The one purported benefit of TED talks is democratizing knowledge and inspiring people. The latter, possibly it does. Some claim its benefit as giving access to

The one purported benefit of TED talks is democratizing knowledge and inspiring people. The latter, possibly it does. Some claim its benefit as giving access to knowledge for people without direct access to universities, etc. The former, TED talks fail at, spectacularly and dangerously. In the era of MOOCs, for someone without direct access to good learning resources, or for people who cannot learn stuff from books, TED talks are a dangerous distraction. I tend to some times view more 'academic' TED talks- like the U Penn professor on swarm robots, or the MIT prof's talk on childhood development. These talks are cripplingly inadequate for anyone serious about learning stuff. They present very little, if any discussion of existing literature or about other researchers work. TED talks are the antithesis of 'standing on the shoulder of giants'. Most academic TED talk speakers tend to present themselves as the lone giant in their field of expertise, and their work as being the final truth in their field.