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I love Product Design. As consumer tech has matured, I think the most interesting challenges have largely moved from pure technology problems in to more general interface problems – helping […]
“To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world, it’s a very noisy world, and we’re not gonna get a chance to get people to remember much […]
3mins
Biologist Tyler Volk PhD, psychiatrist Bruce Greyson MD, and palliative care physician BJ Miller MD, reveal how confronting mortality can improve the way we live.
Unlikely Collaborators
6mins
You know Steve-O. Now meet Steve Glover, as the professional stuntman talks to us about pain, insecurity, and never finding contentment.
Unlikely Collaborators
Planets can be Earth-like or Neptune-like, but only rarely are in between. This hot, Saturn-like planet hints at a solution to this puzzle.
29mins
Four visionaries—Kevin Kelly, Peter Schwartz, Ari Wallach, and Tyler Cowen—share their insights on the future, urging viewers to consider the impact of their actions on future generations.
You become the main protagonist in these novels.
Our inaugural special issue is focused on progress — the search for, the study of, and the project towards a better world.
We asked our experts where they see the biggest blockers right now for more progress. Essentially, from their various areas of focus, what did they see as the largest impediments to driving progress forward around the world and how they would prioritize the necessary interventions? The answers were appropriately varied from the philosophical to the political to the technological.
About the project The goal of driving more progress across the world—scientifically, politically, economically, socially, etc—is one shared by many. And yet, debates about the best way to maximize progress […]
About the project The goal of driving more progress across the world—scientifically, politically, economically, socially, etc—is one shared by many. And yet, debates about the best way to maximize progress […]
About the project The goal of driving more progress across the world—scientifically, politically, economically, socially, etc—is one shared by many. And yet, debates about the best way to maximize progress […]
About the project The goal of driving more progress across the world—scientifically, politically, economically, socially, etc—is one shared by many. And yet, debates about the best way to maximize progress […]
If our goal is to effect the greatest possible progress, what would it look like to approach this holistically? What might need to dispositionaly in how we approach solving our most important problems—at an individual level, a community level, or at a civilizational or global one? We asked our experts to think big picture about how what new thinking would be required to create a larger pro-progress framework.
One of the fundamental questions for those studying and advocating progress is around understanding what variables can move the needle for the type of progress that you might want to see in the world. It's a key focus of the "progress studies" discipline and a question that has received increased attention from academics and public intellectuals in recent years.
From 260-year-old ciphers to the most recent Zodiac Killer solution, these unbreakable codes just needed time.
Thought expriments are great tools, but do they always do what we want them to?
The next-to-last episode of the first season is heavy on plot and character development, but packs a science and ethical punch, too. What do you do when, after a life-threatening journey […]
The deep dive into the mirror Universe, and the ethics of how we deal with purity and diversity, is just getting started. Life in the mirror Universe isn’t easy for anyone. […]
Last week, the crew found themselves in the mirror Universe. Here’s what science has to say about that. Star Trek: Discovery entered their midseason hiatus on a terrific cliffhanger: they had […]
Right and wrong has never been so gray in the Star Trek Universe. Imagine you’re in a fight with an enemy, and the fight itself isn’t fair. You might have […]
At long last, we’re getting a confrontation with ethics, with science, and with human frailty, not just the Federation at war. “You are… six years old. You are weak and helpless! […]
The greatest advances in human history have come from science and scientific knowledge. Don’t stop now. “Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.” […]
A new report shows the marijuana industry is poised to have a major economic impact.
A researcher is experimenting with an artificial hippocampus to learn how to strengthen and store memories.l
The science of “human vulnerabilities" is being used to "engineer compulsion.” In addition to A.D.D., “attention captivation disorders” are going viral.
An Applicant’s Guide To NASA Astronaut Selection This guest post was written by Brian Shiro: NOAA geophysicist, NASA researcher, and co-founder of Astronauts for Hire. “I wasn’t destined to be […]
Studies show that television shows featuring minorities help us ease our attitudes toward people who are "different." We look back at the past thirty years and see how that came to be.
When the Philadelphia Museum of Art purchased Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting The Annunciation in 1899, they became the first American museum to acquire a work by an African-American artist. That purchase announced a new era of recognition of African-American art and artists just as much as the painting itself announced a new style of art moving away from stereotypical “black” scenes towards a freedom of aesthetic choice. Persons of color could express themselves in any way, even abstraction, but faced the new problem of remaining true to themselves at the same time. The new exhibition Represent: 200 Years of African American Art and accompanying catalogue show how these artists faced the challenges posed to them by art and society and provide all of us with a fascinating guide to facing African-American history—tragic, tenacious, transcendent—through its art.
Your first philosophers: Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, and one strange new face. Why the first books people read about Stoicism should be by one of these guys. On Stoicism Graduation season […]