TED Talk Tuesday: Who Controls the World?

James Glattfelder uses principles from the world of physics to explore the complexity of the global economy. It all sounds kind of geeky, but it’s intriguing nonetheless. As I listen to Glattfelder explain the way control works in this complex system, I can’t help but wonder about the potential results of similar research in the social arena.

By “social,” I’m not talking about Facebook and Twitter, but about churches, non-profits, NGOs and the like. If similar data was collected and the connections or interactions charted, would we find the social world similarly connected, or would the graph look completely different? Would United Way, the Red Cross and USAID be in the power center, or would it all point back to government superpowers and the money they are pouring into the “system”?

I don’t know the answer and I don’t have the brains or the cash to do the research, but if there’s anybody out there willing, I would love to see the results. I’m writing this today from Kenya, where thousands upon thousands of organizations are trying their best to “help,” with many doing the same things for some of the same people. My fear is that, rather than being too interconnected (like the global economic system) that the social system is too independent. I’m afraid that our connections are too weak, our power holders too aloof and our output measurements focused on all the wrong things.

I would love to see the numbers.

TED Talk Tuesday: Human Lab Rats

First, let me say that “Human Lab Rats” is not the official title of this talk, but as I listened to Boghuma Kabisen’s presentation, that was the only phrase I could think of do describe what is occurring in many parts of the developing world. On the surface, these clinical trials seems great – searching for a cure and providing free medication to patients who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

The problem, of course, is that many of these research efforts are not driven as much by a desire to help people as they are a desire to publish papers, secure grants, build egos and, ultimately, to generate billions of dollars in revenue for pharmaceutical companies. Here in the U.S. and in Europe, we sometimes hear of a clinical trial that put people at significant and undisclosed risk. How much more is that occurring in countries where sick, uneducated, trusting souls are being administered these medications without any real understanding of what is going on?

That a researcher, whether independent, university or corporate, would then leave patients, essentially, to die once the research was completed, says that they fail to value the lives that they are supposed to be saving. Perhaps they see these patients not as people at all, but as “subjects” of experimentation.

I’ve walked and talked with desperate people – in Africa and in other parts of the world. If you offer the possibility of improving their life – if even a glimmer of hope – they will follow after you begging for you to give them what you’ve got. To take advantage of these people is to devalue them in ways that harken back to the days of slavery and colonialism. It reduces them to “less than human” – rats in a lab set up for the purpose of swelling egos and fattening wallets.

Surely we can do better.

TED Talk Tuesday: 10 Mindful Minutes

Andy Puddicombe’s time as a monk caused him to come up with an interesting theory – that the key to happiness might just be found in doing nothing. Though he doesn’t offer any specific meditation techniques, I think this is still a significant thought process to consider.

Through an effective illustration, Andy, shows us how one thought or series of thoughts can distract us and how, if we can take a step back and do nothing for 10 minutes, allowing our mind to, in a sense, see itself, we might be able to see the distraction for what it is and to put it in its proper place.

Perhaps this talk struck me because of a recent experience I had. It was a particularly taxing day – one of those days when everything seems to be hitting the fan at once. The hiccups had become speed bumps and then turned into walls. My anxiety was high and my productivity was low. Then, somewhat unintentionally, I did exactly what Andy suggests. I did nothing – I shut down in a way that I don’t know if I’ve ever done before.

However, the result of that 5 or 10 minutes of shutting down was that I emerged with real clarity. Suddenly, I recognized what I was able to have some control over and what I wasn’t, what I was able to change and what I wasn’t and what could be worked out, if not today, then eventually. 10 minutes of nothing resulted in a complete 180 of my day – from anxious to motivated, disheartened to encouraged. I don’t know, maybe there’s something to it.

TED Talk Tuesday: How Great Leaders Inspire Action

In this talk, Simon Sinek shares the very simple secret to the success of some of the greatest business and civic leaders of all time. In the end, he says, it comes down to “Why?”

