Hi everyone.

I'm not sure if any of you watch the TED talks, personally I'm not a big fan, but every once in a while somebody sends me a talk that resonates with me. One of these personally resonating talks was Graham Hancock's talk titled "The War on Consciousness". In it he makes a powerful and poignant case for the adult right to responsibly explore their own consciousness, and goes on to say that without this right, claims to any sort of freedom are illusory.

I was pretty shocked that TED even allowed this talk. In my experience TED really just brands status quo ideas with trendy hip packaging.

The reason I'm writing this morning is to bring to the attention of all here about TED's attempts to discredit this talk, and censor it. I encourage everyone to view this controversial talk and make up your own mind about it. Enjoy, or not.

I'm not sure that owner or admin here wants political discussions since there isn't a political section but I'll let this one go, for now, unless it gets out of control like political discussions often do. If it *does* get out of hand, I'll lock it and then delete it.

My observations are that it's just another anti-war on drugs speech. After searching for the title I noticed a bunch of conspiracy theory websites have latched onto it which doesn't help the cause, it hurts it, but the text of the speech is nothing new.

I'm a fan of personal freedom and freedom in general but that has been chipped away at by the left for a century. MJ will eventually be decriminalized but that will still be "1 step forward - 10 steps back" unless the trend of large, intrusive government is reversed. That won't happen until more people take responsibility for themselves instead of expecting government to protect and provide for them.

"With great freedom comes great responsibility." -- Voltaire