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.
Big Think’s Edge learning platform for career mentorship and professional development provides engaging and actionable courses delivered by the people who are shaping our future.
A conservative take on the world
So maybe it's time to come down from space and say some obvious things about the campaign for the Republican nomination. The first is that Sarah Palin has been defeated (or flanked) by Michele Bachmann. That's bad news for the mainistream media, which loves being all horrified at the prospect ...
1. So my post on NASA provoked a variety of most thoughtful responses. The ones by Brendan were the most detailed and philosophic, but they were all worthwhile. 2. Their relevance is heightened by this being the BIG THINK day where we question the wisdom of economic and technological progress ...
Our famous novelist Jonathan Franzen gave quite the challenging commencement address at Kenyon. Here's what he said about technology and eros: Let me toss out the idea that, as our markets discover and respond to what consumers most want, our technology has become extremely adept at creating ...
One of the most disappointing moments in an otherwise fairly encouraging Republican New Hampshire debate was that none of the seven candidates would continue federal funding for human space flight. Newt was about "a real space program that works," but, for him, that now means privatization as the ...
Read about it here. The movement for a generation or so has been toward a lifestyle of increasing freedom on our college campuses. That's meant "no rules" (beyond those connected with health-and-safety, and so no smoking and free condoms) and single-sex dorms. It's also meant dorms full of ...
Mr. Gates has forcefully reminded our allies that, to be credible politically, they have to pay for their own defense. Here's a taste of the NYT article on his fine speech: The United States accounts for about three-quarters of total military spending by all NATO countries, and it has in the ...
A renegade teacher tells the students at the school straight out, much earlier than they were supposed to know, what their purpose in life is, claiming that knowing what one's life is for is the only way to live decently. Unlike the free persons of Britain, she tells the cloned kids, they won't be ...
So it might not be so good for ratings to be doing a series on a movie that tanked at the box office. But here's some more on NEVER LET ME GO: The boarding school we see might be regarded as a privileged moment in the history of donor-clones. Their strangely benevolent guardians gave themselves ...
Never Let Me Go is one of the most thoughtful pieces of science fiction ever. The film, directed by Mark Romanek, is, of course, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's hard to see how the film, although it doesn't capture everything about the book, could have been a better adaptation. A labor ...
So my previous post on Walmart being change that's, on balance, bad for us as social beings was one of my most popular and, apparently, least controversial. That's because many so-called liberals and many traditionalist or "Agrarian" conservatives (followers of Wendell Berry and such) unite in ...
1. I was glad to learn from BIG THINKER Daniel that Walmart has become a catalyst for change on the Green or environmental front. That's good news, because what that corporation's brains decide to do makes a big difference. 2. But someone might say that the most important issue might be "social ...
So this article calls attention to a fascinating inconsistency shared by our two parties: 1. Republicans (particularly Paul Ryan) want to cut taxes for the rich. But they also want to means-test entiltements--such as Social Security and Medicare. That means the rich will pay less to the IRS ...
Looking to past elections to predict the outcome of one soon to come doesn't usually work that well. Back in October 2008, I looked to eight past elections to try to gain some perspective on what might happen in November. It turns out that sound historical comparisons can only be made after the ...
These are some very elementary observations: It wasn’t long before all responsible observers came to agree with ME that the NY-26 result (despite the quirky details) is one piece of evidence among many that the Republicans are losing the debate on Medicare. They’re still winning on health care ...
Here's a pithy, gracious, thoughtful, and fairly accurate review of my most recent book by another conservative. In the spirit of shameless self-promotion, I'll give you a generous taste: In this stimulating collection of essays written while he served on the President's Council on Bioethics ...