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75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

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PODCAST

Plain English with Derek Thompson

Longtime Atlantic tech, culture and political writer Derek Thompson cuts through all the noise surrounding the big questions and headlines that matter to you in his new podcast Plain English. Hear Derek and guests engage the news with clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday, and if you"ve got a topic you want discussed, shoot us an email at plainenglish@spotify.com! You can also find us on tiktok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

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All Episodes

28:36

Market Meltdown FAQ: Recession Fears, Global Stock...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/08/05

In a special emergency-ish episode, Bloomberg's Conor Sen joins the show to discuss a buffet of economic and financial fears, including a disappointing jobs report, a meltdown in global stocks, the "carry trade" heard round the world, the smartest criticisms of (and smartest defense of) the Federal Reserve's decision not to raise interest rates, and more.If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Conor

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54:46

Why Are Robocalls So Hard to Stop? (Plus: Kamala and...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/08/02

Derek offers his thoughts on Kamala Harris, the new 2024 reality, and gender polarization in the "boys vs. girls" election. Then we talk about the spam apocalypse. The average American receives one spam call or text every single day, adding up to tens of billions of robocalls and texts per year. Derek welcomes Joshua Bercu, the executive director of Industry Traceback Group, to talk about the history and technology behind robocalls and texts, why it’s been so hard to hold robocallers accountable,

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55:06

Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Progressives?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/07/26

It is a general rule of thumb that richer societies are happier societies. This is true across countries, as GDP and life satisfaction are highly correlated. And it is true across time. Countries get happier as they get richer. But there is a caveat to this general principle. Which is that the United States is not nearly as contented as its gross national income would predict.In fact, the U.S. is, as we’ve covered on this show, in a bit of a gloom rut. It has now been nearly two decades since a

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52:10

Harsh Truths About 2024 and the Future of the U.S....

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/07/19

On today's episode: the state of American politics and the future of America's economy. Derek discusses a media myth in the aftermath of the failed Trump assassination attempt and reviews three basic truths about Joe Biden's doomed presidential bid. Then, Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee joins the show to answer Derek's blunt question, "Are you going to cut rates next month?" Plus, they discuss the Federal Reserve, how it works, how he sees the economy, whether high rates are constraining

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55:26

"The Weirdest Housing Market in Recent History"

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/07/12

Skyrocketing rates, shrinking affordability: The U.S. housing market is a mess. It's also a bit of a mystery. Why are prices still sky-high, even though many measures of demand are weak? If the supply of new homes is nearing a historic high, how come the inventory for existing homes is close to a historic low? Today's guests agree that this is one of the weirdest housing markets in recent history. Mike Simonsen, president founder of Altos Research, and Lance Lambert, cofounder and editor-in-chief of

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58:18

"People Feel Lied To": The White House, the Media,...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/07/05

Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance has created a crisis for the Democratic Party and a set of interlocking debates about whether the White House—or the White House media—covered up his cognitive decline. The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich, who first wrote that Biden should drop out of the race two years ago, joins to discuss Biden campaign strategy and the hypocrisy of many Democrats who refused to state publicly what they knew privately: that Biden's age-related blunders were getting more

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44:43

Whatever Happened to Serial Killers?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/06/28

In the first five decades of the 20th century, the number of serial killers in the U.S. remained at a very low level. But between the 1950s and 1960s, the number of serial killers tripled. Between the 1960s and 1970s, they tripled again. In the 1980s and 1990s, they kept rising. And then, just as suddenly as the serial killer emerged as an American phenomenon, he (and it really is mostly a he) nearly disappeared. What happened to the American serial killers? And what does this phenomenon say about

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53:40

The Radical Cultural Shift Behind America's Declining...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/06/21

We've done several podcasts on America's declining fertility rate, and why South Korea has the lowest birthrate in the world. But we've never done an episode on the subject quite like this one.Today we go deep on the psychology of having children and not having children, and the cultural revolution behind the decline in birthrates in America and the rest of the world. The way we think about dating, marriage, kids, and family is changing radically in a very short period of time. And we are just

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54:52

Breathing Is Easy. But We’re Doing It Wrong.

