Notes from 8 TED talks: Samina Ali, Tim Urban, Tom Chi, JJ Abrams, and more

I watched two TED talks on a flight yesterday, and then realized there were some old TED notes that I still hadn’t published. So here they are, in their scattered and collective glory. Some notes are thorough, and others are – at best – just passing scribbles.

Also, here’s my collection of 100+ TED talk notes. I haven’t updated this page in more than a year, but the notes (and talks themselves) are mostly evergreen.

Samina Ali: What Quran says about a Muslim woman’s hijab

  • 600AD – when woman awoke in middle of night, had to walk into dangerous territories to use restroom, group of men began to attack
  • if a woman wore a coat (status symbol) the woman was free and protected by her clan
  • if she dressed freely (didn’t wear a coat), or men knew she was a slave, men attacked her
  • Mohammed learned of situation, turned to God, and his verses were revealed
  • “draw upon yourselves the garments, so that she not be known, and molested”
  • idea was to have a conservative, uniform look among women, to make it hard to distinguish free from slave
  • in modern times, if wearing a veil leads to harassment, then it actually goes against the roots of why veils arose
  • The Qu’ran is 114 chapters and 6000+ verses
  • Only 3 refer to a woman’s dress: the one above, a second specifically about the Prophet’s wives, and a third which is specific to that time’s context – a scarf to wear on the head, which would cover exposed breasts
  • There is no mention of a woman’s veil
  • What “hijab” really means is “a barrier”, “a divide”, between human and divine, or between men and women
  • Women played an important and strong role in early Islamic and Arabic culture
  • Mohammed’s first wife was a successful CEO, import/export, hired Mohammed and eventually she proposed to him
  • His second wife rode into battle
  • Early women demanded to be part of Mohammed’s revolution
  • They even publicly debated with Mohammed himself
  • At that time, custom was for woman to select her husband, propose, and initiate divorce
  • Today, why does hijab = Muslim women, seclusion & isolation?
  • This isn’t an accident
  • Islamic clerics are responsible; they twisted and added words to Mohammed’s original verses (eg, they specified that the garment would be a veil, and exactly how long that veil should be)
  • They issued fatwas = legal rulings
  • Today Muslim women are heavily discriminated against
  • A woman only need finish elementary school
  • A woman must fulfill physical obligation to husband
  • Islam forbids a woman from wearing a bra
  • Sounds erotic, misogynous fantasy

Tom Chi: Everything is connected

  • Story of the Heart – blood transports hemoglobin and center of hemoglobin is iron; only way iron is created is supernovas, stars forming and exploding; most common formation of new stars is galactic collision, which itself is driven by gravity at the galactic level
  • Story of the Breath – 3B years ago, 80% nitrogen, not enough oxygen, but cyanobacteria came to rescue; slowly ozone layer forms, then multicellular life forms, then Cambrian Explosion; cyanobacteria descendants became chloroplasts in plants
  • Story of the Mind – piano invented in 1700; pianists use many parts of their brain to play; the piano, its brain patterns and music it produces, was not a thinkable thought until it was invented; like inventing a new color, like inventing computer science
  • “palette of being”
  • all spiritual positions have this same concept of connectedness

Adam Grant: The surprising habits of original thinkers

  • They’re quick to start, slow to finish
  • There’s a procrastination sweet spot for creativity, not too much, not too little
  • MLK’s famous “I have a dream” line for his speech wasn’t in his speech notes, it was likely improvised!
  • First mover advantage is largely a myth, improvers (followers) have a 5x lower failure rate
  • The opposite of deja vu is vujas de – surprising new idea and insight from seeing some old unoriginal thing in a new light
  • Firefox and Chrome users more creative than IE users, when normalizing for other variables because of one reason: they don’t accept the default (eg, IE comes pre-installed so it’s about questioning what you’re given and making a conscious choice)
  • Classical composers – one of the best predictors of success was sheer quantity of composition, how much output

Yuval Harari: Why humans run the world, a recap of his book Sapiens

  • What enables us to cooperate in such large numbers, and thus what separates us from every other species, is our imagination. Fictional stories from capitalism to religion
  • All about “flexible cooperation in large numbers”
  • Kevin’s note: this is the same as Karen Armstrong’s point that our chief religious faculty is imagination

Here are my highlights from reading Sapiens.

