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Governance
From landscaped gardens to road systems, the Persians were among the first to create many things we still enjoy today.
As SpaceX slashes launch costs, governments are gaining new capabilities, while potentially outsourcing their sovereignty to Musk's private empire.
AI is unlocking unprecedented capabilities — and exposing new vulnerabilities just as quickly.
In this excerpt from Separation of Powers, Cass Sunstein explains how the U.S. Constitution prevents such a concentration of authority from turning democracy into despotism.
From global DNA screening standards to safeguards for benchtop synthesizers and AI tools, a new biosecurity playbook is taking shape.
In this excerpt from "The Hypocrisy Trap," Michael Hallsworth explains why accusations of hypocrisy don’t always damage credibility.
In this excerpt from "Strange Stability," Benjamin Wilson explores how the concept of "deterrence" went from explaining criminal behavior to becoming a nuclear strategy.
Real progress demands rules built for uncertainty — not for the few innovations dominating today’s tech landscape.
To turn technical breakthroughs into real-world change, AI must overcome the friction of politics, policy, and human institutions.
Jennifer Pahlka, author and Code for America founder, on what comes after Elon Musk’s failed attempt at government efficiency — and how we can modernize federal agencies to improve people’s lives.
The case that a bipartisan movement structured around progress and reform may be reaching critical mass.
Ryan Holiday on why wisdom depends on failure, experimentation, and the courage to admit when we’re wrong.
It's time to write the human genome, argues microbiologist Andrew Hessel.
In "We the People," Harvard historian Jill Lepore examines how the U.S. Constitution became unamendable and its implications for the health of the democracy.
Why the best CEOs make their first year both a personal transition and a profound moment of institutional renewal — with this quartet of skills.
In “On Liberalism," Cass Sunstein argues that liberalism can only endure if we reclaim its core commitments and revive its spirit of freedom and hope for the future.
NASA's 1958 charter's top priority was, "the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space." Is this how it ends?
The JFK Memorial at Runnymede provides a link between America's and Britain's founding documents.
Trump may make America great again — just not in the way he had intended.
Follow the money and you'll follow history.
After drastic cuts to the NIH, the FDA, the NSF, and the DOE, NASA science faces down its smallest budget ever. All of society will suffer.
Effective leadership requires long-term strategy — not tactical reactions.
The nation-state had a good run, but its usefulness may have come to an end.
In post-Soviet nations where ministers have a relatively high BMI, corruption tends to be high, too.
In some organizations “founder mode” can become synonymous with over-reliance. Here’s how to avoid the pitfalls of “apparent irreplaceability.”
The electoral reform also known as instant-runoff voting promises bridge-building and broad appeal instead of culture war and gridlock.
The Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order would be just one quarter the size of Vatican City.
Historian Timothy Snyder talks with Big Think about how true liberty requires both negative and positive freedoms.
"We’re acting more like fans of a football team going to a game than a banker carefully choosing investments."
TikTok and its allies won't go down without a legal fight.