We caught up with Damon to get a better sense of why he feels that social media may have an asocial downside.

You argue that the electronic umbilical cord that connects us to others – Facebook, Twitter, etc — may, in fact, be strangling us. But you also say that this only happens if we let it. How so?  

Technology has always been an issue for us, whether it was a child in the 1950s watching too much TV or a prehistoric caveman playing with a new discovery called fire. Like our ancestors, what we really need to do is find a smart way to integrate our newfound technology into our lives. The only difference now is that today’s tech is being discovered or created more rapidly than before. That, to me, is still no reason for us to throw up our hands and say our lives are suddenly spiraling out of our control.

Tech isn’t going away, either. In fact, it shouldn’t! But it should be balanced with old-school, classic ways of connecting. We shouldn’t believe that letter writing, phone calls, or even face-to-face meetings were rendered obsolete, just as email, texting, and Facebook messaging are not the ultimate ways for us to connect. I think saying technology is making us less attentive is a cop out. Now we should be focused on tech integration — not subservience.

This isn’t a new problem, as you suggest with your caveman example. We’ve struggled with these issues for thousands of years.  

It is definitely not a new problem. In Our Virtual Shadow, I talk about Socrates having as much trouble with then-new technologies as we do with modern tech. Culturists seem to fall into two camps: Believing tech is our devil or that tech is our savior. Both are false, just as they were in the past.

In your book, you discuss the importance of ‘anchors of memory’, which are markers we use to remember a moment. How are those changing in our new tech-saturated age?

Anchors of memory are symbolic items we make to help remember a special time. It could be a photo of your grandfather coming back from the war or simply a Facebook check-in saying you are at a rock concert. You make them for something you deem important enough to note. Our anchors of memory today are becoming more virtual than physical, like our Instagrams and tweets, but they are just as valid as the physical photos and letters of yesteryear.

My concern is that we seem more and more focused on creating these anchors of memory – FourSquare check-ins, status updates, and so on. Unfortunately, the tools we use to create our modern anchors of memory, like the smartphone, require a level of multitasking that takes us away from the very experience we’re trying so hard to capture! It is the ultimate irony.

The computer scientist and author Jaron Lanier said he feels that social media makes us all feel blandly similar. Do you agree?  

Lanier wrote the book, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. To paraphrase, he talked about social media flattening people into one big pile of mush. How can you represent the contradictions, dimensions and ideas of any one person in a simplified social media profile? You can’t. It’s like those business commercials where they promise to not treat you like a number. In my interpretation, Lanier said that social media’s architecture and format essentially turned everyone into another number. It is rubbing all the rough edges off of everyone’s personality and making them fit into a fixed box. These varied people, then, turn into a big, non-descript pile of mush.

In Our Virtual Shadow, I argue that Lanier’s theory not only applies to social media, but also to how we interpret and receive news on the Internet. For instance, I can tweet something right now to my couple of thousand followers and, because they trust me, they will retweet it to their followers, and so on. It could be shared to so many degrees that people don’t even know that it came from me. Is what I said true? There is no way to prove the voracity and, at a certain point, it’s not going to matter to the reader. It will just be accepted as truth because someone they trusted shared it. That “news” has been scrubbed of all its edges – and its accountability – and it just becomes something someone heard on the ‘net.

There’s also a lot of good that social media brings us, though, on a personal and professional side.  

There is definitely much good that comes from social media. I’m a huge Twitter fan and even cofounded my own social media app, Quote UnQuote. I think we just need to ask the same question we do with other activities: Is this affecting my quality of life? For instance, if you’re spending quality time with your family and you feel the urge to pull out your smartphone and do a Facebook post about spending quality time with your family, consider if it is really necessary at that very moment.

Social media has the ability to make things feel more urgent than they actually are. We jump from attention-stealing activity to attention-stealing activity and, before we know it, time has flown by. The point of the book is that we use these potentially-distracting tools to capture a moment, but they are just time consuming enough to significantly pull us out of the moment. We will never again, say, watch our toddler walk for the first time or have a virgin meal at the famed The French Laundry. Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the networks, however, will be right there waiting for us whenever we want to visit. Life disappears, social media doesn’t — though we are often operating based on the opposite assumption.

How do we balance out the good with the bad? How do we become more present?

The best solution is to remember that there will always be a new social media tool, a new gadget, or a new technology that will ask for our attention, but there will never be a tool that replaces our memories when we allow ourselves to be fully present. There are several recent studies that say not only can’t we multitask successfully, but that multitasking prevents us from remembering life experiences as well as we could. The next time you are having a breath-taking experience, try not to do a Pavlovian reach for the smartphone.  Researching this book made me really question my own social media habits, and, if you put the smartphone aside for a bit, I think you’d be surprised at what you recall — what you notice — and even what you feel.