Amy Lockwood: Selling condoms in the Congo

  • The Congo is 2/3 the size of Western Europe
  • Sex workers’ hotel manager doesn’t sell condoms, there’s no demand, only 3% of DRC uses them
  • Despite similar prices and plenty of marketing, people don’t buy branded condoms, only generic
  • Branded messages: FEAR, FINANCING, FIDELITY
  • Generic messages: all about sex, nudity / sexuality, provocative, aspirational

JJ Abrams: The Mystery Box

  • Loved his grandfather who opened and studied electronics
  • Obsessed with letter printing and book binding
  • Loves boxes, even took apart his hotel’s Kleenex box
  • Was gifted a Super 8 camera at 10 years old
  • Bought Tannen’s Mystery Magic Box a long time ago, never opened it, memory of his grandfather
  • Damon Lindelof and him created Lost, had 11 weeks after writing to making a 2 hour pilot
  • What are stories but mystery boxes?
  • In TV the first act is called the teaser: “withholding information intentionally”
  • ET: you think it’s alien meets kids; but ET is really about heartbreaking divorce, same with Die Hard
  • Jaws: really about a guy dealing with his place in the world
  • Father to son: “C’mon…give us a kiss”. “Why?”. “Because I need it.”
  • The movie theater is another mystery box

Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

  • Wrote a 90 page senior thesis in 3 days – was a terrible experience
  • Started waitbutwhy
  • Wrote about procrastination because it confused him
  • The Instant Gratification Monkey only cares about 2 things: what’s EASY and FUN
  • Dark playground – where leisure happens when it shouldn’t happen
  • Procrastinator has a guardian angel: The Panic Monster
  • The Panic Monster lies dormant until a deadline, or embarrassment, or career disaster
  • Everyone’s a procrastinator
  • The Monkey’s sneakiest trick is when the deadline isn’t there
  • “frustration isn’t that you’re not able to achieve your dreams, it’s that you’re not even able to start chasing them”

Tony Fadell: The first secret of great design

  • Steve Jobs hated when you opened a new gadget, and then you had to charge it before using
  • So he increased manufacturing time from 30 minutes to 2 hours to fully charge the battery so that when a customer opened the box, the gadget was ready to use
  • Habituation is incredibly powerful, but also because of it, you miss great opportunities
  • Built a custom screw for the Nest thermostat; it’s expensive, but easier to install on the wall
  • “Think younger”, kids haven’t been around long enough to be exposed to habits
  • “Stay beginners”

Patimokkha: The 227 rules for male monks and 311 rules for female monks

Most established religions have a codified and often comprehensive list of rules, and Buddhism is no exception.

For Theravada Buddhists, that list is the Patimokkha, itself part of a larger text called the Suttavibhanga. The rules are largely based on what the Buddha himself said and did in his life, but the actual writing down of these rules was done by his followers shortly after his death in 483 BC. So this document, the Patimokkha, is 2,500 years old. It helps to keep the age in mind as you read through the full list.

I wanted to share some thoughts as I study the rules and their context.

For starters there are 227 rules for male monks (bhikkhus) and 311 rules for female monks (bhikkhunis). Here are 110 rules specifically for bhikkhunis. There are differing interpretations as to why women have more rules to follow than men, as you can read here. The top reasons seem to be:

1. Bhikkhuni ordination rules are counted in the Patimokkha, but bhikkhu rules are not (why, I don’t know)

2. Extra rules were added to prevent abuse of power by bhikkhus, and to prevent conflicts that arose specifically among bhikkhunis

But largely the rules are the same and are in line with Buddhism’s precepts.

