HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

One sentence per line makes prose feel sanctimonious, even self-aggrandizing. I find this dude's writing un-readable for exactly this reason. All of his articles are like HTML versions of the Ducks Go Quack TED Talk [0]. I just roll my eyes.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

⬐ kuhzaam

In his defense, he is saying to write "one sentence per line" only _while_ you are writing/editing. He says this is "for your eyes only", and that you'll recombine into paragraphs afterwards.

I think the idea is that, if your sentence can stand up to the added scrutiny you'll give it while seeing it sitting all alone, then it is worth keeping. Otherwise it is a wasteful sentence.

Anyway, I do agree that the actual "one sentence per line" prose that is so pervasive on places like LinkedIn is awful.

⬐ Semiapies

At this point, I think it's wasted breath to try to respond to the people who skim over articles without comprehension (or who don't appear to read the articles at all) and who instead just respond to the title.

⬐ preseinger

I understand the difference between one line per sentence at the source level, and at the presentation layer. As far as I can tell, articles on sivers.org demonstrate both.

⬐ Enginerrrd

I think the advice is still useful for editing. Personally, I'd add the extra step of re-consolidating the sentences into paragraphs after going through this editing phase though. That said, I do a lot of technical writing and I often find paragraphs with fewer sentences are my better written paragraphs.

⬐ __MatrixMan__

I'd argue that the job of clumping adjacent sentences together into paragraphs is a job for whatever builds/renders the writing, not for the writer.

⬐ preseinger

(laughs) what??

Paragraphs — like punctuation, grammar, syncopation, etc. etc. — express semantic intent. They're not, like, type faces. They're one of the tools that ·authors· use to communicate meaning.

⬐ CoryAlexMartin

I also find his writing very unnatural and hard to read. It makes me seriously doubt his method, which he claims he's been using for twenty years.

The first thing that stood out to me was the robotic nature of his writing. It seems like he's going so far out of his way to remove "unnecessary" words from sentences, and remove "unnecessary" sentences from his paragraphs, and to stringently vary his sentence lengths, that he winds up writing unnatural language. If you write in a way people aren't accustomed to, your readers are going to have a harder time understanding you.

"Sometimes short. Sometimes long." "Cut three lines. Paste them up above."

This isn't how English is used.

There are some great TED[x] talks, like "Ducks Go Quack, Chickens Say Cluck":

https://youtu.be/tom6_ceTu9s

And "How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk":

https://youtu.be/8S0FDjFBj8o

This pretty much sums up my thoughts about TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

⬐ baxtr

Hilarious!

Related to Ted-talk disease: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

The Youtube comments enhance the experience.

"TED’s is the language and tone of the pitch. It’s a style that comes from corporate conference rooms, where product ideas are pitched to potential investors."

Someone in HN linked this in a previous discussion about TED, but especially with that quote in the piece it's even more a dead-on satire home run from the Onion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s Part of a series though my impression was that it's the same basic joke over and over... still, for at least one iteration, it's dead-on, and this is probably the most pure illustration of just the form in that series, with no content, for the author's point.

⬐ pazimzadeh

I prefer Reggie Watts' take https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdHK_r9RXTc

⬐ MCRed

I criticized TED years ago on Twitter, and someone responded to me (who had gone) about how life changing it was and how she was motivated and now was going to really make a difference the world. I challenged her on this and said "honestly, what are the odds that you're going to do anything?" She was certain that TED was significant and she was empowered and she was going to make a difference.

Now, I use Twitter so rarely (in part because of that kind of exchange-- I wasn't rude to her at all, I was just trying to make my case) -- that going back it was easy to see years later if she'd actually done anything. I checked, googled her name, nothing.

TED made her feel a certain way. Important for sure. She was very full of herself and she felt that TED was a place of rate "doers" who "will make a dent on the universe" (this was before TEDx, before TED videos when you had to pay boucoup bucks and be part of the special group of invitees in order to go, IIRC)....

She paid 5 figures to TED for a weekend seminar, at the end of which her self esteem was boosted (don't think it needed it) into the range of smugness and she felt it was important.

I disagree. I think it was an ego stroker and she accomplished nothing (and based on what she said I can conclude this from google searches because she didn't do any of the things she said she would do.)

I didn't write back to her to point this out... but this was my little ad hoc experiment.

I remember when I first heard of an acquaintance who got invited to TED and how supremely smug he was when he got back, and how he'd share little stories of rubbing elbows with celebrities and references to events.... I've never been a fan of exclusivity and so that sorta made me jealous and not really like it. But over the years it became more and more irritating.

TED is propaganda. Propaganda of high form.

I think americans are so saturated in propaganda that like a fish who can't recognize water as a thing, Americans don't realize how much of their beliefs and perspectives are shaped by propaganda. When they see propaganda that disagrees with the propaganda they've internalized they react really negatively, and not in a critical thinking here's how it's wrong from a logical basis-- but from a tribal get-rid-of-the-alien perspective.

It's important to stay out of dogma. Something that makes you feel good about yourself and important should be considered critically. IT might be healthy, and it might not be.

I think TED is unhealthy and actually corrosive and anti-intellectual.

⬐ richmarr

> I think TED is unhealthy and actually corrosive and anti-intellectual.

You could also say the same about framing an anecdote as an experiment. Just sayin.

⬐ rudimental

'TED is propaganda. Propaganda of high form.'

