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PODCAST

Let"s Know Things

A calm, non-shouty, non-polemical, weekly news analysis podcast for folks of all stripes and leanings who want to know more about what"s happening in the world around them. Hosted by analytic journalist Colin Wright since 2016. letsknowthings.substack.com

news news commentary

All Episodes

17:19

Planetary Defense

Let"s Know Things ·

2025/02/11

This week we talk about DART, extinction events, and asteroid 2024 YR4.We also discuss Bruce Willis, Theia, and the Moon.Recommended Book: Exadelic by Jon EvansTranscriptIn the 1998 action flick Armageddon, an asteroid the size of Texas is nudged into a collision course with earth by a comet, and NASA only notices it 18 days before impact.The agency recruits a veteran oil driller, played by Bruce Willis, to fly out to the asteroid and drill a hole in it, and to detonate a nuke in that hole, which

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23:17

US Protectionism

Let"s Know Things ·

2025/02/04

This week we talk about tax hikes, free trade, and the madman theory of negotiation.We also discuss EVs, Canada, and economic competition.Recommended Book: How Sanctions Work by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali VaezTranscriptOn January 20, 2025, the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, was inaugurated as the 47th President of the US following a hard-fought election that he ultimately won by only a little bit in terms of the popular vote—49.8% to 48.3%—but he

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21:52

DeepSeek AI

Let"s Know Things ·

2025/01/28

This week we talk about OpenAI, the Stargate Project, and Meta.We also discuss o1, AGI, and efficiency.Recommended Book: The Shortest History of Economics by Andrew LeighTranscriptOne of the bigger news items these past few weeks, in terms of the numbers involved, at least, was an announcement by US tech company OpenAI that it will be starting a new company called the Stargate Project, which will boast a total $500 billion-worth of investment, the first $100 billion of which will be deployed

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23:06

Gaza Peace Deal

Let"s Know Things ·

2025/01/21

This week we talk about October 7, the Gaza ceasefire plan, and Netanyahu.We also discuss Hamas, Qatar, and the new US administration.Recommended Book: Witch King by Martha WellsTranscriptOn October 7, 2023, the militant group Hamas launched a sneak attack from the Israeli occupied Gaza Strip against Israel itself, killing about 1,200 people and taking just over 250 hostages.Israeli forces were caught stunningly unaware by this, but shortly thereafter, Israel launched a counterattack into Gaza,

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20:38

LA Wildfires

Let"s Know Things ·

2025/01/14

This week we talk about the Pacific Palisades, Hurricane Katrina, and reinsurance.We also discuss developed property values, arsons, and the cost of disasters.Recommended Book: The Data Detective by Tim HarfordTranscriptNatural disasters, whether we’re talking about storms or fires or earthquakes, or some combination of those and other often related issues, like flooding, can be incredibly expensive.This has always been true, both in terms of lives and material damage caused, but also in terms of

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23:28

Lone Wolves

Let"s Know Things ·

2025/01/07

This week we talk about Luigi Mangione, VAW attacks, and mass shootings.We also discuss stochastic violence, terrorism, and Cybertrucks.Recommended Book: Some Desperate Glory by Emily TeshTranscriptThe terms “Lone Wolf,” “Lone Wolf Actor,” and “Lone Wolf Killer” are interchangeably used in many countries—though most commonly and prominently in the United States—to describe someone who commits a mass-killing or other mass-casualty event, but who is not part of an organization like a terrorist group

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21:09

South Korean Tumult

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/12/17

This week we talk about Yoon, martial law, and impeachment.We also discuss the PPP, chaebol, and dictators.Recommended Book: Starter Villain by John ScalziTranscriptIn the wake of WWII, Korea—which was previously held by the recently-defeated Japanese Empire—was split into two countries, the north backed by the Soviet Union and the south backed by the United States and its allies.North Korea had a guerrilla fighter and staunch Soviet-style communism activist, Kim Il Sung, placed at the head of its

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19:54

Assad Overthrown

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/12/10

This week we talk about coups, the Arab Spring, and Bashar al-Assad.We also discuss militias, Al Qaeda, and Iran.Recommended Book: The Algebraist by Iain M. BanksTranscriptIn the early 2010s, a series of uprisings against unpopular, authoritarian governments spread across the Middle East—a wave of action that became known as the Arab Spring.Tunisia was where it started, a man setting himself on fire in protest against the nation’s brazenly corrupt government and all that he’d suffered under that

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21:27

COP 29

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/12/03

This week we talk about emissions, carbon credits, and climate reparations.We also discuss Baku, COP meetings, and petrostates.Recommended Book: The Struggle for Taiwan by Sulmaan Wasif KhanTranscriptIn 2016, a group of 195 nations signed the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, usually just called the Paris Agreement, which was negotiated the previous year, and which, among other things, formalized the idea of attempting to keep the global average

