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This impressively

vicious book review by Evgeny Morozov turns eventually into an

attack on TED, accurately attributing its failures to the lack of

politics:

Whatever problems lurk on the horizon are imagined primarily as

problems of technology, which, given enough money, brain power, and

nutritional supplements, someone in Silicon Valley should be in a

position to solve. This is consistent with TED’s adoption of a

decidedly non-political attitude, as became apparent in a recent

kerfuffle over a short talk on inequality given by a venture

capitalist—who else?—which TED refused to release for fear that it

might offend too many rich people.

Since any meaningful discussion of politics is off limits at TED, the solutions advocated by TED’s techno-humanitarians cannot go beyond the toolkit available to the scientist, the coder, and the engineer. This leaves Silicon Valley entrepreneurs positioned as TED’s preferred redeemers. In TED world, tech entrepreneurs are in the business of solving the world’s most pressing problems.

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