Thursday, December 2, 2010

TSA #2

Previous posts on TSA




Tammy Banovac, a 52-year old, wheelchair-bound Oklahoman, stripped down to her skivvies (in this case, black lingerie) to get through security at Will Rogers World Airport Tuesday, according to CBS News.

Banovac tried to get through security twice, the first time in a trench-coat, but stripped down to get through security faster to make her flight to Phoenix. Fellow passengers quickly saw what she was doing and captured the event on YouTube. Banovac is seen in the video wearing only lingerie, pearls and has a white dog on her lap.

An airport spokeswoman told a CBS affiliate that Banovac refused to go through the metal detector after she had stripped down (which is clear considering her placement in the security area). TSA agents said they found traces of nitrate residue on her body.

Banovac told USA Today that the TSA's new patdowns have her feeling violated after she had an "unpleasant" experience with the TSA two weeks ago.



More TSA misery as wheelchair- bound woman in lingerie gets hour-long search and misses flight




Grandma Got Molested At The Airport
Hilarious TSA Parody, Sung to the tune "Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer". An original song parody by Donny Aldridge. Singer/songwriter, political satirist.

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Attitudes & Beliefs

Here I'm interested in how attitudes and beliefs are formed, shaped, changed and manipulated.

Social Inoculation Theory


The Media & Political Mind Control



Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?


How to do Precisely the Right Thing at all Possible Times

(Audio)

He challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

He says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness.

-> He sees the gap between wealth and happiness and wonders why it is so great.
-> You can make precisely the right decision at all times if you correctly calculate the odds of achieving a gain and the value of that gain to you.
-> However, we make significant errors when we are assessing odds, because we rely on what we have heard most about. In assessing our own odds of succeeding or failing at something, we tend to be “wildly overoptimistic,” because we “rehearse success” but spend less time thinking about failure
-> We are also very bad at predicting how much happiness, joy or pleasure we will get from things, for a variety of reasons, including that we compare present choices to past ones or use other inappropriate standards for comparison, and we value things we own more than others value them.
-> Having a variety of options often makes choice harder.

Making the Right Decisions
The calculus for doing precisely the right thing at all possible times is, Gilbert said, as follows: “It’s made up of the odds that your decision will lead you to a gain, and the value of that gain to you. All you have to do to make precisely the right decision at all times is to know the odds that you’ll win and how happy you’ll be when you get it.” Unfortunately, he said, we are generally very bad at making both of those calculations.

Misjudging the Odds
He said that although we all know how to calculate odds, we still don’t do it well. He noted that Americans lose more money in slot machines in Las Vegas every year than they spend on all forms of entertainment combined. In general, the greatest barrier to judging odds accurately is that people tend to base their judgment of odds on how quickly they can recall an example: “You assume that because something is easy for you to imagine, it must be highly likely to happen.” For instance, when people are asked how many people are murdered in Michigan in each year, they will guess about one hundred; but when asked how many are murdered in Detroit annually, they will answer about two hundred. Similarly, although having a swimming pool in your backyard puts your family at greater risk than having a loaded gun in your house, most people place having a swimming pool way down toward the bottom on a list of risky situations, because so little is commonly said about that danger. The sale of lottery tickets (which he said economists describe as a “stupidity tax”) is another example.

He said our calculation of odds in business situations is also hampered by the fact that “people are unbelievably optimistic.” For example, most Americans believe that they are much more likely than average to live past a hundred, to have a gifted child, to have a long marriage, and they believe that they are much less likely than average to have a drinking problem or to have a car accident. That’s because, he said, “we rehearse success,” and rehearsing success makes it easy to imagine that we will be successful. On the contrary, we don’t imagine failure.

Our Hedonic Miscalculations
Gilbert said that in deciding what will make us happy, “The ruler we use is constantly shifting and changing, because we’re constantly making different comparisons.” He said that this failure to make sound, reliable comparisons is at the heart of our failure to accurately compute the second part of his formula which states that making the right decision results from knowing the odds that you will gain something and knowing how happy that gain will make you.