For example, there are 30 rules to encourage you to own less and acquire less, among them:

Accepting gold or money, having someone else accept it, or consenting to its being placed down as a gift for oneself, is a nissaggiya pācittiya offense. (NP 18)

Obtaining gold or money through trade is a nissaggiya pācittiya offense. (NP 19)

There are 75 rules for proper training, for example, how to wear your robe, when not to laugh, how to eat your food. And 7 rules that amount to a sort of legal code among monks.

The Patimokkha also seems quite focused, in training, on how to control your body and physical behavior, especially in public:

I will go [sit] with eyes lowered in inhabited areas: a training to be observed.

I will not go [sit] swinging my arms in inhabited areas: a training to be observed.

I will not go tiptoeing or walking just on the heels in inhabited areas: a training to be observed.

And of course there are some head scratchers and funny ones, when taken out of historical and cultural context. Again, a bhikkhuni is a female monk, a nun:

Should any bhikkhunī, lusting, consent to a lusting man’s taking hold of her hand or touching the edge of her outer robe, or should she stand with him or converse with him or go to a rendezvous with him, or should she consent to his approaching her, or should she enter a hidden place with him, or should she dispose her body to him (any of these) for the purpose of that unrighteous act (Comm: physical contact) then she also is defeated and no longer in affiliation for “(any of) eight grounds.”

Should any bhikkhunī eat garlic, it is to be confessed.

Should any bhikkhunī do a chore for a lay person, it is to be confessed.

That last one I’m particularly curious about, and will further research. If anyone has the answer, please let me know.

The rules have differing levels of importance, and punishments vary accordingly. For example, stealing is grounds for expulsion from the community. Lesser rules when violated can result in probation, in public reprimand, in private penance, and so on.

Finally, not only is killing perhaps the most serious offense a monk can commit, but even talking about death in a positive manner is comparably bad:

“praise the advantages of death, or incite him to die (saying,): “My good man, what use is this evil, miserable life to you? Death would be better for you than life,” or with such an idea in mind, such a purpose in mind, should in various ways praise the advantages of death or incite him to die, he also is defeated and no longer in affiliation.”

Sources, if not linked above:

  • http://en.dhammadana.org/sangha/vinaya/227.htm
  • https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/vin/sv/bhikkhu-pati.html#pr
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patimokkha

Thanks for reading! I’m spending a lot of time these days studying organized religions, as I believe they’re a source of wisdom and stories. Here’s a post about how religion helps you build good habits, and here’s a post about why I believe religion will be around much longer than all the modern technologies we obsess over today.

A couple Google search trends on religion and spirituality

Just putzing around with the Google trends tool and wanted to share a few charts.

So in the US, people search for the word “God” quite a bit more than soul, religion, and faith. Interestingly it’s also the only word growing in search popularity.

“Islam” is leading in search popularity in the US, by a wide-ish margin. Then Christianity, then Buddhism, then a virtual tie between Hinduism and Judaism.

Worldwide, it’s not even close. “Islam” wins by a huge margin. There are many caveats here, starting with the fact that these are results for English language searches only. The caveats become obvious in the next chart:

Because “Jesus” is the clear leader. I tried different spellings of Muhammad as well. What caused that spike for “Muhammad” (red line) in mid-2016?

And finally, worldwide, “yoga” is growing by leaps. Meditation and prayer comparatively steady.

Screenwriting insights from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat

Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat [Amazon] has been one of Hollywood’s bestselling screenwriting books since its 2005 release. There’s good advice in this book for every kind of writer. And funny to boot.

Some Hollywood types complain that the book’s formulaic approach has hurt the screenwriting profession. More like: its revealed insider secrets, and most insiders don’t like that.

Here are some of my favorite highlights:

And yet, so the rules tell us and human nature dictates, we don’t want to see anyone, even the most underdog character, succeed for too long. And eventually, the hero must learn that magic isn’t everything, it’s better to be just like us — us members of the audience — because in the end we know this will never happen to us.

