Society

Collage featuring hands holding a leaf, overlapping hands, and the text "Reclaim Meaning" with a grid background.

The Techno-Humanist Manifesto

How to reclaim meaning in a changing world

What if the barrier to a fulfilled life isn’t technology, it’s culture?

Jason Crawford

A collage featuring the text "Forgotten Hardships," with images of distressed people, a graph with a declining trend, and various historical imagery in red and black tones.

The Techno-Humanist Manifesto

Life was dirty, difficult, and dangerous for almost everyone who ever existed

9 minutes of cruel history may cure the anti-progress delusion.

Jason Crawford

The Techno-Humanist Manifesto

A new vision for the advancement of humanity

The world needs a moral defense of progress based in humanism and agency.

Jason Crawford

History

Today, people fear Twitter. In the 1850s, they feared telegrams

Telegrams elicited the exact same concerns, including the spread of misinformation, “addiction” among youth, censorship, and impersonation.

Louis Anslow

Surveillance

China’s spy balloon: Inflatable eyes in the sky have been used for centuries

Spy balloons remind us that the oldest technologies are still being developed to achieve military effects today.

Frank Ledwidge

Business

No, 90% of new businesses don’t fail. Here’s why.

To say that something failed, simply because it stopped or changed, is to dangerously limit our view of the world.

Jason Feifer

Neuroscience

Why changing your mind is a feature of evolution, not a bug

Reasoning by yourself is a much weaker tool than contributing your reasoning to a group and being flexible to changing your mind.

David McRaney

Building Community

Will 2023 be the year of the private social network?

Many tech leaders think the future of social media is private social networks, not the public squares that previously dominated.

Shubham Agarwal

The dawn of AI has come, and its implications for education couldn’t be more significant

AI like ChatGPT is forcing us to rethink education. But if we embrace it, it could empower both students and teachers.

Vitomir Kovanovic

Education

“Personalized curriculums” could get kids to care about school again

Personalized learning has to potential to prepare learners who are self-regulating and self-motivated for life beyond school.

Maya Gunawardena

3 rules to express your thoughts so that everyone will understand you

Alan Alda recommends making no more than three points, explaining difficult ideas in three ways, and repeating key points three times.

Kevin Dickinson

Family

Parents: Don’t focus on happiness, help build resilience instead

Happiness emerges from resilience, which helps children regulate difficult emotions and stressful situations.

Becky Kennedy

Neuroscience

How neuroscience can make us better parents

Kids' brains develop in four main stages. Each has its own particular set of advancements and challenges for parents.

Philip Perry

Sections

Series & Columns

Freethink

We focus on solutions: the smartest people, the biggest ideas, and the most ground breaking technology shaping our future.