The best talks online, delivered straight to your ears
Børge A. Roum on Stephen Hawking being presented by his daughter Lucy Hawking at the lecture he gave for NASA's 50th anniversary in 2008. Photo: NASA/Public domain
After almost 250 years we finally got to see a black hole! Now listen to the words of the worlds most famous black hole scientist, Stephen Hawking.
Read More Børge A. Roum on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addresses a crowd. August 4, 1965. Washington Post staff photo by Ellsworth Davis.
Trough our scientific genius we made the world our neighborhood. And now, trough our moral and ethical commitment, we must make it our brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.
Note: This episodes contain two speeches: “I have a dream” and, from 16:30, “American Dream”.
We recently marked 50 years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is one of the most famous fighters for freedom and justice of all time, and with good reason. Yet, too few are aware of all the interesting aspects of his activism. He did not only stand against racial segregation, but also against wealth disparity, war and all kinds of injustice.
In this episode of Kurator I wanted to showcase both his famous and groundbreaking work for racial equality in the US, and his concern for «all of God’s children». Everybody has heard about his most famous speech, “I have a dream”. But how many has heard it? And how many has heard his other speeches, that are just as powerful? More people should do both. So here I present two of King’s speeches. First “I have a dream”, held in 1963, then “The American Dream”. He held many versions of this latter speech. This version is from 1961.
We must make it clear that the time to do right is now and that the time is always right to do right.
Martin Luther King’s remarks in “American Dream” about time feels especially poignant. His struggle for freedom and justice for all continues to this day. Not even his famous dream of the US as a country where people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”, has come true yet, much less has the world woken up to the fact that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
In this light it is worth noting how the government spied on Martin Luther King, and tried to silence him with the information they found. How much easier would this not be today? Maybe you trust your government to do the right thing today, but what about in the future, what about in less free countries? As MLK reminds us again and again: “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
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Børge A. Roum on Each and every one of us makes a difference, each and every day. And we have a choice: What kind of difference are we going to make?
From an enthusiastic child, encouraged by her mother, to a woman who would not take “science is for men” for an answer, to a world changing scientist and science communicator – Jane Goodall’s story is fascinating, and the wisdom she has picked up along the way is inspiring and hopeful.
I was first made aware of this beautiful and profound talk by Dame Goodall trough one of the many sublime videos of The Inspiration Journey (Vimeo/YouTube). If you don’t have 25 minutes to hear the whole speech, the most important parts can be experienced in a beautiful way in their video.
Please enjoy this talk first held at, and published by, Concordia University on June 19th, 2014.
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Børge A. Roum on It’s frighting to see how quickly you can repeat the ills of the past when enough people are afraid and hungry
As a kid he was literally a crime in one of the most unjust societies in the world. As an adult he has become one of the most well known voices in the world. The story of Trevor Noah is interesting and inspiring. Not inspiring as in ‘you too can become a TV star’, but as in ‘even in bleak times things can change for the better, and no matter who you are you can be a part of that!’
Please enjoy this conversation with Trevor Noah, first published by Al Jazeera on February 11th, 2017.
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Børge A. Roum on The reality of death is something we’re all going to have to face.
Since the last two episodes where talks from great men who died too young this is a good time to meditate a bit on life and death.
Sam Harris is a well known atheist with some controversial ideas and statements, but you don’t have to agree with him on anything to find something worth contemplating in this talk about how to handle death, and life, as an atheist.
At about 30 minutes in you might want to find a chair and sit down for about 7 minutes.
Børge A. Roum on Hans Rosling was unique in his ability to make statistics fun and fascinating – by his enthusiasm and his fantastic way of visualizing data. In this talk he leaves us wondering how anyone can live without the washing machine, and what we can do to make sure no one will. Thank you for everything you’ve done, Hans Rosling!
Read More Børge A. Roum on Today, four years ago, the world woke up to the news that Aaron had committed suicide the evening before. This first Kurator talk is not about that, but it is related: It is a story about how incredibly powerful companies wanted to use copyright to censor the internet, and how the internet fought back. It is the amazing story about how ordinary people can make the world a better place, in the face of overwhelming odds.
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