As I listened to Sinek speak, I became acutely aware that most churches and most followers of Jesus fail horribly in this area. The people with greatest why in all of history so often begin by talking about the what. Even the most faithful among us talk about their actions rather than their motivations.

In our church, it’s easy to talk about what we do. We do a lot of really great things! And we know our motivations, but, so often we (or at least, I) fail to tell others exactly what those motivations are. Consider these two sentences:

We went out this weekend and served meals to people in our community who needed food and they were extremely grateful!

versus

We believe that God loves every single person with a passion that is greater even than the love we have for ourselves – a passion that drives us to work toward justice, opportunity and a better life for all people.

You see, what we do is important, but people need to hear the why.

TED Talk Tuesday: The Future of Lying

“People lie for a reason,” or so says Jeff Hancock. And I think that’s true. Self-preservation and ego stand out to me as two reasons that people frequently lie. The question presented here, for me, is not why we lie or even how we lie (though that is Hancock’s focus). The question that interests me most is what are the consequences of our lies.

As Hancock alludes to, people for many centuries lied because it was very unlikely that they would be caught. Think back a few months to the U.S. Presidential elections. In those elections, as in most recent elections, you had people lying and being caught in their lies. Rewind 100 years and I’m guessing there was just as much, possibly more, lying. But what were the chances they were going to get caught? A politician could say one thing in one town and another thing in another town and it was highly unlikely that either town would be the wiser.

Today, all of that has changed. We live in an information-saturated society. Everybody is a writer, everybody a videographer, everybody a reporter. There is so much information out there about any given subject that you can Google almost any question and come up with an answer. And we are only increasing in this information output and consumption.

I recently read of two devices being developed for “life logging” – that is, recording nearly everything that happens in a person’s life. The current devices do this by taking photographs at short intervals – say, every 30 seconds – in order to catalog your day. Future devices will, no doubt, include video, audio and perhaps other atmospheric, biological or geographical data. In short, we are nearing a place where one will be able to have a searchable database of the occurrences of their life.

So, back to my question: What are the consequences of lying? Well, obviously, the more information that is available, the more difficult the ruse. The consequences of even the smallest lie could be catastrophic if there is a mountain of evidence that we, in fact, lied. In that sense, perhaps Hancock is right. Maybe the internet is making us more honest. Here’s to hope that theory holds true for politicians in the near future!

TED Talk Tuesday: Shut Up and Listen!

How can we change the world? The answer is simple: we can’t. The world must change itself. More precisely, the people of the world must be the agents of change to bring justice and opportunity around the globe.

Perhaps it would be beneficial (although probably not) if the people of Africa, for example, would just listen and follow the instructions of some foreigner coming in to tell them how to grow food, start businesses, care for their families, etc. The problem is, the people of Africa, Asia and anywhere else don’t want someone else to tell them how to live their lives.

Imagine that scenario happening to you. Let’s say some stranger arrives in your community from some foreign land. This person is very successful and she wants to give you the keys to be just as successful. First, you must embrace some communist ideas, including the suppression of free speech. Second, you must force out of your neighborhood any neighbor who disagrees with you. Third, you must wholly submit yourself to this woman’s authority. Are you interested in obtaining success through her methods?

Most of us would say no. And yet, this is the kind of thinking that we so often subject others to. In the name of trying to help them, we are actually trying to “convert” them – to a way of thinking, to a culture very different from their own. We have a lot of great ideas – ideas that are born out of our culture and our experience – but we fail to take into account the culture (which goes back thousands of years prior to ours) and the collective experiences of these people.

One of the keys, I believe, to working with people around the world is to understand that they aren’t less intelligent, less skilled or less able than us and ours is not and should not be a teacher/student, master/servant or parent/child relationship. We are brothers and sisters – each one learning from the other, each one giving and receiving and each one sharing from our own unique perspective.

If we want to help others, we need to take Dr. Sirolli’s advice. We need to shut up and listen!

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