I feel the same way. I'm disappointed that social status and elitism permeates throughout a forum that is supposed to be about advancing human knowledge and the human condition.

You must have missed the last 10,000 years of human development, because the elite have always been at the forefront of human development. It is part of what makes them elite. Humankind does not advance because of the efforts of the average person, it simply continues.

Having said that... Why Julia Sweeney is always at TED is still a mystery to me. When one of her videos come up, I can't find the skip button fast enough.

Not necessarily, as a counter argument consider some of the giants such as Michael Faraday (physics and chemistry) and Bernhard Riemann (Mathematician), who were born into poverty and later in life had many conflicts with the people that would be considered elitist. (Especially when the elitist believe that they were better and that people such as the son of a black smith should stay away (a crude summary of some conflicts in Faraday's life). Riemann died of TB, a common infliction of poor people (not elitists).