. They will also cut and ship jobs overseas to raise profits. We see this all the time in the USA. This is a truth.
2. They only need to create jobs if there is an overwhelming consumer demand that requires additional labor to be hired. Why would they unnecessarily hire people and lower profits? This is a truth.
3. Consumer demand comes from the middle class having money. This is a truth.
I'm having a hard time understanding why you are saying there is no foundation of truth in his talk.
Let's actually use Apple as a use case for what he was arguing for the point above:
Apple is the most valuable company in the world.
1. Even being ridiculously profitable, Apple is laying off workers in Apple stores: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/08/16/new_apple_retail_vp_john_browett_planned_to_cut_jobs_to_raise_profits.html
2. Apple gets temporary hires for Apple Stores in advance for new product launches, to predict consumer demand.
3. Are the few rich people buying millions of iPhones? No. Millions of middle class people are buying millions of iPhones. Expand this comment »
Arpit Srivastava6:04 AM+1 Thanks for the link +Robert Belcher :-) It explains why the video wasn't posted. #mediocre
Robert N. Lee6:11 AM (edited) Wow, somebody wants me to feel sorry for a One Percenter because this will fight the One Percent because he's all about fighting the One Percent. Which he's part of. Again.
David Robertson6:11 AM Dutta,you summed up capitalism there nicely. Even the 'Communist' Chinese have had to create a middle class.
Robert N. Lee6:11 AM Hey, where's Sarah Silverman's talk? They must have censored that one because they hate women and love rape at TED!
Robert Belcher6:11 AM+1 Here is a TED curator's blog post on the matter (which is linked to in the Forbes article I just commented about): http://tedchris.posterous.com/131417405 Choice quote: 'The talk tapped into a really important and timely issue. But it framed the issue in a way that was explicitly partisan. ... And it included a number of arguments that were unconvincing, even to those of us who supported his overall stance...'
Koushik Dutta6:15 AM +Robert Belcher Yeah, as the Forbes article stated, his chart made me double take, since it made no sense. I'm having a hard time discounting his entire argument, just because of a goofy chart though.
Robert N. Lee6:16 AM 'Nice move. Trash the rich in front of the rich (a practice I fully support) but then react to rejection like a spoiled schoolkid. ' Snort. Anyway, there's all the attention I'll pay TED talks this year.
Robert Belcher6:21 AM+3 The argument against the talk was never that it wasn't about an important subject, or that it didn't make any good points at all; simply that it was sufficiently flawed that TED decided not to post it. Just because it's about an important subject doesn't mean they're going to make an exception and lower the bar. It just means someone else needs to come along and give the subject a proper treatment!
Robert N. Lee6:28 AM Yeah, the version of the story where Hanauer threw a fit and hired people to spin the rejection into press, anyway, sounds way more likely. And I'm watching his talk. I sort of get what he means with the 'circle of life' thing, but saying companies don't create jobs and hiring more people is 'only a last resort'...those are just daffy. Uh, hiring more people is one of the first steps to being a company. And then one of the second steps to being a bigger company. And then... The whole 'slash taxes at the top and kill business regulations and everybody gets trickled down on' concept remains propaganda, though, whatever this guy says about it.
Robert N. Lee6:35 AM BTW, I just looked up Pacific Coast Feather Company, the family business where Hanauer got his start, and of which he's still CEO. They import all their trade goods from China, these days. Have forever.
David Robertson6:36 AM (edited) Workers are simply a cost to keep low, don't accept for a second that firms want to hire, it's a vector to earn more ,and a tiny bonus(for the peasantry) is they need labour.
Robert N. Lee6:38 AM 'don't accept for a second that firms want to hire, it's a vector to earn more ' You do realize that your second statement negates the first, right? Maybe not. You might as well say that nobody really wants a job, they just want to earn more.
David Robertson6:41 AM My point is, firms want to hire the absolute minimum to keep costs low ,and the workers quite naturally want to earn as much as possible from the rich man's table.
Robert N. Lee6:42 AM That's 'nature?' Okay.
David Robertson6:42 AM This is why most capitalists detest unions as they are the only strength workers can glean.
Robert N. Lee6:44 AM Unions are 'gleaned?' Do you even know what 'glean' means? It means to go through the fields after the farmer is done with them and pick up the scraps.
Lee Cooper6:50 AM+1 It isn't someone else's responsibility to create a job for you to occupy, but rather your responsibility to offer talent / skills of sufficient value to entice someone to hire you. This is more class warfare, 'You didn't build that' rhetoric that really does a disservice to our country.
