When you toss a used food container, broken toy or old pair of socks into the trash, those things inevitably end up in ever-growing landfills. But we can get smarter about the way we make, and remake, our products. In this fascinating Ted Talk Andrew Dent shares exciting examples of thrift – the idea of using and reusing what you need so you don’t have to purchase anything new.
Category Archives: TedTalks
A forgotten space-aged technology could change how we grow food.
We’re heading for a world population of 10 billion people but what will we all eat? Lisa Dyson has rediscovered an idea developed by NASA in the 1960s for deep-space travel, and it could be a key to reinventing how we grow food.
What’s wrong with what we eat
In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what’s wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it’s putting the entire planet at risk.
How you can use imposter syndrome to your benefit.
Have you ever doubted your abilities, feared you were going to be discovered as a “fraud”? That’s called “impostor syndrome,” and you’re definitely not alone in feeling it, says entrepreneur and CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes. In this funny, relatable talk, he shares how his own experiences of impostor syndrome helped pave the way to his success and shows how you can use it to your advantage, too.
Sloths. The strange life of the world’s slowest mammal
Sloths have been on this planet for more than 40 million years. What’s the secret to their success? In a hilarious talk, zoologist Lucy Cooke takes us inside the strange life of the world’s slowest mammal and shows what we can learn from their ingenious adaptations.
What Matters More Than Your Talents
In this Princeton University graduation address, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes the case that our character is reflected not in the gifts we’re endowed with at birth, but by the choices we make over the course of a lifetime. It’s worth a watch.
Why it’s so hard to make healthy decisions
Why do we make poor decisions that we know are bad for our health? In this frank, funny talk, behavioral economist and health policy expert David Asch explains why our behavior is often irrational and shows how we can harness this to make better decisions and improve our health care system overall.
How to change your behaviour for the better
What’s the best way to get people to change their behaviour? In this funny and information-packed talk, psychologist Dan Ariely explores why we make bad decisions even when we know we shouldn’t and discusses a couple tricks that could get us to do the right thing (even if it’s for the wrong reason).
Inside America’s Dead Shopping Malls.
Have you watched this Ted Talk on dead shopping malls? It’s a surprisingly funny and lyrical commentary on consumerism, youth culture and the inspiration we can find in decay. Filmmaker Dan Bell guides us through abandoned monoliths of merchandise in America.
How China is changing the future of shopping
China is a huge laboratory of innovation, says retail expert Angela Wang, and in this lab, everything takes place on people’s phones. Five hundred million Chinese consumers regularly make purchases via mobile platforms, even in brick-and-mortar stores. What will this transformation mean for the future of shopping? Learn more about the new business-as-usual, where everything is ultra-convenient, ultra-flexible and ultra-social.