History & Society

History & Society

Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.

A painting of a man with a beard.
Panpsychist philosopher Philip Goff, PhD on mysticism and the future of faith.
John Templeton Foundation
Book cover of "The Shortest History of AI" by Toby Walsh, featuring blue and white text on a dark background with a small glowing circle near the center—an apt nod to early AI like Logic Theorist.
In this excerpt from "The Shortest History of AI," Toby Walsh explores the history of the Logic Theorist, the first AI to prove mathematical theorems.
A field of galaxies in deep space, featuring a bright spiral galaxy at the lower right with a stellar stream escaping the galaxy, and a large, bright red star at the upper left.
Stellar streams are faint trails of stars that appear to "stream" out of galaxies. A new one, escaping galaxy M61, may point to many others.
A split image showing a detailed drawing of a bearded man on the left and a black-and-white portrait of a young Steve Jobs with long hair on the right.
How did Jobs revolutionize tech, not once but continually? Aspiring innovators — and today's Apple — should look to The Bard and seek out singularity.
Three side-by-side images show different views of the Red Spider Nebula in space, captured by JWST, with a bright center and colorful gases in orange, green, and blue against a backdrop of stars.
When dying, Sun-like stars have binary companions, spectacular sights arise from the ionization. JWST spots the Red Spider Nebula in action!
A person with long white hair sits smiling on a chair, set against a painted backdrop of classical architecture and a sky with clouds.
1hr 18mins
“Everyone's image of [Ancient Rome] is based on modern movies. In some ways, I think those were rather impressive, but they got some things terribly wrong.”
big crunch
There's some, but not overwhelming, evidence that dark energy is evolving. What would it take for a "Big Crunch" to be our cosmic fate?
Book cover for "The Devil Is a Southpaw" by Brandon Hobson, featuring two black birds flying over large red and blue text that boldly displays the title on a cream background.
A preview of the latest novel by the National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson.
A beam of light shines through clouds in a painted sky, with the word "AWE" in large yellow letters centered in the image.
14mins
If you’ve gotten goosebumps when hearing a story about a stranger’s selfless heroism, or you’ve felt your chest swell at a concert, when the audience’s voice and the musician’s instruments align, you have felt awe. And, according to professor Dacher Keltner, who has spent his life studying it, it’s one of humankind’s most unifying traits:
A color-coded map of Asia shows four migration phases from China, with arrows pointing toward Papua New Guinea and the Andaman Islands, both circled in yellow.
The plan — conquer China and push west to attack the Ottomans — was peak imperial hubris, as the Spanish themselves eventually realized.
A collage featuring Andrew Markell thinking at a desk, a close-up of a handshake, and a person standing alone, overlaid with swirling red and green arrows.
Andrew Markell — philosopher, martial artist, and CEO advisor — argues that true endurance comes from desire, ritual, and learning to evolve through chaos.
ufo lights liverpool
Physicist Daniel Whiteson challenges the notion that all intelligent species would eventually uncover the same laws of nature. Do you agree?
A woman in a white dress sits on a chair by a window, reading a book in a softly lit room with a piano nearby, embodying the quiet charm of why read old books.
Reading classic books can teach you as much about the present as the past.
Split image showing a vintage sailing ship with an American flag on the left and a modern electric boat labeled "Navier" on the right, both on the water with blueprint sketches in the background.
Rivals may try to outnumber us with fleets of cheap vessels. Our path is to out-innovate them.
A middle-aged man with glasses and a beard, resembling Jimmy Wales, poses in front of a light-colored background featuring Wikipedia's globe logo and various language characters.
Wales shares with Big Think his thoughts about the future of media, the promise of AI, and our need to build a culture on trust.
An image of El Gordo, a massive galaxy cluster captured by Hubble
The planet, the Solar System, and the galaxy aren't expanding. But the whole Universe is. So where does the dividing line begin?
big bang
For 13.8 billion years, the Universe has been expanding. But that couldn't have been the case for an eternity, and science has proven it.
Out-of-focus trees in the foreground with a clear full moon visible in the dusk sky, evoking a scene worthy of tristan gooley’s natural navigation.
Natural navigator Tristan Gooley joins us to discuss the philosophy of reading nature’s hidden clues — and how relearning this ancient skill can help us see the world, and ourselves, with greater awareness.
A collage featuring server racks, a robotic hand reaching for a human hand, and network diagrams, with the text “The Night Crawler” at the top—an homage to Eliezer Yudkowsky’s explorations of AI and human connection.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.