To make that world happen, to have the 21st century be one of humanity's proudest, we want our BEST thinkers and thinking aimed at our most important problems. We want our leaders, our voters, and our consumers using the best science, and the best ethical decision making.
Having a wise, compassionate, educated populace is our best shot - and Think Bigger Think Better aims to do that. Your per episode support, from $1 to $25 will help get the latest, best, most inspirational, and most challenging thinking out there. For Patrons, I will host a monthly ask-me-anything dialogue with a famous thinker where you can discuss and challenge their ideas.
But there are lots of clever people and thousands of books already?
Sure, but lots of our best thinking doesn't get used!
The problem with academic stuff is, well, it is too academic. There is great science out there - neuroscience, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, social psychology, behavioral economics - that can help YOU understand yourself and our world better and so make better choices. Vaccination? Climate change? Gluten? Charter schools? Immigrants and robots stealing jobs? Cellphones destroying our children? Racism, or race-baiting? Fake news and filter bubbles? Media bias - left or right? Globalization, good or bad?
Take vaccination, climate change, gluten, firearms, GMOs, charter schools, or terrorism. Discussions around these critical issues are so politicized or commercialized that they are no longer rational. It seems impossible to find an honest, uncorrupted assessment of the best science available. Yet our human future depends on good choices such critical issues!
Or, take business ethics. Business, on the left, in caricature, is seen as fundamentally corrupt – the cause of inequality and environmental injustices. The right, in caricature, sees business interests as unproblematically linked to prosperity – “what is good for business is good for us all.”
Philosophy seems even more abstract, but wait!!! What is happiness, does it matter? Should we help the poor? What is reason, and why don't we do it? Which is better, nationalism or cosmopolitanism? Should businesses care about inequality? Is sustainability a no-brainer, or a conspiracy?
We can change the world, but we need to change ourselves first - to become wiser, more compassionate, and more knowledgeable.
So what are YOU gonna do?
In my podcasts, I talk to today's smartest cookies (philosophers, scientists, and the occasional CEO or politician) - provoking them to make their ideas useful and relevant. In my books and blogs, I challenge orthodoxy, debunk pseudoscience and alternative facts.
You can help!
Why support me? Why not give it to Harvard?
Three reasons:
- I'm a scholar who spent 35 years in the business world. I make stuff practical and relevant in ways they often don't.
- I'm much broader than they can afford to be - and the interesting insights come when disciplines overlap. (E.g. climate science and psychology, neuroscience and education)
- I'm independent - I don't have to worry about academic politics, publish or perish, or any of that stuff.
- In 2017, I became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (even though I'm a scientist and business guy, go figure). Other Fellows have included Steven Hawking and Benjamin Franklin. In the same month, I was also voted one of the top-30 "culture gurus" in the world.
- I started to write full-time in 2013, while I was teaching Business Ethics and Leadership at the University of Denver. My book, The Science of Organizational Change, is a best-seller in culture change/ change management.
- Before that, I was CEO of a small ($5m) consulting firm that specialized in culture change and leadership development.
- Before that, I was one of PwC's top leadership/ culture/ innovation "gurus".
- Before that, I was a derivatives trader and head of sales in investment banking.
- My degrees are in Biochemistry, Philosophy, and Psychology - but I also studied both Neuroscience and Economics at grad level without doing the dissertation thing.
You can find out more about me in excruciating detail at paulgibbons.net.