bigthinkeditor
“Is a world with people in it better than one without?” asks Peter Singer of Princeton. How do we justify brining new human life into the world amidst so much suffering and unprecedented crises?
Those who worry that the Internet promotes mediocrity should consider the printing press, says Clay Shirky: pulp writing accompanied peer reviewed science and booming literacy rates.
The bad name given to corporate oversight, i.e. government regulation, deligitimizes its role in society and makes ready financial crises; among other things, regulators deserve more pay.
In our world of infinite and instant information, learning one skill deeply could equip us with critical thinking tools necessary to cope with our times, which change faster now than ever.
The Guardian contests the stereotype that Americans are ignorant of history but, the English paper believes, contemporary conservative movements do appropriate the past for political gain.
The successful launch of a private rocket into outer space, which could one day take tourists on suborbital flights, comes just as the U.S. government makes deep cuts at NASA.
Former CIA station chief and director of counter-terrorism, Robert Grenier says peace efforts in Afghanistan demonstrate a house divided against itself — an open ended civil war could follow.
Scientists are working to rule out non-biological explanations for conditions present on Titan, a moon of Saturn, that suggest there could be life on the moon’s surface.
European soccer scouts look to Africa for budding talent because players there “are young, technically adept, athletic — and cheap.” Is this a modern day slave trade?
Central America’s employment of low-skilled workers could not withstand a fully developed Chinese labor market where agricultural mechanization would spur mass migration to cities, reports The Guardian.
The New York Times magazine profiles squatters and freegans who have taken advantage of the many housing foreclosures in Buffalo, NY and how they’ve earned their neighbors’, and the law’s, respect.
More doctors are giving consultations online as technology enables convenient patient-doctor exchanges on minor medical issues; the trend is saving everyone time and money.
Rob Reynolds recalls the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969, how business leaders were more coarse at that time, and how reaction to the spill fed a fledgling American environmental movement.
Nicolas Carr tells The Atlantic that the Internet has changed our way of life, sometimes for the worse. Today we are a distracted and anxious society because of our voracious appetite for information, Carr says.
The New York Review of Books continues to host the dialog between Peter Beinart and Abraham Foxman over how much support Irsael is receiving from a new generation of American Jews.
What are natural laws? How do scientists test them? Is time illusory or real? Do black holes make the universe expand? These questions were posed at a recent workshop for philosophers and physicists.
America’s long-term influence depends on its defense of an open, global society, writes The Economist: America must build a society that welcomes immigrants as well as trade.
Examining the brains of deceased alcoholics who smoked, researchers found drinkers who also smoked derived more pleasure from each activity individually, making both harder to quit.
“Americans like to see themselves as rugged individualists, a nation defined by the idea that people should set their own course through life,” but in reality we embrace group membership.
Ben Lewis at Prospect Magazine says postmodernism will be remembered as the graveyard of the admirable modernist project for its formulas, narcissism, sentiment and cynicism.
The unconventional nature of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has left a legal vacuum in the area of prisoner detentions, one that needs filling, says Samuel Issacharoff, professor of constitutional law at NYU.
New photographs in which Allen Ginsberg captured his fellow Beats—Kerouac, Corso, and himself—have been unearthed by scholars, enriching the American Beat catalog.
“Jewish populations around the world share more than traditions and laws—they also have a common genetic background,” says the New Scientist about a study performed at NYU.
The federal government is enlisting private companies like Pfizer to promote HIV/AIDS prevention programs in high-risk areas following a lull of such programs during Bush’s ‘abstinence-only’ years.
According to Al Jazeera, while the Obama administration is losing ground to the Israelis and the Chinese, it has reasserted its dominance over Japan, ousting a potentially valuable leader.
The English language is infamous for its difficult spelling, and while no immediate changes appear on the horizon, reformists of the language continue their quest to change English spelling.
“Equal opportunity is essential but not enough,” said LBJ forty five years ago to inaugurate an era of affirmative action. His words ring true today when the income gap is widening.
We all live with the newness of technology and the oldness of our social customs, so what happens when death unites the two? What happens to your online self when you die?
Is evil still a relevant concept in our increasingly secular times or is it too mystical to be discussed rationally? What are the different forms of evil and how do we combat them?
Whether you call it the “Tiananmen Square Massacre” or the “June Fourth Incident” (as it’s known in the People’s Republic of China), what happened in Beijing 21 years ago today […]