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Jason Gots
Editor/Creative Producer, Big Think
Jason Gots is a New York-based writer, editor, and podcast producer. For Big Think, he writes (and sometimes illustrates) the blog "Overthinking Everything with Jason Gots" and is the creator and host of the "Think Again" podcast. In previous lives, Jason worked at Random House Children's Books, taught reading and writing to middle schoolers and community college students, co-founded a theatre company (Rorschach, in Washington, D.C.), and wrote roughly two dozen picture books for kids learning English in Seoul, South Korea. He is also the proud father of an incredibly talkative and crafty little kid.
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Learning guru John Seely Brown is not being even slightly ironic when he says that he’d hire an expert player of World of Warcraft (the massive multiplayer online fantasy videogame) over an MBA from Harvard.
Writer Alain De Botton believes that status anxiety is more pernicious and destructive than most of us can imagine, and recommends getting out of the status-as-self-worth game altogether.
In some crucial areas of human cognition, we don’t know and we can’t fully trust ourselves. On the bright side, Daniel Kahneman’s work shows that the kinds of errors we tend to make are extremely predictable.
The redoubtable fashion critic Simon Doonan, author of Gay Men Don’t Get Fat,observes that a unique appearance is a political liability in the United States. Mitt Romney, he observes, is “so handsome that he runs the risk of looking too “plastic...like a TV anchor.”
So you want to be Henry Rollins, kid? Bad news. The job’s already taken. The good news is that following Henry’s three golden rules gives you strong odds of success on your own, unique path as an artist/entrepreneur – the one that only you can carve out.
Here’s how not to put yourself on an exercise regimen: by making a firm resolution, gritting your teeth each day through a 45 minute workout, then grimly enduring a salad.
The London-based School of Life’s Bibliotherapy program has a growing fan-base among Londoners who appreciate its relatively low-cost, non-medicalized approach to the anxieties that are characteristic of modern life.
Ideas Gone Wild is a new Big Think blog dedicated to your boldest, bravest ideas. Each week, on Wednesday, we’ll solicit contributions through Facebook on a specific topic. . . .
So deeply rooted, says Tom Doctoroff, is the Western belief in individual freedom, that it is nearly impossible for us to accept the fact that in Chinese culture, the individual does not exist outside of her network of familial and communal obligations.
The documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is the portrait of a man fighting a one-man war of ideas with the Chinese government, daily putting his own life at risk for the sake of the country he loves.
We want to ascribe intentionality and blame for success and failure, then study them for blueprints. But Gladwell says he’s always found it more productive to follow his own curiosity without worrying too much about whether or not the world will reward him for it.
Throughout his extraordinary career, Pryce has turned his attention outward rather than inward – onto his fellow actors, the audience, the needs of the story. This, he reflects, is the secret to overcoming stage fright: remembering that it isn’t all about you.
The hiring and managing of employees is the achilles heel of many an otherwise tightly-run organization. Why? Because human beings come with many more variables than do widgets – we’re trickier to assess, our motivations are complex, and we change over time.
On Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday, writer and musician Henry Rollins' reflections on the power – and limitations – of music.
The “always-on” work culture, says Leslie Perlow, drains morale and initiative, and scatters employees’ mental resources, making it difficult for them to take ownership of projects and prioritize their efforts. But changing it requires collective effort.
While government agencies have a lot on their plates, says national security advisor Tino Cuéllar, they don't have to be like Kafka's The Castle. He recommends honest self-scrutiny and smart appropriation of outside ideas.
Baratunde Thurston's How To Be Black is neither peevish gripe nor venomous attack. Like the best satire, it convinces with wit and compassion, and offers readers a vision of a better America that's entirely within reach.
The Godfather of DIY Punk says that the internet has opened up new worlds of instantaneous communication, and new opportunities for media and governments to obscure and evade the truth.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who ought to know, says that the future won’t be anything like The Terminator. “I live in the real world, and in the real world that’s simply […]
Imagine yourself in the hotseat at NBC programming. Are you the Industry Leader? The Runaway Train? Or the Sniveling Quail? Take our psychometrically untested personality quiz and find out!