The Power of Unconventional Thinking | David McWilliams | TED

[@martingoldfire]

An hour ago I had a conversation about how nobody saw the problems of the world and said something like I would have, and the feeling of powerlessness I felt not having an audience that would listen. I never understood how other people thought, because my perspective taught me lessons they didn't know could be had, leaving them blind to solutions I saw as obvious. The last few years I've walked my own path, cutting ties with society, trying to change my way of thinking even more, so that I might write something that would make a change. But there are few who listen to understand, most just reject new ideas without contemplation, saying I can't change the world. But I can, and I will, when I find the medium that will allow my vision to spread✌️💚🖖

[@cathw263]

"The worst people will win the day because the best people back away from the responsibility." Yes, it's important we stand up for justice and take responsibility when needed.

[@dameanvil]

01:37 🔄 Economists and poets have different perspectives on crises. Economists rely on data and models, while poets think unconventionally and see possibilities in times of change. 05:40 💡 Historical events often prove poets right and economists wrong. For example, Yeats' prediction about the unraveling of societies was validated by the rise of leaders like Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler. 10:38 👥 Groupthink in institutions hinders diversity of thought. Hiring practices tend to favor those who think similarly, leading to overconfidence and a lack of critical thinking. 14:14 💔 The 2008 financial crisis exposed the limitations of conventional economic thinking. Most economists failed to anticipate the crisis, highlighting the need for alternative perspectives. 17:52 📚 Embracing unconventional thinkers, such as poets, artists, and musicians, can provide valuable insights into understanding and addressing complex global challenges.

[@VasVordokas]

“There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen”…..what a quote!

[@samucarvajal-art]

Excellent talk. A reminisce of what the spirit of TED used to be: fun, engaging, and from the heart.

[@SamsonFernendez]

One of the best TEDs in some time; in a long time.

[@chrisbeeken]

Was refreshing, for sure

[@MapleHillMunitions]

Agreed.

[@thepragmaticfarmer6308]

I was thinking the same thing and thought maybe it was just me!

[@MapleSyrup6996]

Very much agreed

[@shadabfariduddin6784]

Agreed

[@0b1010-k]

The best Ted talk since the late great Sir Ken Robinson. I wouldn’t be surprised if this goes in to be one of the most watched TED’s 🙌🏻

[@chrisbeeken]

Embrace individuality like this guy did

[@niallcarberry2306]

Very much enjoyed and benefited from this talk. His and John’s podcast has been such a positive addition to my day to day life despite the fact it often infuriates me due to the topics in focus. Appreciate David’s humour and agree with most of what he says. Maybe I love an echo chamber. Potentially guilty

[@pif5023]

Finally someone who is saying something I can recognize in my experience. Good luck telling those smart boys that even though their ideas have internal coherence they have not emerged from the observed reality of the moment but from their memory and forced somehow onto what’s going on afterwards. They are now the people in power.

[@lynottlives]

Fair play Macker. Fantastic TED talk.

[@kingofcelts]

As a Taxi driver in Dublin I can safely say, he's one of the nicest individuals I've ever talked to..!

[@YLIU]

It totally how I felt when working in a bank, full of people who think they are smart. Yes, comparing to average people they were smart when getting in that institution. After getting in, over-confidence is the only thing left over time. They stop to embrace more possibilities, cuz it's too hard. and love the solution that he brings to this talk is to listen more to poets, musicians, artists for not losing the ability of unconventional thinking. I think we all have that when we were kids, we just ignored and chose to follow when growing up.

[@jensenraylight8011]

Just like the Recent FTX scandal, nobody saw it coming, not even the prestigious & well educated investors. Sequoia, Softbank, Blackrock, all blindly invested their money into FTX.

[@neonite100]

Great Ted Talk D McW. Talking to him once in a Dublin Hotel about an impending property crash. He was quoting lines from the film 'A Few Good Men' - 'They can't handle the truth' he was referring to Bankers. Had me in stitches :-)

[@NovoMvndo]

This talk remember me two things about Hayek (he was an economist): first is a quote "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." and second is the name of the chapter 10 from the book road of Serfdom is " Why the worst get on top".

