How Excess Thinking Can Help the World

Clay Shirky: How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World

Clay Shirky is a professional in the field of the internet's effects on social and economic changes, which he has been writing about "since 1996".  He has explained that there are 2 types of cognitive surplus, one that is only beneficial to a small specific group of people, and the other helps the world, society, as a whole.  One is communial, such as the example which is used, Lolcats.  The other is Ushahidi, which allows users from across the world to cross-reference differenent snippets of information to get the whole picture.  They both seem to be the same type of idea to me, one is just more beneficial, yet it takes more effort to complete.  Is there a level where there could be too much "communial cognitive surplus"?  Communial surplus seems to be easier to process and carry out, while Global surplus seems like it could take years.

He also explains how there is a spectrum between mediocre ideas and good ideas when it comes to creativity.  Yet, when you put things on a spectrum, it's complete left-brained thinking, leaving no room for creativity, and just "the good stuff".  Lolcatz was a simple, mediocre idea that he used for his TED topic, and yet he turned it into something much more.  Even that amazing presentation might just be a little of the whole picture, and yet we label his presentation as amazing.  Yet he still took the time to create an amazing idea.

I felt that Clay Shirky's presentation was very serious and straight to the point.  He didn't use humor nearly as much as other TED Talkers, but he was able to use a variety of expressions in order to still keep the audience's attention.  It was pretty easy to grasp the concepts that he was teaching rather than giving very general rules on " how to lead your life".  He used good examples for the different kinds of thinking, and both showed different sides of the story, one serious that matted to everyone, and another that was funny but easily understandable yet only applyable to one group.  I would say if you are more Left-Brained, and more intellectually-bound, this would be an amazing video for you.  If you feel that you can stand 20 minutes of this kind of talking, watch it for sure!  Otherwise, look elsewhere for a few 5 minute long, inspiring videos that use a little more emotion, rather than a single 20 minutes of explanation.  Overall, this was a good TED Talk, and I would say he did a good job presenting what truly matters.