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And now, the real news

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    We are drowning in news.
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    Reuters alone puts out
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    three and a half million news stories a year.
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    That's just one source.
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    My question is: How many of those stories
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    are actually going to matter in the long run?
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    That's the idea behind The Long News.
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    It's a project by The Long Now Foundation,
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    which was founded by TEDsters including
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    Kevin Kelly and Stewart Brand.
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    And what we're looking for is news stories that might still matter
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    50 or 100 or 10,000 years from now.
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    And when you look at the news through that filter,
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    a lot falls by the wayside.
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    To take the top stories from the A.P. this last year,
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    is this going to matter in a decade?
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    Or this?
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    Or this?
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    Really?
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    Is this going to matter in 50 or 100 years?
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    Okay, that was kind of cool.
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    (Laughter)
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    But the top story of this past year was the economy,
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    and I'm just betting that, sooner or later,
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    this particular recession is going to be old news.
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    So, what kind of stories might
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    make a difference for the future?
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    Well, let's take science.
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    Someday, little robots will go
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    through our bloodstreams fixing things.
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    That someday is already here if you're a mouse.
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    Some recent stories:
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    nanobees zap tumors with real bee venom;
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    they're sending genes into the brain;
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    a robot they built that can crawl through the human body.
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    What about resources? How are we going to feed nine billion people?
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    We're having trouble feeding six billion today.
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    As we heard yesterday, there's over a billion people hungry.
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    Britain will starve without genetically modified crops.
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    Bill Gates, fortunately, has bet a billion on [agricultural] research.
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    What about global politics?
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    The world's going to be very different when and if China sets the agenda,
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    and they may.
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    They've overtaken the U.S. as the world's biggest car market,
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    they've overtaken Germany as the largest exporter,
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    and they've started doing DNA tests on kids
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    to choose their careers.
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    We're finding all kinds of ways to push back the limits of what we know.
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    Some recent discoveries:
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    There's an ant colony from Argentina that has now
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    spread to every continent but Antarctica;
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    there's a self-directed robot scientist that's made a discovery --
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    soon, science may no longer need us,
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    and life may no longer need us either;
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    a microbe wakes up after 120,000 years.
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    It seems that with or without us,
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    life will go on.
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    But my pick for the top Long News story of this past year
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    was this one: water found on the moon.
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    Makes it a lot easier to put a colony up there.
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    And if NASA doesn't do it, China might,
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    or somebody in this room might write a big check.
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    My point is this:
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    In the long run, some news stories
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    are more important than others.
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    (Applause)
Title:
And now, the real news
Speaker:
Kirk Citron
Description:

How many of today's headlines will matter in 100 years? 1000? Kirk Citron's "Long News" project collects stories that not only matter today, but will resonate for decades -- even centuries -- to come. At TED2010, he highlights recent headlines with the potential to shape our future.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
03:01
TED edited English subtitles for And now, the real news
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