Could you elaborate on what you mean here? E.g. propaganda trying to convince people what?

⬐ 6stringmerc

Thanks for sharing your experience. It strikes a chord based on my own professional and academic background, in that I've attended conferences. The nature of conferences are to, basically, advance learning and sharing in a collective format. TED is about consuming something being pitched. Very different. In a way, TED is like watching television, and actual intellectualism is like visiting the library for a couple hours and browsing and reading. Or, as a famous movie character once said..."See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life: one, don't do that, and two, you dropped 150 grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!"

⬐ to3m

See also: http://www.codersnotes.com/ted/

⬐ None

None

⬐ santaclaus

So good! That could be a fun public speaking exercise, give an inspiring talk without actually saying anything.

⬐ vijayr

Hahaha, just watched a couple of the onion talks - hilarious. There goes my next hour. Thank you for the link.

⬐ nostrademons

Fascinating. It reminds me of this eternal question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE

⬐ wodenokoto

There's an actual TED talk like this.

http://virates.com/society/1486101

⬐ jerf

Thank you, that's better than the Onion link. TEDx, for what it's worth.

⬐ None

None

⬐ teh_klev

Direct link to YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=17&v=ToJD5r2SmwI

I will say, this TED talk improved my life immeasurably, if only for two minutes and fifty eight seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

⬐ sb057

I'm personally a bigger fan of how Sam Hyde explains how the future will change within our lifetimes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cflCyyEA2I

⬐ ffn

Hey... wait a minute... something seems oddly off about that Ted Talk. I mean it's really deep and my life was irreversibly changed afterwards, sure, but something seemed off about that particular Ted Talk you linked.

⬐ delish

I watch this Reggie Watts talk when I need a pick-me-up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdHK_r9RXTc

⬐ adriand

Simply brilliant. I understand some of the criticism of TED but I've seen stuff - like this clip - that is so damn good, I don't really see what all the fuss is about.

And since we're talking about Reggie Watts, I have to share my fave of his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bLFO4ZV0i4

For reference, the linked (and hilarious) Onion Talks video is satire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

But the blog post itself isn't. Or at least I'm not sure how quotes like "TED Talks are designed more to create an experience of feeling enlightened than to actually enlighten" could be considered satire.

I agree TED is a bit of a nexus for it. In my circles I see a sort of backlash (or maybe, better, buyer's remorse) directed at TED being fairly broad, hitting many people who wouldn't read more than a few sentences of Morozov. But then Morozov thrusts a dagger into that wound for a subset of people. For people who never liked any of that stuff and just think society is going downhill with all this technological nonsense, Morozov has less appeal, because you've already got Nicholas Carr and many other people for that angle.

You mention ideas vs. packaging/motives, but I think I've gotten more skeptical about the style of idea as well. Skepticism of the marketing/book/speaking-tour angle probably plays a role in that, but the ideas increasingly seem sort of fluffy. I like to think TED was better back when I was more positive on it, but I've re-watched a few older talks I recall liking, and they seem to have aged poorly, at least for me. I don't have anything against popularizing science, but I can't find much in the TED archives anymore that reminds me of what I think of as good popularized science, up to the gold standard of a Carl Sagan. It more often reminds me of motivational speakers and self-help gurus, the kinds of ideas you see on a CNN segment or something: new science says [amazing revelation that will change your life]. The Onion parody floating around [1] caricatures some of the rhetorical style pretty well. The style somehow seemed fresh at the time, but looking back on older TED talks now, they seem not all that different from stuff I was already familiar with earlier, a certain genre of lightly science-flavored "idea" stuff that's existed since at least the '70s. Maybe with better production values— some of the '70s stuff seems a lot more embarrassing even now.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

⬐ tunesmith

That's a really interesting point, I hadn't considered that before now. There are a couple that I still really like, but I also think many of them legitimately were more interesting than they would be now - not because their information is dated, but maybe just because people have more connected knowledge bases now...?

The Onion does a really good series called "Onion Talks" that satirizes the vapidness of TED talks. They also capture the audiences' "inspired" reactions pretty well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s

⬐ ben1040

This is great. I cracked up at this, and this particular one is also likely to be the only Onion content that is not only age-appropriate for my toddler but also educational.

The Onion recently began parodying TED talks. This one is my favorite so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tom6_ceTu9s .

The Onion parodies are definitely not entirely fair, but they do a good job of pointing out that a lot of TED talks are definitely more on the aspirational side of things. I've definitely seen a few TED talks where the speakers' abilities basically covered up the fact that they weren't actually saying anything. I was kind of heartened to see the onion parodies, because I had wondered if I was the only one whose bs detectors were going off.

This isn't to say you should be dismissive of TED talks out of hand, or that they're all crap, or anything. I actually think that if they didn't let a few bs-ers in it would be a sign that they weren't taking enough risks.

But it is important to keep in mind that some talks are little more than hand waving. And you definitely shouldn't automatically assume it's brilliant just because it has the TED brand behind it.

⬐ tokipin

i more or less lost respect for TED a couple years ago

⬐ simonebrunozzi

Me too, more or less. Sad.

⬐ freshhawk

I think the social media Onion talk (http://youtu.be/CK62I-4cuSY) is the most relevant to HN (and my favourite).

You are definitely not the only one who's BS detector was going off. I find that TED has about the same number of good talks per year as it used to. And about 10 times more talks per year than it used to. That's not even counting the cesspool that TEDx has become.