“Our Virtual Shadow” is available for the Kindle, Nook, or through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone. Read more »

Last week, while seeing a favorite band, I couldn’t help but notice the sea of undulating phones around me. With my view partially obstructed by shoulders, I found my eyes constantly settling onto the glowing screen of the guy in front of me, who was recording each and every song. The screen allowed me to see clearly, and yet it seemed a strange mediation of a moment that is all about the present. Yes, by recording the full show, you get to watch it later. But what did you really experience in the first place?

Juan Enriquez: Your online life, permanent as a tattooMeanwhile, the group standing beside me at this concert had faces flushed from a little too much alcohol. They had their phones out too, the flashes going off periodically as they snapped shot after shot — arms excitedly slinging around each other. As soon as a photo was taken, they’d lean into the capturing phone and laugh as its owner typed out a message and posted it on Facebook. Was the liquor-soaked moment really one they wanted to share with everyone, co-workers included?

Both today’s talk, “Juan Enriquez: Your online life, permanent as a tattoo,” and today’s new TED Book from Damon Brown, Our Virtual Shadow: Why We Are Obsessed with Documenting Our Lives Online, take reflective looks at the nuances of what it means to have an online record of life. In his talk, Enriquez classifies social media fragments as “digital tattoos,” while Brown characterizes this mediated life as our “virtual shadow.”

Which concept meshes more with your view of our digital lives? Here, a deeper look at the two concepts.

What are they?

Digital tattoos:

“Tattoos really do shout,” says Enriquez in his talk. “What if Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, cell phones, GPS, FourSquare, Yelp, Travel Advisor — all these things you deal with every day — turn out to be electronic tattoos? And what if they provide as much information about who and what you are as any tattoo ever would?”

Virtual shadow:

As Brown writes in his book, “More than ever, we’re now focused on documenting and building the history of our lives, not on living the life unfolding right in front of us. It’s all about the check-in, the status update, the captured moment, rather than being fully present day to day. We’re each focused on what I call our virtual shadow: a collected narrative that, like a physical shadow, is symbolic of where our real selves have been, albeit a few steps behind.”

Is this a brand-new problem? Nope:

Digital tattoos:

“The Greeks thought about what happens when Gods, humans and immortality mix for a long time,” Enriquez says in the talk. “Lesson #1: Sisyphus. He did a horrible thing and was condemned for all time to roll this rock up — and it would roll back down. It’s a little like your reputation. Once you get that electronic tattoo, you’re going to be rolling up and down for a long time.”

Virtual shadow:

“Socrates had as much trouble with then-new technologies as we do with modern tech. Words were meant to be spoken, Socrates believed, rather than written down,” Brown tells the TED Blog. In his book, he adds, “[It's] the same conflict humans have had throughout time: how do we successfully capture a potentially significant moment? It is the prehistoric caveman making images on the wall, the elementary-school class creating a time capsule, every man in an army platoon getting the same tattoo right before a battle.”

What’s the most disconcerting new technology out there?

Digital tattoos:

Says Enriquez, “Facial recognition is getting really good … Companies like Face.com now have about 18 billion faces online.”

Virtual shadow:

Writes Brown, “Google Glass can take pictures and video, check your email, text your friends, and surf the web — in short, it can record your whole life … Google claimed that they weren’t built for everyday use, but I doubt Apple planned on people texting while walking, either.”

How do we escape the grip our online lives have over us?

Digital tattoos:

Enriquez tells us, “Be cautious when faced with the choice of doing something boneheaded on Twitter or Facebook. Give it 12 hours.”

Virtual Shadow:

Brown writes, “The best way to separate mundane short-term memories from important long-term memories is to simply be as present as possible … The more aware you are of your surroundings, the more your brain can create a cohesive, solid memory. A rich memory — for instance, making love for the first time — isn’t created by an isolated sensation, like a gentle touch or the smell of a cologne, but from the collecting and connecting of all those inputs into one unforgettable multisensory experience. The brain doesn’t need better tools; it just needs us to be as present as possible when things are actually happening.”

How do photos and video play into this?

Digital tattoos:

“People don’t understand how quickly this has changed,” Enriquez tells the TED Blog. “There weren’t a lot of videos of September 11, because it was a pain in the rear to take video on 9/11. You needed a large camera and battery pack – you had to set up the camera. Now every one of us carries HD in our pockets … HD video is so simple, cheap and easy to use that it can affect a presidential campaign, like what happened with Romney.” He adds, “This 24-second news cycle, where a presidential candidate says something stupid on air and, ‘Gotcha!,’ is now beginning to apply to other people’s lives.”

Virtual shadow:

Brown writes in the book, “My favorite uncle shared some good news: He had pictures — hundreds of pictures — from our wedding day. He’d gotten some gorgeous shots, he said, and he couldn’t wait to send them to us. He also told me that he couldn’t wait to get the official video, since he’d been distracted and missed a lot. He was excited to watch a recap of what had happened while he was busy trying to capture the beautiful moments as they were actually happening.”

Is there potential for good with social media?

