We think that self-transformation comes through a spiritual journey, therapy, a guru who tells us what to do, intense group experiences, social experiences, and drugs.But most of these are ways of running away from ourselves and relieving our chronic boredom. They're not connected to process, so any changes that occur don't last. Instead, through our work, we can actually connect to who we are.

Transform yourself through your work

Why do we fixate on the things we can see immediately when we crave change? In this passionate talk Robert Greene shares the key to transforming ourselves and also talks about his own personal transformation and his path to becoming a bestselling author. About Robert Greene Robert Greene is the internationally best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War and The 50th Law (with rapper 50 Cent). His books have been translated into 17 languages. He has worked in New York as an editor and writer at several magazines; and in Hollywood as a story developer and writer. He has lived in Brixton, Paris, and Barcelona; speaks several languages and worked as a translator. He tweets as @RobertGreene About TEDx In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

videos

Videos

Why do we fixate on the things we can see immediately when we crave change? In this passionate talk Robert Greene shares the key to transforming ourselves and also talks about his own personal transformation and his path to becoming a bestselling author.  

About Robert Greene
Robert Greene is the internationally best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War and The 50th Law (with rapper 50 Cent). His books have been translated into 17 languages. He has worked in New York as an editor and writer at several magazines; and in Hollywood as a story developer and writer. He has lived in Brixton, Paris, and Barcelona; speaks several languages and worked as a translator.
He tweets as @RobertGreene

About TEDx
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

TEDx is an international community that organizes TED-style events anywhere and everywhere -- celebrating locally-driven ideas and elevating them to a global stage. TEDx events are produced independently of TED conferences, each event curates speakers on their own, but based on TED's format and rules.

TED's videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/our-policies-terms/ted-talks-usage-policy). 

For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request here: https://media-requests.ted.com.

TEDx Talks

The key to transforming yourself -- Robert Greene at TEDxBrixton

Worrying about missing out on new experiences, content, trends, and even investments can make us feel like we are falling behind. We can overcome this feeling and be content with what we have by embracing the present moment.

FOMO - the fear of missing out

We are constantly comparing ourselves to people around us. While it can serve us by helping us grow, it can sometimes lead to hard feelings. FOMO is about having thoughts about missing out on opportunities which might increase our happiness. One explanation for why we experience FOMO is that we are social beings and don't want to feel left out. Instead, we can practice an abundance mindset: There are plenty of opportunities around for everyone. Instead of feeling envy, try congratulating them.

When comparing yourself to others turns toxic

Not feeling part of an event or the in-group could be enough for someone to experience a fight-or-flight response. Next time you feel a stress response to FOMO, take a moment to assess what "danger" you're really in. Then, you can talk yourself down from that fight-or-flight response.

Experiencing a bodily reaction to FOMO

Knowing what triggers your FOMO will help you get out of situations before they set off that alarm. The biggest FOMO trigger is often social media. Your trigger might be seeing yet another friend buy their first home. You can expose yourself to less of the stuff that makes you feel like you're left out.

Know your triggers

It's important to remember that we live by making a series of trade-offs. We're always missing out on something. Choosing one activity or path inevitably means you'll miss out on others. FOMO makes you miss out on today because you're so worried about what else is out there. You can win the battle with FOMO by being fully present in the life you have today.

Thinking the grass is greener on the other side

The fear of missing out isn't confined to our social lives; worrying about whether we're missing out on new experiences, content, trends and even investments can create an existential crisis. Psychologist Aarti Gupta explains how FOMO shows up in our lives and how to battle it.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

How to overcome FOMO : Life Kit

Across the many “Top Technologies for 2020” lists compiled by the leading research firms around the world, a recurring pattern emerges.As we bear witness to the Digital Transformation of our world and cross the threshold into the Web 3.0 era, we face some extraordinary choices with serious and wide-ranging implications. Our technologies, from the first use of fire to the future of facial recognition, appear to be neutral by their very nature. Their appearance obscures their innate potential to magnify both the best and worst of human desires.

The Web 3.0 Era

The emergence of smart cities and factories, autonomous cars and homes, smart appliances and virtual reality worlds, automated shopping, and digitized personal medicine are transforming the way we live, play, work, travel, and shop. All across the planet, our technologies are breaking out from behind the screen and into the physical world around us. Simultaneously, the people, places, and things in our world are being digitized and brought into the virtual world, becoming part of the digital domain. We are digitizing the physical and “physicalizing” the digital.

