We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.
A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think
Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.
Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.
Browse videos featuring experts across a wide range of disciplines, from personal health to business leadership to neuroscience.
Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.
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What's the Latest Development? A study recently published in the Journal of the Transportation Research Forum claims that, far from being the lazy way out of shopping, grocery home delivery has the potential to impact the environment in a positive way. University of Washington professor and ...
What's the Latest Development? A small group of people in the German city of Wuppenstal represents one of a growing number of "hackerspaces" around the world that are coming together to fix items, such as vacuum cleaners and toasters, that would normally have been tossed out. Interestingly, this ...
Amid all the cheering about the advent of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), another high-tech, path-breaking model in higher education is being developed in San Francisco with the help of a $25 million seed grant. Minerva University, set to admit its first class of undergraduates in 2015, bills ...
Black Friday came earlier than ever this year, with big box stores opting to open the floodgates to shoppers while the gravy was still warm on Thanksgiving Day. That led one analyst to complain that retailers "have basically ruined every holiday." After all, you can't have your turkey and eat it ...
With Big Bird’s surreal moment in the national spotlight, last Wednesday evening marked not only the first Presidential Debate of 2012 but also America's first national political Kidult moment. Kidult, the phenomenon of adults acting like kids and embracing entertainment, food and fashion that ...
What's the Big Idea? You don't need this product. But I want you to buy it. So I am going to confuse you. Then I will be able to seduce you into buying my product. That is the logic of advertising, or manufactured demand, says Alain de Botton, a prominent atheist author and a co-founder of The ...
Quick: what percentage of wealth in the United States is held by the richest 20 percent of the population? And what percentage of the pie does the poorest 40 percent have? If your estimates match those of the average respondent in Dan Ariely and Mike Horton’s survey, you guessed that the top ...
Food is becoming increasingly politicized in America. Michelle Obama schooled us with her organic garden. And the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination schooled us by eating a stick of fried butter at the Ames Straw Poll. With so much food-symbolism getting slung around, who can ...
In this third video from our interview with Slavoj Žižek, the philosopher and author of Big Think's most recent Book of the Month answers the question, "Which summer film are you anticipating most?" Watch the interview: Despite the fact that it depicts the last 24 hours on Earth and is ...
What's the Big Idea? On May 20, Pakistan shut down Twitter for eight hours after the microblogging site refused to remove tweets that linked to a page encouraging people to post pictures of Muhammad. The move backfired: rather than diverting eyes from the offensive content, the government turned ...
What’s the Big Idea? Facebook shares start trading today, at a price that will value the company at close to $100 billion, or roughly the 2011 GDP of Sudan. The difference between this and other comparably enormous initial public offerings is that Facebook's product, or service, is free. Its ...
What's the Big Idea? The myth of the fat, humpbacked American tourist still prevails around the world. We are often looked at as weekend warriors - cozy in our dens, making quick, scampering trips to unfamiliar places and returning with snapshots for our family album. In reality, only 35% of ...
It is one of the most debated subjects of all time: What is art? Some might think it doesn't much matter whether or not consensus is achieved on this highly subjective topic, but the definition of art has an enormous impact upon how the arts are — or aren't — funded. The question of what ...
Maer Roshan, author of Courtney Comes Clean: The High Life and Dark Depths of Music's Most Controversial Icon, is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Fix. Previously he was deputy of New York Magazine, editorial director of Talk, features editor of Interview, founder of QW, and founder and ...
We here at the Floating University are excited to announce a promotion for our LIVE event next week at the New York Public Library: Anyone who follows us on Twitter (@FloatingU) and sends us an @ reply with the phrase "Art Now" will automatically win a free VIP seat to Bard President Leon Botstein ...