Digital tattoos:

“The really neat thing is that this is exactly the kind of stuff that allows a group like TED to be so successful and spread ideas,” Enriquez tells us. “And that allows Twitter to spread ideas in a very powerful way — to take on governments, take on bad officials, expose corruption, start movements, do Kickstarter. I’m not arguing [social media] shouldn’t exist. I’m saying that precisely because this stuff is so powerful, we should be careful.”

Virtual shadow:

“There is definitely much good that comes from social media. I’m a huge Twitter fan …. I think we just need to ask the same question we do with other activities: Is this affecting my quality of life?” he says to the TED Blog. “Saying technology is making us less attentive is a copout. Technology has always been an issue for us, whether it was a child in the ’50s watching too much TV or a caveman playing with a new discovery called fire. Like our ancestors, what we really need to do is find a smart way to integrate our newfound technology into our lives.”

So where do you stand, do you feel like the bits and pieces of you online are your digital tattoos, or that they comprise your virtual shadow? Or perhaps a little bit of both?

Watch Juan Enriquez’s TED Talk on digital tattoos »

Read Damon Brown’s TED Book about virtual shadows »

The morning of our wedding, my wife and I only had one major discussion: Should we bring our cell phones? She loved Facebook as much as I loved Twitter, and since we’ve lived and made friends all across the country, the social networks made it easier to stay connected to our loved ones far away. We wanted those who couldn’t make it to the wedding to feel connected, too. But we decided to put the smartphones away. Our decision turned out to be the right one: I can honestly still remember every single moment of the ceremony. I was fully present.

A few months later, my favorite uncle shared some good news: He had pictures — hundreds of pictures — from our wedding day. He’d gotten some gorgeous shots, he said, and he couldn’t wait to send them to us. He also told me that he couldn’t wait to get the official video, since he’d been distracted and missed a lot. He was excited to watch a recap of what had happened because he had been busy trying to capture the beautiful moments as they were actually happening.

At this point, the discussion usually veers into our overly plugged-in society — the subsidized cell phone industry makes photo-ready smartphones really cheap, the prevalence of phones encourages everyone to take more pictures, our phones encourage us to use them every time they buzz, etc. But let’s throw that red herring back into the digital river. Our need to capture our memories certainly didn’t start with Instagram.

The decisions I, my wife, and my uncle faced are part of the same conflict humans have had throughout time: how do we capture and save a potentially significant moment? It is the prehistoric caveman making images on the wall, the elementary-school class creating a time capsule, every man in an army platoon getting the same tattoo right before a battle. Each moldy Polaroid, FourSquare check-in, and uploaded YouTube video creates a breadcrumb trail back through our lives. We want these archives, whether digital or physical, to point back to the very real experience we had, or, just as importantly, to give us insight into someone else’s experience. Silicon Valley tech culture expert Paul Philleo calls these mementos anchors of memory.

If you picture all the experiences in our lifetimes as drops in the ocean, anchors of memory are those manmade landmarks reminding us that something of note is located there. Without them, we risk forgetting our most important moments in a sea of mundane recollections. For instance, the first time you visit the Statue of Liberty, you may create an anchor of memory that is physical, like writing a passage in your diary, or an anchor of memory that is virtual, like checking into the location on an app. The physical anchor of memory takes up physical space and requires physical maintenance: keeping your diary dry, finding a safe place to store it, etc. A virtual anchor of memory takes up virtual space and requires time maintenance: making sure your account is active, managing relationships on the check-in service, etc. The physical anchors of memory represent the stuff we make the space to own, which constitute our possessions; our virtual anchors of memory represent the stuff we make the time to upload, which create our virtual shadow. In both cases, we’ve reserved a spot for a particular symbolic gesture in our life.

To better understand the anchors of memory, let’s look at them as what a programmer would call them: pointers. A pointer is an empty object whose sole purpose is to represent something else with actual content. The Polaroid doesn’t contain your 1978 family reunion, but it points to the memory of that event in your mind. A Twitter status is 140 organized symbols that, for you, trigger a particular idea. Or, in more physical terms, a city mile marker is merely metal with scribbles on it, but it shows you where you have to go to get to that particular place.

But what happens if the pointer, this empty piece of symbolism, aims at something that is inaccurate, incomplete, or, worse, not of value at all?

This essay has been excerpted from the new TED Book Our Virtual Shadow: Why We Are Obsessed with Documenting Our Lives Online, by culture writer Damon Brown, creator of the app Quote Unquote and author of more than a dozen books, including Porn & Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture. His new TED Book takes a look at what happens to us as individuals in a world of infinite status updates, constant tweeting, obsessive Instagraming. It answers the question: Does documenting our lives keep us from living them? And more important: How can we use social media tools, which satisfy a real need to be heard and remembered, to help us stay present in actual life?