The Boundaries Of Virtual And Real Are Dissolving

The investments and acquisitions that the largest tech companies have made over the last decade in Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Internet of Things including smart cars, drones, robotics, and biometric wearables as well as Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, 5G Networks, 3D printing, Synthetic Biology, Edge, Mesh, Fog Computing, are being woven into the fabric of our global civilization, under our feet, above our heads, and all around us.

Progress In The Last Decade

These computing technologies coming of age in the 21st century are often referred to as “exponential” — true to Moore’s Law, about every 18 months their capabilities and performance powers double for the same cost.This is a common effect of computing technologies, known as “Moore’s Law” for the co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore.

The Moore's Law

Metcalfe’s Law states that the total value of a network is determined by the number of other users connected to the network. The more users that an individual user can reach through a network, the more valuable the network becomes, even when the features and price of service remain the same. Metcalfe’s Law is about network scale.

Metcalfe’s Law Of Network Scale

An upgraded smartphone on a faster network enables more engagement, content consumption, and sharing, which drives other users to participate. Web 2.0 has driven the adoption from 1 billion Internet users in 2005 to nearly 4 billion in 2019.3.9 billion people use mobile phones to access the Web, and 2.5 billion of those use smartphones. 3.4 billion are on social networks, 3.2 billion of whom use their mobile phones to access social networks. Better hardware, faster networks, more users.Exponential compute power + Exponential network connections = Exponential Value

Better Phone, Better Network, More Users

It will soon become technologically and economically worthwhile to computerize complex things like cars, cities, and humans, but ultimately, we will computerize increasingly smaller things like jewellery, clothing, buttons, and even our very cells.And because value is best accumulated by combining many networks into a single network as the existing Internet has done, this new network of people, places, and things, rules, and value create the Internet of Everything in the Web 3.0 era because it grants the ability to computerize and connect everything.

The IoT(Internet Of Things)

What happens when we integrate the physical, digital, and biological domains together? A new multidimensional web emerges — The Spatial Web.Facilitated by new network protocols, the Convergence could lead to the creation of a new web that connects physical places together with virtual places. It could enable an open and interoperable new generation of the web — a Web 3.0 era that secures the privacy and property rights of individuals while ensuring secure and trustworthy interactions and transactions between the human, machine, and virtual economies.

The Convergence

The Spatial Web weaves together all of the digital and physical strands of our future world into the fabric of a new universe where next-gen computing technologies generate a unified reality; where our digital and physical lives become one.This is a new kind of network, not one of the interconnected computers like the original Internet or a network of interlinked pages, text, and media like the World Wide Web, but rather a “living network” made up of the interconnections between people, places, and things, their virtual counterparts, and the interactions, transactions and transportations.

The Spatial Web 

Today, we can’t share knowledge all that effectively because we cannot share our mental models and maps of the world directly between different brains. We can’t copy/paste ideas and concepts between ourselves, much less create, edit, or share them with AI, or IoT devices.Using Distributed Ledger technologies like Blockchain could enable us to reliably verify factual data about the world while enabling the freedom to collaboratively explore, edit, mashup, and remix reality.

Going Beyond The Limitations Of Today

The power of the Spatial Web initially comes from its ability to describe the world in the language that the world speaks to us in — geometry. The Spatial Web lets us use a digitally-mediated universal language in which all information can become spatial. It enables the current information on the web to be placed spatially and contextually on objects and at locations, where we can interact with information in the most natural and intuitive ways, by merely looking, speaking, gesturing, or even thinking.

The Language Of Geometry

The Spatial Web has the potential to move us from predominantly egocentric and ethnocentric concerns to more world-centric ones that are more holistic, equitable, and inclusive. Today’s web protocols are obsolete as they were designed for interconnecting pages on computers, not people, places, and things in the real world. These protocols were designed for sharing information, not for managing and coordinating the activities of humans, machines and AI or engaging in real-time global trade and commerce.

From Egocentric To World-centric

In Web 3.0, we will not only create a “Digital Twin” or soft copy of our world and everything in it, but a Smart Twin of everything, with its own unique ID, interaction rules, and verifiable history capable of being linked and synced to its physical counterpart, spatially. Like a Wikipedia for anything, making all the world searchable, allowing for any object, person, process, and system to be updated, quantified, optimized and shared — if you have the right permissions to do so. The applications are endless and the implications, both positive and negative — are practically indescribable.