Economists would have us calculate the value of something to us by comparing it to everything else that’s also available, but generally we don’t do it that way. We compare to the past – e.g., to what the same item cost yesterday, or to what we’re told it would have cost some time in the past. So, Gilbert said, if a cup of Starbucks coffee costs $1.89, we don’t know why it costs that amount, but we decide it’s worth it; but if the next time we go into a Starbucks that same cup of coffee is priced at $2.89, we probably won’t buy it. A CD may cost $14.44; in deciding whether to buy it, we may be influenced by a sign stating that it previously cost $19.99.
We are influenced by where the price of something falls within the overall range of prices for items in that same category: that’s why stores carry high-priced “aspirational items” that probably no one will ever buy, but which shift the overall price range upwards (so that, for example, the presence of a very expensive bottle of wine in a wine store might mean that instead of buying a $27 bottle of wine as an appropriate gift, you buy a $33 bottle instead).
Our perception of the value of things is also affected by the context in which we encounter them. Students asked to anticipate how good a potato chip will taste tend to expect less from that experience when it takes place in a room where Godiva chocolates are on display than when they are sampling the chip in a room with tinned meats.
Furthermore, we adjust our behavior to account for past experience. If we pay a modest amount to eat at a buffet, we are likely to eat far less than if we have paid a lot for that meal.
If we own something, we tend to like it more than we would if we didn’t own it. When subjects are shown a series of Monet prints and asked to rank them, and then they are given one of the prints, they are likely to rank that print higher the next time they are asked to rank them than they did the first time they did the ranking. This rule applies even when the subjects are anterograde amnesiacs, who don’t actually know that they own the print in question.

The Variety Conundrum
He showed how having “too many” choices can cause people to make no choice at all. For example, people making investments in their companies’ 401(k) programs are discouraged from investing when there are too many choices – for every ten mutual funds added to a list of investment vehicles, participation in a 401(k) program declined by 2 percent.
He also described a Stanford experiment in which a table offering samples of jams was set up in an upscale grocery store. Sometimes the table held six different jams; sometimes it held twenty-four jams. After trying whatever jams they wished, customers were given a coupon for a discount on any jam in the store (not just from the sample table). Among those who had approached the table when it held six jams, 30 percent used the coupon. Among those who had approached the table when it held twenty-four jams, just 3 percent used the coupon. With twenty-four jams, the choice had been made so complex that people fell back on the default position that was typical of their regular shopping – to buy no jam at all.

“Too much choice, too much variety, can be a bad thing,” he said.

Some Masters on Happiness
Since the Masters Forum began in 1987, many of our speakers have touched on the subject of happiness. Here are some of the views they expressed.
“There is a secret to happiness, and it is gratitude. All happy people are grateful, and ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that it is being unhappy that leads people to complain, but it is truer to say that it is complaining that leads to people becoming unhappy. Become grateful and you will become a much happier person.”
– Dennis Prager, 1997, “Happiness Is A Serious Problem”
“It is incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy — very busy — without being very effective at building a life for yourself.”
– Stephen Covey, 1987, “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”
“The metaphor of flow is one that many people have used to describe the sense of effortless action they feel in moments that stand out as the best in their lives. Athletes refer to it as ‘being in the zone,’ religious mystics as being in ‘ecstasy,’ artists and musicians as ‘aesthetic rapture.’ It is the full involvement of flow, rather than happiness, which makes for excellence in life. We can be happy experiencing the passive pleasure of a rested body, warm sunshine, or the contentment of a serene relationship, but this kind of happiness is dependent on favorable external circumstances. The happiness that follows flow is of our own making, and it leads to increasing complexity and growth in consciousness.”
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1991, “Finding Flow”
“Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness . . . When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.”
– Harold Kushner, 1997, “When Bad Things Happen To Good People”
“Ethics consists of those principles of right living that enable one to live a good life and thus achieve happiness. It is also a revolutionary understanding of work. Work is ennobling; labor is completely demeaning. To the extent that a human being is trapped in labor, he or she never transcends their animal nature. To work is to imprint the uniqueness of self upon something in the outside world. Human beings have an imperative need to leave the stamp of themselves upon the world. Any society that doesn't provide that for its people alienates its people. Where is that opportunity for you?”
– David Kirk Hart, 1993, “Of Labor And Work”
“I cried because I did not have an office with a door, until I met a man who had no cubicle.”
– Scott Adams, 1999, “The Dilbert Principle”
“Whatever you think matters, doesn’t. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late, or early; if you are here, or if you are there; if you said it, or did not say it; if you were clever, or if you were stupid; if you are having a bad hair day, or a no hair day; if your boss looks at you cockeyed, if your boyfriend or girlfriend looks at you cockeyed; if you are cockeyed; if you don’t get that promotion, or prize, or house, or if you do. It doesn’t matter.” – Roger Rosenblatt, 2005, “Rules for Aging”

Martin Seligman



Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?
"There's a flip side to everything," the saying goes, and in 2 minutes, Derek Sivers shows this is true in a few ways you might not expect.


Transcript:

So, imagine you're standing on a street anywhere in America and a Japanese man comes up to you and says,

"Excuse me, what is the name of this block?"

And you say, "I'm sorry. Well, this is Oak Street, that's Elm Street. This is 26th, that's 27th."

He says, "Well, okay. What is the name of that block?"

You say, "Well, blocks don't have names. Streets have names; blocks are just the unnamed spaces in between streets."

