Ted X's Burning Questions

In 2022, I began asking my burning questions on the Playa. I had been attending Burning Man since 2017 — minus the Covid years and including 2021 Fourth of Juplaya — and by then I had a real sense of how open and willing burners are to engage with just about anyone, about just about anything, out there in the dust.

One of my contributions to Entheos, the camp I have been part of since its inception, has been doing the physical surveying needed to lay out the camp's infrastructure. But surveying isn't just measuring land — the broader definition is "the acquisition of data." I took that to heart and decided to start conducting ad hoc surveys of burners on the Playa, asking questions I wonder about and keeping track of the answers in a 3"x5" spiral notebook

I pose two yes-or-no questions at a time — one open-ended and debatable, the other objective and factual. I offer no background or explanation, record only the answer, and note the respondent's apparent gender, acknowledging my own bias in making that call. Going forward I am making space for non-binary responses as well. The questions are not intended to have any bearing on each other or include any inclination of that nature, just random questions I dream up and settle on.

As you might expect, the process and the engagement with willing burners has turned out to be more interesting to me than any individual yes or no. Enough people have been curious about the results that I decided to put this site together — to share what happened on the Playa and to give anyone who finds their way here a chance to weigh in online.

Ted X is my playa name, given to me by a fellow camper. I have no affiliation with TEDx, TED Talks, or any other entity with X in its name except X the unknown. I genuinely wonder how and what people think about these things, so please: answer my burning questions, and discuss among yourselves.