The unheard story of David and Goliath
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0:01 - 0:02So I wanted to tell a story
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0:02 - 0:05that really obsessed me when I was writing my new book,
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0:05 - 0:09and it's a story of something that happened
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0:09 - 0:103,000 years ago,
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0:10 - 0:14when the Kingdom of Israel was in its infancy.
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0:14 - 0:16And it takes place in an area called the Shephelah
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0:16 - 0:19in what is now Israel.
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0:19 - 0:21And the reason the story obsessed me is that
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0:21 - 0:24I thought I understood it, and then I went back over it
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0:24 - 0:28and I realized that I didn't understand it at all.
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0:28 - 0:33Ancient Palestine had a -- along its eastern border,
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0:33 - 0:34there's a mountain range.
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0:34 - 0:36Still same is true of Israel today.
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0:36 - 0:39And in the mountain range are all of the ancient cities
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0:39 - 0:44of that region, so Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron.
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0:44 - 0:46And then there's a coastal plain
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0:46 - 0:49along the Mediterranean, where Tel Aviv is now.
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0:49 - 0:53And connecting the mountain range with the coastal plain
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0:53 - 0:54is an area called the Shephelah,
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0:54 - 0:59which is a series of valleys and ridges that run east to west,
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0:59 - 1:02and you can follow the Shephelah, go through the Shephelah
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1:02 - 1:05to get from the coastal plain to the mountains.
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1:05 - 1:06And the Shephelah, if you've been to Israel, you'll know
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1:06 - 1:09it's just about the most beautiful part of Israel.
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1:09 - 1:12It's gorgeous, with forests of oak
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1:12 - 1:14and wheat fields and vineyards.
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1:14 - 1:18But more importantly, though, in the history of that region,
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1:18 - 1:21it's served, it's had a real strategic function,
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1:21 - 1:24and that is, it is the means by which hostile armies
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1:24 - 1:27on the coastal plain find their way,
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1:27 - 1:30get up into the mountains and threaten those living in the mountains.
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1:30 - 1:34And 3,000 years ago, that's exactly what happens.
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1:34 - 1:38The Philistines, who are the biggest of enemies
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1:38 - 1:39of the Kingdom of Israel,
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1:39 - 1:41are living in the coastal plain.
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1:41 - 1:44They're originally from Crete. They're a seafaring people.
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1:44 - 1:47And they may start to make their way
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1:47 - 1:49through one of the valleys of the Shephelah
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1:49 - 1:50up into the mountains,
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1:50 - 1:52because what they want to do is occupy the highland area
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1:52 - 1:56right by Bethlehem and split the Kingdom of Israel in two.
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1:56 - 2:00And the Kingdom of Israel, which is headed by King Saul,
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2:00 - 2:01obviously catches wind of this,
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2:01 - 2:04and Saul brings his army down from the mountains
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2:04 - 2:08and he confronts the Philistines in the Valley of Elah,
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2:08 - 2:10one of the most beautiful of the valleys of the Shephelah.
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2:10 - 2:13And the Israelites dig in along the northern ridge,
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2:13 - 2:17and the Philistines dig in along the southern ridge,
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2:17 - 2:20and the two armies just sit there for weeks
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2:20 - 2:22and stare at each other, because they're deadlocked.
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2:22 - 2:25Neither can attack the other, because to attack the other side
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2:25 - 2:28you've got to come down the mountain into the valley
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2:28 - 2:31and then up the other side, and you're completely exposed.
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2:31 - 2:33So finally, to break the deadlock,
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2:33 - 2:36the Philistines send their mightiest warrior
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2:36 - 2:38down into the valley floor, and he calls out
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2:38 - 2:40and he says to the Israelites,
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2:40 - 2:43"Send your mightiest warrior down,
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2:43 - 2:45and we'll have this out, just the two of us."
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2:45 - 2:48This was a tradition in ancient warfare called single combat.
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2:48 - 2:50It was a way of settling disputes
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2:50 - 2:54without incurring the bloodshed of a major battle.
