full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Lawrence Lessig: The unstoppable walk to political reform

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Number two, a poet. This is Martin Niemöller. You're familiar with his poetry. Around the height of the Nazi period, he started rteiepnag the verse, "First they came for the cutsmnmios, and I did nothing, did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists. Then they came for the trade unions. Then they came for the Jews. And then they came for me. But there was no one left to saepk for me." Now, Niemöller is offering a certain kind of insight. This is an insight at the core of intelligence. We could call it cluefulness. It's a certain kind of test: Can you rigecznoe an uinrydleng thraet and respond? Can you save yourself or save your kind? Turns out ants are pretty good at this. Cows, not so much. So can you see the pattern? Can you see a peatrtn and then recognize and do something about it? Number two. Number three, a boy. This is my friend Aaron starwz. He's Tim's friend. He's friends of many of you in this audience, and seven yraes ago, Aaron came to me with a question. It was just before I was going to give my first TED Talk. I was so proud. I was telling him about my talk, "Laws that choke creativity." And Aaron looked at me and was a little itmieanpt, and he said, "So how are you ever going to solve the problems you're talking about? Copyright policy, Internet policy, how are you ever going to address those problems so long as there's this fundamental ctoourirpn in the way our gomveernnt works?"

Open Cloze


Number two, a poet. This is Martin Niemöller. You're familiar with his poetry. Around the height of the Nazi period, he started _________ the verse, "First they came for the __________, and I did nothing, did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists. Then they came for the trade unions. Then they came for the Jews. And then they came for me. But there was no one left to _____ for me." Now, Niemöller is offering a certain kind of insight. This is an insight at the core of intelligence. We could call it cluefulness. It's a certain kind of test: Can you _________ an __________ ______ and respond? Can you save yourself or save your kind? Turns out ants are pretty good at this. Cows, not so much. So can you see the pattern? Can you see a _______ and then recognize and do something about it? Number two. Number three, a boy. This is my friend Aaron ______. He's Tim's friend. He's friends of many of you in this audience, and seven _____ ago, Aaron came to me with a question. It was just before I was going to give my first TED Talk. I was so proud. I was telling him about my talk, "Laws that choke creativity." And Aaron looked at me and was a little _________, and he said, "So how are you ever going to solve the problems you're talking about? Copyright policy, Internet policy, how are you ever going to address those problems so long as there's this fundamental __________ in the way our __________ works?"

Solution


  1. speak
  2. government
  3. threat
  4. underlying
  5. corruption
  6. communists
  7. years
  8. swartz
  9. repeating
  10. recognize
  11. impatient
  12. pattern

Original Text


Number two, a poet. This is Martin Niemöller. You're familiar with his poetry. Around the height of the Nazi period, he started repeating the verse, "First they came for the communists, and I did nothing, did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists. Then they came for the trade unions. Then they came for the Jews. And then they came for me. But there was no one left to speak for me." Now, Niemöller is offering a certain kind of insight. This is an insight at the core of intelligence. We could call it cluefulness. It's a certain kind of test: Can you recognize an underlying threat and respond? Can you save yourself or save your kind? Turns out ants are pretty good at this. Cows, not so much. So can you see the pattern? Can you see a pattern and then recognize and do something about it? Number two. Number three, a boy. This is my friend Aaron Swartz. He's Tim's friend. He's friends of many of you in this audience, and seven years ago, Aaron came to me with a question. It was just before I was going to give my first TED Talk. I was so proud. I was telling him about my talk, "Laws that choke creativity." And Aaron looked at me and was a little impatient, and he said, "So how are you ever going to solve the problems you're talking about? Copyright policy, Internet policy, how are you ever going to address those problems so long as there's this fundamental corruption in the way our government works?"

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
super pac 4
billion calculations 2
united states 2
fundamental reform 2


Important Words


  1. aaron
  2. address
  3. ants
  4. audience
  5. boy
  6. call
  7. choke
  8. cluefulness
  9. communist
  10. communists
  11. copyright
  12. core
  13. corruption
  14. cows
  15. creativity
  16. familiar
  17. friend
  18. friends
  19. fundamental
  20. give
  21. good
  22. government
  23. height
  24. impatient
  25. insight
  26. intelligence
  27. internet
  28. jews
  29. kind
  30. left
  31. long
  32. looked
  33. martin
  34. nazi
  35. niemöller
  36. number
  37. offering
  38. pattern
  39. period
  40. poet
  41. poetry
  42. policy
  43. pretty
  44. problems
  45. proud
  46. question
  47. recognize
  48. repeating
  49. respond
  50. save
  51. socialists
  52. solve
  53. speak
  54. started
  55. swartz
  56. talk
  57. talking
  58. ted
  59. telling
  60. threat
  61. trade
  62. turns
  63. underlying
  64. unions
  65. verse
  66. works
  67. years