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/06/14

Today’s episode is about the science of breathing—from the evolution of our sinuses and palate, to the downsides of mouth breathing and the upsides of nasal breathing, to specific breath techniques that you can use to reduce stress and fall asleep fast. Our guest is James Nestor, the author of the bestselling book 'Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art.'If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: James

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47:54

The News Media’s Dangerous Addiction to ‘Fake Facts’

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/06/07

What do most people not understand about the news media? I would say two things. First: The most important bias in news media is not left or right. It’s a bias toward negativity and catastrophe. Second: That while it would be convenient to blame the news media exclusively for this bad-news bias, the truth is that the audience is just about equally to blame. The news has never had better tools for understanding exactly what gets people to click on stories. That means what people see in the news is

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46:27

Microplastics Are Everywhere. How Dangerous Are They?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/05/31

Plastic is a life-saving technology. Plastic medical equipment like disposable syringes and IV bags reduce deaths in hospitals. Plastic packaging keeps food fresh longer. Plastic parts in cars make cars lighter, which could make them less deadly in accidents. My bike helmet is plastic. My smoke detector is plastic. Safety gates for babies: plastic.But in the last few months, several studies have demonstrated the astonishing ubiquity of microplastics and the potential danger they pose to our

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48:33

Why the New NBA Deal Is So Weird. Plus, How Sports...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/05/28

In an age of cults, sports are the last gasp of the monoculture—the last remnant of the 20th century mainstream still standing. Even so, the new NBA media rights deal is astonishing. At a time when basketball ratings are in steady decline, the NBA is on the verge of signing a $70-plus billion sports rights deal that would grow its annual media rights revenue by almost 3x. How does that make any sense? (Try asking your boss for a tripled raise when your performance declines 2 percent a year and tell

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59:29

What America’s Bold New Economic Experiment Is Missing

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/05/24

The news media is very good at focusing on points of disagreement in our politics. Wherever Democrats and Republicans are butting heads, that's where we reliably find news coverage. When right and left disagree about trans rights, or the immigration border bill, or abortion, or January 6, or the indictments over January 6, you can bet that news coverage will be ample. But journalists like me sometimes have a harder time seeing through the lurid partisanship to focus on where both sides agree. It's

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49:23

The Five Superstars Who Invented the Modern NBA

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/05/21

The game of basketball has changed dramatically in the last 40 years. In the early 1990s, Michael Jordan said that 3-point shooting was "something I don’t want to excel at," because he thought it might make him a less effective scorer. 20 years later, 3-point shots have taken over basketball. The NBA has even changed dramatically in the last decade. In the 2010s, it briefly seemed as if sharp-shooting guards would drive the center position out of existence. But the last four MVP awards have all gone

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38:05

Are Smartphones Really Driving the Rise in Teenage...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/05/14

Today—a closer critical look at the relationship between smartphones and mental health. One of the themes we’ve touched on more than any other on this show is that American teenagers—especially girls—appear to be “engulfed” in historic rates of anxiety and sadness. The numbers are undeniable. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which is published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that from 2011 to 2021, the share of teenage girls who say they experience “persistent feelings of

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59:34

Are Flying Cars Finally Here?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/05/07

For decades, flying cars have been a symbol of collective disappointment—of a technologically splendid future that was promised but never delivered. Whose fault is that?Gideon Lewis-Kraus, a staff writer at The New Yorker who has spent 18 months researching the history, present, and future of flying car technology, joins the show. We talk about why flying cars don't exist—and why they might be much closer to reality than most people think. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future

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56:57

How the Logic of Cults Is Taking Over Modern Life

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/05/03

Several years ago, I told some friends that I had an idea for a second book. It would be called ‘Everything Is a Cult.’ I’d noticed that in an age of declining religiosity, capitalism was filling the god-shaped hole left by the demise of organized religion with companies and services and products that were amassing a cult-like following in media, entertainment, and marketing. I never ended up writing the book. But last week, Sean Illing of ‘The Gray Area’ podcast with Vox asked me to come on his

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42:21

How Will the Gaza War Finally End?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/30

Today, with Gaza protests spreading across the country and around the world, we dive deep into what’s actually happening on the ground in the war between Israel and Hamas—and how this war might actually end, or lead to a broader conflict.The status quo in Gaza is horrendous in every conceivable way. Following an attack that killed more than a thousand Israelis on October 7, Israel has retaliated with a bombing campaign more destructive than the most aggressive World War II fire-bombings in Germany

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55:08

A Political Scientist on How Protests Can Change...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/26

In the last week, hundreds of protests across college campuses and American cities have taken place in response to the war in Gaza. Campus life has shut down at Columbia University in NYC. The news is strewn with images of police confrontations on campuses, from Texas to California. Hundreds of demonstrators across the country have been taken into police custody. And many people now anticipate that, without a major course correction in the war in Gaza, demonstrators will converge on the Democratic

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60:10

What Kind of a Superpower Is India Becoming?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/23

Today’s episode is all about India.You don’t have to believe that demography is pure destiny to appreciate the fact that the future of India is the future of the world. In 2024, today, India is the largest country by population on the planet, having surpassed China two years ago. In 2050, India is still projected to be the largest country in the world. In 2100, when I am 114 years old and this podcast is hosted by my cryo-frozen vat brain, India's projected to be larger than the next two biggest

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