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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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Transcript

Question: What is your outlook?

Ingrid Newkirk: Well I’m no Mary Poppins, I can tell you that. I have to look back and see how far we’ve come in all movements – all social movements. And every social movement faces this massive uphill battle of being laughed at, scorned, rejected. You can look back and just be amazed at the things humans have done to others in the past. So that is encouraging, but I look at the enormity of what’s ahead and that’s discouraging. But that doesn’t really matter, does it, because you never know.

You can’t get to that crystal ball. You’ll never know whether you’re going to succeed; or a meteorite is going to hit the earth and it won’t matter anyway. So all I feel that I can do is as much as I can in as finite amount of time I have . . . And as you get older time goes quicker, and you realize how little you have left. Not when you’re young. It just doesn’t seem to be that way. So in that small time I think you can do as much as you possible can think to do in case it’s going to make a big difference and have a big knock-on effect, which is your hope. It’s my hope.

Recorded on: November 12, 2007