10 Har­vard pro­fes­sors. 10 fas­ci­nat­ing ideas. 10 min­utes each. That was the gist of Har­vard Thinks Big, a TED-esque event held on Feb­ru­ary 11th. Now fast for­ward sev­er­al weeks, and the talks all appear online for free. Find them on YouTube, iTunes, or Har­vard’s ded­i­cat­ed web site.

Of all the 10 talks, we decid­ed to fea­ture one: Daniel Gilbert, a psych pro­fes­sor known for his book Stum­bling On Hap­pi­ness, presents a talk called “It’s the End of the World as We Know it, and I Feel Fine.” (Yes, a nod to R.E.M.) And it tries to make sense of a baf­fling ques­tion. Our plan­et is on the brink of an eco­log­i­cal cat­a­stro­phe and we’re calm­ly sit­ting here watch­ing videos. Humans have thrived because we take threats seri­ous­ly. But why not this one?

Oth­er speak­ers at the event include Steven Pinker, Lawrence Lessig, Richard Wrang­ham, and Elaine Scar­ry – some well known Har­vard names. One fig­ure not present was Michael Sandel. But here we have his TED Talk from 2010: The Lost Art of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Debate.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es

What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Pop­u­lar Har­vard Course Now Online