He leaves, a little confused and disappointed.

So, now imagine you're standing on a street, anywhere in Japan, you turn to a person next to you and say,

"Excuse me, what is the name of this street?"

They say, "Oh, well that's block 17 and this is block 16."

And you say, "Okay, but what is the name of this street?"

And they say, "Well, streets don't have names. Blocks have names. Just look at Google Maps here. There is block 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. All of these blocks have names. The streets are just the unnamed spaces in between the blocks.

And you say then, "Okay, then how do you know your home address?"

He said, "Well, easy, this is District Eight. There is block 17, house number One."

You say, "Okay. But walking around the neighborhood, I noticed that the house numbers don't go in order."

He says, "Of course they do. They go in the order in which they were built. The first house ever built on a block is house number one. The second house ever built is house number two. Third is house number three. It's easy. It's obvious."

So, I love that sometimes we need to go to the opposite side of the world to realize assumptions we didn't even know we had, and realize that the opposite of them may also be true.

So, for example, there are doctors in China who believe that it's their job to keep you healthy. So, any month you are healthy you pay them, and when you're sick you don't have to pay them because they failed at their job. They get rich when you're healthy, not sick. (Applause)

In most music we think of the "one" as the downbeat, the beginning of the musical phrase. One, two three four. But in West African music the "one" is thought of as the end of the phrase, like the period at the end of a sentence. So, you can hear it not just in the phrasing, but the way they count off their music. Two, three, four, one.

And this map is also accurate. (Laughter)

There is a saying that whatever true thing you can say about India, the opposite is also true. So, let's never forget, whether at TED, or anywhere else, that whatever brilliant ideas you have or hear, that the opposite may also be true. Domo arigato gozaimashita.
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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Superfood

The Top 5 Brain Health Foods


1) Wild Salmon
2) Cacao Beans
3) Matcha (stone-ground Gyokuru green tea powder)
4) Acai berries & Blueberries (tie)
5) Coffee beans
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Study Habits

Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits



Controlling Test Anxiety

Jog Around Campus
According to some, just 20 minutes of cardio a day can help improve your memory.

If you try to study for your calculus exam the way you would study for a literature exam, you probably won't do very well. Check out this handy guide to learn how to study for language, chemistry, math and essay-based exams.



Build On What You Know
If you start by studying what you know and add more difficult or recent material as you proceed, you can associate new information with familiar material. Rather than taking on intimidating amounts of new information, this will ease you into a comprehensive review and ensure you don't forget basics. Check out more review principles here.


Make It Interesting
Just as it's harder to recall a list of 20 words than a 20-word sentence, it's harder to recall a list of boring facts than a story -- to help retain information, try to connect with whatever it is you're learning. Whether by using memory aids (like mnemonic devices) or making facts personal, bringing test material to life will make it much easier to remember.

Narcissistic students don’t mind cheating their way to the top

Narcissistic college students are more likely to cheat on tests, a new study reports.

According to Science Blog, narcissists are inclined to cheat because they want to show off academically -- and are able to bypass feeling guilty for their actions.
Narcissists really want to be admired by others, and you look good in college if you're getting good grades. They feel the need to maintain a positive self-image and they will sometimes set aside ethical concerns to get what they want.
Earlier this year, a study out of San Diego State University and the University of South Alabama found that narcissism was on the rise among college students.

Perhaps this explains why 600 University of Central Florida students were nabbed for cheating last month?
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Stats & Fun Facts: College Life

The 7 Worst Types Of College Admission Essays

The Cringe-Inducing Metaphor Essay
The Reformed Convict Essay
The Mother Teresa Essay
The "Wizard of Oz" Essay
The" Jersey Shore" Essay
The Dead Dog Essay
The Free Verse Essay


8 Things That Couldn't Survive Without Colleges

>> Interstate Bus Lines
>> The MLA
>> The People Who Make Women’s Sportswear with Words Across the Butt
>> Lanyard Suppliers
>> Squirrels
>> Registrars
>> Certain Ping Pong Ball Manufacturers
>> Starbucks

