Jonathan Zittrain: The Web as random acts of kindness

[drftme]

I love you internet

[ArlanBerglas]

World Peace One passing it forward

[stoddcrew]

19:00

Murder, yeah it can be funny.

[ZippoNick]

TED fucking rules.

Attending this conference would basically be the greatest moment of my life.

[pirenne]

genious.....OH MY GOD IM GONNA HAVE TO HIRE A FREEEEKING SPACE ENGINEER TO FREAKING FIND OUT HOW TO GRADE THIS VIDEO WITH FIVE STARS! THANK YOU SO MUCH YOUTUBE´S NEW CONFIGURATION!

by the way, i cant even get green thumbs up (my favorite part) :(

[IMLozsingMyMinD]

and chris angel ain't from heaven hes an alien..their real shit too!

[IMLozsingMyMinD]

uhh magic is real weve know about this shit for quite some time..its called karma bitch check it out!

[loobiroo]

Jonathan at his best!

[bummercucumber]

Absolutely brilliant.

[xxxrandomjamezxxx]

loved the vid,could you check mine out :) keep it up!

[Starstuff925]

nice =)

[Neelas12]

Why doesn´t this video have 3 million views? Everybody should watch this video and learn from it.

[essen961]

The geeky heart of mine got warmer. What a great talk.

[metrowog7]

Pretty amazing. Thank you TED, as usual.

[aberoki547]

pretty good!

[mrlowdangle]

of course, it people like him got control of the net, it would be run as a cash business, end free speech, and most likely die rather quickly!

Wikipedia is unacceptable to some,because even 'wacko's' who dont believe propaganda and lies can contibute to it! and we cant have that!

[AdamsJoshua85]

Rarely am I truly entertained. Thank you TED.

[simonbour]

brilliant

[ndjm00]

A young Brian Cowen!('',)

[caseyforever]

i've been a member of "couch surfing" for years. amazing. have met so many fun people and even one room mate that came from it! it strongly suggest it to everyone. meet great people, stay connected to the world, and it's EASY. you need to do NOTHING.

[ls1z28chris]

I'm in college studying network engineering right now. My dad has a Ph.D. in the field. Until I watched this video, I never understood the attraction. I love the internet-meme references.

"Paki dickheads reroute packets, but the rest of the interwebs works together to fix the problem. Now we rejoice, able to again watch LEEEEROOOOOOOOY JEEEEEEEEEEEEENKINS!"

Technology brining the world together. Even the shout of LEROY JENKINS is poetic in such a context!

[Hewhosmokeswomen]

I want that shirt!!! lol great talk!

[yinyangnature]

As someone who is often speaking of the virtues of The Venus Project and a future without a monetary system; one of the things I most often hear is how there would be no motivation to do anything without money.

In this video Jonathan Zittrain debunks the common notions that our species can only be motivated by personal advantage and finds unity with others is still a fundamental human condition.

[Psalm23YHVH]

people will kill their own family members for financial gain, i have seen it in the uk many occasions

we should have a barter system in place in communities, and hopefully it would break outwards, i grow potatoes and veg, you give me 1 off your hen

[oneki]

I share your opinions myself. But the ear i tend to get from people on the idea of the venus project is more the fear being perpetrated by the "Lebertarians" and religionists. People i think love the idea of the ideal but do not want to be the first to accept this because culture is not encourraging the idea of doing something for nothing. Just have to keep trying:))

[winxniw]

Tell that to the starwars kid.

[tzuk]

in response to his theory: the internet is then just a more kinder form of suburbia.

[manixcer]

i like this video!

=D

[Scurmicurv]

A bit naive and overly optimistic I'd say, but a great presentation and nice to see some focus on the large scale positive aspects of the net.

[Turiviel89]

He pretty much says this in the first 5 seconds...

[NickSentowski]

This is the funniest TED I have ever watched. This speaker mesmerizes me.

[kaashnaaz]

Due to noise at my end, I couldn't understand last two word, "every information on Internet is saying is saying us ?"

would be tankful if some one help me here.

[MrStratofish]

The last two words were "Lets march"

[Kmezon2]

This one was awesome!

[paulunga]

Woohoo, Sepultura!

Seriously though, great speech.

[samiminh]

boring & naive

[Sc0tt08]

This guy has clearly never been to /b/

[basmatiandblue]

Luv this ...and it helps me make sense of twitter. If your success on twitter is based on what you can do for others AND if the internet is 'random acts of kindness' THEN is twitter is 'pay it forward'?

[ratholin]

and yet we can see that someone sent the little cardboard robot off in the wrong direction and someone else sent it back. That's your scummy hacker nice hacker conundrum.

