Humanity at the Crossroads | Sheldon Solomon

Humanity at the Crossroads | Sheldon Solomon | TEDxSkidmoreCollege

Рет қаралды 63,066

9 жыл бұрын

Humans manage existential terror by embracing cultural worldviews that afford a sense of meaning and value, and hope of immortality. Efforts to transcend death underlie our most noble achievements; however, they also foster our most ignominious proclivities, including: disdain for and hostility toward people with different beliefs; indifference to, or contempt for, the natural environment; and, the mindless pursuit of money and stuff-which, if unchecked, may render we humans the first life-form to prune their own branch from The Tree of Life. Prospects for the future of our species will be considered in light of these ideas.
Sheldon Solomon is Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College. His studies of the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behavior have been supported by the National Science Foundation and Ernest Becker Foundation, and were featured in the award winning documentary film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality. He is co-author of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror; and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

Пікірлер: 129

@adamrosefire 6 жыл бұрын

What a brilliant character. The world needs to hear more from this man.

@meangreen8873 6 жыл бұрын

One of the rare intellectuals whom I never tire of listening.

@MazBringsby 5 жыл бұрын

Carrying the torch for Ernest Becker

@kevalan1042 3 жыл бұрын

what are the top 3 things you learned from him?

@kihntagious 2 жыл бұрын

To whom I never tire of listening, I think.

@HigherPlanes 2 жыл бұрын

@@kihntagious If you're not sure why bother correcting him/her? lol

@Grassyknolldallas 3 жыл бұрын

I discovered this guy last night. He makes a lot of sense

@Richard-sk3vh 3 жыл бұрын

His podcast with Lex Fridman 👌

@eabaggins 4 жыл бұрын

I guess all I can do for my life is learn as much as possible, and enjoy what I enjoy purely for the sake of it.

@TheWayofFairness 3 жыл бұрын

We can help to create the understanding in others that stops the problem of various mythologies being threatened by each others beliefs. This is vindication for ourselves and will also save the future of humanity. Most religions are causing the problem. Some religions are ok with truth as it is.

@noahziegler3478 3 жыл бұрын

@@TheWayofFairness it's not worth it, unless you somehow get joy out of failure. I would say just move on with your day. The hearts and minds are so hardened these days it's the rare feat to impact a single person.

@TissDiss 8 жыл бұрын

I love this man.

@georgecarenzo3890 8 жыл бұрын

+TissDiss  The sentiment is mutual. It is interesting to notice that when he was making a point about our finite existence the audience laughed. Then Sheldon said it was not meant to be funny. Interestingly, comedians have an amazing ability to make us laugh at the very things we deny in ourselves and, it seems, the audience is doing the same regarding the concern Sheldon was addressing.

@Jharrycornelius 5 жыл бұрын

No wonder noone listens to this, truth hurts.

@ricardoafonso7884 4 жыл бұрын

Deep stuff. Amazing how this gets only 24k views. It just corroborates everything he said, sadly. Amazing talk

@spiritualopportunism4585 5 жыл бұрын

The only good ted talk ever. it's too good for this platform.

@camillacalhoun1089 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your passion and brilliant insight. Heard you first on Lex Fridman and now want to listen to more.

@crikeymos22 8 жыл бұрын

Really fantastic talk and superbly delivered.

@bulletinvid 3 ай бұрын

This is man bursting out with knowledge 👏

@timothykangethe7700 Жыл бұрын

With a Great command of English vocabulary & flashes of some good sense of humour 😂, Prof Sheldon's delivery of thought provoking sentiments canvassing the state of human existence is quite eye opening to new Perspectives on Life. A Brilliant mind and amiable character 👏 🎇

@unstoppablezone4980 4 жыл бұрын

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." - Woody Allen

@AL-fc5sz 3 жыл бұрын

I don't know man. Making the decision of banging your own stepdaughter seems like the wrong path

@sekops100 6 жыл бұрын

I am completely devoid of spontaneous exuberance

@romainbourque 2 жыл бұрын

I've seen him talk a couple of times, love his insights.