[@johnfallon4319]

Just come straight across from listening to the live Kilkenomics Podcast, David is brilliant!

[@Breffni12]

I'm a regular listener to the DMcW podcast and while I don't always agree with him, he is always entertaining and thought provoking. Great TED talk!

[@benjaminbis1327]

David McWilliams is a great thinker of the 21st century!!!

[@lindap.5120]

An excellent racist sexist thinker, if that's what appeals to you.

[@robert.dempsey]

Super stuff David. Friend of the podcast 🇮🇪

[@sydneybhoy]

Love this, the Leonard Cohen quote about the crack is amazing.

[@pif5023]

To my experience school rewards docility before thinking. They don’t teach you how to think, they teach you what to think.

[@rb10bird]

I’ve always viewed it as; they (school) teach you what to think but you decide how to think it

[@MerryBrains]

The Second Coming BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity

[@HolloMatlala1]

One explains what is in the head the other expresses what the heart is feeling

[@devmishra4131]

Amazing! I could get such useful knowledge in just some time

[@Andy-ix2ox]

Yes, but poets don’t control the world, economists do, at least financially! This is a very rare economist who can actually quote poetry most in my experience not only dismiss poetry, but also poets because few if any make any money from it.

[@Prometuis101]

​@freshpootubeactually the civil service is full of out of the box thinkers

[@Perfumedmemoirs]

Absolutely brilliantly put. One of the best Ted talks I’ve heard in a long while! Well done 👏🏽

[@danijelacrljen4111]

Simply amazing!

[@efazshikder182]

Think it's for the better that this talk concluded the conference.

[@thisisntallowed9560]

People who suceed in the system won't negatively criticize the system.

[@CiaranMeagher]

Excellent TED Talk, David.

[@jakewalsh7220]

There might be a misunderstanding at work here. At this stage of his life, Yeats was an opponent of the rise of democracy which he saw as elevating those with "passionate intensity" to power and he actually welcomed the advent of Mussolini to office in Italy. His own belief was in a form of oligarchical government drawn from those like himself with lineage resembling a form of aristocracy, hence his emphasis on the Butler part of his name which he imagined gave him ancestry to the Butler Earls of Ormonde - later, he moderated his views but still welcomed the arrival of De Valera to power in Ireland in 1932, speculating that he might provide the kind of "strong man" leadership which he thought was lacking in the Irish Free State of the preceding 1920s...

[@efiglez7122]

Great point of view! Thank you!

[@SkyeRangerNick]

Impressed. Relevant.

[@JoyKingCorbett]

Nice one. Love your podcasts too.

[@mpfelipa]

Excellent talk!

[@andycordy5190]

An abiding genius of Canadian extraction, artist/poet, social critic, set Yates almost word for word in "Slouching towards Bethlehem", and the subtle mis quotation here suggests that David knows the flow of Joni Mitchell well. As visual artist and cynic, I would add to this wonderful dissection of exactly what is wrong with the whole of authority across the world and tragically for the UK, that art is by no means an insurance against the appalling arrogance of the patriarchy. Artists of some considerable genius fêted with the same affirmative positivity, are won't to ally themselves with the system, philosophically as well as in seeking material gain. Being able to see past the throng into the cracks is no guarantee that the vision that we have of the future is to the benefit of all. Perhaps Albert Speer, Hitler's favourite architect and later minister of Munitions will serve as an example or maybe the visionary film maker Leni Riefenstahl. First find your genius.

[@MarsorryIckuatuna]

Thank you 🙏 awesome Talk!

[@Njukimungaiizme]

Way to be a trailblazer 👌🏼

[@KrishnaPriyaS9]

Much needed one❤

[@robertphelan3709]

Excellent 👏👏

[@WillieBrooks-g6g]

Look into the Cracks! You learn me something! Great. Presentation! Many. Thanks!🎈

[@JeremyHelm]

8:41 the inverse is true too - the credentialed dunning kruger 8:54

[@JeremyHelm]

11:16, 11:22, 11:29 ah, he uses that term for overconfidence too

[@JeremyHelm]

12:44 oh brother 13:05 - 13:22 gender bias

[@johnyeomans6909]

prophetic in retrospect, the passionate victors trump the best who lacked conviction.

