Comments on: Highlights from TED 2010: Day Two

By: The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, & Human Evolution | matetip.com

The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, & Human Evolution | matetip.com — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 23:51:07 +0000

[...] to the “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” theory, this, it turns out, may not be the case. Earlier this year, we had the fortune of seeing Arts & Letters Daily editor and philosopher Denis Dutton give [...]

By: musafir

musafir — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:30:00 +0000

I recently finished reading through your blog and I’m very
impressed. I do have a couple questions for you personally however. Do you
think you’re thinking about doing a follow-up posting about this? Will you be
going to keep bringing up-to-date as well?

horse riding

By: Jane McGonigal on Gaming for Productivity | Brain Pickings

Jane McGonigal on Gaming for Productivity | Brain Pickings — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 17:46:28 +0000

[...] School’s latest speaker was acclaimed game designer Jane McGonigal, who delivered one of our favorite TED talks this year — a provocative perspective on gaming and how it could change the world. In her [...]

By: Opening Lines: How Famous Creators Got Their Start | Brain Pickings

Opening Lines: How Famous Creators Got Their Start | Brain Pickings — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 23:31:36 +0000

[...] today’s most robust reservoir of human knowledge; artist Raghava KK, whom we saw speak at TED this year; how Malcolm X battled a cornucopia of addictions to unearth his true calling and become one of the [...]

By: What the world needs now is an epic win! « Canguru

What the world needs now is an epic win! « Canguru — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:34:42 +0000

[...] http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2010/02/12/ted-2010-highlights-2/ [...]

By: The Wisdom of Whores « ligress

The Wisdom of Whores « ligress — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:45:10 +0000

[...] across Elizabeth Pisani’s recent book via a TED-related post on the notoriously interesting Brainpickings. Wisdom of Whores is a book that will pretty much pull your head apart with mindblowing stats about [...]

By: Buck Smith

Buck Smith — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:53:31 +0000

Maria, OK will do. I contribute to an anti-slavery organization so I guess it is a hot button for me.

By: Maria Popova

Maria Popova — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:07:00 +0000

Buck,

In all fairness, we’re offering very condensed and thus limited coverage here. I’d encourage you to wait and watch Bales’ talk when it’s uploaded to TED.com — I’d hate to see people jumping to conclusions and overlooking the complexity of his arguments based on a single quote from an 18-minute talk. Cheers.

By: Buck Smith

Buck Smith — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:47:38 +0000

‘What enables slavery is the absence of the rule of law. It lets people use violence with impunity.’ ~ Kevin Bales

I am not buying this. Law in the Sudan and Mauritania allows slavery, as does centuries of tradition, reinforced by religious belief and teaching. The number of slaves worldwide is way more than 27,000. Estimates of number of slaves in Mauritania alone are as high as half a million.

The idea that buying slaves and manumitting them will end slavery is naive. You buy slaves and free them and you may create a free person, but you also create a slave trader. You want to free slaves, google William T Sherman.