TED speakers do take questions from the people in the audience and there is a comments section on the TED website, videos usually get lots of discussion.
Some nice things about TED/TEDx:
* They have made intellectual talks "cool".
* Video equivalent of a Scientific American article.
* Encourages people to give short entertaining talks instead of 40 min powerpoint "presentations".
* With TEDx anyone has the opportunity to get onto the TED website.
People on HN complain about the crazy cost of attending a TED conference, but this is just a networking/conspicuous-consumption event for rich people -- is that any different than $10k charity dinners?
I think, boiled down, that it's purely the exalted tone at TED talks that really grates on me (and it seems a good number of others). Intellectual talks may not have always been cool, but they rarely used to sound like preaching.
Some nice things about TED/TEDx: * They have made intellectual talks "cool". * Video equivalent of a Scientific American article. * Encourages people to give short entertaining talks instead of 40 min powerpoint "presentations". * With TEDx anyone has the opportunity to get onto the TED website.
People on HN complain about the crazy cost of attending a TED conference, but this is just a networking/conspicuous-consumption event for rich people -- is that any different than $10k charity dinners?