Like millions of other Americans over Thanksgiving weekend, I went to see Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece, Lincoln. I was mesmerized by Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of the great statesman. I was also […]
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As Obama and Romney attack each other for waging “class warfare,” a new study from the Public Religion Research Institute shows how little anyone really knows about the largest block […]
As I’m writing this post, NASA’s latest Mars mission – the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity – is just hours away from its destination. By the time you […]
Internet pioneer Jaron Lanier argues that free technologies like Facebook come with a hidden and heavy cost – the livelihoods of their consumers.
As Yogi Berra said of baseball, it is 90 percent mental, and “the other half is physical.” This ‘Yogi-ism’ is equally applicable to tennis, a sport in which elite players need to be “intuitive physicists” in order to win at the highest level.
The way we think of and treat cancer is rapidly changing thanks to falling gene sequencing prices, growing data about cancer genetics and new drugs targeting specific mutated genes.
When I was in high school in the USA in the late 1980s, the big Asian language that many of my peers wanted to learn was Japanese. A half-decade later, […]
Today as I meditate on Arum and Roksa’s much-discussed study, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” my thoughts turn to academic life at the institution where I teach. This week […]
The Economist hosted its “Ideas Economy” event this week at the Berkeley Haas School of Business to talk about disruptive technologies, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. The focus of the event […]
Get ready for a brave new world where supercomputing mobile devices are so ubiquitous that they lead to entirely new business models in industries ranging from healthcare to education. Cisco […]
Thus did the Economistcharacterize the dynamic between China and India, arguing that how they “manage their own relationship will determine whether similar mistakes to those that scarred the 20th century […]
Skype programmer Jaan Tallinn isn’t so sure we’ll ever be able to build networks that can replicate– even in a business context – the communicative power of meeting in person. Instead, he believes, we’ll continue to edge asymptotically closer.
A forum where top mixologists explore the party drinks defining the 21st Century.
Just when you think a contemporary art megastar such as Damien Hirst has done his worst to make a mockery of the modern art world, he finds a new weapon […]
Boo!Scared you, didn’t I? I’m guessing not really. If you’re a grown-up, Halloween has probably lost its edge. Or at least its scary edge. The old tricks simply no longer […]
We need to better prepare, train, and inspire successful self-directed learners to meet today’s challenges.
It used to be that if rock artists wished to maintain credibility with their fans, they would not agree to have their music re-purposed for commercials. Boy, how things have changed.
Companies like Apple need to constantly innovate just to maintain their present position. This is the harsh reality that businesses must face in the increasingly competitive global economy. Harvard Business School’s Linda Hill has advice for leaders in these challenging times.
In his new book, 1493, Charles Mann gives us a rich, nuanced account of how the Columbian Exchange continues to reunite the continents and globalize the world.
BY JASON SILVA The Imaginary Foundation says “Great art expands the way we see—it uplifts the human spirit from the barbaric and thrusts it toward the numinous.” – An Interview […]
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN JASON SILVA AND TECHNO-ECOLOGIC SCHOLAR RICHARD DOYLE Richard Doyle also goes by mobius, an indicator of just how important interconnections are to him – and how transformative, […]
If you remember, I’ve decided to “celebrate” the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War by remembering failures of Southern and Confederate statesmanship. My first post affirmed the […]
[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog] [Law students learn to argue both sides of any issue because as attorneys they may be hired for either side of a case. Knowledge of […]
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of what astronomers believe may be the oldest galaxy ever seen—over 13 billion years old!
[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog] nn I’m going to do something I’ve never done before as a blogger: resurrect an old post. Over the past few months I’ve read all […]
Dear Will, In less than two weeks you’ll be here in Iowa. We’re excited to have you visit. We’ve got an eager bunch of state leaders awaiting your insights. Just […]
1. The study of great books is usually contrasted with the use of textbooks and other technical books. It is contrasted, in other words, with study of the studies that […]
Released just yesterday, Physics of the Future is my most ambitious book to date. Based on interviews with over three hundred of the world’s top scientists, who are already inventing the […]
[This is a guest post from Doug Green. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger, drop me a note. Happy reading!] Update: see also Don Watkins’ response to this […]
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth).
Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay.
Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.