What is Big Think?

We are Big Idea Hunters…

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.

Big Think Features:

12,000+ Expert Videos

Browse videos featuring experts across a wide range of disciplines, from personal health to business leadership to neuroscience.

Watch videos

World Renowned Bloggers

Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.

Go to blogs

Big Think Edge

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.

Find out more

Transcript

Question: Should India start to challenge China?

Parag Khanna: India has a lot more internal work to do. I think it should focus a lot more on a domestic developments side of things, which is the real ultimate internal basis for expanding your influence overseas.

Secondly, if they were to compete with China on traditional terms, it would lose. It is not nearly as powerful as China. It would get quite simply beat up; that is not something that it should be want to happen.

Indians talk a lot of about wanting to be a different kind of power, they say, a bridging power, we are a constitutional super power. We are Diaspora power. Lots of different ways to try to be different from the traditional great power model.

I would like to see India achieve that, and I would even like to be a part of India achieving that, but I don’t think that they have a road map for doing so.

And, as someone who follows very closely how they try to use globalization, recruit the Diaspora and use economic leverage internationally to gain prestige, I see a mixed picture of good and bad, positive trends, negative trends. It is a work in progress. Till they have a road map for that, I don’t think they should be challenging any one.

Recorded on: 3/3/2008