full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kevin Kelly: The future will be shaped by optimists

Unscramble the Blue Letters


If it’s real then why don’t we see more of it? Why are so many people pessimistic? And I think there are three reasons why. One is that most of what progress is about is about what does not happen. It’s about all the things that could have happened that didn’t hpepan today. It’s about the two-year-old child who did not die of smallpox. It’s about the family farmers whose year of surplus food was not stleon by raiders. They don't make the headlines.

And the second reason is that bad things happen ftaser than good things. Good things take time. When we are compressing our news cycle to the last five minutes and the next five minutes, all the things that have changed in the last five menutis are kind of bad stuff because good stuff takes lgeonr. If we were to make newspapers and websites to be updated every 100 years, we’d have a very different set of hleniedas.

Open Cloze


If it’s real then why don’t we see more of it? Why are so many people pessimistic? And I think there are three reasons why. One is that most of what progress is about is about what does not happen. It’s about all the things that could have happened that didn’t ______ today. It’s about the two-year-old child who did not die of smallpox. It’s about the family farmers whose year of surplus food was not ______ by raiders. They don't make the headlines.

And the second reason is that bad things happen ______ than good things. Good things take time. When we are compressing our news cycle to the last five minutes and the next five minutes, all the things that have changed in the last five _______ are kind of bad stuff because good stuff takes ______. If we were to make newspapers and websites to be updated every 100 years, we’d have a very different set of _________.

Solution


  1. happen
  2. faster
  3. minutes
  4. stolen
  5. longer
  6. headlines

Original Text


If it’s real then why don’t we see more of it? Why are so many people pessimistic? And I think there are three reasons why. One is that most of what progress is about is about what does not happen. It’s about all the things that could have happened that didn’t happen today. It’s about the two-year-old child who did not die of smallpox. It’s about the family farmers whose year of surplus food was not stolen by raiders. They don't make the headlines.

And the second reason is that bad things happen faster than good things. Good things take time. When we are compressing our news cycle to the last five minutes and the next five minutes, all the things that have changed in the last five minutes are kind of bad stuff because good stuff takes longer. If we were to make newspapers and websites to be updated every 100 years, we’d have a very different set of headlines.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
future generations 5
solve problems 3
total strangers 2
good ancestors 2


Important Words


  1. bad
  2. changed
  3. child
  4. compressing
  5. cycle
  6. die
  7. family
  8. farmers
  9. faster
  10. food
  11. good
  12. happen
  13. happened
  14. headlines
  15. kind
  16. longer
  17. minutes
  18. news
  19. newspapers
  20. people
  21. pessimistic
  22. progress
  23. raiders
  24. real
  25. reason
  26. reasons
  27. set
  28. smallpox
  29. stolen
  30. stuff
  31. surplus
  32. takes
  33. time
  34. today
  35. updated
  36. websites
  37. year
  38. years