“Our Virtual Shadow” is available for the Kindle, Nook, or through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone. Read more »

Underlying that disappointment is a central corruption in our electoral system, says legal activist Lawrence Lessig: the fact that Congressional candidates depend on funding from a tiny percentage of citizens, who in turn control what the rest of us get to vote on. Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim That’s the argument at the core of his blistering talk from TED2013. In his new TED Book, Lesterland, Lessig takes a deeper look at the problem and describes a powerful method for fixing this broken system.

In the great literary tradition of metaphors, Lessig has created Lesterland, a large country run by a small group of people named Lester. In the book, he uses Lesterland to describe what happens when the wealthy control the powerful. While political corruption is not new, Lessig believes we now have both the technology and the social media tools needed to expose and strike at the root of this corruption. To hear more about his ideas, and how he arrived at this metaphor, we caught up with Lessig and asked him a few questions.

Your book paints a pretty grim view that our political system is undermined by money and corruption. How did we allow this to happen? 

We allowed it to happen simply because we’re busy with our lives: We’ve got jobs, or kids, or hobbies — maybe all together! We expect the Congress to do their job. Most of us don’t have the patience to try to keep up.

Why has this system of corruption taken hold so firmly?

Because it pays so well. K Street — where most lobbyist offices are in Washington, D.C. — has become one of the most profitable businesses in America. And they have convinced other businesses across America that they need K Street. So the cycle feeds itself: businesses pay lobbyists; lobbyists channel money to politicians; politicians reward the businesses.

What gives you hope that we can change this cycle?

The only hope is that most Americans get this and — if pushed — will create the political force to change it. What we need to do now is to push them.

How do we do that? What can the average person do?

The first step is to get involved. I started an organization called Rootstrikers — inspired by Thoreau’s quote: “there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one striking at the root” — which recruits citizen teachers: people who recognize the corrupting influence of money and who are willing to help spread this message. At Rootstrikers you can be assigned tasks to help do that essential work. If we’re successful, then we will create the political conditions necessary to make reform possible.

Any other specific ideas you have for how we can turn things around?

The problem isn’t simple, but the first step is a no-brainer: We have to change the way elections are funded. If we change that, we make every other change possible. If I were King for a Day, at a minimum, I’d enact John Sarbanes’ Grassroots Democracy Act. More ambitiously, I’d enact the American Anti-Corruption Act put forwarded by the Represent.us organization.

What are the consequences of the corrupt and money-driven system we live with?

It’s very simple — a government that doesn’t work, or if it does, not for us. None of the most important issues facing us today can be addressed sensibly given the senselessness of this system: climate change, health care, financial reform, food safety, a tax system, the debt, inequality. You name it, and I’ll tie it to the money.

The folks who are pulling the strings — the Lesters — have a lot to lose if your ideas are implemented. Do you expect to see an active quashing of your ideas?

The closer we get, the more they will squeal. We need to have in place the political force that can overcome that squeal.

Lesterland is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

Read an excerpt »

In the TED Book Keystone XL: Down the Line, Washington Post reporter Steven Mufson and photographer Michael Williamson travel the entire length of the proposed project and reveal starting realities about its impact on everything from the environment to town economies to people’s lives, in the areas through which it passes.

As debate over the Keystone XL boils over, it felt like the right time to ask Mufson a few questions. Below, his take on this highly controversial proposed project.

Why are Canada and the United States now in a rush to expand oil exporting? 

Canada is already a major oil exporter — in fact, they’re the biggest source of U.S. crude oil imports. Companies producing oil in the tar sands in northern Alberta are looking to double production there — and they need more ways to move that oil out. Currently, the limited options for transporting oil only pile onto the costs of production. The biggest and most natural market is the United States, both because our economy is big and because U.S. refineries on the Gulf of Mexico have been modernized and upgraded to handle low-quality crude oil like that coming out of Alberta. Once the crude oil is refined, it’s easier to sell in the United States or abroad. The United States both exports and imports refined products, though given the size of the U.S. refinery industry and relatively flat U.S. gasoline consumption, the volume of U.S. exports of gasoline and diesel has increased.

You say the pipeline is a Rorschach test of how Americans view energy issues. Can you elaborate?

For four decades, we have thought about oil as a scarce resource. We imported more and more at higher and higher prices and went to distant frontiers, whether onshore or offshore, to find oil and gas. The sheer scale of the oil sands in Alberta has been Exhibit A of those extremes. The Saudi oil minister has often said that prices had to stay above $60 a barrel to keep the Canadian oil sands economically viable. All of a sudden, the trends reversed and a slew of oil prospectors – like the North Dakota fracking pioneer Harold Hamm who is profiled in the book – and energy experts are talking about U.S. energy abundance. Imports have dropped nearly in half. U.S. oil output has climbed over 7 million barrels a day and the International Energy Agency has forecast that U.S. output will surpass Saudi Arabia’s by the mid-2020s. Canadian oil sands would compete for U.S. refinery space with Venezuela, and North Dakota, Louisiana and Texas shale oil has enabled the big refiner Valero to stop importing light, sweet crude oil.

