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TEDxCopenhagen’s Reconsider This: Global Curiosity Merged with Healthy Scepticism

In 2016, I was part of the Communication Team at TEDxCopenhagen's Reconsider This.


Below is my article for the event. We all know that TED is about Ideas worth Spreading. When we watch a TED or TEDx talk – live or online – we know that we’re witnessing something a little ground-breaking, a little controversial, but a lot inspiring and a lot entertaining.


But on April 7, at Bremen Teater, TEDxCopenhagen’s 9th event, Reconsider This, offered a reality check. Global curiosity merged with healthy scepticism in 10 talks and 4 performances.

From the idea of one unified future to addressing the dark side of happiness, the carefully curated TEDx speakers challenged our assumption of givens and gave us a glimpse at a possible future.



An optimistic future where there are no more wars over energy, because a sustainable solution – thorium – has been found and its power is with the people; a future where everyone believes in being a good neighbour, giving back and helping out, so that people can learn cultural understanding; and a future where we are active participants in our local communities, enabling them to flourish, a future where our communities are urban playgrounds. A future where well-being and equality are cultivated and supported. And a future where our eyes are open, so whenever life throws us ‘a wrong note’, we can adapt to it by being creative on demand.


But it was also a future that came with cautions: we are digital consumers and we need to ensure that our children transition from that to being digital creators, because as the digital divide increases it will make it almost impossible to live up to the demands of citizenship. We are also meat consumers and the demand for meat within the next generation will double and so will its associated problems (animal welfare, CO2 emissions and the intensive use of resources). In fact, meat has become a controversial currency – and what about our actual currency? Banks are creating money in a way that is rarely in line with the needs of our economy: by privatising our money system we’ve handed over a vital social power to the financial sectors, and this is impacting greatly on inflation and deflation. All this will further fuel inequality, making us unsatisfied, unfulfilled and unhappy.


So, what can we do? This is only one possible future – there are many and we are their creators. We can recognise that we have a democratic right to be part of the decision about our future, about who should create our money – and our communities. We can get involved. We can expand our palates to include larvae, crickets and other sources of nutrition. We can become conscious improvisers and conscious butchers. We can enter the debate and spread the ideas worth spreading. We can reconsider.

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