[kerrycallipygian]

This is my new favorite TED talks

[Chipstastegood]

rule 34, gotta love the net

[BodaciousBurnley]

Excellent new intro animation TED.  So glad you just rid of that last one!

[roidroid]

Huh?  This is the same TED i've always seen, i've been watching for months.

When was the old one used?

[CAlex6977]

Great TED talk. Best explanation ever. Loved this.

[princeofexcess]

In free market socialism does arise the difference is that nobody feels used. People want to be good sometimes they just a little misguided

[Kargoneth]

Stir-fried Wikipedia. Yummy

[gregormech]

Haha, Leeroy Jenkins online again.

[Radjehuty]

No CEO of the Internet? No business plan in the internet? Tell that to AT&T

[Mrmoc7]

I think you misunderstood his point. What he's saying is that no one man *owns* the internet, not that people don't do business on the internet.

[Radjehuty]

Oh I understand the point. I mentioned AT&T because it's a growing example of BOTH the owner and business of the internet. If nobody owned it, it would be free to go on it. But it's not. It takes maintenance and you have to pay an ISP like AT&T which controls a massive amount of Internet traffic.

[Mrmoc7]

ISP's don't own the internet and they do not charge you for using the internet. Instead, they charge you for using their cables and other forms of routings which must be maintained by paid technical experts in order to ensure a hassle-free internet access for you, rain or shine.

Here is an example: There is a public park miles away from your house and you don't have a car; to get there, you have to pay a taxi. Does this imply that taxi corporations "own" the park?

[Radjehuty]

That's not an accurate analogy. You can go to the park on your own. You can't get internet access without an ISP. Whatever you think we're paying for, it's still for all intent and purposes a price as an obstacle for what we want.

[Mrmoc7]

"You can go to the park on your own."

By paying a car company for a car, then paying a petroleum company to get you oil that they did not create. How is this remarkably different from paying an ISP? How are car and petroleum companies not *obstacles* to what you want, which in this case, is to get to the public park?

[Radjehuty]

Uh, I was referring to the fact that you could simply walk to the park even if it IS miles away. It's still a choice you could make whether or not it's ridiculous. As for the internet, even if you find a Wifi signal, SOMEONE is paying an ISP to get it up there. Every single connection must have one. You can't choose some ridiculous routes to get on the internet for free and free for all. Walking to the park is free for everyone. There's no alternative like this for the internet.

[Mrmoc7]

The park, by virtue of being a park, is a *real* physical place existing in a spatio-temporal world. The internet is not a physical place. The internet, by definition, is a bunch of cables connected to a bunch of boxes. How can you expect to get on without connecting your cables to other people's cables? It is *technically* possible to build your own ISP from scratch if you have the technical know how and monetary investments necessary.

I fail to see your point...

[Radjehuty]

I think you just proved it.

[Mrmoc7]

If you're referring to my last sentence, then I'm afraid i didn't; let me rephrase it:

It is technically possible to connect to the internet on your own; you DO have this *alternative.* Like walking for miles to get to a public park, the price you pay for choosing this alternative is needlessly high but it is *available* anyway. To connect to the internet on your own, you'll need miles and miles and miles of cable, an army of diggers to help you lay the cable, e.t.c.

[Mrmoc7]

Or, if you really want to do this on your own, scrap the army of diggers; go to some technical college to learn how to lay cables, obtain a permit to dig around hundreds of neighborhoods, rent a machine, and single handedly dig for **miles** and **miles**....

[Radjehuty]

I still don't see how that doesn't prove my point. Financially it's so out of reach to the average person that in reality the internet is controlled for the most part by large ISP corporations. You'd see quite easily the effect it would have if AT&T denied access to all its servers to you even if you don't pay for their particular service to get you on the internet in the first place. And since it's so unrealistic to make your own ISP, you are technically forced to choose one.

[Mrmoc7]

That it is financially discouraging to connect to the internet on your own is not a fault of the internet service providers which offer you a low cost alternative. The internet, by virtue of being the internet and nothing else, demands tons of resources that can hardly be marshaled by a single man. Corporations are the only REALISTIC, low-cost alternative available not because some men of bestial character conspired to make it so, but because this is simply the only way it CAN be.

[Radjehuty]

I think we're going off task. I didn't assume corporations were men of "bestial character" conspiring anything. That wasn't the point of my argument at all.

My only point was that it would be a mistake to think that the internet has no extremely significant centralized figures because it does. Every website needs a DNS server to make sure we as humans do not have to remember an IP address. That's one example of a central figure that we rely on. The financial needs was just another example.