It’s partly a matter of interpretation and partly a matter of outlook. There are the folks who worry about climate and make calculations about booming demand across the developing world. And then there are the optimists and industry people who see more opportunity – which in the case of prospectors and drillers translates into profitable opportunities.

So which is it? Are we energy rich or energy poor? The truth lies somewhere in between. Yes, the United States has surprising new resources at home, and U.S. consumption may have hit a plateau as fuel efficiency rises. This is a big benefit for the U.S. balance of trade and the domestic oil and gas industry. And while U.S. oil independence remains elusive, the Keystone XL pipeline would help make North American oil independence conceivable.

Why are two in ten Americans against the pipeline?

Opposition to the pipeline has three main themes. First, some oppose the pipeline because of climate concerns. The process of extracting oil sands crude – a mixture including low-grade petroleum known as bitumen –gobbles up much more energy than the process of conventional oil drilling. So it emits more greenhouse gases. Second, some people fear pipeline leaks, either near the vast Ogallala Aquifer in the Great Plains or in rivers that must be crossed. And third, some people – many on ranches and farms – oppose the use or threat of eminent domain to force them to sign deals with the pipeline builder and owner, TransCanada.

What are the environmental downsides?

In addition to those environmental issues, the pipeline is being built to provide outlets for oil from the oil sands in Alberta. Half of the oil sands are produced by a process that is akin to strip mining. Trees in Alberta’s vast boreal forest are cut down, wetlands and topsoil are peeled back, and black sands are taken by gigantic dump trucks to facilities that mix the sands with warm water to separate out the useful bitumen. The other half of the oil sands are produced by injecting steam in the ground and sucking up the petroleum. Alberta is vast, but visiting the big mining and drilling sites still makes quite an impression.

The pipeline itself would have no significant environmental impact – unless it leaks. The company has tried to address those concerns by saying it would drill deep below rivers and by making the pipe extra thick in some places. And it has sensors that alert TransCanada’s computer-monitoring center, in Calgary.

Why do some believe that tapping sands oil is ethically better than helping the economies of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela?

One key argument in favor of the pipeline is that it would bring the United States greater energy and national security. Many proponents say the United States would be more secure importing oil from Canada — a democratic, stable ally — than from Venezuela or the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was no great friend of the United States but much of Venezuela’s crude oil is also low quality, like Alberta’s, and Venezuela has been a major supplier to the U.S. refineries. So it might be more of an ethical issue. Would we rather buy from a democracy, or an Islamic state run by a royal family or from a country run by the heirs of the fiery populist ruler Chavez?

What will happen if the pipeline is rejected by Congress and the President?

Good question. One possibility is that TransCanada might file suit saying that the process was improper. But it is more likely that TransCanada would look to alternatives, most likely a line to Canada’s east coast and eastern markets. In addition, railways would step up efforts to add tank cars and tracks as they have done in North Dakota already. Foes of the pipeline hope rejection of the permit will slow down development of the oil sands, but the State Department’s new environmental impact statement issued in March says the oil sands crude will find one way or another to get to the Gulf Coast refineries.

Tell us a little about the effects of the project on the Native American cultures of the proposed area.

Many Native American tribes, especially in Oklahoma, have no problem with the pipeline. In Oklahoma, formerly called the Indian Territory, people have not been strangers to oil booms. But some Native Americans and their tribal leaders are bothered by the thought that the pipeline might inadvertently disturb ancient burial sites or other sacred grounds.  Indeed the pipeline’s route from Niobrara River in northern Nebraska to northern Oklahoma follows almost exactly the route, or Trail of Tears, that the Ponca Tribe followed when forced to move in the 1800s. In South Dakota, Native American tribes have also been outspoken, saying that the Keystone XL crosses treaty lands. The pipeline would narrowly miss the state’s reservations. But it has unearthed more than a century of mistrust and grievance among Native Americans.

Photo: Bloomberg/Getty

Lessig’s powerful talk brought the TED2013 audience to its feet. And he has so much more to say about how we can overturn this deeply entrenched system. In a TED first, on the same day his talk premieres, Lessig is releasing a new TED Book expanding on the ideas he presented on stage. In Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How To End It, Lessig takes on the deep flaws in our campaign finance system and lays out a plan for fixing it. As he says in the book’s pages: The American political system has been weakened by a corrupt campaign funding system, but we can change it. And the time to do it is now.

Here is how Lesterland begins:

Once upon a time, there was a place called “Lesterland.”

Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaimLesterland was a lot like the United States. Like the United States, it had a population of about 311 million souls. Of that, like the United States, about 150,000 were named “Lester.”

Lesters in Lesterland had a very important power. There were two elections every election cycle in Lesterland — a general election, and a “Lester election.” In the general election, all citizens got to vote. In the Lester election, only the “Lesters” got to vote.