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20:35

Bluesky

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/11/26

This week we talk about Mastodon, Threads, and twttr.We also discuss social platform clones, user exoduses, and communication fractures.Recommended Book: Invisible Rulers by Renée DiRestaTranscriptIn 2006, a prototype of a software project called twttr, t-w-t-t-r, was developed by Jack Dorsey and Florian Weber, that name used because the full twitter.com domain, the word with all its vowels, was already owned and in use, and because the vowel-less version of the word only had five letters, which

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21:38

AI Scaling Walls

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/11/19

This week we talk about neural networks, AGI, and scaling laws.We also discuss training data, user acquisition, and energy consumption.Recommended Book: Through the Grapevine by Taylor N. Carlson TranscriptDepending on whose numbers you use, and which industries and types of investment those numbers include, the global AI industry—that is, the industry focused on producing and selling artificial intelligence-based tools—is valued at something like a fifth to a quarter of a trillion dollars, as of

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20:37

Online Tutoring

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/11/12

This week we talk about the Double Reduction Policy, gaokao, and Chegg.We also discuss GPTs, cheating, and disruption.Recommended Book: Autocracy, Inc by Anne ApplebaumTranscriptIn July of 2021, the Chinese government implemented a new education rule called the Double Reduction Policy.This Policy was meant, among other things, to reduce the stress students in the country felt related to their educational attainment, while also imposing sterner regulations on businesses operating in education and

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19:29

British Coal

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/11/05

This week we talk about peat, pig iron, and sulphuric acid.We also discuss the Industrial Revolution, natural gas, and offshore wind turbines.Recommended Book: Deep Utopia by Nick BostromTranscriptThis episode is going live on election day here in the US; and this has been quite a remarkable election season for many reasons, among them that there’s been just a boggling amount of money spent on advertisements and events and other efforts to claim attention and mindshare, and in part because the

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17:17

Politics and Podcasts

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/10/29

This week we talk about Joe Rogan, Call Her Daddy, and podcast monetization.We also discuss Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and double-haters.Recommended Book: You Sexy Thing by Cat RamboTranscriptIn the world of US politics, double-haters are potential voters who really just don’t like the candidate from either major political party, and thus they decide whether and how to vote based on who they dislike least—or in some cases who they would like to hurt, the most.This isn’t a uniquely American

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19:57

Political Betting Markets

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/10/22

This week we talk about DJT, Polymarket, and Kalshi.We also discuss sports betting, gambling, and PredictIt.Recommended Book: Build, Baby, Build by Bryan CaplanTranscriptTrump Media & Technology Group, which trades under the stock ticker DJT, has seen some wild swings since it became a publicly tradable business entity in late-March of 2024.The Florida-based holding company for Truth Social, a Twitter-clone that was released in early 2022 following former President Donald Trump’s ousting from

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19:48

Mixed Reality Eyewear

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/10/15

This week we talk about the HoloLens, the Apple Vision Pro, and the Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses.We also discuss augmented reality, virtual reality, and Orion.Recommended Book: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray NaylerTranscriptOriginally released as a development device in 2016—so aimed at folks who make software, primarily, not at the general public—the HoloLens, made by Microsoft, was a fairly innovative device that looked like virtual reality headgear, but which allowed folks to interact with

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19:22

Remigration

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/10/08

This week we talk about the AfD, the Freedom Party, and the Identitarian Movement.We also discuss Martin Sellner, Herbert Kickl, and racialism.Recommended Book: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane BradleyTranscriptRacialism, sometimes called scientific racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that groups of human beings are inherently, biologically different from each other based on different evolutionary paths that have carved up the species into different races that are distinct enough from each other

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17:45

Soft Landing

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/10/01

This week we talk about the Fed, interest rates, and inflation.We also discuss cooling economies, the Federal Funds Rate, and the CPI.Recommended Book: Dirty Laundry by Richard Pink and Roxanne EmeryTranscriptI’ve done a few episodes on this general topic over the past several years, so I won’t get super in-depth about many of the specifics, but the US Federal Reserve has a dual-mandate to keep prices stable and to maximize employment in the country—though that core responsibility has been expanded

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20:35

Hand of God Operations

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/09/24

This week we talk about interdiction, the NSA, and Mossad.We also discuss exploding pagers, targeted strikes, and paramilitary organizations.Recommended Book: Uncertainty in Games by Greg CostikyanTranscriptIn the world of technology, and especially computers—or anything with microchips and thus, some computing capabilities—a “backdoor” is a bit of code or piece of hardware that allows someone (or a group of someones) to get inside that computer or compute-capable device after it’s been delivered

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17:11

Extended-Range EVs

Let"s Know Things ·

2024/09/17

This week we talk about EREVs, Ford’s CEO, and Hertz.We also discuss the used EV market, plug-in hybrids, and the Tesla Model 3.Recommended Book: Not the End of the World by Hannah RitchieTranscriptIn late-2021, car rental giant Hertz announced that it would purchase 100,000 Tesla Model 3 sedans for its fleet, giving customers the opportunity to drive what had recently, in 2019, become the best-selling plug-in electric car in US history, beating out the Chevy Volt, and then in 2020 become the

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495 results

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