1. Focusing on Renata Salecl’s TED Talk, I thought her initial introduction into her presentation about “Our Unhealthy Obsession with Choice” was captivating. By engaging the audience into her struggle with choosing a quote to introduce her presentation, already introduced her topic of conversation in such a relatable and understanding way. Elaborating on her own struggle with making a choice, she was then able to flow straight into her perspective on how choices bring about feelings of anxiety, guilt, and inadequacy if the “wrong choice” is made. I think it was interesting for Renata to lead with her own struggle with choice, as she exemplifies the negatives of human’s ideology of choice throughout her TED Talk. Providing scenarios, such as Manya and her car business, provide a real life scenario that any business owner or customer could place themselves into. The way she spoke about choice is linked to risk, and how taking a chance can be anxiety-provoking, had me, an audience member, consider some of the risks and choices or chances I have taken and I further asked myself why I took them. But I eventually went even further to then ask myself how I really felt when making those decisions and hr descriptions of fear and anxiety resonated with me, because I could clearly remember bearing those feelings.
2. Focusing on Margaret Heffernan’s TED Talk about “The Human Skills We Need in an Unpredictable World”, I found that the evidence she used to be rather interesting. Her argument, about the world dealing with the unpredictable, was a conversation that I was initially drawn to, as this was something I had never really thought about when considering the efficiency of businesses and what they aim to predict. In her argument, I think that the evidence she used was rather compelling. Using CEPI, she exclaims how there is a prediction for future epidemics, but how does one prepare for the right one? Looking at reality as seeing the pandemic we are currently still trying to manage, I don’t think any human could have accurately predicted how detrimental this would be, as coronavirus has effected the entire globe. Turning her topic towards climate change, she then examines how certainly there are countries who are trying to combat this change within their territories but how can one predict that their change will in turn be enough to aid in the halting of climate change. Using other examples of country’s initiatives such as the Netherlands and England show that there is some means to actually experiment and test a hypothesis instead of computer analyzing what could possibly occur. This growing use of technology may have his benefits, but Margaret questions the ability for technology to always have the answer.
I agree that Salecl opening up and being honest with the audience while also connecting how others may feel to how the audience may feel. I too felt connected to what she was saying and even related some of what she had to say to my life. It also made me question why I put so much pressure on myself and making decisions.
I feel like the way Salecl opened up her Ted Talk was very powerful, I feel like it is important to connect with the audience early like you said to get the audience intrigued early on. In addition, adding personal stories is a very effective way as well. For the second question, that Ted Talk was really interesting, her point about the world being very unpredictable and using evidence for that really caught my attention.
I wrote something similar in relation to how Raneta introduced the TED Talk and how engaging her approach was. She seemed like she was able to hold the room and draw the audience in with every single sentence. Talking about choice is a familiar topic but describing it as an “unhealthy obsession” and then discussing the topics of risk and anxiety was out of my comfort zone which is why I loved her video so much.
One of the key elements for us to consider for any text is *kairos*–basically the circumstances that give rise to this particular text at this particular time, the context that moves the writer to write. When we understand that, we can better understand what they produce.
In the case of Heffernan’s TED talk, it’s important to note that the talk is a year old. It seems very timely, addressing disease outbreaks, but it’s not produced by this pandemic moment, but rather is more abstract. She’s moved by a larger kind of puzzle–exploring the idea of what can and cannot be regimented through technology–and we need to understand that.