For this TED Talk, I was happy with my performance. What I noticed from last time was that instead of looking in the camera, I looked at myself on the computer screen while recording. This kind of made it look like I was just reading from notes the whole time, so I tried to look into the webcam when recording the TED Talk. Let me just say that staring into a small black hole and performing a speech is not very easy. That made it more difficult, but I am proud of myself for being able to deliver the speech without any notes. I thought that I was more engaging with the audience too, especially with my opening. Overall, I’m proud of the progress I made, and I don’t know if I would necessarily change anything about my TED Talk. I also really love the topic which helps.
One of the public controversies I thought of was discussing the electoral college. While everyone in the United States agrees that there should be some way to count votes and decide on who wins the presidency, not everyone agrees that the electoral college is the right way to go. Some people feel that using a popular vote system would be better (whoever gets the most votes wins), but other people feel that the electoral college way is better (especially since it’s written in the Constitution). This has become a bigger issue in the past years as political candidates have won the presidency (like Trump) without actually winning the popular vote.
Another public controversy is the legalization of marijuana. While some states have already legalized it, the drug is not legalized on a national scale. People debate over whether marijuana is actually safe. There also is the question of its medical benefits. Should marijuana be legalized for just medicinal purposes, or should it be legalized for everything, including recreational use? Many who are against the legalization of it say that it can be a gateway drug but that it also can become addictive. However, marijuana crimes also disproportionately affect minorities, so legalizing the drug can help fight against and rectify racism in our prison/police system.
I think the legalization of marijuana could be interesting, I was also thinking about the influence of nicotine and how it’s evolved. I also agree that the Ted Talks came out better, especially with eye contact.
I LOVED your Ted Talk it seemed so natural. Also, I really like the electoral college idea, it’s something that we talked about a lot in high school and continues to be a pressing concern whenever elections come around. It definitely would have a lot of research and data available for us to work with.
Both of your ideas are really interesting!! I like the electoral college idea because it would be easy to provide research for– in both facts and opinion pieces– since it has been such a heavily debated topic and it has had to be explained so many times. I think the legalization of marijuana could be even more compelling and honestly really fun to write about, but it might be harder to show that it has been argued over a longer period of time.