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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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Note: This is an edited version of a Praxis post originally published on December 21, 2012. The preacher in Ecclesiastes was wrong: there is something new under the sun, or at least something new on the horizon. This week, with two cases to be argued and decided by the Supreme Court, we are ...
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 ...
U.S. presidents aren’t often asked to explain their governing visions in terms of political philosophy. References to the Founding Fathers (Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Washington et al.) are ubiquitous and safe, and Obama likens his challenges to those of President Lincoln. But we don’t hear much ...
The student center at Brooklyn College will be abuzz Thursday evening at 6:30 when two speakers propose boycotting, divesting and applying sanctions on Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. The run-up to the panel discussion has ignited a huge flap between supporters and opponents of Israel ...
For over a year, The New York Times and several other media outlets honored a CIA news embargo on the existence of a secret U.S. drone base in Saudi Arabia. This base was revealed by the Times this week in advance of the Senate confirmation hearing for John O. Brennan, who has been nominated to be ...
What's the Big Idea? The conventional wisdom among economists just a few years ago was that China was manipulating its currency, causing a significant drag on the global economy. Holding down the value of its currency made exports cheaper and thus China more competitive in the global marketplace ...
Julian Assange, who has been granted asylum by Ecuador but remains in limbo in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, has been on trial for some time in the court of public opinion. The exact nature of many of his alleged crimes remains elusive. First there are the sex crimes charges. Assange has ...
Senator Bill Bradley sits down with Big Think to discuss his latest book, We Can All Do Better, out in hardcover today, May 8, 2012. He talks about what it means to be American, and how that has changed since his grandfather's time. "The middle class has really taken it on the chin," he says ...
What's the Big Idea? Just before he was elected in 2008, Obama noted an urgent need for politicians to give up “polarizing debate” and get things done. Across-the-aisle collaboration was to be one of the guiding forces behind his presidency. Two weeks after he took office, the New York Times ...
The troubling chronicle of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has me thinking about the trial of another dissident who faced a life-changing dilemma of his own 2411 years ago in ancient Athens. Chen, like Socrates, is a gadfly on the hide of his polity. Where Socrates was condemned for ...
Everyone has secrets. Some have personal secrets of infidelity, lies and embarrassing tidbits that they hope will never see the light of day. Powerful institutions like businesses and governments also have secrets of shady practices, illegal behavior and incompetence. But at some point ...
On Tuesday, April 4th, 2012, we had the pleasure of interviewing Richard Tafel, human rights activist and founder of the policy advocacy organizations The Log Cabin Republicans and The Public Squared. Tafel, who has been named by Newsweek as one of the 30 most influential gay leaders in the United ...
We have devoted a fair amount of attention on Big Think to the ongoing saga of Apple's relationship with its Taiwanese-owned electronics supplier Foxconn. Why do we care about this story so much? There are at least half a dozen big ideas that underline this story's significance and touch our world ...
What is the Big Idea? It’s late May and the year is 1989. Among the chaos in Tiananmen Square is 20-year-old David Tian, who is one of millions bravely chanting for political and economic reform from a corrupt and oppressive government. Tian narrowly escapes the worst of this event by hopping ...
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 ...