Look at Point Break starring Patrick Swayze, then look at Fast and Furious. Yes, it’s the same movie almost beat for beat. But one is about surfing, the other is about hot cars.

There’s the “good girl tempted” archetype – pure of heart, cute as a bug: Betty Grable, Doris Day, Meg Ryan (in her day), Reese Witherspoon. This is the female counterpart of the young man on the rise.

Tell me a story about a guy who…
> I can identify with.
> I can learn from.
> I have compelling reason to follow.
> I believe deserves to win and…
> Has stakes that are primal and ring true for me.

Not to get too self-protective, but a strong structure guarantees your writing credit. More than any other element, the bones of a screenplay, as constructed in the story beats of your script, will be proof to those who decide who gets credit at the Writers Guild of America (WGA) that the work is primarily yours.

The hero cannot be lured, tricked, or drift into Act Two. The hero must make the decision himself. That’s what makes him a hero anyway — being proactive.

a movie’s midpoint is either an “up” where the hero seemingly peaks (though it is a false peak) or a “down” when the world collapses all around the hero (though it is a false collapse), and it can only get better from here on out.

At the All Is Lost moment, stick in something, anything that involves a death. It works every time. Whether it’s integral to the story or just something symbolic, hint at something dead here. It could be anything. A flower in a flower pot. A goldfish. News that a beloved aunt has passed away.

You must take time to frame the hero’s situation in a way that makes us root for him, no matter who he is or what he does.

I propose to you that, for some reason, audiences will only accept one piece of magic per movie. It’s The Law. You cannot see aliens from outer space land in a UFO and then be bitten by a Vampire and now be both aliens and undead. That, my friends, is Double Mumbo Jumbo.

The Covenant of the Arc is the screenwriting law that says: Every single character in your movie must change in the course of your story. The only characters who don’t change are the bad guys. But the hero and his friends change a lot.

In many a well-told movie, the hero and the bad guy are very often two halves of the same person struggling for supremacy, and for that reason are almost equal in power and ability. How many movies can you name that have a hero and a bad guy who are two halves of the same persona? Think about Batman (Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson), Die Hard (Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman), and even Pretty Woman (Richard Gere and Jason Alexander).

Make sure every character has “A Limp and an Eyepatch.” Every character has to have a unique way of speaking, but also something memorable that will stick him in the reader’s mind.

Four Quadrant – Men Over 25, Men Under 25, Women Over 25, Women Under 25

What is religion? 3 useful and simple definitions


Don’t worry, this won’t be a long post. I have neither the knowledge nor ability to give a comprehensive definition. All I want to do today is share a couple interesting tools that you can use to broaden and deepen your understanding.

Trying to define religion is like trying to define “culture” or “love”. The answer is fluid and driven heavily by time & place. For example, many people argue that “religion” itself is a modern Western and largely Judeo-Christian concept. It’s contentious and complex enough that Wikipedia even has a dedicated entry for the “definition of religion”.

Modern science is based on the principle, give us one free miracle and we’ll explain all the rest – Terrence McKenna

I share the above quote because it so neatly expresses a central reason why religion exists, which is to explain and empathize that which we do not know. And when science has done its best, when its formulated multiverses and string theory and the Big Bang and maybe even explained what happened before the Big Bang, there will still be more mysteries we can’t explain, more questions math and science can’t answer. Religion begins there.

Or as Jonathan Sacks says, religion helps us answer these questions:

Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?

