To Chris Anderson
FIRST EMAIL
From: Suzanne Taylor [mailto:suzanne@mightycompanions.org
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2013 6:21 PM
To: ‘Chris@Ted.com’
Subject: West Hollywood
Dear Chris Anderson,
Months later, I am still reeling over what happened to me, scratching my head about what I come to believe was some kind of temporary insanity that overtook TED. I don’t see any continuing policy of exclusion that started with the prod you received from the skeptic quarter. The world went on tilt from this unexpected influence, but TED seems to be back on the intellectual high ground. Marianne Williamson, who was frowned upon for my program, even has gone on to talk at another TEDx event.
So, what is there to do at this juncture? One thing would be to applaud the TED of old that seems to be restored as the current TED. But, what about the carnage before TED regrouped? Although the flap started with Sheldrake and Hancock, the altercation brought them wide exposure and they came out well. But, West Hollywood went under the bus. When you shut down your West Hollywood page there was no place to discuss what we delivered, and our Livestream being cancelled two days before our big show was TED’s coup de grace, so that all the money I spent to deliver my program was for naught.
Please look at how Brother, Can You Spare a Paradigm? actually would have done you proud. You could “take responsibility,” with that spirit in the wind these days, for acting hastily, and could suggest that the TED world view it. Since producing events and projects is what I am known for, I had to deliver my program so as not to be stigmatized as producing the only TEDx program that, on pain of corrupting the whole TEDx operation, TED ever thwarted, so I hope you will see that you owe me what it cost.
At the time of your cancellation, we were putting finishing touches on the same program that TED licensed more than a year before. Because of the activity with Sheldrake and Hancock, my out-of-towners wondered if we were in any jeopardy, but I assured them, based on TED’s assurance to me, that we were not – worst case was that a talk might not be posted. Then, even though we’d lost TED’s sponsorship, I assured them their talks would be seen since we still had our widely promoted Livestream, but that too was not to be in the strange treatment I got. TED also left my team bruised, with volunteers on board largely because we were launching a Los Angeles community that we had neither time nor money to focus on creating as we scrambled to reinvent our delivery.
If TED would promote getting our program seen, it would be appreciated by many. There was profound conversation in the TED threads about what is fundamental to being human that could continue. And, with your offers to reimburse me stopping short of what I needed to present my program, I’m appealing to you now to cover the $40,000 I spent.
May we be allies in doing good in the world.
Please be in touch…
SECOND EMAIL
To: Chris@Ted.com
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2013 6:15 PM
Subject: “Psi Wars: TED, Wikipedia and the Battle for the Internet”
Come on, Chris Anderson. Why let Craig Weiler’s book be a report on your final stand?
Instead of TED being caught with its pants down about my West Hollywood talks being a danger to your organizers, why not pick up from there to help a picture that’s bigger than scientific materialism come into focus as a new worldview? The comments on various TED threads last spring could provide material for a new primer for humanity re who we are and what we are doing here, as articulate voices called for broadening the parameters of how we define reality. I am urging that you be heroes to us all and open that dialogue again.
I have no desire to hurt TED. I was a fan, which is why I volunteered. But, not being fair with me plus what occurred with Sheldrake and Hancock has sullied a good name that I would be happy to see restored to its pristine condition. Honestly, what do you have to lose? Why stand on grounds that are so unsupportable? You hadn’t seen my talks, and sticking to whatever got your dander up to think they would be different from what they were doesn’t do you proud.
Please seize the day and do so much better than what stonewalling me does. I am still being dogged by the blow you inflicted, and Craig’s book will help me get out from under that. Why not join me, riding the horse in the direction it’s going where both of us become party to providing the vision and perspective that the world so badly needs?
THIRD EMAIL
From: Suzanne Taylor [mailto:suzanne@mightycompanions.org]
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2014 5:23 PM
To: ‘Lara Stein’; ‘monicag@ted.com’; ‘June Cohen’; ‘David Webber’
Cc: Chris@Ted.com
Subject: Ostriches all the way? FW: TEDx Speaker’s Priceless Talk about how TED Talks are worthless! Break out the champagne and let’s celebrate!
I’m not of a mind to agree with the vitriol below, but it’s typical of the rap TED gets from people who pass critiques along.