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2:54 - 2:57And the Philistine who is sent down,
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2:57 - 2:59their mighty warrior, is a giant.
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2:59 - 3:01He's 6 foot 9.
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3:01 - 3:06He's outfitted head to toe in this glittering bronze armor,
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3:06 - 3:09and he's got a sword and he's got a javelin
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3:09 - 3:12and he's got his spear. He is absolutely terrifying.
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3:12 - 3:16And he's so terrifying that none of the Israelite soldiers want to fight him.
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3:16 - 3:21It's a death wish, right? There's no way they think they can take him.
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3:21 - 3:23And finally the only person who will come forward
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3:23 - 3:26is this young shepherd boy,
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3:26 - 3:28and he goes up to Saul and he says, "I'll fight him."
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3:28 - 3:31And Saul says, "You can't fight him. That's ridiculous.
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3:31 - 3:34You're this kid. This is this mighty warrior."
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3:34 - 3:36But the shepherd is adamant. He says, "No, no, no,
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3:36 - 3:39you don't understand, I have been defending my flock
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3:39 - 3:43against lions and wolves for years. I think I can do it."
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3:43 - 3:47And Saul has no choice. He's got no one else who's come forward.
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3:47 - 3:48So he says, "All right."
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3:48 - 3:49And then he turns to the kid, and he says,
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3:49 - 3:53"But you've got to wear this armor. You can't go as you are."
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3:53 - 3:55So he tries to give the shepherd his armor,
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3:55 - 3:56and the shepherd says, "No."
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3:56 - 3:59He says, "I can't wear this stuff."
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3:59 - 4:03The Biblical verse is, "I cannot wear this for I have not proved it,"
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4:03 - 4:06meaning, "I've never worn armor before. You've got to be crazy."
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4:06 - 4:09So he reaches down instead on the ground
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4:09 - 4:10and picks up five stones
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4:10 - 4:13and puts them in his shepherd's bag
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4:13 - 4:17and starts to walk down the mountainside to meet the giant.
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4:17 - 4:20And the giant sees this figure approaching,
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4:20 - 4:23and calls out, "Come to me so I can feed your flesh
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4:23 - 4:27to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field."
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4:27 - 4:30He issues this kind of taunt towards this person
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4:30 - 4:32coming to fight him.
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4:32 - 4:35And the shepherd draws closer and closer,
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4:35 - 4:38and the giant sees that he's carrying a staff.
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4:38 - 4:39That's all he's carrying.
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4:39 - 4:41Instead of a weapon, just this shepherd's staff,
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4:41 - 4:44and he says -- he's insulted --
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4:44 - 4:47"Am I a dog that you would come to me with sticks?"
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4:47 - 4:50And the shepherd boy takes one of his stones
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4:50 - 4:54out of his pocket, puts it in his sling
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4:54 - 4:56and rolls it around and lets it fly
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4:56 - 4:58and it hits the giant right between the eyes --
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4:58 - 5:00right here, in his most vulnerable spot --
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5:00 - 5:04and he falls down either dead or unconscious,
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5:04 - 5:06and the shepherd boy runs up and takes his sword
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5:06 - 5:08and cuts off his head,
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5:08 - 5:13and the Philistines see this and they turn and they just run.
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5:13 - 5:18And of course, the name of the giant is Goliath
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5:18 - 5:20and the name of the shepherd boy is David,
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5:20 - 5:23and the reason that story has obsessed me
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5:23 - 5:25over the course of writing my book
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5:25 - 5:28is that everything I thought I knew about that story
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5:28 - 5:31turned out to be wrong.
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5:31 - 5:35So David, in that story, is supposed to be the underdog, right?
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5:35 - 5:37In fact, that term, David and Goliath,
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5:37 - 5:40has entered our language as a metaphor for
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5:40 - 5:41improbable victories
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5:41 - 5:44by some weak party over someone far stronger.
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5:44 - 5:46Now why do we call David an underdog?
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5:46 - 5:50Well, we call him an underdog because he's a kid,
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5:50 - 5:53a little kid, and Goliath is this big, strong giant.