[Mrmoc7]

Thus, accusing corporations of owning or controlling the internet is somewhat disingenuous because you're making it seem as if it's their fault, as if they're doing something wrong or even evil, as if the internet could exist without them.

[roidroid]

AT&T is very small outside of America's boarders.

If the company disappeared overnight, a large segment of USA's population/businesses/webservi­ces would suddenly disappear from the internet. But the rest of the world would keep spinning as per usual, and European/Asian mirrors of most of the lost webservices would likely come online in a day or so.

[Mrmoc7]

I hope you still think you're making some sense here and aren't just trying to avoid loosing a youtube argument...I'm actually trying to understand your perspective here.

[ehhhhhhhhhh]

This TED talk pairs nicely with the "How the Internet strengthens dictatorships" video. Together they illustrate a range of good and evil on the internet.

[Shigren]

I have a feeling this guy has never surfed 4chan.

[billyshake]

Yeah, I'm guessin' not. I wish I had never heard of 4chan. Ten minutes on /b/ and I wanted to crawl up fetal in my bathroom tub with a Mickey Mouse doll and cry.

[roidroid]

Men in bath tubs crying with Mickey Mouse dolls.

This is someone's fetish

[roidroid]

"The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -- John Gilmore

Pakistan's internet damage was fixed pretty quick, by nerds, was this the internet fixing itself? Are nerds actually the internet's own immune system?

Maybe nerds are like the mice from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

"...organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program!"

[Shigren]

I would consider nerds the white blood cells. Nerds with the knowledge of the coding language needed to fix the problem are like t-cells ^_^

[Mrmoc7]

I agree; to be more specific, I think they're like memory T and B cells.

[Mrmoc7]

Nerds *are* the internet's immune system; as he said, if there was a massive star treck convention, it would be like Leukopenia for the internets (low WBC count, making individual more vulnerable to infection)

[popaddict]

yay internets!

ps. they need to deinterlace the video

[roidroid]

@ 14:05

"As a lawyer i gotta say these guys are inventing the law...AND STARE DECISIS...and stuff like that, as they go along"

I had to google this term.

In the spirit of the video i may as well paste what i found:

"STARE DECISIS" is a latin phrase used in the legal world which means to "Maintain what has been decided and do not alter that which has been established"

[mrhappyninja]

i never looked at it that way... fantastic talk :D

[flyingfisbeefilms]

Extremely interesting talk!

[chase21322]

The internet gets the truth out. That is quite possibly it's greatest, singular attribute, and something the TPTB loathe.

[HigherPlanes]

Another great talk was long overdue.

[crankthetoto]

I RECOMMEND THIS VEDOI

[5amGordon]

I can think of one website that completely refutes this guy. I'd love to believe him but.... come on guise.

[magnusdoc15]

wonder what this fellow would think of /b/

[sef789]

Well, 4chan was the home of the "anonymous" movement that has done some great things like busting child porn users and producers, protesting Scientology etc. And many not so good things....

[Obsidean]

yin and yang baby

[1trip711]

good talk

[weetbixiron]

Finally another great TED talk!

[BallinTrollin]

Legalize Marijuana

[roidroid]

no u

[sheepwshotguns]

inspiring!

[latestranger]

I love the irony: this video is right next to "How the internet helps dictatorships"

The positioning of these two next to each other actually does reflect on the paradox of the internet rather well.

[DancingInChains]

lol I was JUST about to write a comment asking why he didn't mention couchsurfing :D

I like his positive outlook. It's refreshing to see something like this in between all the "beware, internet is addictive! protect our children! all the porn! all the murderers, trolls and mobbers!"

[roidroid]

what's a mobber?

[silversobe]

Keep the internet free from government and corporate control.

Stop Bill S.773

-Gives Government Unprecedented power over the internet. Proposed by John Rockefeller

Support Bill

Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 3458).

[funckyjunky]

Yeah, internet got much kinder there days =D but i still dont get it, HOT CAN YOU BLOCK YOUTUBE ??? Can some 1 help me ?? LOL

[adamredwine]

I love it when somebody cuts through all the news about pollution, genocide, and horror and holds up a mirror to say "look how great humanity is!"

[leanonme1]

leeeeeeeeerooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­ooooooooooooooooooooooooogaaaa­aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa­aaaaaaaaaaaaankkkiiiiiiiinnnnn­ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss­sssss...................

[InMooseWeTrust]

Embrace the internet.

[HiAdrian]

one word: YTMND. The mindset of seeing the very humor in every worldly phenomenon, will eventually end up saving mankind.

[dakotamorgany106]

YTMND is actually not one word, rather an acronym of five words.

[HiAdrian]

point taken, Pacard.