The World Replicated In Code

Given the historical importance and exponential power ascribed to Convergence technologies, a comprehensive vision is required that describes how these technologies will be best aligned with our core human values and what the implications will be if they are not. Piecemeal descriptions and industry-centric narratives do not provide the holistic vantage point from which we must consider how best to make the critically important decisions regarding matters of privacy, security, interoperability, and trust in an age where powerful computing will literally surround us.

This Gets Bigger And Bigger

If we fail to make the right societal decisions now, as we are laying the digital infrastructure for the 21st century, a dystopic “Black Mirror” version of our future could become our everyday reality. A technological “lock-in” could occur, where dysfunctional and/or proprietary technologies become permanently embedded into the infrastructure of our global systems leaving us powerless to alter the course of their direction or ferocity of their speed.

Black Mirror Is Coming To The Real World

Thankfully, there is also a “white mirror” version of Web 3.0, a positive future not well described in our sci-fi stories. It’s the one where we intentionally and consciously harness the power of the Convergence and align it with our collective goals, values, and greatest ambitions as a species. In the “white mirror” version, we have the opportunity to use these technologies to assist us in working together more effectively to improve our ecologies, economies, and governance models, and leave the world better than the one we entered.

Let There Be 'White Mirror'

Web 3.0 is bigger than Blockchain and NFTs. Let us find out how the next phase of the internet unfolds.

crypto

Cryptocurrency

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

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Software Engineering

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

Introduction to Web 3.0

The Spatial Web is the multidimensional version of the internet that is now a reality.

As we bear witness to the Digital Transformation of our world and cross the threshold into the Web 3.0 era, we face some extraordinary choices with serious and wide-ranging implications. Our…

An Introduction to The Spatial Web

... so they can leverage the considerable benefits to be gained through greater knowledge of their customers, explore new markets, and counteract new, AI-driven companies that might seek their market share.
To extract the benefits from AI while mitigating the risks, companies must ensure that they are sufficiently agile so they can adopt best practices to create responsible transformation with AI.

All companies will need to become “AI companies”

<ol><li>The whole organization must be engaged with the AI strategy, which involves a total organizational review and potential changes.</li><li>All employees need education and training to understand how AI is used in the company so that diverse teams can be created to manage AI design, development, and use. Additionally, employees should understand how the use of AI will impact their work and potentially help them do their jobs.</li><li>Responsibility for AI products does not end at the point of sale: Companies must engage in proactive responsible AI audits for all ideas and products before development and deployment.</li></ol>

The three principles of responsible AI

Organizations must recognize the drawbacks that some algorithms bring into the screening and hiring process as a result of the way they are trained, which can have a direct impact on outcomes such as diversity and inclusion. <ul><li>When it comes to reskilling and retaining employees, AI can be helpful to companies when deployed for screening and training employees for new positions. </li><li>Many employees have skills that can be built upon to cross into a new position, but companies often don’t realize the full extent of their employees’ capabilities.</li><li>For companies seeking to attract and retain employees with AI skills, it helps to develop responsible AI policies, because many of the most talented AI designers and developers value their company’s positions on ethics and transparency in their work. </li></ul>

Responsible AI and the employee experience

<ul><li>It’s more important than ever that companies develop a strategy around responsible AI and communicate it well to internal and external stakeholders in order to maintain accountability. </li><li>Companies should also keep in mind that a one-size-fits-all approach does not always work with emerging technology; instead, they need to match the right AI solution to the right customers and create business offerings that align with customer needs.</li><li>Startups with responsible AI strategies will be more valuable. The purchase of a responsible AI startup may depend on the startup’s approval of the acquirer’s apprcoach. Investors may refuse to buy stock in companies that don’t have responsible AI. Indeed, there may be an increase in activist investors in this space.</li></ul>

Responsible AI for customers and stakeholders

To gain traction throughout an organization, support for responsible AI needs to come from its leadership. Unfortunately, many board members and executive teams lack an understanding of AI. The World Economic Forum created a toolkit for boards to learn about the different oversight responsibilities in companies involved with AI. They can use it to understand how responsible AI can be adopted across different areas of the business — including branding, competitive and customer strategies, cybersecurity, governance, operations, human resources, and corporate social responsibility — and prevent ethical issues from taking hold.

Responsible AI needs support at the top

Companies adopting the best practices of responsible AI extract benefits while mitigating AI’s risks.

