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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

60:07

Health Fads and Fictions: VO2 Max, Supplement Mania,...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/19

Today's show is a critical look at some of the most popular health fads of the moment, with return guests Steve Magness and Brad Stulberg, from the Growth Equation and the ‘FAREWELL’ podcast. We’re talking VO2 max, the benefits of sunlight, so-called morning and nighttime “stacks” (complex multivitamin routines for optimizing your energy and sleep), and Silicon Valley dreams of immortality. Plus, a rant from Derek about the supplement mania of independent media.If you have questions, observations,

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47:27

U.S. Economy FAQ: Skyrocketing Insurance Prices,...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/16

Jason Furman, a professor of economics at Harvard, returns to the show to discuss the biggest economic questions of the moment, including:- Why have home and auto insurance prices skyrocketed? - Why did inflation stop falling in 2024? - How did economic experts get their disinflation forecasts so wrong? - What sticky-high prices are preventing further disinflation? - Are interest rates going to be higher for years? If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us

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50:45

If the 2024 Election Is So Important, Why Does It...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/12

"This presidential election is not very interesting, but it is important," the political commentator Josh Barro wrote in his newsletter, 'Very Serious.' Americans certainly seem to agree with the first part. Engagement with political news has been in the dumps, and many Americans seem to be tuning out the Biden-Trump II rematch. But the conundrum of this election is that it is both numbingly overfamiliar for many voters and also profoundly important for America and the world. The differences between

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53:31

A Psychologist Explains Four Reasons the Internet...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/09

Jay Van Bavel is a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University. His lab has published papers on how the internet became a fun-house mirror of extreme political opinions, why the news media has a strong negativity bias, why certain emotions go viral online, why tribalism is inflamed by online activity, and how the internet can make us seem like the worst versions of ourselves. At the same time, Van Bavel emphasizes that many of the group psychology dynamics that can make social

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43:29

Why School Absences Have "Exploded" Across America

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/05

The other day, I read a statistic about my hometown of Washington D.C. that knocked my socks off. In D.C. high schools, 60 percent of students were chronically absent in the last school year. That means they missed one day of school every two weeks. Among ninth graders, it’s even worse: One-third of D.C. freshmen were absent for the equivalent of six weeks of school.The New York Times reported that, nationwide, one quarter of public school students are now chronically absent. That figure has

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51:52

What Evolutionary Biology Can Teach Us About Diet,...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/04/02

What can the science of ancient humans and the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers teach us about how to be healthy today? Harvard evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman joins the show to talk about his provocative “mismatch theory,” why humans are dysevolved for the modern world, and why exercise is the ultimate miracle drug. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Daniel Lieberman Producer: Devon Renaldo Links: Exercised, by Dan Lieberman https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082H3ZH44?ref=KC_GS_GB_US The Story of the Human

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50:11

America's Biggest Car Companies Are in Trouble

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/03/26

Today, the media vibes around electric vehicles are all bad. But if you lift up and take in the big picture, electric vehicles and hybrids are taking over the market. Gas-powered cars are as much in structural decline right now as the cable bundle in TV.Today’s guest, Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of the climate media company Heatmap, says that while EV sales are much stronger than the media doom-and-gloom narratives, something else is happening that deserves our attention

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33:35

Should the U.S. Ban TikTok?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/03/19

Derek shares his thoughts on the question of the moment in tech and tech politics.If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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51:19

How Hollywood’s Hit Formula Flopped—and What Could...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/03/12

Today, we’re talking about movies, the philosophy of hits in Hollywood, and why we might be at a fascinating inflection point in how the entertainment industry thinks about popularity and prestige.We start by thinking about the big Oscar win for 'Oppenheimer' in the historical context. For much of the past 10 or 15 years, popularity and prestige have come apart in Hollywood. The biggest movies have almost exclusively been comic book franchises, sequels, and adaptations, while the Best Picture

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29:55

What Many Economists (and I) Got Wrong About This...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/03/05

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2024 was to do more episodes with people who think I'm wrong about something. For example, I've done several episodes about how the U.S. economy is doing much better than most Americans think. Today’s guest says my analysis (and that of many economists and economic commentators) is missing something big. Official inflation measures do a poor job of capturing the effect of higher interest rates. When a home goes from $200k to $220k, that’s a 10 percent increase in

