Seven years ago, Internet activist Aaron Swartz convinced Lawrence Lessig to take up the fight for political reform. A year after Swartz's tragic death, Lessig continues his campaign to free US politics from the stranglehold of corruption. In this fiery, deeply personal talk, he calls for all citizens to engage, and offers a heartfelt reminder t...

Does AI pose a threat to democracy? Law professor Lawrence Lessig dissects how this emerging technology could influence democratic institutions, warning that we’ve already passed a point (before superintelligence or AGI) that deserves a lot more attention.

There is a corruption at the heart of American politics, caused by the dependence of Congressional candidates on funding from the tiniest percentage of citizens. That's the argument at the core of this blistering talk by legal scholar Lawrence Lessig. With rapid-fire visuals, he shows how the funding process weakens the Republic in the most fund...

Former "young Republican" Larry Lessig talks about what Democrats can learn about copyright from their opposite party, considered more conservative. A surprising lens on remix culture.

Lawrence Lessig, the Net’s most celebrated lawyer, cites John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights and the "ASCAP cartel" in his argument for reviving our creative culture.

Lawrence Lessig has already transformed intellectual-property law with his Creative Commons innovation. Now he's focused on an even bigger problem: The US' broken political system.

Throughout Earth’s history, climate has varied greatly. For hundreds of millions of years, the planet had no polar ice caps. Without this ice, the sea level was 70 meters higher. At the other extreme, about 700 million years ago, Earth became almost entirely covered in ice, during an event known as “Snowball Earth.” What causes these swings in t...

What's a proven way to lower your energy costs? Would you believe: learning what your neighbor pays. Alex Laskey shows how a quirk of human behavior can make us all better, wiser energy users, with lower bills to prove it.

DJs make remixes, cross-pollinating old sounds with new. But all of us engage in this conversation between the past and present, making ideas resonate over and over again.

Mikko Hypponen lays it out: "The talks I chose for my playlist are about technology, security or privacy. Because geeks. Then I added the talk from Dan Barber. Because fish."

Modern politics turns you off? Here’s how to reconnect — and take charge of your world.

Corruption manifests in many ways -- from money-laundering shell companies to bribes to broken electoral systems. These speakers look boldly at what's wrong, and offer bold ideas on what we can do about it.

What should you do with your paycheck? These talks offer reframes to help you save, spend and give — with intention.

Alex Laskey helps power companies to help their customers cut down -- using data analysis, marketing and a pinch of psychology.

Larry Lessig has been referenced twice this morning, first by Wikihouse's Alastair Parvin and secondly by the musician Amanda Palmer. So it seems only right and proper that the Harvard Law professor should round off this session of TED2013. He's here to talk about Lesterland, a fictional land with a population of 311 million people of whom th...

Lawrence Lessig may be running for President of the United States. But he isn’t looking to big donors to fund his exploratory campaign. Rather than do the usual candidate song and dance of courting wealthy donors and corporations, Lessig is using the Kickstarter method for his campaign. He’s collecting small donations from individuals thr...

Yochai Benkler has been called "the leading intellectual of the information age." He proposes that volunteer-based projects such as Wikipedia and Linux are the next stage of human organization and economic production.

A list of the talks mentioned in TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Chris Anderson's comments on each talk (in the grey italics) indicate why they were included in the book. Use the book index for more info.

When it comes to US politics, many are frustrated that gridlock and grandstanding so often substitute for the hard job of getting things done. Just 14% of Americans say they approve of the work that Congress is doing, according to a recent Gallup poll. (Which, as a recent TED speaker notes, is lower than the approval rating for cockroaches, thou...

About this event: There is a corruption at the heart of American politics, caused by the dependence of candidates on funding from the tiniest percentage of citizens. That’s the argument at the core of legal scholar Lawrence Lessig’s life long work about Democracy. Fundamentally cross-partisan, and incredibly hopeful, Mr. Lessig conveys a roadmap for a democracy w...

Larry Lessig is about to complete a 185-mile walk across the state of New Hampshire. He began this journey on January 11 and has walked despite rain, sleet, snow, ice and freezing cold, as the temperature in this state ranges anywhere from the lower thirties to the negative teens in the month of January. Lessig undertook this walk to hamm...

Please enjoy your weekly roundup of TED-related news: This week, the New York Times took a look at Krista Donaldson’s nonprofit, D-Rev, which designs medical equipment for the developing world. (Watch her  talk about their $80 prosthetic knees.) The article reads, "D-Rev is one of dozens of small Silicon Valley start-ups aiming to use marke...

“Once upon a time, there was a place called Lesterland,” Lawrence Lessig begins today’s talk. “Of its 311 million people, it turns out 144,000 are called Lester,” Lessig says. In Lesterland, this .05% of the population is granted extraordinary power. Each election cycle, there’s a general election, in which the people get to vote, and a Leste...

One of the things that baffles mere mortals about the 2008 financial crisis is that no one seems to have been held accountable for what went on. Sure, there’ve been a few public mea culpas, and sure, multimillion-dollar fines have been paid. But actual admissions of guilt? Not so much. A grand total of one Wall Streeter has gone to jail for his ...

Freeman Hrabowski was a 9th grader in Birmingham, Alabama, when he heard a dynamic, impassioned speaker at church -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time, King was organizing a march for children, and Hrabowski begged his parents to let him be a part of it. Hrabowski won their blessing to march in the Children’s Crusade, a pivotal moment i...

Day 3 at TED2014 was dense with science, design, conversation. Here's a quick recap of some highlights: Hugh Herr and Adrianne Haslet-Davis's surprise dance Hugh Herr is a bionics designer and multiple amputee. He gave a talk that was half mind-blowing -- full of extraordinary advances in prosthetics, like bionic designs that produce t...

About this event: This TEDxNorrköpingLive event consists of TED2013 simulcasted from TED2013, Long Beach, CA. 17:30 Session 4, Disrupt!: Alastair Parvin, Designer Danny Hillis, Computer theorist Sanjay Dastoor; Roboticist BLACK, Yo-yo champion Lesley Perkes, Public art instigator Sergey Brin, Co-founder Amanda Palmer, Musician, blogger Larry Lessig, ...

About this event: LIVE SIMULCAST (LIVE WEBCASTING) OF THE TED 2013 CONFERENCE (from Los Angeles, California) ‘The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered’. We will ONLY screen (LIVE, with Exclusive License and in English only), the Fourth and Fifth Session of the 27th line-up (the entire conference actually lasts 4 days but it is allowed to screen only the 27th): ‘DIS...

Before we can tackle climate change, financial reform, education reform or, well, anything, there is a single issue that we in the United States must confront. As legal activist Lawrence Lessig says in today’s talk, before we can bring about change on any of the thousands of issues that matter to us, we must change a central corruption at the ro...