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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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A Critical Look at the Ideas We Fear Most
Why should you only have sex with the person you are in a relationship with? After all, there exist many successful relationships involving people having passionate interactions, of whatever kind, with people other than their primary partner. This is done with their primary partner’s knowledge ...
Many readers have often asked me why I care about celebrities and Bieber’s latest activity is a good illustration. Justin Bieber, the incredibly popular and famous teen pop idol, wrote in the guestbook at the Anne Frank House that he hoped the teenage Holocaust victim would be "a belieber" (the ...
Witnessing, as we all did, the events of Boston made me turn to the news. This was a mistake. Turning to social media was even worse. A mismanagement of information, a bungling of data, a need to be first, all to sate our horror as opposed to deal with informed evidence, was on full display. We ...
Here is a statement that shouldn’t result in anyone being called racist: I think religion is a particularly harmful way of viewing the world, because it encourages irrational thought, groupthink, and unhelpful, backward opinions on many issues. Replace religion with one in particular, namely Islam ...
I advocate and defend things many people consider controversial. But it should be noted: Supporting adults’ rights to take their own lives, cut their bodies, solicit sex workers, etc., is not premised from a starting point of liberalism, autonomy, or whatever else. These views rest on what is most ...
Here’s what happened: “Gareth Jones, a well-regarded bioethicist at the University of Otago Bioethics Centre, published a piece in the New Zealand Medical Journal …The article… defends prenatal screening for Down Syndrome. They defend essentially the introduction of Non-Invasive Prenatal ...
I was reading about "the nasty effect" that Internet comments have on an original article. A summary at Gawker (in case you don't have a New York Times subscription) details a study which showed that two groups, one exposed to civil and another uncivil comments, had alternate responses to the ...
The famous author Orson Scott Card is involved in two massive projects, each of which already has many fans: the Superman comics and the film version of his best-selling book, Ender’s Game. This post doesn’t concern either Superman (who regular readers already know I hate) or Ender’s Game (which I ...
The facts aren't in, but here's what we know: The internationally renowned athlete, Oscar Pistorius, was part of a violent shooting at his home, resulting in the death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Whether Pistorius shot her at all, or whether he shot her out of anger, or whether he planned ...
The outcome of a ménage à trois involving desperation, selfishness, and moral consideration, apology came into the world already tainted by its origin. Out of these weak beginnings, we could not hope for it to survive long and, sadly, we were proved right. The final blow to this battered frame ...
It might not be pleasant to hear but there’s little reason to disagree with Sir David Attenborough’s pronouncement that “we are a plague on the Earth”. Of course, in terms of agreement, we need to indicate the perspective we’re defending. Speaking during an interview, the beloved and brilliant ...
Like any subject that weaves its way round corpses, gun control discussions easily ignite the worst parts of us. Whether it’s descent into name-calling, insults, ad hominems and similar lazy, childish tactics, or a dismissal of anyone other than those on “our” side, attempts at objectivity are ...
In the middle of writing and reading about gun policy and morality, I was horrified to see responses to writer Sam Harris' essay on gun control. For example, this one by Ian Murphy makes no coherent argument and, uses more expletives and (inaccurate) character attacks than a drunken sailor; but I ...
No doubt everyone has seen the two-part Piers Morgan interview of conspiracy-weaver, gun “enthusiast” and upcoming thespian, Alex Jones. The interview is truly bizarre: firstly, for making so many people cautiously confess to congratulating Morgan like they’re admitting a murder; and, secondly, for ...
We’re told to have a positive attitude; that love conquers all; that anger is unhelpful and hate unneeded. Evangelists of optimism would drown us in their toothy smiles and keep us as drones on the front line of the happiness assault. This, however, is wrong. To take this approach is not only so ...