Why is democracy so difficult? Could be because it demands that each of us accept, as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz said to me way back when I wrote this, "that […]

The future of film is collaborative storytelling, says Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards.

What's the Big Idea? There are not only wrong answers -- there are also wrong questions, says Slavoj Žižek, philosopher and author of Big Think's most recent Book of the Month. And sometimes […]

Monique Leroux managed to get herself elected (yes, elected) as the first female CEO in the organization’s history.

People in positions of power need to be committed to increasing the representation of women on boards and in other leadership roles, or it won't happen, says Monique Leroux.

On December 17, 2009 the US carried out a missile strike against what it believed to be an al-Qaeda training camp in the south Yemeni governorate of Abyan.  Unfortunately, what […]

Silicon Valley’s wage gap and income inequality between men and women must surely rank among the worst in the country.

Reflecting on creating a start up while providing for a family of four, Eric Farkas has created a list of priorities that kept his business plans on track while honoring the more important things.   

Today, the crisis in Europe has gotten worse for some countries; the recent U.S. employment rates are disappointing; China is looking strong, but will that last for long?  Four years ago, countries were able to devise a plan to help prevent a global depression, so why not now? 

Something is wrong in the world when a real organisation is undermined by fictional comics characters with superpowers. A group inaccurately called One Million Moms or OMM (their membership is […]

When I read the news that the Bamiyan Buddhas, the giant 6th century statues in Afghanistan destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001, would not be rebuilt, I had mixed […]

One more announcement for the weekend: This coming week, I'll be in Providence, Rhode Island, attending Netroots Nation 2012 from June 7 to 10. If you're also going and would […]

A recent computer virus highlighted by cyber security is believed to be politically influenced for use against Iran. This new information leads cyber researchers to believe governments may possibly be headed into a cyber war.  

There are a couple of stories from this past week that I wanted to mention: • A three-judge panel on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, two of whom are […]

When employers make salary strictly confidential it makes employees complicit in the equality of wages. For employees to discuss salary and wages with co-workers has always been something that was discouraged, if not formally forbidden.

I've long argued that there's a natural alliance betweenatheism and feminism, for the same reason that there's a natural alliance between atheism and GLBT activism: because we all understand what […]

The course of anti-semitism from ancient times to now has been written about and discussed, but the authors have come up short in one way or another. The true root of this 2,000-year-old history has yet to be truly contextual, comprehensive, detailed and analytical in a manner that is coherent.

The number of foreigners moving to China for work or school is growing each year. In 2010, more than 200,000 foreigners have been reported living there. But why does China keep expats under a  microscope

BIG THINKER Daniel Honan reminds us that Mayor Bloomberg is not in any obvious sense an ideologue.  He's just about using the power of government to curtail behavior that costs the […]

Many things are offensive, if not very offensive, but there are many that we allow for the sake of individual liberty’s continuation in Western society. Thus, a joke, a cartoon, […]