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.
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Why our fears don’t match the facts
Have you seen “Miss Representation”, the documentary that challenges the sexist, demeaning way the information and entertainment media depict women? See it. It’s important, and spot on…even if it is simplistic. The problem is, the powerful case the film makes that the media cause sexism (in ...
Suppose you have a disease…an incurable fatal disease…and a drug has just been approved that can treat that disease. The drug only works in about half the people who get it, and all it does is lengthen their lives by an average of 4 months. Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, rash, and ...
For all their apparent differences, the Occupy Wall Street protestors and the Tea Party are far more alike than either side, or the punditocracy, would like to admit. There is a profound connection the two movements do indeed share, not only with each other but with anyone who has felt ...
Editor's Note: This post was originally published at the end of the 2011 baseball season. For at least a few more days in Tampa and St. Louis, it’s still time to BIRG. In Boston and Atlanta, people are CORFing all over the place. This phenomenon is evidence that rooting for the home ...
The ground shook violently in L’Aquila, Italy, early in the morning of April 6, 2009, more violently than it had during the tremors the area had been experiencing for months. After the dust settled and the recovery effort was over, 308 people were dead. Now the local prosecutor is ...
A friend of mine posted a snarky comment on Facebook about how foolish FEMA sounds, announcing it’s preparing for the crash landing of a satellite somewhere this week. Somewhere on the entire planet…nobody can be sure where. But 7/10’s of the earth’s surface is ocean, and the fires ...
White-hot conservative and libertarian anger at the size and intrusiveness of government is getting a lot of attention these days. It seems so fierce, so single-minded; Let the federal government default. Let the uninsured die. But two recent events in Texas illustrate how another emotion ...
As the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 nears, many are looking back, tallying the toll of our response in lives lost and money spent, and asking “Are we any safer?” Here is a different question. Are we any wiser? What have we learned that we might apply if (many experts say when) we are ...
As many people as were harmed by Hurricane Irene, many - from the safety of looking back - were also disappointed that the storm didn't put on a more dramatic show. One New Yorker lamented, "LAMEST hurricane EVER." That reaction may be a bit naive, but the reaction to the storm that people and ...
A potentially serious hurricane bears down on tens of millions of people in the Northeast. How will they respond? The psychology of risk perception suggests that some might be at risk not just from the weather itself but also from “The Perception Gap”, the danger that arises when our fears don’t ...
As a resident of Concord Massachusetts, where American revolutionaries first shot back at their British oppressors, its impossible to watch what’s going on in Libya and Syria and Egypt and Yemen and not feel a connection with the people who have risked their lives to stand up for a ...
The Fukushima nuclear disaster has offered the world a lot of important lessons. We can only hope that one of the most important…a lesson that’s staring us all in the face…will be taken to heart by the culture of government officials, and business people, and scientists and engineers, who regulate ...
Four year-old Khafra was near death three days ago when he was brought to the refugee camp hospital. He was emaciated, his ribs showing through his taut dry skin. He panted for breath. His desperate eyes bulged. His mother Alyan could only sit at his side and watch, helpless, sad ...
I’ve had an interesting conversation with a colleague the past few days about an earlier piece I wrote here, Cool Dudes, Hot Temps: The Climate Change Battle Will Get Us Nowhere, in which I made the case that arguing over the facts about climate change is really a surrogate for an ...
What do Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner, James Inhofe, and George Will have in common? Several things. They are influential members of society, ‘elites’ who have a big effect on policy. They adamantly deny that human-made climate change is happening. And they are all conservative white men ...