The Exceptional Diatribe
You guys know about TED, right? Only the smartest people talking about the smartest, most relevant things ever, collected in free video online. I’ve never, ever seen a TED video that didn’t pop my eyes and drop my jaw and change something about my thinking forever.
Today, I have to recommend this one, which literally made me stand up and cheer. James Howard Kunstler, who will impress the crap out of you, gives this amazing talk about urban design and suburban sprawl — in fact, he re-names the benevolent-sounding “sprawl” with what is now one of my favorite phrases ever: “Techgnosis Externality Clusterfuck”.
If that’s not a band name, it needs to be.
NOW WATCH.
And you people I know that are into architecture and community design had better take notes!!
Other fantastic quotes from this 15-minute long gem include:
“No amount or combination of alternative fuels is going to allow us to continue doing what we’re doing” –amen, brother, it’s about darn time somebody popped the “we’re gonna be magically rescued” bubble–
and
“‘Consumers’ are different than ‘Citizens’. ‘Consumers’ do not have obligations, duties and responsibilities to their fellow human beings…” –thank you, words have power and the word “consumer” is doing things to us that we need to keep our eyes on–
AH, it’s just amazing stuff. I need to check out more TED videos! You’d think the fact that the few I’ve seen were fanfreakingtastic would be enough, but apparently I’m hard to motivate lately.
(This is so true, actually — I’ve been like some pissed-off bear stuck in a snowdrift the last week or two. But last night I cracked a book and saw a page that changed my whole outlook, and today will be different, however incrementally. Already is, actually. …It’s not rare for a book to be my savior, but it does impress me every time one does it.)
Lastly, thanks SO MUCH to benchilada for posting that video. If you’re not reading his blog, this is only a teeny slice of what you’re missing out on!
2 comments
If you’ve “never, ever seen a TED video that didn’t pop [your] eyes and drop [your] jaw and change something about [your] thinking forever”, then you haven’t seen enough of them, because some of them are really worthless, on several levels. Granted, the information in these specific talks has or had helped someone at some time, but before the information the information was distilled into the talk. I can’t think of any of the top off my head, but look through stuff posted in 2007, and you’re bound to find some. Also, the post-Talk videos where they wrap up the conference in a comedic montage of skits probably isn’t going to pop, drop, or open anything, escept your mouth, to laugh.
Somebody else as moved as I was! I saw this video as well, and every word is the truth. He’s brutally honest in the way that he states how everything should be and how it can happen, providing a livable outcome for the future. If you have been to the Netherlands, then you know that everything is as he said. There are open market areas where fruits and other wares are sold on weekends, everybody owns and uses a bicycle, every day. Children bike or walk to school, and everybody is friendly. That is how the world should be, a convenient and pleasant place to live, without the constant worry of global warming and pollution.