Yesterday I attended TEDxBerkeley.  You may have seen TED talks online before, taken from the main TED event which used to be hosted in Monterey and is now in Long Beach (if not, I recommend browsing through them — there’s a lot of fascinating stuff there).  In the past couple years, TED, dedicated to “Ideas worth spreading,” has itself been spreading to a bunch of regional events that are locally organized.  The UC Berkeley event was subtitled “Doing the unprecedented,” and vetted its applicants for those interested in changing the world.  I went eager to hear talks on how others were changing the world, and hoping for some tips on how to do so effectively.

There were a number of interesting talks at the event, but a few stood out in particular from an effectivist viewpoint.  People spoke on everything from compassion, making progress toward ending conflicts, changing policy at the city level in order to save large numbers of lives, radically altering how the medical system works from the outside, and — perhaps best of all — effective philanthropy.

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