TED Conference curator Chris Anderson leads a discussion on whether optimists or pessimist are right about the future during the TED Conference on April 12, 2018 in Vancouver, Canada. GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP/Getty Images
If the White House Correspondents Association is Nerd Prom, then surely TED is Nerd Woodstock.
Once a year, thinkers and doers congregate in Vancouver to fuel the mighty TED media machine by performing their greatest hits before an audience of 2,000 or so other doers and thinkers who think they should pay $10,000 or more for the privilege, and then do.
For four days, you’re awash in big ideas and audacious (the favorite word this year that’s being, um, leaned into) goals. Not to mention caffeine. God, so much caffeine. They had caffeinated water. Audacious!
So much caffeine. Rich Jaroslovsky for Observer
Other things happened too:
Like Her Boss, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell Is Skilled at Making Sweeping Predictions Devoid of Evidence or Plausibility
On rockets that fly between New York and Shanghai in an hour, for less than the current cost of a first-class airplane ticket: “Within a decade, for sure. It’s definitely going to happen.”
Everyone Hated on Facebook, But VR Pioneer Jaron Lanier Hated the Best
“I don’t call them social networks anymore. I call them behavior-modification networks.”
Even Really Smart People Can Feel Like Forrest Gump on the Bus
Attendee #1: “Is that seat taken?”
Attendee #2: “Yes.”
Attendee #1 (as he walks off): “It’s not OK to save seats, though.”
Everyone Familiar With the Blow-Up Doll In Airplane! Knows This One Is True
Following a presentation positing the feasibility of using self-flying drones to deliver commuters from home to work and back again: “We’ll have self-flying planes in common use before self-driving cars.
