Guest Thinkers

— Guest post by Luis Hestres, American University doctoral student. To say that new information technologies are revolutionizing political activism has become a tried and true cliché. It also happens […]

The old adage that the key to creativity is to view the world through the eyes of a child has never been more relevant. Ever since this summer’s release of […]

On Tuesday night, I attended a debate at NYU’s Skirball Center that was part of the Intelligence Squared debate series, “Resolved: The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion“. Supporting […]

What happens when the complexity and magnitude of the problems facing our civilization “simply exceed our biological capabilities”? 

N.A.S.A.’s latest Mars rover will launch later this month. The size of an S.U.V. and powered by decaying plutonium, it will search for water and past signs of life beneath the martian soil. 

So my previous post clearly irked most BIG THINK readers.  They didn’t want to address the fact of the birth dearth in the United States, Europe, Japan, and so forth.  […]

In a previous post, I wrote about the Arab Spring’s effect on women and and whether it may actually be a setback for human rights. It so happens that in […]

A Russian space probe on its way to Mars, currently stuck in Earth’s orbit, will fall back to Earth along with stores of toxic fuel. Under international law, Russia is liable for damages.

“We may have democracy or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,” Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, “but we can’t have both.” That, in essence, was […]

Can we be aware without actually paying attention? In other words, can our brains somehow imbibe visual information from the outside world without any conscious effort on our part? It […]

Today the Occupy Wall Street protesters were evicted from Zuccotti Park. Regardless of one’s political or economic persuasions, this act will be seen as having been cavalier and performed without […]

A new venture aims to foster stability in war-torn regions through an act of creative destruction: acquiring AK-47s and transforming them into rare jewelry, watches and accessories.

What do Asian men and African American women have in common? Both are searching for love in very competitive marriage markets and, according to market forecasters, individuals in these groups […]

The internet went crazy Sunday night after Black In America: The New Promised Land- Silicon Valley. Twitter, the place on the internet where the wired segment of Afro America goes […]

As NYC police attempt to clear Zuccotti Park of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, it seems appropriate to reconsider who OWS is and what they want. To me, their goals […]

Another issue we’ll address at the big conference at Berry College this Thursday and Friday is the erosion or even implosion of our health care and entitlement systems. According to […]

What’s the Big Idea? Can economics explain everything? Some people have attempted to make that claim, but not Paul Krugman, who labels such a view “academic imperialism.” Krugman, who won […]

The political courtship ritual some have called “speed-dating” has featured a revolving door of Republican alternatives to Mitt Romney: Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain. With a sexual harassment scandal […]

It’s dangerous business calling any tech innovation idiotic these days. The next thing you know, the company’s worth $50 billion. But it is hard to imagine many (hearing) people beyond […]

Retailers and their suppliers are about to see real and lasting change to the size of their businesses. Not necessarily in sales but in physical size. The future is small […]

A former British Prime Minister, James Callaghan, once warned that sudden squalls could blow into major storms and often from unexpected places. Not very long afterwards, the Argentinians began to […]

Author Sara Zarr has big ideas. Her books tackle huge themes with beautiful, realistic prose that cuts to the heart of her characters. Last week on author Nova Ren Suma’s blog, Zarr posted about […]

I just got back from a glorious week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. John Nash and I were consulting with two different local grassroots NGOs. Our role was to help build […]

In one of those strange collisions between leatherbound Literature and paperless modern news, Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” was read aloud at Occupy Wall Street on Friday. Not only that, […]

Despite the media attention drawn by Rick Perry’s brain freeze in the last Republican debates, scientists say it is not evidence of an intellectual dificiency or mental problem.

I don’t usually watch the Black In America series, but I will tonight because one of the entrepreneurs in The New Promised Land- Silicon Valley episode is Angela Benton, a […]

The world population, by U.N. estimates, has just surpassed seven billion, and it’s growing even faster than demographers’ predictions. Nicholas Kristof has an insightful column (though I depart from him […]

Andrew Sullivan quotes this passage from Jennifer Fulwiler’s account of her conversion to Catholicism from atheism: If everything that we call heroism and glory, and all the significance of all […]

White America is divided between those who are comfortable with the influx of immigrants from other countries and those who feel they threaten the American way of life. Obama’s race […]

I gave the case for some kind of kidney markets in my last post.  The limited commodification of that particular part of the body is the only way, for now, for […]