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I’d be happy to make a bet with real money that Marx was just plain wrong about immiseration, and will continue to be proved wrong.

As NYC police attempt to clear Zuccotti Park of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, it seems appropriate to reconsider who OWS is and what they want. To me, their goals […]

I just got back from a glorious week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. John Nash and I were consulting with two different local grassroots NGOs. Our role was to help build […]

Two simple pieces of brain-training software have successfully been used to stave off depression before it starts by showing individuals how to recognize positive mental states. 

It may be tempting to think that if you want to be innovative, your office has to “have all these weird things going on.” Not so, says Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO. The real power comes from shaking things up.

In most circumstances, narcissism doesn’t go over well. But there’s one big exception to the rule: leadership.

Big Data can become the key to unlocking growth for smaller companies throughout the U.S. economy.

One of the traditions of my old site was, at the end of each year, to choose a selection of my favorite posts from throughout the year and highlight them […]

There are a number of issues at stake in the way Americans choose to think of their heritage and celebrate their creation story on Thanksgiving. After all, creation stories serve as a guide for how we function as a society today.

The Earth could end up with a permanent junk belt that could make space too dangerous to fly in, a situation a new start-up plans to address with laser technology. 

“Consciousness of course is one of the largest questions of brain structure and function. And we approach it now perhaps differently than we have in the past with our new tools. But I’m not convinced that we understand it any better,” says Joy Hirsch.  

So far we’ve concluded, following Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, that most of what we call higher education is really technical education.  It’s the acquisition of indispensable skills for […]

One billion people live beyond the reach of existing ports, roads, bridges and trains. An organization called Matternet is using exponential technology to “replace twentieth century centralized infrastructure” and accelerate economic growth for the ‘rising billion.’

When we habituate to something, our physical and psychological response becomes so used to it that whatever the “it” is stops being arousing. 

Patricia Milligan discusses the conflict between a generation that has carved out a niche and is intent on securing it and a generation that’s burning for a shot. The give-and-take between the two is global in scale.

So I promised I would do a post based on what we can learn about courage from the philosopher of manliness Harvey Mansfield. But it turns out that there’s a […]

How is it that in our search for individuality we all end up in the same place, chasing the same trends while drinking the same drink while staring at the same app on the same phone.

Will the conflict between intellectual property and the value of sharing knowledge be resolved?  

Peer into any young American boy’s imagination, and you’ll likely find knights, soldiers, and pirates roaming about. That fact is a true today as it was a century ago. One […]

Be careful what you tweet. Just ask Ashton Kutcher, who tweeted that September 11 — the start of the football season — was “the greatest day of the year.” More recently, […]

Last month saw the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II. Sadly, that day of infamy led to a different […]

As our political and media systems rapidly evolve, social scientists are revisiting and updating existing models, theories, and methods for investigating the effects of the media on political attitudes and […]

As a general rule, I’m a fan of changing human behavior by changing the rules we live by. Given how inconsistent people are, it seems to me foolish to rely […]

The USB stick in your hand contains a zip file with your genome on it. You insert the drive into the side of your computer and click the button on the screen that says “Upload.” The machine spits out a prognosis. The secret to your very own personal happiness.

In his Floating University lecture Jeffrey Brenzel, Philosopher, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University, argues the classics will not only enhance your education, but help you live better.

Roberto Díaz was the principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the National Symphony orchestra. Watch as he explains why bringing a hundred musicians together in to one synchronized ensemble is not easy – it’s a feat of human expression well-deserving of our attention.

Punk rock is not dead. In fact, Henry Rollins sees it everywhere around him. “The kid who throws his spaghetti from the high chair onto his father’s face, he is […]

Say “Miami” and, depending on your age, certain things come to mind: Crockett and Tubbs, senior citizens in cabana wear, LeBron James. In a generation or so, another association may […]

In honor of that award, we’re republishing a segment from our October interview with Abed, in which he talks about what women and girls can teach the world.   

Nobody’s so politically correct as to be offended by Happy Thanksgiving. From a merely historical point of view, maybe we should be more sensitive.