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The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.
In some ways, the brilliant Thiel might be our instructive Cartesian today, because he has no democratic illusions about the Cartesian “I.”
Like many college students, I took a semester abroad. I spent the first half of my junior year in London taking classes at UCL, exploring the museums, and learning the […]
Due to rising tuition costs, even students attending state universities are taking on sizable debt. Until what point does digging a financial hole now allow you to scale a golden mountain later?
What is the Big Idea? Step into a classroom in North Korea and you will find very little that differs from a classroom in New York City - chalkboard, rows […]
Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan unravels the reasons why death is considered bad for someone and finds them wanting. To be sure, he feels that death is bad for those who pass on.
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On Friday, 5/18/12 – timed to coincide with Facebook's 95 billion dollar IPO – a guerilla detachment of Big Think hit Wall and Broad Sts, NYC with "Initial Public Offering" […]
The dating site for married people, Ashley Madison, has now been around for over a decade. What can we now learn about marriage and monogamy from this “sociological experiment on steroids"?
A friend recently asked me: why has public opinion on same-sex marriage “evolved,” in Obama’s coinage, while public opinion on abortion grinds itself deeper into a rut? It’s an interesting […]
One consistent theme I’ve found of investigating outrage is how often those who are outraged demand that legality align itself to their morality. Consider for example New York State’s non-criminal […]
New technology platforms and lingering job shortages mean volunteering will be increasingly motivated by self-interest. So is it still volunteering? Or should we not worry about defining it?
Compromise may be important to stable relationships but it can make the bedroom a very boring place. Sex psychologist David Schnarch suggests alternating between preferences.
As fathers play larger roles in their children's lives, families are reevaluating old gender roles. But when two working adults are also committed parents, what energy is left for marriage?
The latest incarnation of the CEO as a unique corporate asset is the saga unfolding at JP Morgan Chase, where Jamie Dimon is supposedly under the gun for being at […]
Conor Friedersdorf doesn't understand why Andrew Sullivan gushes so much about President Obama given the heavy importance Sullivan seems to place on a number of issues on which Obama has […]
In 1923, during an exhibition of his art collection that would become the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania, two years later, Dr. Albert C. Barnes told an interviewer, “I am […]
Earlier this week I caught a post on Lindsay Beyerstein's blog Duly Noted, highlighting a horrifying NYT story wrestling with the question of whether children can be psychopaths, and if […]
Sex. What a compelling topic! As a spiritual teacher, whether I’m giving a lecture or leading a retreat, whenever the subject comes up, a very particular form of focused attention […]
MSNBC's Morning Joe is one of the few places on cable news where you can find genuine ideological cross-talk. It's not surprising then that the program hosted this week University […]