But here’s the catch: To run in the general election, you had to do extremely well in the Lester election. You didn’t necessarily have to win, but you had to do extremely well. Democracy in Lesterland was thus a two-step dance. The Lesters controlled the first step.

What can we say about “democracy” in Lesterland?

First, we could say, as the United States Supreme Court said in its remarkable ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, that “the people have the ultimate influence over elected officials” — for, after all, there is a general election. But the people have that influence only after the Lesters have had their way with the candidates who wish to run in that general election. The people’s influence is ultimate. But it is not exclusive. Instead, the field of possible candidates has been narrowed to the field of Lester-plausible candidates, just as the field of candidates that citizens in the Soviet Union could select among had been narrowed by the choices of the Communist Party.

Second, and obviously, this primary dependence upon the Lesters would produce a subtle, understated, and somewhat camouflaged bending to keep the Lesters happy. For all candidates, both prospective and already successful, would know that they couldn’t gain or retain power without Lester support. Such bending couldn’t be too obvious, for fear it would trigger the votes of voters who resented the Lesters’ influence. (No doubt, there were some.) But neither could it be too subtle, for fear the Lesters would miss who their real allies were. Thus the Goldilocks principle of Lesterland politics: Not too little, and not too much. The best politicians were the best precisely because they practiced this balance well.

Lesterland is thus a democracy. But it is a democracy with two dependences: The first is a dependence upon the Lesters. The second is a dependence upon the citizens. Competing dependences, possibly conflicting dependences, depending upon who the Lesters are.

That’s Lesterland.

There are three things to see now that you’ve seen the democracy called “Lesterland.”

 (1) The United States is Lesterland.

Like Lesterland, the United States also has 311 million souls. It also has about 150,000 people named “Lester.” And it also has two types of elections: One, the traditional “voting election,” where citizens cast ballots. The other, a distinctively modern “money election,” in which the relevant “funders” give money to afford candidates the chance to run effectively.

Voting elections are discrete — they happen on a particular day, in a regular cycle. They include the vote in the general election; for a small portion of us, they also include the vote in the primary. In both cases, every citizen eighteen and older has the right to participate. And as the constitution has been interpreted, he or she has the right to participate equally. If the vote I cast for my representative to Congress is weighted more than yours (because there are fewer voters in my district than in yours), the Constitution requires the state to redraw that congressional boundary.

By contrast, the money elections are not discrete. They are continuous. Every day, throughout the election cycle, every citizen is in effect asked to contribute to one candidate or to another. That contribution is in effect a “vote” for that one candidate or the other. But unlike “votes” in the discrete elections, to vote for one candidate in the money election does not mean you can’t vote for another as well. Citizens are free to hedge their money votes in the money election by voting for both candidates in a two-person race, or as many candidates in as many races as they wish. The only regulation is that no citizen is permitted to give more than $2,600 to any one federal candidate per election, or more than $123,200 to all federal candidates and federal PACs combined in an election cycle. And finally, and obviously, while the Constitution has been interpreted to require equality in the voting election, there is nothing close to equality in the money election. The per capita influence of the top 1 percent of American voters is more than 10 times the per capita influence of the bottom 99 percent.

As in Lesterland, the money election and the voting election have a special relationship in U.S.A.-land too: To be able to run in the voting election, one must do extremely well in the money election. One doesn’t necessarily have to win — though 84 percent of the House candidates and 67 percent of the Senate candidates with more money than their opponents did in fact win in 2012 — but you must do extremely well. The average amount raised by winning Senate candidates was $10.4 million; losing candidates raised $7.7 million. The average amount raised by winning House candidates was $1.6 million; losing candidates raised $0.774 million. Money certainly isn’t the only thing that matters. But anything other than money is way, way down the list of “things that matter.”

And here is the key to the link between Lesterland and the United States: There are just as few relevant “Funders” in U.S.A.-land as there are “Lesters” in Lesterland.

“Really,” you say?

Yes, really.

Read more of this fascinating and, ultimately, inspiring book. Lesterland is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

Steve Mufson, author of the new TED Book Keystone XL: Down the Line and a reporter at The Washington Post, has journeyed along the entire length of the proposed pipeline. He suggests that its real story is twofold: about the American frontier spirit, and about just how far we are willing to go to feed our oil addiction. In the book, Mufson asks readers to consider the Keystone XL debate — beyond the issues of climate change, tar sands and U.S. energy trade policy. He unpacks issues that don’t get as much play in the press: the ups and downs of the North Dakota shale boom, prairie populism in Nebraska, drinking-water concerns near the Ogallala aquifer, Native American communities’ desire to protect their land and burials sites along the Trail of Tears, and ranchers’ objections to the use of eminent domain by Canadian companies.

In many ways, the Keystone XL pipeline serves as a larger metaphor, Mufson says, illuminating the vast energy infrastructure it takes to sustain the American lifestyle. It underlines the choices we make in pursuit of short-term comfort. Which risks are we really willing to take?