[HiAdrian]

Enjoyable talk :)

The shocking tale of the couchsurfing-killer!

[peterbriers]

lol, he showed us all the different oasis in the big desert of hate that is the internet. :D

[soccer11211]

Well said ^^

[OMEGASUPREMEstk]

Great talk

[lasercat10cc]

Let good intentions shine through all our different beliefs !

[ivanrlynn]

The Internet is it's users! We are great!!

[kalaway]

He looks like a cartoon character.

Applause for the apparition nod though.

Great talk :) made me feel all warm and fluzzy

[gdukes1000]

Very good information about the impact the internet has throughout the world.

[Cainer666]

Hey TED, deinterlace these videos before you post them!

[tubehax]

nice way to spread the awesomeness around, "us" rule.

[Waranoa]

lol @ startrek convention. it's so true.

[Fensterplaetzchen]

I didn't get it...

[DSBrekus]

I like the little robot :)

[roidroid]

His cold emotionless heart yearns only for your death, the death of all humans.

His lack of a chainsaw attachment saddens him 0.00001011% more than his lack of steering ability.

[SociopathicTroll]

The hitchhiking is a bad example. Hitchhiking goes with youth, older people are less likely to hitchhike as they are less "adventurous" and are more likely to be able to finance their own transportation. Since he is talking to a middle-aged audience, his "test" means nothing.

[pinochet222]

same talk repeated for the 1000th time )

still good tho ....

[AlexMoensChannel]

I notice some links between this and the TED talk about the ROWE (results only work environment). It spoke in a similar way about people being happy and more productive when doing something that they had the option of doing.

I believe there is some form of an innate human kindness that the Internet is beginning to expose. We're removing fear of the unknown by communicating with so many people and finding things in common, and I think that's what makes these "impossibles" he speaks of possible.

[zomgnickyg]

Good speaker.

[Inaneen]

Couchsurfing hell yeah!

[neil73]

Brilliant talk. Wikipedia is BANNED in colleges and universities in the UK, and for good reason!!

[JRDunassigned]

please point me to another encyclopedia that offers cited information on the color revolutions in eastern europe..

[neil73]

Wikipedia is fine for trivial, but as a resource of information its dubious. Anyone can write an article, and anyone can edit an article.

Don't get me wrong, I use wikipedia myself, but using it as an encyclopedia could produce bad results.

[JRDunassigned]

this is true of many things, including popular media.

[roidroid]

AFAIK, you can't source information from Wikipedia articles - but you can steal the references from the articles and cite the references directly, if they're any good.

Afterall - at the end of the day Wikipedia wants the best sources, just as anyone does.

Personally i'd frown apon a university level paper using citations from ANY general-knowledge encyclopedia (Britannica, Wikipedia, whatever) - it's simply bad form. You should trace your info to the original authors/works.

[FreiheitKampfer]

YAY! I love this one!

[georgemargaris]

TED is brainfood

[cat00012000]

I find this video very inspirational. I wish it could go on and on. The problem is that the internet also does some very bad things. There are always two sides to everything. It shall always be.

[OmnicideX]

Can random acts of kindness win against infinite human stupidity?

[sunamori6765]

@ OmnicideX: I think it is possible. Stupidity can take us just so far. Kindness has no limits, it's contagious, it can be infinite.

If I try to "exercise" stupidity for one whole day, it`s impossible. If I try to exercise kindness one WHOLE day, every minute of it, it works.

We need to practice, though.

___

Hmm... thanks for your comment, brother.

You've just helped me to see something.

I honestly wish you now all the BEST life can bring to you, I'm serious, I'm not kidding.

[dufik15]

If you realy think about it, the virtual comunity is more helpful than the real one...

[brunodemoura]

Totaly agree with you and the speaker said. I think it happens because on web we with feel more equal. You can be poor or wealthy...but on the internet these things don't matter.

This is one reason why I love the internet, and I hate when people try to earn money of it.

[roidroid]

gotta buy food man

[dewonthegrass]

Interesting! I learned things about the Internet. Glad to hear human kindness is still alive and kicking.

[elspoko]

Of course it is, but the negatives always outshine the positives. In humans terms as well as news.

[dewonthegrass]

Well, if that is true, all the more should we cherish the acts of kindness. :)

[Human4D]

TED puts out the best videos on youtube, no contest.

[wolffenhaus]

come on guys, 2 hours. Too long.  Step it up.

[roidroid]

it was 20 minutes man, your watch needs winding.

[Mygo666]

interesting

[YouKnowWhereThisEnds]

pointless comment

[roidroid]

What is this, A race to the bottom by hypocrites?

Your comment was even MORE pointless

[defect530]

Thanks TED!