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

Parag Khanna: Well, the #1 reason for a lot of influence in those countries is not the fact that we [the USA] have had a military-driven strategy in the Middle East.

Second world countries are everywhere from Malaysia to Colombia. It's not just about the perception that we are acting imperially in a distant part of the world. There is a lot more to do. It’s not seeing the benefits of the American engagement and investment in those countries, while actually seeing larger pay offs and more efficient payoffs from dealing with China or Europe.

And the fact is that, even if we get our act back together, it doesn’t mean that Europe and China will disappear. They will continue to do what they do, so the most we can hope to achieve is to stabilize our position, but we have to recognize what others are doing and construct more attractive packages for each second world country.

The reason I wrote this book [The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order] is because I wanted to show what countries think and what they want, in a case by case basis, and say, before we craft a policy towards country X, let’s first look at what it wants rather than just what it has and what we wanted to do, and if we have a better understanding of what they want to be able to, craft a more attractive packages and incentives and offerings to them.

I think that’s the process that's only just beginning, they answered you hearts and minds' questions is really a derivative of that.

Recorded on: 3/3/2008