Although the Internet has successfully reduced our collective attention span to the time it takes to watch “nunchucks pro” fall flat on his face, there are still some great online opportunities for enlightenment if you apply some patience and commitment. Fora.tv, for example, is a vast “collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates going on all the time at the world’s top universities, think tanks and conferences.” Basically, the kind of fascinating stuff that’s wasted on hungover college students. The videos will test the nerves of the ants in your pants, but the erudite cocktail-party conversation starters you walk away with will be worth it.

If you need a nudge to commit to an hour-long lecture without the benefit of an entire audience keeping you from walking away to check out the snacks in your fridge, why not start with those videos related to the universally-appealing and attention-grabbing topic of sex? There’s Michelle Goldberg on sex, power and the future of the world, Mary Roach on the curious coupling of science and sex, or CUNY’s panel discussion of America’s war on sexual rights. With this last one, Fora even breaks down the discussion into various parts so the inpatient among us can skip the excruciating 8-minute introduction and get right to the 90s seconds on the war on gay rights or the two minutes on the crackdown on masturbation.

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