TED: They’ll be Spandex Jackets, one for everyone!
Shortly after the 1950s became the 60s, I was one of those geeky kids who read Popular Electronics and took gadgets apart to see how they made their magic. I got in just on the end of that period where a big part of Popular Mechanics was how wonderful the future, driven by science and engineering, was going to be.
I hit the tail end of that period; things became more noir starting in the 50s. We became xenophobic. Superman’s fight for “Truth, justice and tolerance,” in the comics became “truth, justice and the American Way” when it moved to television. And then we became downright cynical. Donald Fagen mocked it all, with his great lyrics for I.G.Y. A song set in 1957-58 about how wonderful things would be in 1976.
Here at home well play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There’ll be spandex jackets one for everyone.What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
………………………………… –from IGY – Donald Fagen
I’ve been watching TED videos since shortly after they first came online. I’ve always loved them, and always learned, but this year it was different. The election of President Obama has restored science and reason to public policy. It no longer must hold equal footing with the assertion that Adam & Eve rode dinosaurs. We are not afraid of stem cells. We’re not afraid to hope.
Following the tweets from the many on Twitter who attended, and then watching the videos as they’re released from this years’ TED conference has brought me back to the way I felt reading the pop science and engineering magazines of my childhood.
I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. The presenters allude to it or say it directly in their presentations. The audiences erupt in spontaneous applause when they do. I’d guess that if you’re reading this blog, you’d feel that way too, and if you aren’t following TED, you’re missing out. They’re available as video podcasts on I-Tunes and through other “delivery mediums near you.”
It wasn’t but 20 years ago, we were dumping ASCII messages from BBS to BBS in the dead of the night. Today we send text messages instantaneously to hundreds of thousands of the likeminded and follow it up with high quality video.
We can leverage technology to escape our predicaments. We can develop energy industries that can save us from paying oil rich countries while simultaneously giving us a valuable export.
We can find ways to teach our children better, and use our knowledge to better understand the world and help it solve its problems, which will restore our tattered image oversees.
The Internet has shrunk the world to nearly manageable size, and our search for other worlds and in the ancient history of our own has shown us how much there is left to explore and learn. Some may disagree, but I think its a wonderful thing that with a few clicks of the mouse, you can find I.G.Y. as done by a Japanese cover band.