Study Tips For Exams: 12 Ways To Ace Your Finals

Study In Chunks
Although it's tempting (and sometimes inevitable) cramming really isn't the best way to study. According to the Dartmouth Academic Skills Center, you should study in 20-50 minute increments and give yourself a 5 to 10 minute break between each session. For best results, study throughout one full week.
Listen To Mozart
Certain types of music, like Mozart's compositions -- which follow a 60 bpm pattern -- have been shown to activate both the right and left sides of the brain in listeners. Stimulation of both sides is linked with increased recall, and so listening while studying can help increase the likelihood that you will retain relevant information.
Alternate Study Spots
Rather than sticking to one study spot, you should switch things up when reviewing for exams.
Drink Cocoa
Cocoa is packed with antioxidants as well as cognitive and mood enhancers, it is a superfood.
Form A Study Group
Study groups can motivate you to get started when it's hard to motivate yourself -- plus, explaining difficult concepts out loud will help you figure out what you understand and what you still need to go over, and getting a group together will allow you to divide and conquer definition of terms and explanations of concepts. And if you can get each member to bring a snack, that's incentive to actually meet.
Prevent Test Anxiety
If mere mention of the phrase "final exam" makes your heart beat a little faster, mastering exam material may not be all you need to worry about. To calm yourself down -- and prevent from blanking during the test -- spend some time before the exam imagining yourself acing it. You also might want to induce stress while studying, and then practice quelling fear by taking deep breaths, focusing on what you know and keeping things (including the importance of the test) in perspective.
Jog Around Campus
According to some, just 20 minutes of cardio a day can help improve your memory. And for those of you who can, cardio outside is even better -- taking a break in nature is more relaxing than taking a walk down a city street, which calls upon you to engage actively with your environment. But if it's freezing out and the gym is closed, you can always take a quick dance break.
Manage Your Time
By the time finals roll around, your time is precious -- every minute counts. Which is why scheduling is essential during the weeks (er, days) prior to exams. So as not to go totally bonkers during this stressful time, make a realistic study schedule for yourself. Leave yourself time for breaks -- you'll be taking them anyway -- and be sure to prioritize according to which class you'll need to study for the most.
Go To Office Hours
Nobody ever wants to go to office hours, which is why professors and TAs are so happy whenever students do show up -- the trick is to go a few weeks before finals, when you are sure to have plenty of time to meet and discuss. Even if you only have one question, feedback from a professor will help you figure out what he thinks is most important, and will help you figure out what to focus on while studying.
Approach Each Class Differently
If you try to study for your calculus exam the way you would study for a literature exam, you probably won't do very well.
Build On What You Know
If you start by studying what you know and add more difficult or recent material as you proceed, you can associate new information with familiar material. Rather than taking on intimidating amounts of new information, this will ease you into a comprehensive review and ensure you don't forget basics.
Make It Interesting
Just as it's harder to recall a list of 20 words than a 20-word sentence, it's harder to recall a list of boring facts than a story -- to help retain information, try to connect with whatever it is you're learning. Whether by using memory aids (like mnemonic devices) or making facts personal, bringing test material to life will make it much easier to remember.

13 Colleges That Won't Leave You In Massive Debt
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/22/13-low-debt-colleges_n_786237.html#s187212

Kennesaw State University Average debt: $2,845
Hampton University Average debt: $4,783
Princeton University Average debt: $4,957
Southeastern Oklahoma State University Average debt: $4,967
CUNY College of Staten Island Average debt: $5,079
The Baptist College of Florida Average debt: $5,316
Western New Mexico University Average debt: $5,500
College of the Ozarks Average debt: $6,029
Sam Houston State University Average debt: $6,196
Cameron University Average debt: $7,000
CUNY Hunter College Average debt: $7,500
Lamar University Average debt: $7,856
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Average debt: $7,894

13 Colleges That Leave Students In Massive Debt

Cleveland Institute of Art Average debt: $61,270
Ringling College of Art and Design Average debt: $52,173
Eastern Nazarene College Average debt: $47,815
College for Creative Studies Average debt: $47,604
Woodbury University Average debt: $47,059
Ohio Northern University Average debt: $45,902
Simmons College Average debt: $45,237
Worcester Polytechnic Institute Average debt: $44,340
Wheelock College Average debt: $43,319
Lawrence Technological University Average debt: $42,723
Minneapolis College of Art and Design Average debt: $42,346
Kettering University Average debt: $41,485
University of Dubuque Average debt: $41,399

The 7 Most Affordable College Towns: Forbes List

Muncie, Indiana (Ball State University)
Buffalo, New York (SUNY Buffalo)
Memphis, Tennessee (University of Memphis)
Columbia, South Carolina (University of South Carolina)
Akron, Ohio (University of Akron)
Ypsilanti, Michigan (Eastern Michigan University)
Athens, Ohio (Ohio University)

12 Colleges With The Best Professors

Oklahoma Wesleyan University
United States Military Academy
Clarke College
Wellesley College
North Greenville University
Master’s College and Seminary
Wabash College
Carleton College
Sewanee-The University of the South
Marlboro College
Corban College
Randolph College

13 Great Careers For College Grads

Financial Analyst Median annual pay: $73,670
Optometrist Median annual pay: $96,140
Physical Therapist Median annual pay: $74,480
Emergency Management Specialist Median annual pay: $53,000
Urban Planner Median annual pay: $61,820
Biomedical Engineer Median annual pay: $78,860
Civil Engineer Median annual pay: $76,590
Meteorologist Median annual pay: $84,710
Medical and Public Health Social Worker Median annual pay: $46,300
Logistician Median annual pay: $68,000
Actuary Median annual pay: $87,210
Marriage and Family Therapist Median annual pay: $46,920
Curator Median annual pay: $48,000