To give you a taste of this riveting read, check out an excerpt from the book’s preface:

In spring 2012, I proposed an unusual road trip, one that would trace the full 1,700-mile route of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline. The pipeline project, which I was covering for The Washington Post, had aroused intense controversy. TransCanada, a Calgary-based company, had applied for an international permit from the U.S. State Department, something that had never raised many hackles before. But activists had turned the pipeline into an environmental litmus test for President Obama. In late August and early September 2011, pipeline foes protested outside the White House; more than 1,250 were arrested. The police carted off the likes of Middlebury professor Bill McKibben, actress Daryl Hannah and renowned climate scientist James Hansen. Later that fall, thousands of protesters surrounded the White House.

What made this pipeline different from the more than 2 million miles of existing oil and natural gas pipelines that had been built in the United States with little fuss or fanfare? A journey by car would provide a window onto what this policy debate looked like at the ground level.

The first stop: The gaping black pits at the oil sands, or tar sands, of Alberta, Canada, the source of the oil that would flow down the Keystone XL. Then a quick flight — to avoid driving a perilous highway full of sleepy truck drivers — to Edmonton. There in a rented car — a Ford Flex that made up in roominess what it lacked in grace or style — I set out, accompanied by Post colleagues photographer Michael Williamson and videographer Whitney Shefte and my 18-year-old daughter Natalie, who jumped at the chance to see those vast stretches of America.

From Edmonton, we drove through Alberta and part of Saskatchewan, then down the spine of America to the Texas Gulf Coast. We visited spacious corporate headquarters and crammed trailer parks, ranches and farms, boomtowns and dead towns, a border town of nine people and a century-old oil refinery. We attended a Nebraska cookout and an Oklahoma pow-wow. And along the way, this inanimate pipeline came to life.

It became clear that the real story of this pipeline permit was one about American frontiers — the lengths to which we go for oil supplies and the intrusive effects that quest causes all the way down the line.

Each segment of the trip touched on different issues: climate change and the oil sands; the U.S. energy trade with Canada; the North Dakota shale boom and its woes; prairie populism in Nebraska and pipeline politics; the Ogallala aquifer and the threat of leaks; Native Americans and their desire to protect land, water and burial sites along the old Trail of Tears; the fight of ranchers and farmers against a Canadian company’s right to eminent domain; and why both oil sands producers and Texas refiners want to see the pipeline completed.

Since the journey, the Keystone saga has continued. The Army Corps of Engineers approved the pipeline’s southern leg, and when construction began protesters in east Texas turned to civil disobedience. The new Secretary of State, John Kerry, has said he would rule soon on the permit needed for the northern segment.

As a journalist for The Washington Post, I take no position on whether the pipeline should be built. But I can paint a picture of the trade-offs. The United States stands at the brink of a sharp increase in oil produced at home and in neighboring Canada. The supplies could upend long-held economic assumptions, slashing our oil import bill, reviving domestic industries and creating jobs. But these resources come with risks. And concerns about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions have tempered any celebration of these newly accessible troves of fossil fuels.

Which risks are we willing to take? As long as the world relies on fossil fuels for transportation and industry, we will face unappealing choices. Drill in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s Arctic coast? Or drill in the Gulf of Mexico where a BP well spilled nearly 5 million barrels into the water? Drill thousands of holes in half a dozen shale plays, using vast supplies of water and producing hazardous waste? Or buy more oil from abroad, where most governments don’t agonize over development trade-offs? If nothing else, the Keystone XL pipeline illuminates the vast energy infrastructure it takes to sustain this American lifestyle and the choices we have made about that without really thinking.

Keystone XL: Down the Line is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

We sat down with Van Ort to learn more about the global crisis of land mines and what we can all do about it.

What first got you interested in the land mine crisis?          

It was a slow progression. It started with my interest in modern man’s impact on the topography of the physical landscape. In 2009, I wanted to find landscapes that still harbored fear and limited movement much the way forests, mountains and rivers inhibited development many centuries ago. After some thought, the idea of minefields and how they restrict movement came to me.  To get at the core of that, I decided to photograph the actual fields where the devices were embedded.  From there, I learned much more about the topic. As a result, I usually include information in my talks about what we can do to stop creating and using these devices.

What are the impacts land mines have on a country after a war is over?

Obviously, land mines kill and maim. But land mines also restrict movement, discourage agricultural and economic development, and break down the necessary social interaction between neighboring communities. They also affect families — an entire family unit must learn to care for the survivor and aid in chores while he/she is seeking constant medical attention.

Of all the countries affected by land mines, why were you drawn to Bosnia and Herzegovina?

After the war ended in 1995, Bosnia had the highest proliferation of mines in the earth. There were 152 mines per square mile, according to Human Rights Watch in 1996. Today, about 2.8% of the land area is considered a minefield.