I’m writing to you people with whom I had interactions about TEDxWestHollywood because I’ve sent several emails to Chris Anderson that he has not responded to. I will forward them to you. I don’t know him and who knows but that he never saw my emails. I hope that is the case. What a shame if our situation isn’t of interest to TED as a demonstration of intent to be better than the take the critics have. I am not your enemy and I would be happy to be engaged in restoring TED to previous glory as a paragon of forward thinking.
The perpetration against me was so gross that it would not serve the world to which we are devoted to leave it unaddressed, where there is taint in the air for my speakers and myself. It is so cut and dried that you acted inappropriately that anybody who looks at what went on would support me. So, if TED continues to shine me on I’ll take the case to the public.
It is an antithesis to what we are all about to be combatants, but actions get reactions and your heads in the sand will see me shining a spotlight on our affairs. If cooperation is not to be, I will move on my own. This will be my last attempt to enroll TED in acting jointly with me before I go into independent action.
Hoping to hear back…
Suzanne Taylor
Events and projects that can shift our awareness
Ex TEDxWestHollywood Event Coordinator
www.BrotherCanYouSpareaParadigm.com
www.Facebook.com/TedxWestHollywood
Producer/Director
What On Earth? Inside the Crop Circle Mystery
www.CropCircleMovie.com
www.TheConversation.org
www.Facebook.com/CropCircleMovie
“Whether designed by nature or by little green men
they make you want to believe.” —New York Times
From: theamoebanetwork@gmail.com [mailto:theamoebanetwork@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 1:51 PM
To: theamoebanetwork@gmail.com
Subject: TEDx Speaker’s Priceless Talk about how TED Talks are worthless! Break out the champagne and let’s celebrate!
I hope you have seen this wonderful presentation from TEDx. And, by the way, I absolutely DESPISE all things TED, TEDx, and their attitude.
It’s about time something new and better arrive, something with tangible realities, evidence-based information, real solutions….not the inflated egomaniacs and sycophants at TED and TEDx. Guess what? It is. Hush! Don’t tell the neighbors…..
TEDx Speaker Gives Priceless Talk About How TED Talks Are Worthless
With all due respect to Lizzie Velasquez, the vast majority of TED and TEDx talks are complete bullshit, and it’s high time someone called them out on it.
Benjamin Bratton, Associate Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego, has a huge problem with TED, and he isn’t afraid to tell them so right to their face.
At a recent TEDx event in San Diego, Bratton delivered a talk called, “What’s Wrong with TED Talks?”
“The first reason is over-simplification,” Bratton says at the start of his speech. “To be clear, I have nothing against the idea of interesting people who do smart things explaining their work doing in a way that everyone can understand, but TED goes way beyond that.”
Bratton then launches into a terrifying anecdote to explain what he means:
“I was recently at a presentation that a friend, an astrophysicist, was making to a potential donor, and I thought this talk was lucid, and engaging, and I’m a professor of visual arts here at UC San Diego so at the end of the day, I know really nothing about astrophysics. The donor, however, said, ‘You know what, I’m gonna pass. I’m just not inspired. You should be more like Malcolm Gladwell.’”
Bratton was livid. “Can you imagine? A scientist who creates real knowledge should be more like a journalist who recycles fake insights. This is not popularization. This is taking something with substance and value and coring it out so that it can be swallowed without chewing. This is not how we’ll confront one of our most frightening problems — this is one of our most frightening problems.”
You should absolutely watch the entire talk, but if you’re short on time, just read the full text of Bratton’s “take away”:
As for one simple take away … I don’t have one simple take away, one magic idea. That’s kind of the point…
‘Innovation’ defined as moving the pieces around and adding more processing power is not some Big Idea that will disrupt a broken status quo: that precisely is the broken status quo.
One TED speaker said, recently, “If you remove this boundary … The only boundary left is our imagination.” Wrong.
If we really want transformation, we have to slog through the hard stuff (history, economics, philosophy, art, ambiguities, contradictions). Bracketing it off to the side to focus just on technology, or just on innovation, actually prevents transformation.
Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us. This is not about ‘personal stories of inspiration,’ it’s about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and reconceptualization: the hard stuff that really changes how we think. More Copernicus, less Tony Robbins.
The statements Russell Targ and Larry Dossey made in 2013 after being named suspect by TED in the West Hollywood program:
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