Colleges With The Lowest Graduation Rates

Golden Gate University: 10 percent
Alliant International University in San Diego: 11 percent
Idaho State University: 16 percent
University of Arkansas in Little Rock: 21 percent
University of New Orleans: 22 percent
Cleveland State University: 26 percent
Texas A&M University in Kingsville: 27 percent
University of Alaska in Fairbanks: 27 percent
University of Texas in El Paso: 31 percent
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis: 32 percent
Morgan State University: 32 percent
University of Massachusetts in Boston: 33 percent

10 Surprising Techie College Dropouts



Colleges With The Highest Graduation Rates

Harvard University: 98 percent
Yale University: 97 percent
University of Notre Dame: 96 percent
Princeton University: 96 percent
University of Pennsylvania: 95 percent
Duke University: 95 percent
Dartmouth College: 95 percent
Washington University in St. Louis: 94 percent
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 94 percent
Northwestern University: 94 percent
Stanford University: 94 percent
Brown University: 94 percent

What Matters To Millenials: Pew Study

Being A Good Parent - 52%
Having A Successful Marriage - 30%
Helping Others In Need - 21%
Owning A Home - 20%
Living A Very Religious Life - 15%
Having A High-Paying Career - 15%
Having Lots Of Free Time - 9%
Becoming Famous - 1%

The Top 10 Schools For Ambitious Students


Most College Students Want Tuition Money For Christmas


The BEST Gifts For College Students

10 ways to pay college tuition in 2011

9 Cheap, Great Gift Ideas For College Students

The (Un)employment Chronicles: Voices Of The Degreed And Jobless

More students are enrolling in college today than ever before -- a staggering 2.8 million signed up in 2008 alone.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/16/us-college-enrollment_n_614456.html

But the job market is not so kind as to warmly receive the surplus of well-heeled graduates. The Economic Policy Institute puts the current unemployment rate for college graduates aged 16 to 24 at nine percent --
http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/welcome_to_the_real_world/

-- the highest number in 25 years. This leaves America's young people in the lurch, constantly searching for work of any kind, being forced to move back in with their parents and holding out hope that things will improve.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/21/moving-home-college_n_619181.html

Are you a college graduate looking for work? How long have you been unemployed? What are you doing to get by? Are you angry? Or optimistic?


Profs Start Website For Rich To Give Back Tax Cuts

How America Messed Up Its Kids... And How We Can Fix Them


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Foreclosure

Foreclosure Bombshell
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Poverty

As GOP Appears to Win Extension of Bush-Era Tax Cuts for Wealthy, Rev. Jesse Jackson Calls for "War on Poverty"

Transcript
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/1/as_gop_appears_to_win_extension

The Senate has failed to advance a bill that would have extended the deadline to file for federal unemployment insurance through next year. This leaves some two million unemployed Americans without jobless benefits after this month. The White House, meanwhile, has signaled it’s willing to compromise on Republican demands to preserve the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

REV. JESSE JACKSON: ... Now 59 million Americans have no health insurance; that number is rising. Forty-nine million are now in poverty. The highest food stamp allocation, 41 million, ever. And so, while the subsidized wealthy are splurging in their wealth, because they were subsidized, there is a growing body of unemployed people. And these two million Americans cannot get unemployment benefits. They cannot pay their house notes. They cannot keep their children in school. And so, we must use a rope to climb this hole, not another shovel.


Professor, Author Jacob Hacker on "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class"


Transcript



Jessica Jackley: Poverty, money -- and love
What do you think of people in poverty? Maybe what Jessica Jackley once did: "they" need "our" help, in the form of a few coins in a jar. The co-founder of Kiva.org talks about how her attitude changed -- and how her work with microloans has brought new power to people who live on a few dollars a day.
Jessica Jackley is the co-founder of Kiva.org, an online community that helps individuals loan small amounts of money, called microloans, to entrepreneurs throughout the world.



Transcript

The stories we tell about each other matter very much. The stories we tell ourselves about our own lives matter. And most of all, I think the way that we participate in each other's stories is of deep importance. I was six years old when I first heard stories about the poor. Now I didn't hear those stories from the poor themselves, I heard them from my Sunday school teacher and Jesus, kind of via my Sunday school teacher. I remember learning that people who were poor needed something material -- food, clothing, shelter -- that they didn't have. And I also was taught, coupled with that, that it was my job -- this classroom full of five and six year-old children -- it was our job, apparently, to help. This is what Jesus asked of us. And then he said, "What you do for the least of these, you do for me." Now I was pretty psyched. I was very eager to be useful in the world. I think we all have that feeling. And also, it was kind of interesting that God needed help. That was news to me, and it felt like it was a very important thing to get to participate in.

