full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Timothy Snyder: Is democracy doomed? The global fight for our future

Unscramble the Blue Letters


WPR: And we have a question from TED member Tau, which I find really interesting. Really interested to hear how you respond to this. They ask, "Why should democracy siurvve? Democracies have preovd to be unstable, corrupt, flleid with voter ignorance and finally, do not prevent wars or violence. Why should we hold on to this imperfect iaedl and not instead make room for a new system that might emerge?"

TS: To prharpaase winsotn Churchill, the new systems that are eegnirmg are all just a hell of a lot worse on all those criteria which were just mentioned, whether it was corruption, ignorance or disinterest of voters, there wouldn't be any more voters to be disinterested, for one thing. So, I mean, if we could look off at planet Venus and say, well, gosh, there's a system where people are happier and ferer and live longer lives than our democracies, then maybe, yeah. But I’m looking at the really eitnisxg alternatives like chnia and Russia and so on, which are pushing themselves as a kind of model in the world that we actually live in. And on all the criteria that were just mentioned, they do worse.

Open Cloze


WPR: And we have a question from TED member Tau, which I find really interesting. Really interested to hear how you respond to this. They ask, "Why should democracy _______? Democracies have ______ to be unstable, corrupt, ______ with voter ignorance and finally, do not prevent wars or violence. Why should we hold on to this imperfect _____ and not instead make room for a new system that might emerge?"

TS: To __________ _______ Churchill, the new systems that are ________ are all just a hell of a lot worse on all those criteria which were just mentioned, whether it was corruption, ignorance or disinterest of voters, there wouldn't be any more voters to be disinterested, for one thing. So, I mean, if we could look off at planet Venus and say, well, gosh, there's a system where people are happier and _____ and live longer lives than our democracies, then maybe, yeah. But I’m looking at the really ________ alternatives like _____ and Russia and so on, which are pushing themselves as a kind of model in the world that we actually live in. And on all the criteria that were just mentioned, they do worse.

Solution


  1. ideal
  2. existing
  3. china
  4. paraphrase
  5. winston
  6. survive
  7. emerging
  8. proved
  9. freer
  10. filled

Original Text


WPR: And we have a question from TED member Tau, which I find really interesting. Really interested to hear how you respond to this. They ask, "Why should democracy survive? Democracies have proved to be unstable, corrupt, filled with voter ignorance and finally, do not prevent wars or violence. Why should we hold on to this imperfect ideal and not instead make room for a new system that might emerge?"

TS: To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the new systems that are emerging are all just a hell of a lot worse on all those criteria which were just mentioned, whether it was corruption, ignorance or disinterest of voters, there wouldn't be any more voters to be disinterested, for one thing. So, I mean, if we could look off at planet Venus and say, well, gosh, there's a system where people are happier and freer and live longer lives than our democracies, then maybe, yeah. But I’m looking at the really existing alternatives like China and Russia and so on, which are pushing themselves as a kind of model in the world that we actually live in. And on all the criteria that were just mentioned, they do worse.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
larger forces 6
climate change 6
ted member 6
united states 4
word democracy 3
investigative reporting 3
hydrocarbon oligarchy 3
political systems 2
fourth dimension 2
economic inequality 2
history matters 2
huge amount 2
magical free 2
free market 2
social media 2
direct result 2
modeling democracy 2
democracy part 2
climate part 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
magical free market 2

Important Words


  1. alternatives
  2. china
  3. churchill
  4. corrupt
  5. corruption
  6. criteria
  7. democracies
  8. democracy
  9. disinterest
  10. disinterested
  11. emerge
  12. emerging
  13. existing
  14. filled
  15. finally
  16. find
  17. freer
  18. gosh
  19. happier
  20. hear
  21. hell
  22. hold
  23. ideal
  24. ignorance
  25. imperfect
  26. interested
  27. interesting
  28. kind
  29. live
  30. lives
  31. longer
  32. lot
  33. member
  34. mentioned
  35. model
  36. paraphrase
  37. people
  38. planet
  39. prevent
  40. proved
  41. pushing
  42. question
  43. respond
  44. room
  45. russia
  46. survive
  47. system
  48. systems
  49. tau
  50. ted
  51. unstable
  52. venus
  53. violence
  54. voter
  55. voters
  56. wars
  57. winston
  58. world
  59. worse
  60. yeah