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5:53 - 5:55We also call him an underdog
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5:55 - 5:59because Goliath is an experienced warrior,
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5:59 - 6:01and David is just a shepherd.
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6:01 - 6:03But most importantly, we call him an underdog
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6:03 - 6:08because all he has is -- it's that Goliath is outfitted with
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6:08 - 6:10all of this modern weaponry,
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6:10 - 6:12this glittering coat of armor
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6:12 - 6:16and a sword and a javelin and a spear,
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6:16 - 6:20and all David has is this sling.
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6:20 - 6:21Well, let's start there with the phrase
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6:21 - 6:24"All David has is this sling,"
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6:24 - 6:27because that's the first mistake that we make.
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6:27 - 6:30In ancient warfare, there are three kinds of warriors.
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6:30 - 6:34There's cavalry, men on horseback and with chariots.
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6:34 - 6:37There's heavy infantry, which are foot soldiers,
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6:37 - 6:40armed foot soldiers with swords and shields
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6:40 - 6:41and some kind of armor.
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6:41 - 6:45And there's artillery, and artillery are archers,
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6:45 - 6:47but, more importantly, slingers.
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6:47 - 6:50And a slinger is someone who has a leather pouch
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6:50 - 6:53with two long cords attached to it,
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6:53 - 6:56and they put a projectile, either a rock or a lead ball,
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6:56 - 6:59inside the pouch, and they whirl it around like this
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6:59 - 7:02and they let one of the cords go,
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7:02 - 7:05and the effect is to send the projectile forward
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7:05 - 7:09towards its target.
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7:09 - 7:11That's what David has, and it's important to understand
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7:11 - 7:14that that sling is not a slingshot.
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7:14 - 7:17It's not this, right? It's not a child's toy.
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7:17 - 7:21It's in fact an incredibly devastating weapon.
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7:21 - 7:24When David rolls it around like this,
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7:24 - 7:27he's turning the sling around probably
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7:27 - 7:30at six or seven revolutions per second,
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7:30 - 7:33and that means that when the rock is released,
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7:33 - 7:36it's going forward really fast,
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7:36 - 7:37probably 35 meters per second.
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7:37 - 7:41That's substantially faster than a baseball
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7:41 - 7:45thrown by even the finest of baseball pitchers.
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7:45 - 7:49More than that, the stones in the Valley of Elah
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7:49 - 7:51were not normal rocks. They were barium sulphate,
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7:51 - 7:54which are rocks twice the density of normal stones.
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7:54 - 7:57If you do the calculations on the ballistics,
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7:57 - 8:01on the stopping power of the rock fired from David's sling,
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8:01 - 8:03it's roughly equal to the stopping power
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8:03 - 8:07of a [.45 caliber] handgun.
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8:07 - 8:10This is an incredibly devastating weapon.
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8:10 - 8:14Accuracy, we know from historical records
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8:14 - 8:19that slingers -- experienced slingers could hit
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8:19 - 8:25and maim or even kill a target at distances of up to 200 yards.
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8:25 - 8:28From medieval tapestries, we know that slingers
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8:28 - 8:30were capable of hitting birds in flight.
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8:30 - 8:33They were incredibly accurate.
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8:33 - 8:36When David lines up -- and he's not 200 yards away from Goliath,
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8:36 - 8:38he's quite close to Goliath --
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8:38 - 8:41when he lines up and fires that thing at Goliath,
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8:41 - 8:44he has every intention and every expectation
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8:44 - 8:47of being able to hit Goliath at his most vulnerable spot
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8:47 - 8:48between his eyes.
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8:48 - 8:50If you go back over the history of ancient warfare,
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8:50 - 8:53you will find time and time again
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8:53 - 8:57that slingers were the decisive factor against infantry
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8:57 - 9:02in one kind of battle or another.
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9:02 - 9:06So what's Goliath? He's heavy infantry,
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9:06 - 9:11and his expectation when he challenges the Israelites to a duel
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9:11 - 9:15is that he's going to be fighting another heavy infantryman.