[@dallenpowell2745]

To change the world you must first be willing to change your mind.

[@pkonsec1065]

Great talk. His podcast is worth a follow too

[@englishwithtaryar6044]

Be your own boss! Listen to your heart! Ignite the light and fuel the flame! And set off ! Ignore those conventional mediocrites too!

[@mariaantoniettamontella9173]

bravo!

[@originalmal]

I’m in🤜🏽💥🤛🏾

[@browe]

Best. TED. Evar.

[@kdsagar4570]

Summary: Adapt thought-provoking thinking 🕊

[@sutharharsh5072]

It's cool session

[@rapierlynx]

To me, the best reply to Yeats is Wendell Berry February 2, 1968 In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.

[@johnfowlertrailrunning]

This seems so poignant, it’s so easy for the quiet thinkers to sit back and let things wash over them, feeling that there is little that can be achieved, including me in my late 50’s, but you’re so right, if we don’t stand up now, to confront the bluster and disinformation, then the future could get pretty damn grim.

[@MerryBrains]

In the choice between changing ones mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof. John Kenneth Galbraith

[@nl7247]

I have seem many of these people who finished their undergraduate, master, and phd before 30s and stunted in real world real jobs, failing to recognising why but feeling dissatisfied because their sense of entitlement.

[@DarkoNomad]

Education: Takes us away from nature and insists mostly us to verbal and written interactions while our senses, emotions and imagination is rapidly developing around that age. It's no wonder that today people believe data, media, marketing, religions and ideologies more then their own senses, empathize less with others and rely more on money then their cognitive and creative capabilities. No wonder why so many people are depressed, anxious and drowning in the screens these days. Education is more about the system then about the individual, it often forces us to learn subjects that we really have no interest in, while it ignores our talents that lay outside of them. I'd said that being conventional just means following the other ideas and interests rather then discovering your own. No wonder why so many people feel lost in their lives, careers and lack sense of purpose. Ironically, what was once purely natural, today is completely unconventional (even food, social interactions, dating, communication,...) True artists, visionaries, and creatives are free from these public perceptions because their senses, logic, ideas and will are usually stronger then conventional public perception.

[@aminkanji5074]

Now he is entertaining

[@beaglaoich4418]

He’s got a podcast on Spotify if you want more

[@jasemalhammadi4228]

Does that sound more like Fredrick nietzsche’s philosophy? Passion rather than reason.

[@ChomiC33]

🔥🔥🔥

[@nealesmith1873]

Education being all memorization is a myth...writing and mathematics require a lot more than a good memory.

[@patriciarey6267]

Subtitulos en Español please

[@catedoge3206]

real.

[@MariaCabansag-ry9xc]

1st

[@bal6464]

feel sorry for him but hey one example what could happen to all of us or not

[@beaglaoich4418]

Why are you sorry for him?

[@RanXie-dm2un]

省流：肉食者鄙，未能远谋

[@emeraldandblue]

5min ago

[@Milan9Zlatangoogle]

He butchered Tyson's quote.

[@healthdoc]

What’s wrong with the grownups?

[@jaredhappy881]

Do they use laugh tracks?

[@Li-nf2gz]

Do you "value the unconventional thinker" clearly not if you don't understand Bitcoin

[@catedoge3206]

amazing story talker. pace?!? dynamics?!? amazing

[@radhaor]

The Irish are natural gifted story tellers...you see it everywhere here

[@beaglaoich4418]

If you’d like more he has a podcasts on Spotify and some content on here too from before that

[@mehulbhavsar1503]

"There is a crack in everything, and that is how the lights get in" 🤍

[@nhanthanh303]

One of the best TEDs in some time; in a long time.