Name: 【TED】Jason Pontin: Can technology solve our big problems? (Jason Pontin: Can technology solve our big problems?)
Uploaded: 2013-10-21T10:27:47.000Z
Duration: 10 min 4 s
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Buzz Aldrin climbed out of Apollo 11's lunar module

and descended onto the Sea of Tranquility.

but their presence on the moon's gray surface

was the culmination of a convulsive, collective effort.

around 180 billion dollars in today's money,

companies, universities and government agencies.

People died, including the crew of Apollo 1.

Twelve walked on its surface, of whom Aldrin,

following the death of Armstrong last year,

Why did they go? The cynical answer is they went

the Soviets that his nation had the better rockets.

But Kennedy's own words at Rice University in 1962

(Video) John F. Kennedy: But why, some say, the moon?

We choose to go to the moon in this decade,

not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Apollo wasn't only a victory of West over East

at the transcendent powers of technology.

They went because it was a big thing to do.

Landing on the moon occurred in the context

of a long series of technological triumphs.

The first half of the 20th century produced

penicillin and a vaccine for tuberculosis.

polio was eradicated and smallpox eliminated.

and blithe optimism about technology's powers

as big problems we had imagined technology would solve,

I remember watching the liftoff of Apollo 17.

at the fiery exhaust of a Saturn V rocket.

but I was absolutely certain there would be

to our capacity to solve big problems with technology"

We've heard it over the last two days here at TED.

It feels as if technologists have diverted us

and enriched themselves with trivial toys,

with things like iPhones and apps and social media,

or algorithms that speed automated trading.

There's nothing wrong with most of these things.

But they don't solve humanity's big problems.

So there is a parochial explanation in Silicon Valley,

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Jason Pontin: Can technology solve our big problems? (Jason Pontin: Can technology solve our big problems?)

big

choose

problem

cheap