Global systems, cultural hierarchies, and the scales that dominate public attention.
Get TicketsAn independently organized TED event
DisordersofMAGNITUDE
When scale breaks perception.
What happens when scale fails, and our measures no longer match reality?
Our Theme Disorders of Magnitude centers on breaking down the fixed-magnitude biases we hold across fields: unexamined ideas about which voices, impacts, or priorities should outweigh others. We aim to push everyone to unlearn ingrained views, rethink from the ground up, and redefine how we measure value and impact.
This theme calls us to challenge every default order we've accepted, encouraging radical rethinking that drives transformative change in our world, from microscopic intervention to institutional redesign.
Subtle actions, overlooked actors, and minute forces that alter outcomes from the ground up.
Catalysts of Change
Dr. Elena Rostova
Mapping systems too large for intuition and asking how human judgment fails when consequence outpaces perception.
Marcus Chen
Tracing the exponential cost of tiny defaults and the hidden assumptions that determine which impacts are treated as meaningful.
Sarah Al-Fayed
Working at the cellular scale to show how microscopic intervention can reorganize the future of whole environments.
The Schedule
Doors Open & Registration
Arrival, check-in, coffee, and the first conversations before the theater opens.
Opening Remarks
The organizing team frames the day and introduces Disorders of Magnitude.
The Macro: Systems at Scale
Talks on planetary infrastructures, collective risk, and the institutions that determine what counts.
Lunch & Networking
A slower interval for reflection, conversation, and interdisciplinary collisions.
The Micro: Invisible Catalysts
Talks exploring tiny mechanisms, quiet actors, and hidden forces that reshape visible worlds.
Coffee Break
Reset, regroup, and continue the conversations between sessions.
Synthesis Panel
Speakers and organizers return to the central question: how should we reassign scale, weight, and value?
Reception
An informal close with music, conversation, and room for the ideas to keep moving.
The Curators
Alex Rivera
Lead Organizer
Jordan Lee
Curation Director
Sam Taylor
Experience Design
Casey Smith
Partnerships
Morgan Davis
Marketing & PR
Experience the shift.
Join us for a day of profound ideas, layered perspectives, and conversations that unsettle the scales we take for granted.