First of all, TED has released the "censored" video of the Nick Hanauer TED talk.
This was from an article posted by TEDChris, to explain their reasons for not publishing the video on the TED homepage:
http://tedchris.posterous.com/...
I'll disagree with TEDChris's reasons below the little puffy orange cloud.
TEDChris says:
The talk tapped into a really important and timely issue. But it framed the issue in a way that was explicitly partisan.
Here's the exact framing: "This idea is an article of faith for republicans and seldom challenged by democrats and has shaped much of today's economic landscape."
Exactly what part of this statement is incorrect? This is the only time the words "Republican" or "Democrat" appear in his talk, and note that Hanauer is dinging BOTH parties with this framing -- Republicans for their article of faith, and Democrats for not challenging them in it.
How else could he have framed this, when the whole point of his speech was that an article of faith of one political party is wrong? Some sort of bowdlerized "One political party" phrasing?
This kind of emperor-has-no-clothes speech is exactly the sort of "idea worth spreading" that TED should be promoting. If we shy away from any kind of political controversy, it becomes impossible to point when the positions held by political parties are counterfactual.
And it included a number of arguments that were unconvincing, even to those of us who supported his overall stance.
Which is fine, except that TEDChris doesn't tell us which arguments those are, or why he finds them unconvincing, so it's hard to evaluate this statement.
The audience at TED who heard it live (and who are often accused of being overly enthusiastic about left-leaning ideas) gave it, on average, mediocre ratings.
I find the "on average" phrasing a bit disingenuous. Watch the video: At the end, Hanauer received a standing ovation. The video ends with a profile shot showing some of the audience; notice that about half of the audience is on their feet, while the other half remained seated. Any Republicans in the audience probably rated the talk low, as it contradicts one of their articles of faith. I would love to see a histogram of audience responses; I bet the "mediocre" rating comes out from a large number of 5s and a large number of 1s.
There is a saying that "Reality has a well-known Liberal bias," but I think this gets cause and effect backwards. I think people with a strong reality bias come to hold Liberal positions, as those are the positions which best reflect reality, and lead to policies that actually work.