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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Life and relationships in the internet age
What if you could change your culture? You know, culture, that invisible collection of beliefs and morals made manifest through your use of language, customs and rituals. Your culture informs everything in your life from how you select your spouse to what you believe about God. Anthropologists ...
What's the Big Idea? What's the essential value of an employee benefit? Protection from a catastrophic loss is an important one. That loss could come in the form of a large hospital bill, for instance, and that is why health insurance is seen as a key benefit. Due to the shift from a "defined ...
What's the Big Idea? 'Tis the season for giving, rationally. According to Julia Galef, President of the Center for Applied Rationality, rational giving is not something we are naturally very good at, and as a result, our unconscious biases create negative consequences for ourselves and for ...
Black Friday came earlier than ever this year, with big box stores opting to open the floodgates to shoppers while the gravy was still warm on Thanksgiving Day. That led one analyst to complain that retailers "have basically ruined every holiday." After all, you can't have your turkey and eat it ...
What's the Big Idea? It takes roughly 4 hours to roast a fairly large turkey. How many life skills can you learn in that amount of time? Tim Ferriss has a blueprint for meta-learning that he says you can use to obtain a diverse set of skills in an extremely short timeframe. That is why Ferriss's ...
Over at The Stone, Christy Wampole diagnoses the malaise of the post-millennial age and suggests a few ways “How to Live Without Irony.” It is a sign of Wampole’s misdiagnosis that her recommended cures sound a lot worse than the disease. First, the claim: For many Americans born in the ...
You need to watch what you say. I'm not just talking to you, overzealous Twitter and Facebook users who share every aspect of your personal life. Or you, Mr. former director of the CIA. There is the possibility that all of us are being watched at any moment, and that should have a chilling effect ...
If you are in the path of Sandy, by this point you have hopefully already completed your safety checklist that includes things like batteries and flashlights, food and water. So now what? You're stuck at home fighting boredom. You might be tempted to drive your car to the Jersey Shore to gawk ...
As we detailed in our New Social Systems Deep Dive report, a growing mistrust of institutions is driving a seismic shift in values in the United States. As Americans look beyond traditional values, a new set of ideals, beliefs and systems are starting to emerge. From the rise of atheism and non ...
There are only two weeks left in the presidential election, which for many people is two weeks too many. In fact, nine months ago, 57 percent of respondents said that the election had already gone on too long, according to a Pew survey. After many months of campaigning, the candidates are ...
What's the Big Idea? Maddie Grant is a social media consultant at SocialFish, and has observed that companies that have trouble integrating social media tend to have deeper organizational issues. For instance, let's say your company doesn't collaborate. That's a problem with the company ...
From Fortune 500 companies to Presidential campaigns, it seems everyone has bought into the power of memes to move a message. And nobody bought in earlier than Ben Lashes, the world’s premier, and perhaps only, meme agent. Ben’s work is a perfect embodiment of a trend we’ve been tracking called ...
With Big Bird’s surreal moment in the national spotlight, last Wednesday evening marked not only the first Presidential Debate of 2012 but also America's first national political Kidult moment. Kidult, the phenomenon of adults acting like kids and embracing entertainment, food and fashion that ...
What's the Big Idea? Why are you still working at the job you don't like or staying in a relationship that is going nowhere or sticking with the same business plan that isn't working? Julia Galef describes this as "the commitment effect," which is the condition of sticking with something ...
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What's the Big Idea? Former Apple "evangelist" and prolific author Guy Kawasaki says he first got his foot in the door at Macintosh because of who he knew, not because of his skill set. This led to a great career for Kawasaki. Might you be able to use the same networking tools as him? Is it ...