Also, I felt the audience needed to have a connection to the landscape.  Afghanistan, Angola, Egypt and Iraq, with their desert locals, and Cambodia, Colombia and Laos, with their jungles and rice patties, seem distant and foreign to majority of Americans and Europeans. Westerners can relate to the Bosnian landscape.  The Dinaric Alps resemble the Sierra Nevada. With lush, coniferous canopies, these areas closely resemble the places we walk with our dog or family in the early evening during summer.

Did you feel in danger when you were walking around these mine fields?

Yes.  The width of the safe space is delineated by caution tape on the ground.  That space is no more than the width an airplane aisle in some spots.  It feels as if you are on a tight rope.  Even when I would take a photograph from well outside the restricted zone, I still had an overwhelming sense of fear.

How is technology aiding land mine eradication?

The metal detector, along with a thin metal probe and a trowel, is still the preferred method for removal.  However, there are land mine removal “tanks” that chew up the ground and set off the land mines in the process.  The British military designed a Python Minefield Breaching System — a rocket is shot out attached to a 200 yard cord, which, after it is laid, carries a charge which will detonate every mine within a seven meter-wide area. Then there are mine sniffing dogs and the HERORats from Mozambique that can smell out the TNT in a mine.  Lastly there is Mahmoud Hassaini’s Mine Kafon.  The wind-blown, tumbleweed-like device, costs about 40 Euros and can detonate several mines in a single pass across a plain.  Specifically, the Mine Kafon device allows for locals to inexpensively survey an area to see if their suspicions are correct.

What else can be done to eradicate land mines globally? What can we do?

The first thing we can do as Americans is pressure our representatives in Congress to ratify and sign the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention Treaty, a.k.a. The Ottawa Treaty. We need to join in condemning and outlawing these indiscriminate killing machines.

Supporting local NGOs that do work supporting mine victims is another step.  However, passing the word on and telling your friends and family to pressure their representatives is the most direct action we can take.  If the United States can formally ratify the treaty and sign it, then hopefully this will put pressure on states like Russia, China, India and Pakistan.

Minescape is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

Minescape is the first TED Book to be released in conjunction with a print edition, and will complement an art book to be published by Daylight Books in April 2013. This will also mark one of the first projects from the newly launched Daylight Digital. But the TED Books version of Minescape will be a little different, pairing Van Ort’s moving photographs and personal accounts with Joel Whitney’s globe-trotting investigative essays. It also includes multimedia features that detail the continued impacts of land mines as well as innovative techniques for land mine detection, allowing photography lovers and academics-alike to go beyond the images.

Minescape is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone.

Gaus has contributed an essay to the new TED Book, City 2.0: The Habitat of the Future and How to Get There, an anthology born out of The City 2.0 TED Prize and produced in partnership with The Atlantic Cities. In the essay, he writes about the need for better local food sources in cities and the exciting potential of aquaponics.

Here, we ask him a few questions. 

So, what is aquaponics and why is it good for cities?

Aquaponics is the combination of commercial fish rearing (aquaculture) and cultivation of plants in water (hydroponics). Aquaponics does not require extensive land use or fertile soil to grow plants. This makes it particularly attractive for urban agriculture, where both space and fertile soil are limited. 

You launched your company with the idea that it was time for aquaponics to grow up. What does that mean? 

Growing up means becoming a competitive force in the way food is grown in the city.

Aquaponics and its application in urban agriculture is a relatively new phenomenon. The technology and its commercial scale are still in an early stage of development. In order to provide a meaningful contribution toward food security and global awareness on urban resilience, we need to drive solutions that are robust and scalable.

Why is it so important to find large-scale urban food solutions?

In order to meet the global demand for food by 2050, The Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations estimates that food production needs to double. While access to new arable land can only increase this by 5 percent — and agricultural intensification and efficiencies are peaking — new technologies and solutions are required to help solve the problem.

Urban agriculture has the potential to transform city-dwellers from “suckers” of natural resources to better-balanced consumers and producers — with local food production and greater resilience. This makes a lot of sense for both the planet and the people; it would have a big impact on the way cities are becoming more self-sustainable.

How do you envision aquaponics taking off in the future?

We are getting a lot of requests from all over the world for our solution. Our goal is to provide the tools, services and the brand for urban farming in the city. I think we need both a bottom-up as well as a top-down approach to achieve scale. Of course, community-based initiatives are important, but enterprise-level activities as well as public and governmental support are also required. Why shouldn’t a large supermarket chain or a large public hospital grow on its own rooftops? We see market-based initiatives or “urban farmers” as true entrepreneurs in their cities. The eco-net of financing, technical support and distribution networks needs to be created as well.

City 2.0 is available for Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone. A subscription costs $4.99 a month, and is an all-you-can-read buffet.

The City 2.0 is an online forum that showcase stories and projects for urban innovation, and also doled out 10 grants for thinkers with great ideas for cities throughout 2012. Here, meet 8 of the winners and hear their fascinating ideas »