When Tim Berners Lee invented the internet through his Next computer, he’s given the world an opportunity to revolutionize every aspect of our lives. Three decades later, his invention has become the subject of praise and ridicule depending on its consumer’s use and abuse. Much can be said about the internet, but this we know for sure--it has democratized knowledge and changed the way we learn. Websites have exploded in our virtual environment, and it’s getting harder to discern which ones have valuable, well-thought-out contents that aim to inform and inspire us.
Don’t fret! Here are three websites that never cease to make the internet an informative and inspirational conduit of our humanity.
TED
Technology Education Design was born way before the internet on February 23, 1984. In the age of alternative facts and post-truths, TED serves as a medium for verified knowledge about everything under the sun. What’s better is that TED videos are open educational resources. These mean that we can share the contents freely for as long as we don’t use it commercially, and we attribute the contents back to TED.
Brain Pickings
Brain Pickings is Maria Popova’s one woman labor of love. As a “curiosity architect,” Popova curates offline and online contents which could be deemed as a cross-pollination of ideas from many disciplines. Popova considers Brain Pickings as Lego bricks that could allow us to create and make sense of the world through various lenses.
The School of Life
The School of Life seeks to improve our emotional intelligence through the actual application of concepts and theories from disciplines such as literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology among others. Through the School of Life, philosopher Alain de Botton and his team dissect our day-to-day situations with topics such as marriage, sex, religion and many more.
In this age, they say that our problem is not the lack of information. Instead, we are drowning in information abundance that discernment between true and false becomes difficult. It is hoped that through these websites, you get to find inspiration and information in our ever-crowded and overwhelming virtual environment.