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35:54

Why the "Need for Chaos" Is Eating American Politics

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/03/01

Today’s episode is about one of the most interesting pieces of research I’ve read in the past year. It's an idea called "need for chaos," and the truth is that I literally cannot stop thinking about it as I follow American culture, politics, and media. Very briefly, it is the observation that many Americans today embrace conspiracy theories and nihilistic burn-it-all-down messages, not because they are partisans of the left or right, but rather because they've become hopelessly cynical (sometimes

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70:07

Why Americans Stopped Hanging Out—and Why It Matters

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/02/27

Today’s episode is about the extraordinary decline in face-to-face socializing in America—and the real stakes of the country’s hanging-out crisis.From 2003 to 2022, American adults reduced their average hours of face-to-face socializing by about 30 percent. For unmarried Americans, the decline was even bigger—more than 35 percent. For teenagers, it was more than 45 percent. Eric Klinenberg is a sociologist and the director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He is the

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38:49

"We’re Seeing a Fundamental Reorganization of Work in...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/02/23

Today’s episode is about arguably the most important economic statistic out there: real (or inflation-adjusted) wage growth. For much of the last few years, many people's real wages have declined. But for the last few quarters, real wages have been growing. In fact, they've grown so much for the poorest workers that several key measures of inequality are falling, and the Black-white wage gap is shrinking. But many Americans still don't seem to buy the idea that things are getting better. Today's

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40:45

How to Have the Hardest Conversations—in Marriage,...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/02/20

Life is a series of conversations. Our relationships, friendships, marriages, breakups, makeups, hirings, promotions, and firings are mostly the story of two people talking. And many of these conversations are hard or uncomfortable. Sometimes we spend years refusing to be honest with the people we know the best because we’re afraid of telling them how we feel. What if we all had such confidence in our own powers of communication and understanding that we didn’t fear these hard conversations at all

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54:01

Would You Buy a Drug to Extend Your Dog’s Life?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/02/16

Today’s episode is about the science of slowing down the aging process … and why one biotech company has found some success with dogs. Last November, the New York Times reported that a company called Loyal had reached a milestone in the development of safe life extension drugs for our pets. This drug, which is called LOY-1, works to slow the aging process in large breeds. But Loyal's work holds major promise for helping all dogs live longer. It could even crack open some of the mysteries of

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46:57

The Dark Side of the Internet's Obsession With Anxiety

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/02/13

We’ve done several shows on America’s anxiety crisis. This one asks several questions that might get me in trouble. Have we overcorrected from an era when mental health was shameful to talk about to an era where people talk about anxiety so much online that it’s worsening our mental health crisis? Is the very design of algorithmic media engineered to increase rumination and mental distress? Is there a dark side to all this media about trauma, anxiety, and depression? (Yes, the irony of us asking

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59:02

Can Solar Power and Battery Tech Save the World From...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/02/09

You could make the argument that last year was the worst year in human history for climate change. The Earth experienced its hottest day on record over and over and over again. Air surface temperature anomalies set a record in September. Ocean heat set a record too. The number of wildfires in Canada? Another record high. But you don’t have to squint too hard to see the good news. U.S. and European carbon emissions have actually declined this century. The rate of global deforestation is going down

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56:25

The Gender War Within Gen Z

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/02/06

Something mysterious is happening in the politics of young men and women. Gen Z women—those in their 20s and younger—have become sharply more liberal in the past few years, while young men are shifting subtly to the right. This gender schism isn't just happening in the U.S. It's happening in Europe, northern Africa, and eastern Asia. Why? And what are the implications of sharply diverging politics between men and women in our lifetime? Alice Evans, a visiting fellow at Stanford University and a

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59:15

What’s the Best Diet for Planet Earth?

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/01/30

If you love food and also consider yourself a good person, you probably care about where your food comes from, how it’s grown, and whether it's part of a system that is destroying the planet. After all, if you study just about any problem related to the environment, sooner or later your study will make solid contact with our food systems. Our food is responsible for 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But not everybody who claims to care about the environment knows what they’re

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38:16

Why Did Stanley Water Bottles Suddenly Become a...

Plain English with Derek Thompson ·

2024/01/26

It's just a steel tumbler with a straw and side handle. But the Stanley cup is a social media phenomenon and an incredible business success story. How did this thing come out of nowhere? What lessons can we learn about its success? And, more broadly, what do cultural phenomena like this say about marketing trends, social media tastes, and the role of randomness in our life and economy? Joining the show are Amanda Mull, staff writer at The Atlantic, and Brian Klaas, author of the new book ‘Fluke:

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338 results

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