But I also learned very soon there after that Jesus also said, and I'm paraphrasing, the poor would always be with us. This frustrated and confused me. I felt like I had been just given a homework assignment that I had to do, and I was excited to do, but no matter what I would do, I would fail. So I felt confused, a little bit frustrated and angry, like maybe I'd misunderstood something here. And I felt overwhelmed. And for the first time, I began to fear this group of people and to feel negative emotion towards a whole group of people. I imagined in my head a kind of long line of individuals that were never going away, that would always be with us. They were always going to ask me to help them and give them things, which I was excited to do, but I didn't know how it was going to work. And I didn't know what would happen when I ran out of things to give, especially if the problem was never going away. In the years following, the other stories I heard about the poor growing up were no more positive. For example, I saw pictures and images frequently of sadness and suffering. I heard about things that were going wrong in the lives of the poor. I heard about disease. I heard about war. They always seemed to be kind of related. And in general, I got this sort of idea that the poor in the world lived lives that were wrought with suffering and sadness, devastation, hopelessness.

And after a while, I developed what I think many of us do, is this this predictable response, where I started to feel bad every time I heard about them. I started to feel guilty for my own relative wealth, because I wasn't doing more, apparently, to make things better. And I even felt a sense of shame because of that. And so naturally, I started to distance myself. I stopped listening to their stories quite as closely as I had before. And I stopped expecting things to really change. Now I still gave. On the outside it looked like I was still quite involved. I gave of my time and my money. I gave when solutions were on sale. The cost of a cup of coffee can save a child's life, right. I mean who can argue with that? I gave when I was cornered, when it was difficult to avoid, and I gave, in general, when the negative emotions built up enough that I gave to relieve my own suffering, not someone else's. The truth be told, I was giving out of that place, not out of a genuine place of hope and excitement to help and of generosity. It became a transaction for me, became sort of a trade. I was purchasing something. I was buying my right to go on with my day and not necessarily be bothered by this bad news. And I think the way that we go through that sometimes can, first of all, disembody a group of people, individuals out there in the world. And it can also turn into a commodity, which is a very scary thing. So as I did this, and as I think many of us do this, we kind of buy our distance, we kind of buy our right to go on with our day. I think that exchange can actually get in the way of the very thing that we want most. It can get in the way of our desire to really be meaningful and useful in another person's life and, in short, to love.

Thankfully, a few years ago, things shifted for me because I heard this gentleman speak, Dr. Muhammad Yunus. I know many in the room probably know exactly who he is, but to give the shorthand version for any who have not heard him speak, Dr. Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago for his work pioneering modern microfinance. When I heard him speak, it was three years before that. But basically, microfinance -- if this is new to you as well -- think of that as financial services for the poor. Think of all the things you get at your bank and imagine those products and services tailored to the needs of someone living on a few dollars a day. Dr. Yunus shared his story, explaining what that was, and what he had done with his Grameen Bank. He also talked about, in particular, microlending, which is a tiny loan that could help someone start or grow a business. Now, when I heard him speak, it was exciting for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I learned about this new method of change in the world that, for once, showed me, maybe, a way to interact with someone and to give, to share of a resource in a way that wasn't weird and didn't make me feel bad. That was exciting. But more importantly, he told stories about the poor that were different than any stories I had heard before. In fact, those individuals he talked about who were poor was sort of a side note. He was talking about strong, smart, hardworking entrepreneurs who woke up every day and were doing things to make their lives and their family's lives better. All they needed to do that more quickly and to do it better was a little bit of capital. It was an amazing sort of insight for me.

And I, in fact, was so deeply moved by this, it's hard to express now how much that affected me, but I was so moved that I actually quit my job a few weeks later, and I moved to East Africa to try to see for myself what this was about. For the first time, actually, in a long time I wanted to meet those individuals, I wanted to meet these entrepreneurs, and see for myself what their lives were actually about. So I spent three months in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania interviewing entrepreneurs that had received 100 dollars to start or grow a business. And in fact, through those interactions, for the first time, I was starting to get to be friends with some of those people in that big amorphous group out there that was supposed to be far away. I was starting to be friends and get to know their personal stories. And over and over again, as I interviewed them and spent my days with them, I did hear stories of life change and amazing little details of change.