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9:15 - 9:17When he says, "Come to me that I might
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9:17 - 9:20feed your flesh to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field,"
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9:20 - 9:22the key phrase is "Come to me."
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9:22 - 9:24Come up to me because we're going to fight,
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9:24 - 9:26hand to hand, like this.
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9:26 - 9:28Saul has the same expectation.
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9:28 - 9:31David says, "I want to fight Goliath,"
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9:31 - 9:33and Saul tries to give him his armor,
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9:33 - 9:35because Saul is thinking, "Oh, when you say 'fight Goliath,'
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9:35 - 9:39you mean 'fight him in hand-to-hand combat,'
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9:39 - 9:41infantry on infantry."
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9:41 - 9:44But David has absolutely no expectation.
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9:44 - 9:46He's not going to fight him that way. Why would he?
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9:46 - 9:49He's a shepherd. He's spent his entire career
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9:49 - 9:53using a sling to defend his flock against lions and wolves.
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9:53 - 9:55That's where his strength lies.
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9:55 - 9:58So here he is, this shepherd, experienced
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9:58 - 10:00in the use of a devastating weapon,
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10:00 - 10:02up against this lumbering giant
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10:02 - 10:05weighed down by a hundred pounds of armor
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10:05 - 10:07and these incredibly heavy weapons
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10:07 - 10:10that are useful only in short-range combat.
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10:10 - 10:15Goliath is a sitting duck. He doesn't have a chance.
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10:15 - 10:18So why do we keep calling David an underdog,
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10:18 - 10:23and why do we keep referring to his victory as improbable?
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10:23 - 10:26There's a second piece of this that's important.
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10:26 - 10:30It's not just that we misunderstand David
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10:30 - 10:32and his choice of weaponry.
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10:32 - 10:35It's also that we profoundly misunderstand Goliath.
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10:35 - 10:38Goliath is not what he seems to be.
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10:38 - 10:42There's all kinds of hints of this in the Biblical text,
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10:42 - 10:45things that are in retrospect quite puzzling
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10:45 - 10:49and don't square with his image as this mighty warrior.
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10:49 - 10:52So to begin with, the Bible says that Goliath
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10:52 - 10:56is led onto the valley floor by an attendant.
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10:56 - 10:58Now that is weird, right?
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10:58 - 11:00Here is this mighty warrior
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11:00 - 11:03challenging the Israelites to one-on-one combat.
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11:03 - 11:06Why is he being led by the hand
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11:06 - 11:09by some young boy, presumably,
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11:09 - 11:11to the point of combat?
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11:11 - 11:16Secondly, the Bible story makes special note
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11:16 - 11:19of how slowly Goliath moves,
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11:19 - 11:21another odd thing to say when you're describing
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11:21 - 11:25the mightiest warrior known to man at that point.
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11:25 - 11:27And then there's this whole weird thing
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11:27 - 11:31about how long it takes Goliath to react
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11:31 - 11:33to the sight of David.
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11:33 - 11:35So David's coming down the mountain,
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11:35 - 11:39and he's clearly not preparing for hand-to-hand combat.
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11:39 - 11:41There is nothing about him that says,
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11:41 - 11:43"I am about to fight you like this."
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11:43 - 11:45He's not even carrying a sword.
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11:45 - 11:48Why does Goliath not react to that?
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11:48 - 11:52It's as if he's oblivious to what's going on that day.
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11:52 - 11:56And then there's that strange comment he makes to David:
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11:56 - 12:00"Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?"
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12:00 - 12:04Sticks? David only has one stick.
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12:04 - 12:06Well, it turns out that there's been a great deal
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12:06 - 12:09of speculation within the medical community over the years
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12:09 - 12:12about whether there is something
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12:12 - 12:15fundamentally wrong with Goliath,
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12:15 - 12:18an attempt to make sense of all of those apparent anomalies.
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12:18 - 12:19There have been many articles written.
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12:19 - 12:23The first one was in 1960 in the Indiana Medical Journal,
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12:23 - 12:26and it started a chain of speculation
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12:26 - 12:29that starts with an explanation for Goliath's height.