@camilaneo3598 6 жыл бұрын

really enjoyed this speech

@andrewlokkebo7804 5 жыл бұрын

Basically what I’ve always said, fear is what drives our beliefs about life and death.

@100perdido 4 ай бұрын

"Just say no to reality". Gonna steal that one if you don't mind.

@philomath369 8 жыл бұрын

Spicoli, you nailed it! Great ted talk

@drts6955 3 жыл бұрын

Being reminded of death makes people more aggressive! This surprises me so much. My personal experience is almost exactly the opposite

@milahu 3 жыл бұрын

manic vs depressed temperament

@shaunhermans Жыл бұрын

*more aggressive towards those perceived to be different. He's leaving out the research about how we sit closer to those perceived to be similar

@Debby-MelancholyMe Ай бұрын

This information explains why family members can go astonishingly crazy over fighting for a family inheritance.

@DanielThomasArgueta 3 жыл бұрын

I wish he were one of my professors.

@bikingdervish Жыл бұрын

Transfer to Skidmore and he could be.

@kobe24rockz Жыл бұрын

Top tier content. The denial of death is one of the reacting agents in the crucible of our reality.

@elizabethdevries8028 4 жыл бұрын

Excellent!

@user-yk9sk7pg6v Жыл бұрын

Thanks, Sheldon

@hanskung3278 Жыл бұрын

After listening to this talk, I dropped to my knees and begged Jesus to forgive my trespasses.

@shaunhermans Жыл бұрын

So important, thank you Sheldon

@Cinetterose 4 жыл бұрын

My hero...

@benodov 5 жыл бұрын

From the online book "ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE" on Ecohumanworld website. We live on one planet but we are divided into two worlds that couldn't be more different. The first one is real, biological, the one we cannot survive without because it created us. The second one is artificial, the one we made, the one where we feel safe because we can change and adapt it all we want so that it fits our needs. This is an aggressive, technological world that is now, at the turn of the century, entering a phase that is damaging for each one of us. It is urgent that we change this overly productive and excessively consumerist world and adapt it to the capacity that this planet can still tolerate.

@respinell1 3 жыл бұрын

Excellent presentation...!

@peaceandparty 2 жыл бұрын

@Ecohumanworld - would love to hear your thoughts on 2021 excessive consumerism . i agree with what you wrote on many levels by the way. :)

@akwaabab8504 3 жыл бұрын

Brilliant!

@alexmaunda2529 3 жыл бұрын

Great talk.

@publicspaceswa 6 жыл бұрын

Brilliant

@jnewts1 4 жыл бұрын

What a fuckin legend ! Could listen to this dude all day . Not a truer word been spoken on the pathetic psychology of humans .

@HigherPlanes 2 жыл бұрын

In profound meditation, the ancient sages found when consciousness is so acutely focused that it is utterly withdrawn from the body and mind, it enters a kind of singularity in which the sense of ego disappears, in this supreme climax of meditation, seers discovered a core of consciousness beyond time and change, they called it Atman, simply...the self.

@adhipmitra 2 жыл бұрын

Quite brilliant

@HealthyPlanet 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you 14:20 This lecture explains why human animals torture and kill other animals

@creepygeorgie148 Жыл бұрын

David Lee roth , life after van halen

@alearnedlife 3 жыл бұрын

Genius!

@maryswilde 7 жыл бұрын

Sheldon, you are up there with Bill Hicks! Hail to thee!!

@KlngVJames 2 жыл бұрын

12:09 should've been televised all over the world!🔥

@tripzville7569 4 жыл бұрын

The choice is a simple one. We continue with our purely materialistic approach to everything as we head into the wall at full speed or we make very difficult choices and become a spiritual civilisation.