David Robertson6:52 AM I know the meanings of glean,Workers indeed glean advantage best way they can. Their are few employers that put workers first,in the Uk we have a few co operatives as in the John lewis company which is literaly owned by all of them,most capitalists won't go near that as its more equitable.
Robert N. Lee6:54 AM (edited) No, you don't know the meaning of 'glean,' because gleaning was an early, theocratic form of welfare for the poor. Workers don't glean, they help harvest and get paid for it. The gleaners come in after, because God said you have to leave a little grain for the hungry.
That's not even a good metaphor, never mind making no practical sense. Whether the farmer is a cheat and a bastard or not is a whole other matter. Expand this comment »
David Robertson6:54 AM I have been in industry as both an activist ,and an employer, and self employed, and I have no illusions concerning the dog eat dog world that commerce is.
Robert N. Lee6:55 AM Oh no, I got it, you're a subject matter expert. You should do a TED talk.
David Robertson6:56 AM We can disagree on the quantum glean state, but it remains workers are a flexible cost base, no more and no less.
David Robertson6:57 AM I'm a reluctant partial 'expert' on having lived it.
Robert N. Lee6:58 AM Sure, and that's because anybody who runs a business is a soulless demon, and the poorer you are, the holier you are.
Jamie Sizzlehands6:58 AM So in other words, Capitalists and the wealthy didn't really create jobs, saying they do was just a defensive argument to keep their tax rates low???
Keith Pinto6:59 AM+3 This is sensationalism, not science, nor economics. I understand why TED did not post it.
Robert N. Lee7:00 AM Anyway, now I'm reading this other total bullshit about a guy who says he recovered the memory of his mom almost aborting him, and so ABORTION IS WRONG. It's way funnier.
Phil Taylor7:02 AM Seems to be a lot of talk on taxing or not taxing the rich 1%. Tax needs to be cut across the board and more people need to be tax exempt. The threshold before paying tax must be raised. Small ma &pa businesses need a very low tax rate too.
David Robertson7:04 AM He probably enriched a quack therapist along the way Robert.
Neil Paterson7:06 AM (edited) +Simone Robutti - how do you know the speakers sexual orientation? How fucking DARE you use the word 'faggot' in a post. Who do you think you are? I note that you have no face picture on your profile, is this because you are too 'ugly'?
Robert N. Lee7:06 AM+1 LOL, this I have to share: underwater and, strangely, breathing while submerged—an amniotic, prenatal 'memory'? Once, I told a psychiatrist how I felt 'trapped' and panicky in close relationships with women. Fears of death had dogged me, and a pervasive, empty sense of not belonging anywhere.' 'I remembered my recurrent nightmare of swimming frantically Wow, you know why he has problems with close romantic relationships, fears death, and has a pervasive sense of 'not belonging?' Abortion! NO ONE ELSE FEELS THOSE THINGS.
David Robertson7:07 AM+1 Hard for my underdog sympathetic heart to type, but we need the rich, and cannot drive them away. A constant conundrum for governments of all hues to struggle with.
David Robertson7:08 AM+1 I would have though a womb memory would want one to go back to the safe warm cosy world within mum?
Zlatko Trajkovski7:11 AM+2 this proves that Milton Friedman philosophy on economy sucks big time
skanda vyas7:25 AM+1 its good
Mike McDermott7:27 AM He didn't convince me of anything. He thinks that the government can make investments to help the middle class better than investors can. Isn't in the best interest of business owners to create products and services that benefit people. From what I can tell, the interest of the government is to make as many people dependent on them as possible.
Robert N. Lee7:28 AM I dunno about 'need the rich.' I don't even know if we need companies or jobs, really. In fact, I freaking hate jobs, have been unemployed for a while and am starting to have some success selling writing, and if I can do that an never have a job again, boy am I doing that. I can't stand TED, I never watch those things, because every one I've watched has been either culty or completely wrong about stuff. I watched this one by a woman who had zero expertise except that she wrote a popular book on How To Spot a Liar and...I don't think she was actually lying, is about the best I could say for that. Anyway, I'm pretty good at spotting liars, and she had everything backward, pretty much. But...this guy's talking out of his ass, and the I Was Censored story from a few months ago we're all arguing about just seems like PR spin to me. And I'm arguing about it, which means I'm playing into the spin, and I'm the dumbest one of all.