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12:29 - 12:32So Goliath is head and shoulders above
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12:32 - 12:34all of his peers in that era,
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12:34 - 12:38and usually when someone is that far out of the norm,
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12:38 - 12:39there's an explanation for it.
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12:39 - 12:43So the most common form of giantism
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12:43 - 12:45is a condition called acromegaly,
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12:45 - 12:48and acromegaly is caused by a benign tumor
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12:48 - 12:51on your pituitary gland
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12:51 - 12:54that causes an overproduction of human growth hormone.
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12:54 - 12:57And throughout history, many of the most famous giants
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12:57 - 12:59have all had acromegaly.
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12:59 - 13:01So the tallest person of all time
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13:01 - 13:02was a guy named Robert Wadlow
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13:02 - 13:06who was still growing when he died at the age of 24
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13:06 - 13:08and he was 8 foot 11.
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13:08 - 13:10He had acromegaly.
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13:10 - 13:12Do you remember the wrestler André the Giant?
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13:12 - 13:14Famous. He had acromegaly.
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13:14 - 13:19There's even speculation that Abraham Lincoln had acromegaly.
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13:19 - 13:20Anyone who's unusually tall,
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13:20 - 13:22that's the first explanation we come up with.
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13:22 - 13:26And acromegaly has a very distinct set of side effects
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13:26 - 13:28associated with it,
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13:28 - 13:31principally having to do with vision.
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13:31 - 13:34The pituitary tumor, as it grows,
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13:34 - 13:39often starts to compress the visual nerves in your brain,
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13:39 - 13:41with the result that people with acromegaly
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13:41 - 13:47have either double vision or they are profoundly nearsighted.
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13:47 - 13:49So when people have started to speculate
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13:49 - 13:52about what might have been wrong with Goliath,
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13:52 - 13:53they've said, "Wait a minute,
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13:53 - 13:56he looks and sounds an awful lot like someone
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13:56 - 13:58who has acromegaly."
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13:58 - 14:01And that would also explain so much of what was strange
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14:01 - 14:03about his behavior that day.
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14:03 - 14:05Why does he move so slowly
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14:05 - 14:08and have to be escorted down into the valley floor
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14:08 - 14:10by an attendant?
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14:10 - 14:13Because he can't make his way on his own.
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14:13 - 14:16Why is he so strangely oblivious to David
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14:16 - 14:19that he doesn't understand that David's not going to fight him
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14:19 - 14:21until the very last moment?
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14:21 - 14:23Because he can't see him.
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14:23 - 14:27When he says, "Come to me that I might feed your flesh
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14:27 - 14:29to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field,"
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14:29 - 14:34the phrase "come to me" is a hint also of his vulnerability.
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14:34 - 14:37Come to me because I can't see you.
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14:37 - 14:42And then there's, "Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?"
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14:42 - 14:47He sees two sticks when David has only one.
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14:47 - 14:50So the Israelites up on the mountain ridge
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14:50 - 14:53looking down on him thought he was
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14:53 - 14:56this extraordinarily powerful foe.
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14:56 - 14:58What they didn't understand was that
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14:58 - 15:01the very thing that was the source of his apparent strength
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15:01 - 15:05was also the source of his greatest weakness.
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15:05 - 15:07And there is, I think, in that,
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15:07 - 15:10a very important lesson for all of us.
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15:10 - 15:14Giants are not as strong and powerful as they seem.
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15:14 - 15:17And sometimes the shepherd boy has a sling in his pocket.
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15:17 - 15:19Thank you.
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15:19 - 15:23(Applause)
- Title:
- The unheard story of David and Goliath
- Speaker:
- Malcolm Gladwell
- Description:
-
It's a classic underdog tale: David, a young shepherd armed only with a sling, beats Goliath, the mighty warrior. The story has transcended its biblical origins to become a common shorthand for unlikely victory. But, asks Malcolm Gladwell, is that really what the David and Goliath story is about?
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 15:40
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