The Comical Heathen Episode Four: Emily McManus

This is our fourth episode, with many more to come, and I am personally very psyched about today’s interview. Do you TedTalk? I have a lot of friends who like to binge watch Ted Talks. There are over 2000 Ted Talks available for free over a range of platforms including YouTube and Netflix, and their videos have been watched world wide over a billion times.    Well, "Ted" is not just some anonymous entity, it are run by people, and as it happens an old college chum of mine is the Managing Editor over at TED. Her name is Emily McMananus, and we first met in a class at the University of Toledo in the 80s on, of all things, satire! It got me thinking, I wonder what kind editorial processes TED uses, how they curate their videos, and how they incorporate or manage controversial topics, things like religion or psychics or other pseudoscience and just stuff like that? TED’s motto is “Ideas worth spreading” and I wondered, how do they decide which ideas are the ones worth spreading and which are too fringe, or too unscientific, to be worth not spreading. So, Emily and I had a great talk, including her involvement in trying to help TEDx event organizers have some standards and a controversial memo she helped pen. She also gives us a run down of how TED started, and tells us about some of her favorite talks.  Please enjoy my conversation with the managing editor at TED, my friend Emily McManus. Some Links: Emily's contact page at TED:  https://www.ted.com/profiles/20 The TED "pseudoscience" memo:  http://tedx.tumblr.com/post/37405280671/a-letter-to-the-tedx-community-on-tedx-and-bad   PEW research on the rise of the "nones":  http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/13/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones/   Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie's essay "There are no Irreligious People":  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-eric-h-yoffie/there-are-no-irreligious-people_b_1418945.html   The Turbo Encabulator:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o   Kevin Bacon & Newton's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevinythebunbunandnewton/   The TED Talks mentioned in the episode: Richard Dawkins:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxGMqKCcN6A Michael Shermer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k Reggie Watts:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJvW32FS8Z8 Will Stephen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S0FDjFBj8o Contact the Comical Heathen:  [email protected]