Robots vs. Aliens

We're going to discuss Tonee Ndugu's talk. Here's the challenge, we're not going to discuss so much what he said, as how he presents it. Well, we're also going to talk about what he said, because it relates. But, if you look under the Youtube video of his talk, you see all his credentials of what he's started up and done. But if you look at how he presents himself, it's strange and weird and doesn't fit in to how a presentation, a TED talk! is 'supposed' to be. So this presentation of his, brings up some questions:

What is professional? Professional behavior?
What's the difference between an amateur and a professional?
Why is it considered good to be professional?
What are the advantages? Drawbacks?

Why is emotionalism, leaping around topic to topic, talking about oneself, or even literally leaping around on stage, suspect?
Why do we have to show a dour and reasonable demeanor?

When does being a person interfere with being a professional?
When does being a professional interfere with being a person?
Is it possible to be both?

Why is it easier to regularly have one's face looking scowly and busy than to smile at each other on the street?

Tonee Ndungu says robots vs. aliens is the greatest fight of you against you. So, what are the characteristics of an alien, according to Tonee Ndungu? A robot?
Do you know people who fall into these categories?
Are you comfortable with this characterization?



Robots...
-are programmed
-are mechanical
-have tendencies to do stuff, not because they wanna do stuff! But because stuff needs to be done in a certain way.
-people get inspired, but robots get upgraded.
-people engage, but robots get stuff stuck into them, USBs, floppy drives, CD roms. If you try to get them outside their box, they refuse, you have to plug them in to something.
-they look so good, but they don't really do anything. And they really are just a truck. They just kind of park there, and check you out.

Aliens...
-slobber all over you
-ooze and blink sideways
-are not afraid of being strainge
-are fuzzy. "it's not the way you know it, it's just different."
-are ungettable
-it's unusual,
-it tends to ooze out of you. The passion oozes out of them.

"In my life I have no boxes. I have decided that the one thing I will do is not tell people I live outside a box, it's not HAVE a box. I want to make the box so irrelevant that when you say you live outside the box you're not even in the realm of where I live. Because in my realm, boxes just don't exist."

"This [Kibera] holds 1.8 million people. There's only two places in the world with people more per square foot than this place. Gaza, and India. This, is a golf course. And this over here, is one of the most expensive places to buy land, in the continent of africa. It's strange how you put this and this together. I get pissed easy, by stuff like that. And one of the things I decided to do is, you know what, I'm going to see what I could do about it. So that's me over there, I AM tall and skinny and my head IS big and round. I decided I was going to go to Kibera and just meet up with people with a friend of mine called Serash. And when we got there we decided we were gonna leave the band at home [The Pity Party] Because I don't think they were going to enjoy being felt sorry for the whole time. And I met people, and they made me happy all the time. They weren't sad or pitiful, they loved their lives. Yes, they knew they didn't have a lot, but they didn't care. And we did a TEDx Kibera, which was so big on TED.com. And I realized these are the people we keep looking down on. We think these are the people who can't do a thing. This [image of a smiling bright-faced woman] is the person you're talking about. I know you have an image of Kibera in your head, about people who are poor, but that's who you're talking about."

"Innovators [Aliens] cannot be managed, you can follow it, or run after it, it's just you, really.
It smells funny. You feel what you're doing. There's something about it, that draws you towards it, or away from it.
It's not afraid to be an ass. Or an assistant.
They don't know how to keep up with everybody else, they tend to be colorblind.
They LIVE LARGE."

"Robots are programmed, not inspired. There are no opinions, just facts. Always being afraid, always think you are talking about them. They self-medicate with the mediocre. They see things in black and white. They know they can be so much better, but it's just not cool to be. They make a decision once and leave it at that, this is a machine. It exists. "

Subtext of blackness...
"I personally can't see stuff in black, so I'm only going to talk about the stuff in white."
"I can understand everything you're saying to me. Really."
"I do not need a handout. I don't."