Speaker: David Rothkopf
TED2015
Date: March 2015
Location: Vancouver, BC
Description from TED website:
Does it seem like Washington has no new ideas? Instead of looking to build the future, it sometimes feels like the US political establishment happily retreats into fear and willful ignorance. Journalist David Rothkopf lays out a few of the major issues that US leadership is failing to address — from cybercrime to world-shaking new tech to the reality of modern total war — and calls for a new vision that sets fear aside.
My Review / Notes / Thoughts
There is a LOT of information packed into this 18-minute video. David’s talk is extremely thought-provoking, even five years later. Yes, we’ve seen changes in our government, nation, and the world since this talk was given, but there are still many issues he discusses that are still relevant today.
If you are an instructor in the fields of philosophy, science, technology, or government then this video is a great one for you to incorporate into your class to get your students talking and thinking about how they can apply their knowledge in the field to help improve the world in which we live. Get your students dialoguing about fundamental rights.
Some of his points of discussion that I found intriguing, and would make for some great discussion questions:
- If you can’t vote, if you can’t have a job, if you can’t bank, if you can’t get health care, if you can’t be educated without Internet access, is Internet access a fundamental right that should be written into constitutions?
- If Internet access is a fundamental right, is electricity access for the 1.2 billion who don’t have access to electricity a fundamental right?
Talk about digging into the issue of the digital divide! Which, by the way, has been made painfully obvious through this COVID-19 pandemic.
There are many more jewels of topics buried in his presentation, and I don’t want to give them all away. Instead, I recommend you go and watch the video for yourself and consider how you could potentially use this one video for many discussion topics in a multitude of fields of study.
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Rothkopf’s Books:
Until next time … live long life-learner!