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How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk | Will Stephen | TEDxNewYork

How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk | Will Stephen | TEDxNewYork on HackerTube: recommended by 6 Hacker News commenters across 5 separate months, 2015–2024.

TEDx Talks

talk · evergreen

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Will Stephen's humorous six-minute TEDx talk shows presentation techniques that make you sound brilliant while saying essentially nothing.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as a funny deconstruction of TED talk style, and as a favorite example of the appearance of meaning without content.

people recommended it
6
separate months
5
strong recommendations
3
discussed on HN
2015–2024
“spent 6 minutes talking about nothing”
— johncessna, Feb 2022, in “What Was the Ted Talk?”

What HN commenters said

6 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

friendzisOct 2024Strongly recommends

Pseudo-intellectual consumerism, as I like to call it. How many people do you know who turn on the news on TV, sit in front and take notes? Who put on some music, relax in the sweet spot and immerse themselves? Who read a book, stop and ponder, continue? Versus people who turn on the TV while cooking, who put on headphones with music while working out for background noise, who put on sped up version of audiobook while driving to tick off another checkmark? It's form over substance all over the place. I absolutely love this TED talk: ▶ this video The more pseudo-intellectual consumerism infiltrates our collective psyche, the more the substance becomes irrelevant. Nuance requires thinking. "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" -- HL Mencken. But knowing this answer makes you feel smart.

in “Google’s AI thinks I left a Gatorade bottle on the moon” · View on HN

light_coneFeb 2022Strongly recommends

Obligatory meta TED talk: ▶ this video Personally the TED talk I liked the most. It's funny but I actually find it interesting, showing that appearance of meaning is not actual meaning.

in “What Was the Ted Talk?” · View on HN

randycupertinoFeb 2016Strongly recommends

That's why the "Ted Talk about Nothing" is one of my favorites: ▶ this video Their manner of speaking reminds me of American Dad making fun of Ira Glass. Why is pausing??! Doesn't he know what he's going to say next??? AAAAHH. [link]

in “We Are Now at Peak TED” · View on HN

johncessnaFeb 2022Recommends

I used to binge watch Ted Talks and then ran across How to sound Smart in your Ted Talk[1] Ted Talk where William Stephen spent 6 minutes talking about nothing. [1] ▶ this video

in “What Was the Ted Talk?” · View on HN

StratoscopeMay 2021Recommends

There are some great TED[x] talks, like "Ducks Go Quack, Chickens Say Cluck": [link] And "How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk": ▶ this video

in “GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down” · View on HN

JohnTHallerMay 2015Recommends

Will Stephen's How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk is a fun deconstruction of the pacing and process of most TED talks: ▶ this video

in “The Sound of TED: A Case for Distaste” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Satire & parodyProductivity & self-improvementted talkssatirepublic speakingrhetorichumor