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: If you were an Iraqi, how would you view America?

Dennis Kucinich: How would you view America if a country invaded yours and killed your family; wrecked your home; destroyed your water systems, and electric systems, and schools and mosques? How would you . . . What would you think of that country that did that? I mean we have to get real about the impact of what this administration’s decisions as licensed by a Democratic Senate in 2002 – the impact these decisions have had on the people of Iraq. The people of Iraq have lost at least a million innocent civilians who perished in this war, a war that’s been based on lies. Now since Iraq is one-twelfth the population of the United States, let’s take that million and let’s extrapolate it to the United States. It would be as if we lost 12 million people. How would we feel if a foreign power invaded our country, blew it up, killed 12 million people? Would we like them? Would we ask them to come in and have tea? If we saw Saddam Hussein executed for “killing his own people” – if it was wrong for him to kill his own people, is it right for us to kill his people? I mean we have to regain our moral compass here. So how . . . how should Iraq look at us? Well they sure shouldn’t look at us as liberators because we stayed. And we stayed and went and fought door-to- (48:37) door. And why did we go there from the beginning? Did we go there for liberty? Did we go there for the American flag? Did we go there because we were trying to bring American values to Iraq? Or did we go there for oil? Let’s think about it. How should the people of Iraq look at us? They should look at us from 10,000 miles away.

Recorded on: 10/19/07