So I would hear from goat herders who had used that money that they had received to buy a few more goats. Their business trajectory would change. They would make a little bit more money. Their standard of living would shift and would get better. And they would make really interesting little adjustments in their lives, like they would start to send their children to school. They might be able to buy mosquito nets. Maybe they could afford a lock for the door and feel secure. Maybe it was just that they could put sugar in their tea and offer that to me when I came as their guest and that made them feel proud. But there were these beautiful details, even if I talked to 20 goat herders in a row, and some days that's what happened -- these beautiful details of life change that were meaningful to them. That was another thing that really touched me. It was really humbling to see for the first time, to really understand that, even if I could have taken a magic wand and fixed everything, I probably would have gotten a lot wrong. Because the best way for people to change their lives is for them to have control and to do that in a way that they believe is best for them. So I saw that and it was very humbling.

Anyway, another interesting thing happened while I was there. I never once was asked for a donation, which had kind of been my mode, right. There's poverty, you give money to help. No one asked me for a donation. In fact, no one wanted me to feel bad for them at all. If anything, they just wanted to be able to do more of what they were doing already and to build on their own capabilities. So what I did hear, once in a while, was that people wanted a loan -- I thought that sounded very reasonable and really exciting. And by the way, I was a philosophy and poetry major in school, so I didn't know the difference between profit and revenue when I went to East Africa. I just got this impression that the money would work. And my introduction to business was in these $100 little infuses of capital. And I learned about profit and revenue, about leverage, all sorts of things, from farmers, from seamstresses, from goat herders. So this idea that these new stories of business and hope might be shared with my friends and family, and through that, maybe we could get some of the money that they needed to be able to continue their businesses as loans, that's this little idea that turned into Kiva.

A few months later, I went back to Uganda with a digital camera and a basic website that my partner, Matthew, and I had kind of built, and took pictures of seven of my new friends, posted their stories, these stories of entrepreneurship, up on the website, spammed friends and family and said, "We think this is legal. Haven't heard back yet from SEC on all the details, but do you say, do you want to help participate in this, provide the money that they need?" The money came in basically overnight. We sent it over to Uganda. And over the next six months, a beautiful thing happened; the entrepreneurs received the money, they were paid, and their businesses, in fact, grew, and they were able to support themselves and change the trajectory of their lives. In October of '05, after those first seven loans were paid, Matt and I took the word beta off of the site. We said, "Our little experiment has been a success. Let's start for real." That was our official launch. And then that first year, October '05 through '06, Kiva facilitated $500,000 in loans. The second year, it was a total of 15 million. The third year, the total was up to around 40. The fourth year, we were just short of 100. And today, less than five years in, Kiva's facilitated more than 150 million dollars, in little 25-dollar bits, from lenders and entrepreneurs -- more than a million of those, collectively in 200 countries.

So that's where Kiva is today, just to bring you right up to the present. And while those numbers and those statistics are really fun to talk about and they're interesting, to me, Kiva's really about stories. It's about retelling the story of the poor, and it's about giving ourselves an opportunity to engage that validates their dignity, validates a partnership relationship, not a relationship that's based on the traditional sort of donor beneficiary weirdness that can happen. But instead a relationship that can promote respect and hope and this optimism that together we can move forward. So what I hope is that, not only can the money keep flowing forth through Kiva -- that's a very positive and meaningful thing -- but I hope Kiva can blur those lines, like I said, between the traditional rich and poor categories that we're taught to see in the world, this false dichotomy of us and them, have and have not. I hope that Kiva can blur those lines. Because , as that happens, I think we can feel free to interact in a way that's more open, more just and more creative, to engage with each other and to help each other.

Imagine how you feel when you see somebody on street who is begging and you're about to approach them. Imagine how you feel. And then imagine the difference when you might see somebody who has a story of entrepreneurship and hard work who wants to tell you about their business. Maybe they're smiling, and they want to talk to you about what they've done. Imagine if you're speaking with somebody who's growing things and making them flourish, somebody's who's using their talents to do something productive, somebody's who's built their own business from scratch, someone who is surrounded by abundance, not scarcity, who's in fact creating abundance, somebody with full hands with something to offer, not empty hands asking for you to give them something. Imagine if you could hear a story you didn't expect of somebody who wakes up every day and works very, very hard to make their life better. These stories can really change the way that we think about each other. And if we can catalyze a supportive community to come around these individuals and to participate in their story by lending a little bit of money, I think that can change the way we believe in each other and each other's potential.