@squamish4244 3 жыл бұрын

I agree. Solomon doesn't offer a compelling spiritual alternative to 'just deal with it', however. He doesn't seem to believe that meditation or psychedelics or various forms of neural technology can enable freeing or transcendent states of consciousness, which we have a vast amount of evidence for being true, both from the ancient traditions and modern neuroscience. I certainly have benefitted incredibly from neurofeedback, brainwave entrainment, meditation etc. and I had a transformative experience on psychedelics that put me on a spiritual path many years ago. Or if he does, I haven't come across it. Perhaps this is what he meant by "deploying our ingenuity" to solve the problem of fear of mortality, but I wish he had gone into at least basic detail about it.

@MrSilkor 6 жыл бұрын

Comfortably or unconfortably numb. Well played. (Pink Floyd)

@louisburke8927 Жыл бұрын

Life isn't awesome it's frightening

@smooa1889 3 жыл бұрын

comrade solomon!!

@andrewlokkebo7804 5 жыл бұрын

Sad but true.

@JoshYates 5 жыл бұрын

Not sad...just true.

@andrewlokkebo7804 5 жыл бұрын

Josh Yates maybe. Depends if there’s any point to this reality and I don’t think any of us is qualified to make that determination.

@JoshYates 5 жыл бұрын

@@andrewlokkebo7804 good answer. I'm not qualified to say anything is true because as Socrates has stated, "I know nothing, you know nothing, but I know I know nothing." and of course "The unexamed life is not worth living." Those two statements free me from knowing anything and to continue my inward journey.

@vladimir0700 2 жыл бұрын

The only reason humanity has survived thus far is due to the bounty and good graces of mother earth and we’ve exhausted both. Soon we will be no more

@grizzlymartin1 4 жыл бұрын

My God, this man needs to meet and hold court with Ray Dalio, and bless the rest of us with the witness thereof. Please make it so...someone...somehow.

@lydiab6063 3 жыл бұрын

Why do you suggest that?

@jasonfirewalker3595 3 жыл бұрын

All sin is distilled from ego.

@dion5804 Жыл бұрын

Yep. Truth hurts.

@ceterisparibus8966 3 жыл бұрын

Who is this individual? I'd love to know more about him.

@tripzville7569 4 жыл бұрын

The increasing climate chaos will become so unimaginable and will put all the Geo political games into perspective and eventually force countries to unite and form a new spiritual civilisation ,leaving behind the obviously failed insane materialistic approach that has lead humanity to the very edge of the cliff.

@delkins07 3 жыл бұрын

Doughboy

@peaceandparty 2 жыл бұрын

excellent observation. i agree.lets keep the faith in that! :) wishing you a long life -we need more of you! :)

@peaceandparty 2 жыл бұрын

comment for futureghostonfire

@astronut06 6 жыл бұрын

Good talk. For me, bridges Surviving Progress and Terror Management Theory

@EddiemmDavis 2 жыл бұрын

This lays out a fantastic truth claim that humans are uniquely distinct in an amazing world with no accent to the reality that that must have come from somewhere. Extremely well layer foolishness.

@shaunhermans Жыл бұрын

Other humanoids might've encountered mortal terror, but none survived to tell of it. For ideas on why we probably wouldn't have let them survive, rewatch the Ted talk!

@Muffinarm_ 2 жыл бұрын

I find it seriously difficult to find the good in humanity.

@HunterBlack 8 жыл бұрын

Representing JCOS.

@TheOutThereChannel 5 жыл бұрын

Love it and funny

@caseysmith2844 2 жыл бұрын

12:30 sums up the political divide in the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic. Never has the country felt more politically divided in recent times, and this could have played an incredible role in why that was.

@reuireuiop0 2 жыл бұрын

At some point early on, the camera man took a swig of his water bottle, which happened to be swapped for Sheldon's. The result sunk in at duelings of a madman section about Leaonardo's helicopter (about 5 min mark)

@HealthyPlanet 4 жыл бұрын

He is not joking but these ideas are funny 😄6:45 to 7:55🤣

@toddq6443 5 жыл бұрын

"Where humans are immune to the vaugeries of death." Imagine that. TNQ

@crand20033 4 жыл бұрын

It's great to be alive now, but it soon won't be great to be alive with so much being gone.