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Philosophy

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Building an Organizational Approach to Responsible AI

GMOs are organisms that have altered genetic material, and this genetic alteration does not occur naturally.Modern biotechnology allows selected individual genes to be transfered from one organism to another even between nonrelated species.The food that is produced using GMOs are referred to as Genetically Modified Food.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

The main objective of developing plants that have GMOs is to improve crop protection. Genetically modified crops have a higher resistance against plant diseases that come from insects, viruses, or herbicides.Moreover, in terms of durability and nutritional value genetically modified foods have perceived advantages to both the producer and the consumer.

The Production of Genetically Modified Food

To assess the safety of genetically modified foods, they focus on the following:<ol><li>Direct health effects</li><li>Potential to provoke allergies</li><li>Nutritional components</li><li>The stability of the inserted gene</li><li>Nutritional effects that are associated with genetic modification; and</li><li>Any unintended effects that could have resulted from the gene altercation</li></ol>

Assessing The Safety of GM foods

<ol><li>Allergenicity - the protocols for testing of genetically modified foods are evaluated thoroughly by the FAO and the WHO. No allergic effects have been found relative to GM foods currently on the market.</li><li>Gene transfer - the tranferability of the genes from GM food to the cells of the body is low, but the use of gene transfer technology that doesn't involve antibiotic resistance is is encouraged.</li><li>Outcrossing - this is the process where genes from GM plants migrate to conventional crops. Strategies have been created to reduce the possibility of this from happening.</li></ol>

Main Issues Concerning Human Health

The genetically modified foods that are available on the international market have passed the necessary safety assessments and are not likely to present any type of risk for our health.Rest assured that the safety assessment of GM foods is a continuous and ongoing process based on the Codex AlimentariusGenetically modified crops on the international market have higher nutrient content and have the following traits: insect-damage resistant, viral infections resistant, and higher tolerance towards certain herbicides.

Genetically Modified Foods Are Safe

Moving forward, the future of genetically modified organisms will include plants with improved resistance against: plant disease and drought.Moreover these crops will have increased nutrient levels, fish species will have enhanced growth characteristics.For non-food usage, these plants or animals can be used to produce important proteins for new vaccines.

Further Developments for GMOs

These questions and answers have been prepared by WHO in response to questions and concerns from WHO Member State Governments with regard to the nature and safety of genetically modified food.

food

Food

Food, genetically modified

So many people have been involuntarily displaced by the pandemic or could be stuck in living situations they would not choose for themselves.
But this upheaval could also give an opportunity. Many have now realised that various jobs can be done remotely, meaning we might have more geographic flexibility than before. This year could be a chance for you to move to the place where your heart is.

Feeling out of place

Topophilia is a vivid, emotional and personal experience of a place that leads to unexplainable affections. 
Topophilia can be demonstrated by objective and subjective criteria - it could be a smell of fresh-cooked pie or the sound of a train whistle at night, also called "synesthetic tendency" or the way ordinary sensory perceptions affect our memory and emotions.

Topophilia - loving a place

As you design a physical future in line with your happiness, it is worth reflecting on your strongest positive synesthetic tendencies and the place they remind you of.
Topophilia might not be associated with your childhood home. It could be somewhere where you were on holiday or a place with smells and sights you once experienced.

Guide to your topophilic ideal

Some studies show that recent movers report having more unhappy days in a two-week testing period than people who hadn't moved.
However, the social costs of moving are manageable. People often feel more lonely because they spend more time on a computer and less time on active leisure like exercise and hobbies. Much of the unhappiness can be mitigated by actively exploring your new neighbourhood, doing things that made you happy in your old home, and socializing with new people.

Moving may feel scary

If where you live isn’t truly your home, and you have the resources to make a change, it could do wonders for your happiness.

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Love & Relationships

business

Business

Find the Place You Love. Then Move There.

It is changing, continuing, and inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today. Science fiction may seem trivial to blind critics and philosophers of today but in its essence, it is needed for our own salvation.

Science fiction is the most important literature of the world because it's the history of ideas, our civilization's birth, and it's central to everything we've done.

Let us think the unthinkable, do the undoable, and prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

I bet on science as helping us. I have yet to see how it endangers us fundamentally. Science has given us more lives than it has taken; we must remember that.

Science fiction is a way of thinking. It is a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects.