Now for me, Kiva is just the beginning. And as I look forward to what is next, it's been helpful to reflect on the things I've learned so far. The first one is, as I mentioned, entrepreneurship was a new idea to me. Kiva borrowers, as I interviewed them and got to know them over the last few years, have taught me what entrepreneurship is. And I think, at its core, it's deciding that you want your life to be better. You see an opportunity, and you decide what you're going to do to try to seize that. In short, it's deciding that tomorrow can better than today and going after that. Second thing that I've learned is that loans are a very interesting tool for connectivity. So they're not a donation. Yeah, maybe it doesn't sound that much different. But in fact, when you give something to someone and they say, "Thanks," and let you know how things go, that's one thing. When you lend them money, and they slowly pay you back over time, you have this excuse to have an ongoing dialogue. This continued attention, this ongoing attention, is a really big deal to build different kinds of relationships among us. And then third, from what I've heard from the entrepreneurs I've gotten to know, when all else is equal, given the option to have just money to do what you need to do, or money plus the support and encouragement of a global community, people choose the community plus the money. That's a much more meaningful combination, a more powerful combination.

So with that in mind, this particular incident has led to the things that I'm working on now. I see entrepreneurs everywhere now, now that I'm tuned into this. And one thing that I've seen is there are a lot of supportive communities that already exist in the world. With social networks, it's an amazing way, growing the number of people that we all have around us in our own supportive communities, rapidly. And so, as I have been thinking about this, I've been wondering: how can we engage these supportive communities to catalyze even more entrepreneurial ideas and to catalyze all of us to make tomorrow better than today? As I've researched what's going on in the United States, a few interesting little insights have come up. So one is that, of course, as we all might expect, many small businesses in the U.S. and all over the world still need money to grow and to do more of what they want to do, or they might need money during a hard month. But there's always a need for resources close by. Another thing is, it turns out, those resources don't usually come from the places you might expect -- banks, venture capitalists, other organizations and support structures -- they come from friends and family. Some statistics say 85 percent or more of funding for small businesses comes from friends and family. That's around 130 billion dollars a year. It's a lot. And third, so as people are doing this friends and family fundraising process, it's very awkward, people don't know exactly what to ask for, how to ask, what to promise in return, even thought they have the best of intentions and want to thank those people that are supporting them.

So to harness the power of these supportive communities in a new way and to allow entrepreneurs to decide for themselves exactly what that financial exchange should look like, exactly what fits them and the people around them, this week actually, we're quietly doing a launch of Profounder, which is a crowd funding platform for small businesses to raise what they need through investments from their friends and family. And it's investments, not donations, not loans, but investments that have a dynamic return. So the mapping of participating in the story, it actually flows with the up and down. So in short, it's a do-it-yourself tool for small businesses to raise these funds. And what you can do is go onto the site, create a profile, create investment terms in a really easy way. We make it really, really simple for me as well as anyone else who wants to use the site. And we allow entrepreneurs to share a percentage of their revenues. They can raise up to a million dollars from an unlimited number of unaccredited, unsophisticated investors -- everyday people, heaven forbid -- and they can share those returns over time -- again, whatever terms they set. As investors choose to become involved based on those terms, they can either take their rewards back as cash, or they can decide in advance to give those returns away to a non-profit. So they can be a cash, or a cause, investor. It's my hope that this kind of tool can show anybody who has an idea a path to go do what they want to do in the world and to gather the people around them that they already have, the people that know them best and that love them and want to support them, to gather them to make this happen.

So that's what I'm working on now. And to close, I just want to say, look these are tools. Right now, Profounder's right at the very beginning, and it's very palpable, it's very clear to me, that it's just a vessel, it's just a tool. What we need are for people to care, to actually go use it, just like they've cared enough to use Kiva to make those connections. But the good news is I don't think I need to stand here and convince you to care. I'm not even going to try. I don't think, even though we often hear, you know, hear the ethical and moral reasons, the religious reasons, "Here's why caring and giving will make you happier." I don't think we need to be convinced of that. I think we know. In fact, I think we know so much, and it's such a reality that we care so deeply, that in fact, what usually stops us is that we're afraid to try and to mess up, because we care so very much about helping each other and being meaningful in each other's lives.

So what I think I can do today, that best thing I can give you -- I've given you my story, which is the best I can do. And I think I can remind us that we do care. I think we all already know that. And I think we know that love is resilient enough for us to get out there and try. Just a sec.

(Applause)

Thanks.

(Applause)

Thanks.

(Applause)

For me, the best way to be inspired to try is to stop and to listen to someone else's story. And I'm grateful that I've gotten to do that here at TED. And I'm grateful that whenever I do that, guaranteed, I am inspired, I am inspired by the person I am listening to. And I believe more and more every time I listen in that that person's potential to do great things in the world and in my own potential to maybe help. And that -- forget the tools, forget the moving around of resources -- that stuff's easy. Believing in each other, really being sure when push comes to shove that each one of us can do amazing things in the world, that is what can make our stories into love stories and our collective story into one that continually perpetuates hope and good things for all of us. So that, this belief in each other, knowing that without a doubt and practicing that every day in whatever you do, that's what I believe will change the world and make tomorrow better than today.

Thank you.

(Applause)
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