The year in ideas: TED Talks of 2014

Chris Hadfield: It is incredibly powerful to be on board one of these things.

(Engine roars)

It's an entirely different perspective.

You're not looking up at the universe.

You and the Earth are going through the Universe together.

Fabien Cousteau: I think the oceans still hold quite a few secrets,

but if we're to explore the final frontier on this planet,

we need to live there.

[Journeyed around the world.]

Vincent Moon: I felt the need to travel and to discover some other music,

to explore the world,

and actually it was also this idea of nomadic cinema that I had in mind.

Daria van den Bercken: Recently, I flew over a crowd of thousands of people

in Brazil, playing music by George Frideric Handel.

I also drove along the streets of Amsterdam.

I fell in love with the music,

and I wanted to share it with as many people as possible.

Ben Saunders: It was a journey, an expedition in Antarctica,

the coldest, windiest, driest,

and highest-altitude continent on Earth.

[And even traveled back in time.]

Allan Adams: Keep looking further and further,

and then finally you see a faint, fading afterglow,

and it's the afterglow of the Big Bang.

[We took bold steps forward.]

Hugh Herr: We the people need not accept our limitations,

but can transcend disability through technological innovation.

[Helped medicine get personal.]

Leana Wen: When doctors are willing to step off our pedestals,

take off our white coats and show our patients who we are

and what medicine is all about,

that's when we begin to overcome the sickness of fear.

That's when we establish trust.

Manu Prakash: It starts with a single sheet of paper.

What you see here is all the possible components

to build a functional, bright-field and fluorescence microscope.

Jorge Soto: Catching cancer early is basically the closest thing we have

to a silver-bullet cure against it,

and that is why my team and I have decided to begin this journey,

to try to make cancer detection at the early stages

easier, cheaper, smarter, and more accessible.

[We re-examined power.]

Eric Liu: The problem we face today, here in America in particular,

but all around the world,

is that far too many people are profoundly illiterate in power.

Pia Mancini: If Internet is the new printing press,

then what is democracy for the Internet era?

Jeremy Heimans: Let's for a second talk about what new power isn't.

New power is not your Facebook page.

Just ask Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad.

I assure you that his Facebook page

has not embraced the power of participation.

[Re-defined success.]

Simon Anholt: We don't admire countries primarily because they're rich,

because they're powerful, successful,

modern, or technologically advanced.

We primarily admire countries that are good.

Michael Green: GDP is a tool to help us measure economic performance.

It's not a measure of our well-being.

[Reckoned with rising inequality.]

Nick Hanauer: No free and open society can long sustain

this kind of rising economic inequality.

It has never happened. There are no examples.

You show me a highly unequal society,

and I will show you a police state or an uprising.

Thomas Piketty: When inequality gets too extreme,

then it becomes useless for growth.

Charmian Gooch: My wish is for us to know who owns and controls companies

so that they can no longer be used anonymously against the public good.

[Wrestled with the power of big data.]

Kenneth Cukier: We have to be the master of this technology, not its servant.

We are just at the outset of the big data era.

Jennifer Golbeck: By liking that Facebook page,

or by sharing this piece of personal information,

you've now improved my ability to predict whether you're using drugs

or whether you get along well in the workplace.

Anne Milgram: I wanted to introduce data and analytics

and rigorous statistical analysis into our work.

In short, I wanted to moneyball criminal justice.

[And debated the right to privacy.]

Glenn Greenwald: The United States and its partners,

unbeknownst to the entire world, has converted the Internet

into an unprecedented zone of mass, indiscriminate surveillance.

Richard Ledgett: This is not NSA running off and doing its own things.

This is a legitimate activity of the United States foreign government

that was agreed to by all the branches.

Edward Snowden: We don't have to give up our privacy to have good government.

Keren Elazari: I think we need hackers,

and in fact, they just might be the immune system for the information age.

[We empathized with those who suffer.]

Melissa Fleming: Every day, 32,000 people

will be forcibly displaced from their homes.

Kimberley Motley: And what justness means to me,

it's using laws for their intended purpose, to protect.

Eman Mohammed: My work is not meant to hide the scars of war

but to show the full frame of unseen stories of Gazans.

Sebastian Junger: I've been covering wars for almost 20 years,

and one of the remarkable things

is how many soldiers find themselves missing it.

Kevin Briggs: In my experience, it's not just the talking that you do,

but the listening.

Listen to understand.

[Recognized creativity as a constant pursuit.]

Sting: Day after day, you face a blank page and nothing's coming,

and those days turn to weeks and weeks to months,

and pretty soon, those months have turned into years with very little to show.

Mark Ronson: You have to take an element of those things

and bring something fresh and new to it.

Sarah Lewis: Mastery is about sacrificing for your craft

and not for the sake of crafting your career.

Elizabeth Gilbert: The only trick is that you've got to identify

the best, worthiest thing that you love most,

and then build your house right on top of it

and don't budge from it.

[We watched language evolve.]

Jamila Lyiscott: Let there be no confusion

Let there be no hesitation

This is not a promotion of ignorance

This is a linguistic celebration

Jill Shargaa: Webster's dictionary defines the word "awesome"

as fear mingled with admiration or reverence.

With that in mind, was your Quiznos sandwich awesome?

Anne Curzan: Multi-slacking is the act of having

multiple windows up on your screen

so it looks like you're working when you're actually goofing around on the web.

(Laughter)

[We saw the future.]

Nicholas Negroponte: So my prediction is that we are going to ingest information.

You're going to swallow a pill and know English.

You're going to swallow a pill and know Shakespeare.

[And most importantly

we saw the best versions of ourselves.]

Dan Gilbert: Human beings are works in progress

that mistakenly think they're finished.

Isabel Allende: "Tell me, what is it that you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?"

Me, I intend to live passionately.

Ziauddin Yousafzai: People ask me, what special is in my mentorship

which has made Malala so bold and so courageous and poised.

I tell them, don't ask me what I did.

Ask me what I did not do.

I did not clip her wings.

Zak Ebrahim: Violence isn't inherent in one's religion or race.

I choose to use my experience to fight back against terrorism,

against the bigotry.

Mellody Hobson: I think it's time for us to be comfortable

with the uncomfortable conversation about race.

We cannot afford to be color blind.

We have to be color brave.

Geena Rocero: My deepest truth

allowed me to accept who I am. Will you?

Shaka Senghor: So what I'm asking today

is that you envision a world

where men and women aren't held hostage to their past,

where misdeeds and mistakes don't define you for the rest of your life.

Maysoon Zayid: I gotta tell you, I got 99 problems and palsy is just one.

If there was an Oppression Olympics, I would win the gold medal.

I'm Palestinian, Muslim,

I'm female, I'm disabled, and I live in New Jersey.

(Laughter) (Applause)

Gabby Giffords: Be a leader. Set an example.

Be passionate.

Be courageous. Be your best.

Andrew Solomon: Forge meaning, build identity,

and then invite the world to share your joy.

[What will 2015 bring?]

[Explore the talks in this video at YearInIdeas.TED.com/2014]