@breakawaybooks4752 3 жыл бұрын

26mil subs, 26k views? How?

@hughmccann6861 3 жыл бұрын

14:00 taking a note as i dont have my pen

@jaycharter4345 3 жыл бұрын

Completely terrible for the young, old and all. Greed should be a death sentence. It is, even for the innocent.

@Stuartgerwyn 5 жыл бұрын

Very entertaining...too many assumptions but also some fantastic observations!

@dwaynesbadchemicals 2 жыл бұрын

This what Spicoli could have become if he listened to Mr. Hand.

@robertsumners931 5 жыл бұрын

Due to ''HUMAN ACTIVITY'' we currently we live in a world with world-wide deforestation (the lungs of the earth), soil salinity, over population, chem-trails, collapsing eco-systems, biodiversity damage, ice caps melting, the methane problem, the Fukushima disaster, air pollution, bees, butterflies, insect are dwindling due to the use of pesticides & herbicides, 67% of animal species in terminal decline. Over fishing, the poisoning and massive amounts of chemical waste & pollutants of our creeks, rivers & waterways. Countless major oil spills in our oceans, the serious ''micro plastics'' in our oceans and waterways which is finding it's way into the food chain. Corrupt world-wide politicians, rising world crime rates, rising world debt, the mass immigration problem, GMO crops, Also cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars, pharmaceutical poisoning, oh, and i forgot to mention ''corparate greed'' ( they have too much to loose MONEY.!!) all these problems are ARE REAL and factual.!!! The list just goes on, personally i don't no what the answer is to these major problems, or what the solutions. If this is not addressed ''big time'' we will all be in dire straits eventually, it's only a matter of time...........

@darrenpat182 4 жыл бұрын

Thorium fission in molten salt nuclear reactors, composting all our organic waste, banning almost all combustion, population control, getting the population down to at least under 1 billion, interplanetary mining potentially.

@ingridbeatrizariaskropff7292 3 жыл бұрын

if the humanty is at one crossroad , after the reporting of all the bad me are facing, hat is phd professor solomon sugesting for the good, ? we con do good and eevel

@greymattermatters404 2 жыл бұрын

camera operator needs to put down the martini

@milahu 3 жыл бұрын

7:12 "from a purely biological point of view, youre a breathing piece of defecating meat, thats no more enduring or significant than a lizard or a potato."

@toddq6443 5 жыл бұрын

Hey, some of the most intelligent people I know are bacteria, jellyfish, or snakes.....so what's the problem? TNQ

@wpdrusky 5 жыл бұрын

Wow super old talk, should have more like these...Even though he seemed like a genuine drunk..

@dickritchie2596 4 жыл бұрын

Skid row college!!🤣

@lil----lil 5 жыл бұрын

Can you PLEASE publish your own channel or I can subscribe it. Thank you.

@TheJackSparring 5 жыл бұрын

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

@TheGreatTimSheridan 5 жыл бұрын

see my near death experiemce list.. people have been there.

@johnmiller7453 6 жыл бұрын

I'm totally ready for my species to ride the fail boat into that muddy sunset. Think of all the suffering that will never have a chance to happen. Antinatalism FTW!

@vestcoat 4 жыл бұрын

Marry me!?!

@zhenyalandyak8258 3 жыл бұрын

he sounds like the constant beginning of a panic attack. why?

@soros250 3 жыл бұрын

Too bad most people watching Sheldon Solomon here dont understand he is merely voicing the ideas of Ernest Becker, a profound thinker following many ideas of Otto Rank.

@sv3n1234 2 жыл бұрын

He’s not “merely voicing” them. Together with Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski he proved scientifically what Ernest Becker put together philosophically. All of them deserve credit for what they did. Becker was a genius, but that doesn’t lessen the achievement of Solomon and his colleagues.