There's no real objection to escapism. We all want to escape occasionally. Science fiction is often very far from escapism but it's a fiction that does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future.Science fiction is very much concerned with real issues, reality.

Science fiction is the telescope that looks into the future. Through science fiction literature and films, we are able to address technological change, existential risks, and cultural crises that may…

sciencefiction

Science Fiction

movies

Movies & Shows

communication

Communication

A Look Into The Future: The Value of Science Fiction

Lawrence Kohlberg questioned why children differed in their ethical judgements. They think more in terms of black and white, or egocentric, or rational.
In an experiment, Kohlberg gave children open-ended questions to explain their answers. From this, he identified three stages of moral development:
<ul>
<li>Pre-conventional stage. This ego-centric stage seeks pleasure and wants to avoid pain. "Good" is defined as whatever is beneficial to oneself, and "bad" is anything that will cause punishment.</li>
<li>Conventional stage. A sense of social belonging marks this stage. Approval is seen as a reward, and behaviour is adjusted to please others. The desire to fit in is motivating good behaviour.</li>
<li>Post-conventional stage. There is more self-reflection and moral reasoning. Principled behaviour is more important than blind obedience.</li>
</ul>

Stages of moral development

Lawrence Kohlberg's three stages of developmental progression from early infancy to adulthood maps almost perfectly onto Jean Piaget's psychology of child development.
What is important to note is that these stages also describe adults. Some people never get mature and may have no real moral compass (sometimes associated with psychopathy.) Then we all know people who are bound to the conventional stage where their image is most important. Those who don't develop past this stage are rigid in following the rules or the law.

Moral development in adults

Lawrence Kohlberg's experiments gave children a series of moral dilemmas to test how they differed in their responses across various ages. He identified three separate stages of moral development from the egoist to the principled person. Some people do not progress through all the stages and remain "morally undeveloped."

problemsolving

Problem Solving

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

How morally developed are you?

<ul>
<li>In the 2020 debacle in terms of job and income loss, people who are employed feel a certain pressure to be grateful for it, and even have a measure of real gratitude. Many are thankful that they are still hired, still getting paid every month.</li>
<li>Jobs provided post-pandemic seem prized, with candidates in awe of the fact that they are being considered, shortlisted and interviewed, when jobs are so scarce.</li>
<li>While being grateful for what we have is a positive emotion with real benefits, there is a downside to this gratefulness, as it makes a person willing to endure unwelcome situations at work.</li>
</ul>

Being Grateful For Your Job

Gratitude has become a social norm, an internal voice that we must be thankful for a normal life. Suppressing negative feelings isn’t good, and we cannot ignore the problems we have (like workplace harassment or a bad boss) just by appreciating that we still get paid regularly.
Bypassing or avoiding negative feelings cuts off our connections with the signals given by them, resulting in us ignoring the signs of stress, fear, exhaustion and sadness.

Inauthentic Gratitude For The Job

If we are too focussed on why we should be grateful for the job we have, we may not realize that the work has become thankless, trapping ourselves in a stagnant career. Employers often milk the situation by cutting down pay, making employees work more hours for less.
Many employers virtually own the employees just because they provide a regular paycheck. One can be grateful if the employer truly deserves it, like if they go the extra mile to ensure their staff does not have problems.

Thankful To Thankless Jobs

It's natural to feel thankful that you're employed, especially when jobs are scarce. But is that gratitude actually a misguided emotion?

career

Career

teamwork

Teamwork

Should you be grateful for a job?

We all have thoughts and ideas floating in our minds, and need to review our ideas, deciding which of them have merit and can be brought to the world. 
If there is no filter installed in our minds that only lets the approved ones through, we end up acting out stuff that could lead to disastrous outcomes.

Our Brain Needs A Filter

<ol>
<li>Stay grounded and in the present moment.</li>
<li>Be self-aware, identifying and recognizing your thoughts, feelings and emotions in real time.</li>
<li>Let your awareness discriminate between artificial and real, right or wrong, keeping a critical and objective mindset.</li>
<li>Recognize that your thought is just a thought. We can let go of all the glitz, fear and drama for the moment.</li>
</ol>
Practising mindfulness sharpens our self-awareness skills, keeping us in the present moment.

Four Steps to Filter Out Thoughts And Ideas

It's easy to label our thoughts as facts, even though they aren't entirely accurate. Here's how mindfulness can help your brain separate fact from fiction.