What is the Big Idea? Tacked on to the end of the lengthy Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed new government safeguards after the U.S. financial crisis, there is an unusual provision […]
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How do we develop the aptitude to separate spam from knowledge? James Lawrence Powell tells Big Think you need to be “your own spam filter.”
Trayvon Martin, from the evidence we can see so far, was not guilty of anything more than being an aimless child on his way home. His death at the hands […]
The Internet will surely revolutionize tomorrow’s jobs, right? While the information revolution has given us better technology, essential human qualities like patience will remain, well, essential.
Thanks to the Internet, universities no longer hold a monopoly on information, says the Open Course Ware Consortium, which is working to make more college courses available for free.
A new psychological paper draws the first direct correlations between Facebook use and narcissistic tendencies including grandiose exhibitionism and entitlement/exploitativeness.
Here’s some bad news for those of you who like to think you can think rationally about risk. You can’t. You know all those thoughtfully considered views you have […]
After writing my previous post chastising the National Atheist Party, I thought (and hoped) that I’d be done writing about Reason Rally drama. Alas, it was not to be. Apparently, […]
James Cameron’s films may all cover wildly different terrain — the distant, futuristic planet Pandora in Avatar, an ill-fated Edwardian-era passenger liner in Titanic, and an alien-embattled underwater oil platform in […]
State legislatures tend to make national headlines when they vote on divisive social issues like mandatory ultrasounds or stage epic battles over the status of public-sector unions. But in the […]
Political ideologies on the left and the right get confused when it comes to enacting urbanization policies, unfortunately, to the detriment of those who live in the city and suburbs.
Baratunde Thurston’s “swine flu experiment” was a brilliant, well-timed satire on media frenzy, but it’s also a masterclass in the creative use of social media.
In a world defined by change, says Baratunde Thurston, you need a sense of mission that’s much bigger than the desk you happen to be sitting behind at any moment.
Cash and coins account for only three percent of the Swedish economy, about half that of the US and Britain. Some predict that cash will disappear from Sweden in as little as 20 years.
What is the Big Idea? While Israel and Iran teeter on the brink of war, two Israeli graphic designers decided to reach out to Iranian citizens by creating a slogan […]
What’s the Big Idea? What motivates you to get up every morning and go to work? To earn a buck? Sure. But that is not always the most powerful motivator, […]
Today we have a guest post written by philosopher Neil McArthur. Neil writes regularly on his blog Moral Lust about sexual ethics and the philosophy of sexuality. In America, you […]
It appears that Santorum’s time as a serious contender for the Republican nomination is about to come to a close. It’s true that the experts (including me) have wrongly counted […]
Long-term unemployment is double its highest rate since the 1950s, which may keep the economy from returning to pre-recession growth rates—forever—say some economists.
As American firms hire more people and Europe avoids a Greek catastrophe, there are signs that the global economic is recovering. Countries need to take cautiously optimistic action.
If market economies are to carry the world into a new era, they must achieve stability, equity and sustainability. Of these three, sustainability will likely prove the most challenging.
At the Brooklyn Museum’s current retrospective of Keith Haring’s early work, titled Keith Haring: 1978–1982, you can view what may be the earliest video of the artist at work. In […]
John Stuart Mill would say, in most cases, we should allow people to harm themselves – assuming they are rational adults. In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill writes: “the object […]
People who think intelligence is malleable are more likely to learn from their mistakes, indicates new research. Those who think intelligence is a fixed quality learn less.
Scientists estimate that your mind wanders about half the time, depending on how much concentration your present task requires. Those with greater memories tend to wander more often.
Computers scientists at UC Berkeley are studying the cognitive characteristics of toddlers, hoping to give computers the same ability to learn quickly and imagine creative solutions.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR reports on the fast-developing tend for adult children to continue to live with their parents well into their twenties and even thirties. Maybe 30% of so-called “young adults” […]
Eastern Europe isn’t known as a mecca for healthy living. Those who haven’t visited Eastern Europe might still imagine that it’s filled with smoking teenagers and obese babushkas. Although that […]
In a very public resignation, a senior investment analyst at Goldman Sachs has accused the company of cheating its clients. Does accumulating wealth actually make you a bad person?