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.
Craig Taylor’s Londoners is a humbling reminder that, for all the restless energy we put into categorizing, labeling, and compartmentalizing the world, the only way to understand people and places as they really are is to shut up and listen.
One theme that consistently emerges in Teju Cole’s work is an interest in creating space, through literature, for those bits of real, complex experience that can find their expression nowhere else.
What’s the Big Idea? Want to scare a book publisher, a record store owner, or even a doctor? Creep up behind her and shout: disintermediation! This is the term du […]
Chip Conley’s “emotional equations,” simple formulas like anxiety = uncertainty x powerlessness, are designed to help individuals and businesses achieve real fulfillment, not just material success.
In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg takes an unflinching look at the science of habit, and offers concrete strategies for transforming harmful habits into beneficial ones.
Maybe it’s because I’m a product of post-sixties America, born into an anti-authoritarian culture of individual liberty and self-expression. Maybe it’s because I’m the rebellious son of a tough, Italian-American mother. But I’ve always had issues with discipline . . .
Personal growth is a long and arduous process, made easier when we recognize that fact and approach the task incrementally – with patience, humility, and self-discipline.
Baratunde Thurston’s “swine flu experiment” was a brilliant, well-timed satire on media frenzy, but it’s also a masterclass in the creative use of social media.
In a world defined by change, says Baratunde Thurston, you need a sense of mission that’s much bigger than the desk you happen to be sitting behind at any moment.
In a country like Turkey, with its long history of military secrecy and governmental scrutiny and control of the press, it’s tough to separate fact from rumor. It is widely […]
In a brilliant new twist on the theme of “fathers and sons,” Israeli director Joseph Cedar’s film Footnote examines the rivalry between two generations of Talmudic scholars at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. […]
The past 10 years or so of public atheist discourse, says Alain de Botton, author of Religion for Atheists, has been dominated by the idea that all religious belief is somehow […]
In an extraordinary move, a prominent executive at Goldman Sachs has resigned on grounds of ethical discomfort with a company culture of maximizing profits at clients’ expense. Greg Smith – […]
What’s the Big Idea? Some genius at marketing giant BBH decided to outfit 13 volunteer homeless people in Austin, Texas with 4G Wi-Fi transmitters, turning them into human Wi-Fi hotspots […]
Michael Ellsberg’s “eye contact revolution” is aimed not only at careerists, but at the social and spiritual heart of our glowing screen-obsessed world.
Not long ago one of the writers I follow on Twitter posted something like this: “My apologies for the totally un-clever nature of this tweet, but does anyone have a […]
The Big Think, Short Fiction contest was born out of our desire to find new ways of connecting with readers and foregrounding their voices on the site. Today we’re proud to publish the three winning entries, selected by author Nathan Englander.
When author Nathan Englander visited Big Think, I had one major question for him, which I asked in about six different ways. How, I wondered, do you dare to embark […]
Surely the greatest scientific discoveries are the product of imaginative energy and curiosity no less intense or pure than that which animates Hamlet or King Lear. Still, the petty squabble between Reason and Imagination that began in the 17th century persists . . .
What’s the Big Idea? With the launch of the new iPad imminent and amid ongoing speculation about the gradual replacement of laptops and desktops with tablet-like devices, there’s a quiet […]
A Dramatic Recreation of an Argument My Dad and I Must Have Had 1000 Times: Me: Man, De Niro has totally lost it. It is so pathetic to see him […]
Jad Abumrad won a 2011 MacArthur Genius grant for his work as creator/producer of WNYC’s Radiolab. The Macarthur foundation describes his work thus: As co-host and producer of the nationally […]
From the ruler’s perspective, says Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a democracy is the worst form of government possible, because it greatly increases the ruler’s risk of losing power.
Quick. Grab a pencil. Some crayons. A notepad. Wrap your brain around this Friday’s Big Enigma from Ivan Moscovitch’s The Big Book of Brain Games. Share a photo of your solution […]
“Write what you know” isn’t about events, says author Nathan Englander. It’s about emotions. Have you known love? jealousy? longing? loss? As a kid, did you want that Atari 2600 so bad you might have killed for it?
Henry Rollins says that in these turbulent times, it’s more difficult and important than ever to live heroically.
Henry Rollins shares the DIY philosophy he learned from Abraham Lincoln and has always tried to follow.
Baratunde Thurston, author of How to Be Black, unveils his ambitious, three step plan for “the future of blackness.”
Ironically, the fight-or-flight approach to problem-solving can cause us to reenact, over and over again, the very scenarios that cause us suffering.
That Delphic oracle of style, Simon Doonan, author of the outrageously funny Gay Men Dont Get Fat, says fashion and politics don’t mix in a democracy.