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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If we keep emitting carbon into the atmosphere at the current increasing rate, by the end of the century the surface temperature of the Earth will rise between 2.0 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a 2007 report from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Depending on the severity ...
The FBI today released the 423-page file they had kept over the years on left-wing historian Howard Zinn, who died in January. When Zinn sat for an interview with Big Think in 2008, he talked about a wide range of topics, including the current state of race in America, his personal philosophy ...
In a series of tweets Sunday, Sarah Palin first "invented" the word "refudiate" (while, perhaps, trying to come up with "repudiate"), and then defended her word choice in another tweet suggesting a certain similarity between herself and a certain Bard of Avon: "'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee ...
California is currently considering a couple of bills that could effectively legalize marijuana use. One plan would place a heavy excise tax on the drug—which could help plug the state's gaping budget deficit. Another would "de-penalize" cannibis use, so that getting caught with the drug would ...
France's lower house of Parliament voted yesterday to ban the wearing of veils that cover the face in public places. Aimed at the burqas worn by Muslim women, the legislation stipulates that anyone wearing a full facial veil will be fined $190—and anyone who forces a woman to wear such a veil could ...