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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The idea of a perfect society, made possible by the resource-liberating mechanism of technology
The anonymous author of the Big Think Neurobonkers blog has published a wee reply to my recent posts arguing that NSA leaker Edward Snowden should be prosecuted: To act on one’s conscience and leak information that is believed to be in the public interest is a noble choice. The ...
As the impressive scope of the NSA surveillance operation known as PRISM comes to light, smart people in the blogosphere are divided about how up in arms we ought to be. Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the story in the Guardian, charges that the United States “wants to destroy ...
What's the Latest Development? New figures released by the Leichtman Research Group show that for the first time ever, multi-channel video providers -- including cable, satellite, and telephone companies -- lost customers over a 12-month period, in this case the period from April 2012 to March ...
What's the Latest Development? Citizens in rural Nepal, Cambodia, and nine other Asian countries have greater-than-ever access to the Internet and all its benefits, thanks to the efforts of the PAN Localization Program, also known as PANL10n. Since 2003, this group of software engineers ...
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 ...
In his recent post, fellow Big Think blogger Adam Lee blames the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict on competing religious fundamentalisms. The recent renewal of fighting on the Gaza border, he writes, is being inflamed and prolonged by religious zealotry on both sides. Whether it's ...
What is the Big Idea? Israel ranked 14th on the United Nations first World Happiness Report launched on April 2. Topping the list are peaceful and ultra-liberal countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands. How can this be? This is especially confounding when you take into ...
Just as Mitt Romney appears to be wrapping up the Republican nomination for the presidency, congressional Republicans are taking steps to set up their own political framework for the 2012 election. In short, the future of Medicare is on the line and a Romney vs. Obama match-up will surely address ...
Last Friday, I posted a piece in The Stone at The New York Times suggesting the work of philosopher John Rawls as an intellectual touchstone for the Occupy Wall Street protest movement. The post has elicited a range of reactions. Of the 102 comments on the Times website, a handful offered ...