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.
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Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.
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The wretched of the Earth have been subjected to conditions of extreme inequality, but technology offers the potential for radical transformation
What's the Latest Development? With automation invading business sectors in ways that were once restricted to science fiction novels, experts are speculating on what the employment picture could look like for mere humans. For example, while driverless transportation in general would be safer and ...
Now that the two suspects Monday’s horrific bombing have been identified, attention turns to their motive. Why would two brothers originally from the troubled region of Chechnya, a republic of Russia, detonate bombs in Boston on Patriot's Day? Here is a very raw, very quick, very preliminary ...
He billed his first presidential visit to Israel as a listening tour, but it turns out Barack Obama is doing quite a bit of speaking as well. On his first day in the Holy Land, the president was all about the love: I know that in stepping foot on this land, I walk with you on the historic ...
What is the Big Idea? After years of political and economic deadlock, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is coming out of stagnation at a dizzying speed. Since he took office in March 2011, President Thein Sein released a number of political prisoners and took steps to reform the economy. And ...
What is the Big Idea? While the world was celebrating Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's party's victory in Sunday's special elections in Myanmar, a new currency exchange rate went into effect. Effective April 1, the exchange rate is now at 818 kyat to the dollar and the country is ...
The United States is entering uncharted waters as a superpower, as it slowly climbs out of a crippling recession and faces an electoral showdown this fall between cautious globalism and a desire to retrench its economy against external competition from emerging third-world dynamos. President ...
What's the Big Idea? As the Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush administration, Educational historian Diane Ravitch became known for her push to establish national standards for K-12 education. From 1997-2004, she served as a member of the National Assessment Governing Board ...