Struggling with a foreign language is practically the definition of mental strain: what is the word for “screwdriver” again? did I produce that “ĥ” sound correctly? are they laughing with […]
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What’s the Big Idea? Michael Ellsberg is a contributing writer for Forbes and author of The Education of Millionaires: It’s Not What You Think, and It’s Not Too Late, a bootstrapper’s guide to […]
This post is an introductory framework for moral infanticide. Before we can even discuss cases of ending an infant’s life for non-medical reasons, we must understand why infants’ lives can […]
A closer look at the cartography of the famous Disney ride
There are so many great articles in the July/August issue of The Atlantic that I could pretty much blog on it alone for the rest of year. But the most […]
Jane McGonigal discusses the skills we learn from gaming and how can they help us enhance, rather than detract from our ambitions as humans.
Woody Guthrie saw America differently, and his songs were designed to make people think. And yet, what was most appealing about his persona was his perceived authenticity.
What’s the Latest Development? There is no question as to whether or not the web provides us with a wealth of information. Every day an average of “300 billion emails” […]
If we wish to honor our 21st century gods (technology, capitalism), we might do well to hold a competition that celebrates the achievements of the human mind, not the body.
Is ‘corporate sustainability’ one of those tasks that exist just to be checked off a list and assigned to a few isolated people within your organization? Is your company in the position to do more than just talk about it?
While we tend to think high-profile liars like Bernie Madoff are the rotten apples who spoil the bunch, but most good people are quite willing to cheat because they see their transgressions as small.
Feeling threatened changes people’s perceptions of other people. Before World War II, for example, American university students described the Japanese as artistic and progressive, while the Chinese were supposedly treacherous […]
We’re a fat nation for the simple reason that we hate bodies.
In New York City, Susan Miller is an institution, a sage of the media and fashion worlds. As the astrologist for Elle magazine, best-selling author, and founder of AstrologyZone.com (est. […]
It used to be that the word “doctor” brought to mind an image of a kindly old man in a small office with a stethoscope, but now it conjures up […]
Seth Shostak, senior astronomer with the SETI Institute, advises Hollywood on the science of extraterrestrials. He says aliens would be vastly stronger than us and far more intelligent.
What’s the Big Idea? Your colleague asks whether you agree with her perspective on a key issue, forcing you to take sides. Your six-year-old throws a fit just before bedtime, […]
What’s the Big Idea? It was a quiet afternoon, as almost the entire team was out for an offsite retreat. It had been three months into my new job and […]
What’s the Big Idea? Before neuroscience and quantum physics, there was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The 19th century German idealist revolutionized Western thought, and every great thinker since has been working […]
Human behavior is controlled by a lot of neural wiring and chemistry, and an incredible range of cognitive shortcuts and instincts, over which we have practically no conscious control. A […]
To be successful in the 21st century, it’s more important to know what to say to whom, when, and under what circumstances, and for what purpose.
Researchers at an English university have created a robot that learns language like an infant. The achievement represents a major advance in the creation of artificial intelligence.
The demographic of “Ph.D.-holding, football fiend women who listen to their local call-in sports shows” is probably small. So I wasn’t the intended audience for theDr. Pepper 10 commercial that […]
This semester when college students return to campus at America’s leading universities, they may be surprised to find out that the men and women teaching them subjects like Machine Learning or Listening to […]
Recognizing that technology is here to stay, and that how we live online is increasingly how we live, a new kind of theater company in Philadelphia is trying to translate the danger, intimacy, and intensity of offline experience to cyberspace.
In his superb essay about his years as a Mormon (one of the best pieces about faith I have read in a long time) Walter Kirn notes that he said […]
What’s the Big Idea? In the U.S., the weekends sandwiching the 4th of July are the most popular travel time of the year. The cherries are ripe, the pool water is swimmable, and […]
The questions in this quiz are adaptations of items from research studies from the 1960s to the 1980s, initiated by Daniel Kahneman and his late research partner, Amos Tversky.
We’ve long been fascinated by the endless streams of data available in the world around us, and we especially love to try to make sense of them.
At the end of a long and weary day, with the last drops of twilight bleeding out of the darkening midsummer sky, I turned my key in the lock of […]