Website for task:
http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_wright_on_optimism.html
Cloze:
Ted Talk – Optimism by Robert Wright
I’ve got apparently 18 minutes to ___________ you that
history has a direction—______ arrow. That in some fundamental sense, _________
good; that the arrow points to ______________ positive. Now, when the TED
people __________ approached me about giving this upbeat _________— that was
before the cartoon of Muhammad ___________ triggered global rioting. It was
before the _______ flu had reached Europe. It was __________ Hamas had won the
Palestinian election, _____________ various counter-measures by Israel. And
________ be honest, if I had known __________ I was asked to give this ___________
talk that even as I was ____________the upbeat talk, the apocalypse would _________
unfolding I might have said, “Is ________ okay if I talk about something _________?”
But I didn’t, OK. So we’re _________. I’ll do what I can. I’ll ___________ what
I can.
I’ve got to ___________ you: the sense in which my ____________
is upbeat has always been kind __________subtle, sometimes even elusive. The sense _________ which I can be uplifting
and ____________—I mean, there’s always been a _________ of a certain grim
dimension to the _________ I try to uplift, so if ____________ inspiration—if
grim inspiration is not a ______________ in terms, that is, I’m afraid, ___________
most you can hope for. OK, _____________—that’s if I succeed. I’ll see ______________
I can do. OK?
Now, in ____________ sense, the claim that history has
a _______________is not that controversial. If you’re ________________ talking
about social structure, OK, clearly __________________ gotten more complex a
little over the ______________ 10 thousand years—has reached higher ___________
higher levels. And in fact, that’s ________________ sustaining a long-standing
trend that ______________________ human beings, OK, that biological evolution _________
doing for us. Because what happened ___________ the beginning, this stuff
encases itself in a ____________, then cells start hanging out together in ________________.
Eventually they get so close, they ___________ multicellular organisms, then
you get complex _______________ organisms; they form societies.
But then ________ some point, one of these
multicellular _______________ does something completely amazing with this ___________,
which is it launches a whole _____________ kind of evolution: cultural
evolution. And ________________, that evolution sustains the trajectory that ________________
evolution had established toward greater complexity. By _____________ evolution
we mean the evolution of _____________. A lot of you have heard the term “______________.”
The evolution of technology, I pay a ___________ of attention to, so, you know,
___________ of the first things you got ___________ a little hand axe.
Generations go __________, somebody says, hey, why don’t we _____________ it on
a stick? Just absolutely _______________
the little ones. Next best thing to a ____________ game.
