If you're not hip to Edge.org, it's legendary book agent John Brockman's hub for really smart scientists and other big thinkers to share ideas with each other and the public. At the site, you'll find hundreds of conversations and essays from the likes of Steven Pinker, Jared Diamond, Daniel Kahneman, Rebecca Saxe, Douglas Rushkoff, Ryan Phelan, and many other very, very bright people. Recently, Edge hosted a small conference, HeadCon '13: What's New In Social Science, and they're now rolling out a series of videos documenting the provocative talks from the event. With this series, they took a rather nontraditional approach to the videos.
Working with BB pal Jason Wishnow (formerly TED's video director), they recorded the talks with five cameras to present a very unique perspective on the proceedings. Above is Yale psychology professor June Gruber's talk about the study of positive emotion and how "they may signal dysfunction and may not actually, in all circumstances and in all intensities, be good for us." Below is video of Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan, co-author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. A new video is released every Monday. Next week: Brown University professor Fiery Cushman, who studies morality and social cognition, on "The Paradox of Automatic Planning." Watch these in full-screen mode for full effect! More info and transcripts at: HeadCon '13: What's New In Social Science?
HeadCon '13: Sendhil Mullainathan – What Big Data Means For Social Science from Edge Foundation on Vimeo.