Definition #1: The 4 B’s — Belonging, Believing, Bonding, and Behaving

We distinguish among four dimensions of religion: belonging to a religious denomination, believing certain religious propositions, bonding to religious practices, and behaving in a religious manner – Vassilis Saroglou

Sources: 1, 2

For example, in a broadly Christian context —

Belonging: I am a member of X denomination, Y church, and Z small group

Believing: I believe Jesus died for our sins and on the third day, was reincarnated before ascending to Heaven

Bonding: I identify as a Christian because of things I do, like prayer and Church attendance

Behaving: I don’t work on Sunday; I don’t say the Lord’s name in vain; etc

Definition #2: The 7 Dimensions of Religion

A framework developed by Scottish professor Ninian Smart. I like this one because it’s comprehensive.

1. Ritual: Forms and orders of ceremonies (private and/or public) (often regarded as revealed)

2. Narrative and Mythic: stories (often regarded as revealed) that work on several levels. Sometimes narratives fit together into a fairly complete and systematic interpretation of the universe and human’s place in it.

3. Experiential and emotional: dread, guilt, awe, mystery, devotion, liberation, ecstasy, inner peace, bliss (private)

4. Social and Institutional: belief system is shared and attitudes practiced by a group. Often rules for identifying community membership and participation (public)

5. Ethical and legal: Rules about human behavior (often regarded as revealed from supernatural realm)

6. Doctrinal and philosophical: systematic formulation of religious teachings in an intellectually coherent form

7. Material: ordinary objects or places that symbolize or manifest the sacred or supernatural

And in a Buddhist context —

1. Ritual: A meditation practice every morning at 5am

2. Narrative: Buddha began his life as a young noble man named Siddhartha Gautama who…

3. Experiential: The peace and clarity that come from meditative practice; The sense of belonging and discipline that come from following the Dharma

4. Social: The Sangha, the community, the monastic order

5. Ethical: The 5 Precepts (Don’t harm others, Don’t steal, Don’t lie, Don’t have improper sexual relations, Don’t intoxicate oneself eg, alcohol, coffee)

6. Doctrinal: The Tripitaka

7. Material: The orange robes that Theravada Buddhist monks wear

Definition #3: The 9 ways that people relate to God

This is from a book by Gary Thomas called Sacred Pathways [Amazon].

I like this one because it’s personal and intimate. Even more than the first two, this one is Judeo-Christian in its worldview, but I believe it can still be helpful for understanding other faiths.

…people worshiped that one God in many ways: Abraham had a religious bent, building altars everywhere he went. Moses and Elijah revealed an activist’s streak in their various confrontations with forces of evil and in their conversations with God. David celebrated God with an enthusiastic style of worship, while his son, Solomon, expressed his love for God by offering generous sacrifices. Ezekiel and John described loud and colorful images of God, stunning in sensuous brilliance. Mordecai demonstrated his love for God by caring for others, beginning with the orphaned Esther. Mary of Bethany is the classic contemplative, sitting at Jesus’ feet.

1. Naturalists are most inspired to love God out-of-doors, in natural settings

2. Sensates love God with their senses and appreciate beautiful worship services that involve their sight, taste, smell, and touch, not just their ears

3. Traditionalists draw closer to God through rituals, liturgies, symbols, and unchanging structures

4. Ascetics prefer to love God in solitude and simplicity

5. Activists love God through confronting evil, battling injustice, and working to make the world a better place

6. Caregivers love God by loving others and meeting their needs

7. Enthusiasts love God through celebration

8. Contemplatives love God through adoration

9. Intellectuals love God by studying with their minds

Which one are you? I would consider myself a combination of Ascetic, Activist, and Intellectual.

A few final quotes

“Every religion recognizes man as equally insignificant in relation to Infinity;—and therefore every religion always contains the idea of the equality of all men before that which it regards as God, whether that be lightning, the wind, a tree, an animal, a hero, a deceased or even a live king, as it was in Rome.” – Tolstoy

“A person’s ultimate concern” – Paul Tillich

“The feeling of absolute dependence. A sense and taste for the infinite.” – F. Schleiermacher

Thanks for reading! In previous posts, I explored whether Silicon Valley will disrupt religion, and used the Lindy Effect to explain why religious knowledge will always be valuable.