Doubt is not a pleasant state of mind, but certainty is absurd” — Voltaire, 1767

The Recession Started 35 Million Years Ago

Laurie Santos

Professor of Psychology, Yale University

Dr. Laurie Santos’s studies of monkey “economics” suggest that greedy, loss-averse human behavior may have deep evolutionary origins.

In Health & Medicine

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The Voice of Big Think

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February 9, 2010 — 12:27 AM

Who're You Calling a Dumb Ape?

Big Think Editors

The capuchin monkeys that Dr. Laurie Santos and her research team work with are "clever—sometimes more clever than we are." Not only do they sometimes get the better of humans, they also yield a font of insights into the evolutionary origins of human psychological phenomena—including, as the Yale psychologist explains in her Big Think interview, the loss aversion and greed that caused the global financial meltdown. Read more

The Voice of Big Think

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February 8, 2010 — 1:32 AM

Why Donating Is More Popular Than Voting

Big Think Editors

These are, to say the least, intimidating times for non-profits. With the coffers of even the wealthiest companies and individuals under such pressure, efforts to find a donor can seem fanciful and futile. Luckily, as today’s guest and president of the Lincoln Center Rey Levy makes clear, such fear is unjustified. Even when money is scarce, the prospects for donors are still ripe, as giving has shifted to the most legitimate form of active citizenship in America today, with more people donating to charities and non-profits each year than vote.   Read more

Resurgence

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February 7, 2010 — 11:54 PM

Can A Retired Alan Greenspan Still Produce A "Greenspan Effect"?

Kris Broughton

Alan Greenspan issued his own verdict about the American economy earlier today when he appeared on Meet The Press with former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.  When Meet The Press host David Gregory asked Greenspan about the country’s economic prospects in the near future, Greenspan said the recession "is essentially over." Read more

Novel Copy

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February 7, 2010 — 5:48 PM

A Diet of Facebook and Twitter

Orion Jones

That’s what five French journalists have been living on for the last five days as they were holed up in a farm house in the south of France. The journalists were taking part in an exercise in conjunction with Radio Canada to see how informed people could be—or perhaps how informed many people are—if they were to only read posts on Facebook and Twitter. The results demonstrated the good and the bad of both social media platforms. Read more

As I Please

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February 7, 2010 — 4:32 PM

The Big Stink

Mark Seddon

Three British Labour Members of Parliament and one Conservative Peer are facing charges under the Theft Act, and could if found guilty, be facing up to seven years in jail. This then is the culmination of a quite remarkable series of revelations, which show that nearly half of Britain’s Members of Parliament exploited an expenses system that existed to hand out free money. Most of these MPs will not be facing criminal charges, although many have already been obliged to hand back thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Read more

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