Plain English with Derek Thompson
Longtime Atlantic writer Derek Thompson cuts through the noise surrounding big questions and headlines in his podcast Plain English. He engages guests with clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways on tech, culture, and politics. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday.
Episodes
America’s Crisis of Social Connection, With Adam Grant
Americans spend more time alone than ever, as parties, nights out with friends, and dinner gatherings become less common. Cellphones, social media, TV, and the internet have made it easier than ever to fill our free time without other people.
Research suggests friendship is less about instant chemistry than repeated time together. It takes roughly 50 hours to turn an acquaintance into a casual fr
Russia’s Plague Mystery and the Coming Age of Bioweapons
AI apocalypse, recession fears, sky-high mortgage rates, and now, the plague? Last week, a researcher at a plague institute in Siberia died after developing severe pneumonia, sparking rumors of biowarfare and fears of a new epidemic. How much of the story is fact vs. fiction, and what does it tell us about the growing threat of biological weapons?
Today, Derek is joined by physician and former Wh
The Bitter Rivalries Behind the Race to Build Superintelligence
Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Demis Hassabis are three of the most important figures in AI superintelligence, but each of them have very different ideas about what this technology should become and what it could mean for the future.
Kevin Roose, author of 'The AGI Chronicles,' joins Derek to explain the people behind the AI race: the books and ideas that shaped them, what they want for the future
Why the Midterms Suddenly Look So Bad for Republicans
Last year, Republicans were the heavy favorites to hold the Senate in the following years midterms. Now, however, prediction markets and political forecasters see a very different race. Today, Nate Silver joins Derek to explain what’s behind Donald Trump’s plummeting approval ratings, and how the atmosphere around the midterms has changed so drastically, so quickly.
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Why Things Become Popular, with Chuck Klosterman
What makes a hit a hit? Why do some bands make it while others fade into obscurity? Chuck Klosterman’s new book imagines an alternate history of 20th century music and uses it to explore why some things become popular and just how much culture depends on chance.
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The Single Smartest Case Against AI Doom
With new breakthroughs in math and biology alongside reports of AI agents escaping and hacking systems, suffice it to say AI has had an interesting few weeks. How worried should we be about it all?
Derek talks with researchers Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, authors of the “AI as a Normal Technology” framework, about a simple question: Is AI actually just a normal technology? And if today’s A
The Truth About Mississippi's Education "Miracle"
Education outcomes have been getting worse across much of the world, with reading and math scores falling to historic lows. The U.S. has seen some of the steepest declines in decades.
But, why does Mississippi look so different?
Mississippi education reformer Rachel Canter has been at the forefront of the state’s dramatic improvement in reading and math over the past few decades. Today, Derek i
Why Experts Keep Getting the Economy So Wrong
Expert economists keep making predictions about America’s financial future, and those predictions keep being … wrong. Over the past few years, we’ve heard warnings about a recession, inflation, tariffs, wars, deficits, and an AI bubble, yet the economy continues chugging along. Today, Derek talks with economist Jason Furman about what economists and commentators might be missing and why exactly th
What’s the Point of College?
Trust in American higher education is near a historic low. Tuition has soared, and the payoff for a college degree is now in question as graduates face a weird and challenging job market. Simultaneously, AI is transforming everything around them, from academic fraud to job applications. It all raises the question: What role does college play in the year 2026?
Harvard is tackling this question by
The New Book That Scares Big Tech
In the late 19th century, a railroad boom fueled by easy money, speculative investment, and new technology helped kick off one of the worst financial crises in American history. Sound kind of familiar?
In today’s episode, Derek talks with author Liaquat Ahamed about his new book, '1873,' and the similarities between the railroad mania of the 19th century and today’s AI boom. They discuss America’
AI Slop Is Breaking the Internet. Can We Save It?
So many people seem to hate AI, and it’s not just because it might displace millions of jobs, destroy the world, or deepen distrust in big corporations and government. The reason might actually be simpler than we think: People don't like AI because it is so often used to make things that are fake.
From sham biographies and bogus social media posts to AI-generated journalism, the internet has beco
Why Everything Is Going to Keep Getting More Expensive
For much of the 21st century, the U.S. economy was built around cheap money. Today, though, interest rates are rising, and borrowing is getting much more expensive. At the same time, the federal government is running huge deficits while governments and companies around the world are taking on enormous amounts of debt. Derek talks with returning guest Conor Sen, author of the Housing Frame newslett
Higher Education’s Age of ‘Insufferable Hypocrisy’
It would be an understatement to say that higher education is in crisis, as it faces attacks from both the current presidential administration as well as issues of its own making, like diversity politics. Today, Derek talks with Tyler Austin Harper, author of the viral essay “Confessions of a Token Black Professor,” about his critique of DEI and “wokeism” from the left. They discuss how good inten
It May Be Time to Freak Out About AI
Today, Derek talks with cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos about a recent wave of alarming AI cyberattacks. For decades, one of the biggest fears about AI has been that the machines will start doing things we didn’t ask them to do. This summer, that fear started to feel a little less like science fiction, as some of the world’s most advanced AI models went off script, broke through security barriers
Why Americans Hate Data Centers
It seems a universal fact that AI has become an indispensable part of the American economy. At the same time, opposing AI has also become one of the most influential causes in American politics. Nowhere is that tension more obvious than in the fight over data centers. Across the country, communities are organizing to stop the massive facilities that power artificial intelligence from being built i
Why America Is Switching From Booze to Weed
Two extraordinary trends are happening in the United States simultaneously. One is that alcohol consumption is declining precipitously. The share of Americans who drink has hit a record low since Gallup started tracking it in the 1930s. In 2004, fewer than 30 percent of Americans under 35 said moderate drinking was bad for your health; now it’s 66 percent.
The second trend is that marijuana usa
"The End of Reading Is Here"
There’s no doubt that reading is in decline. But what is that decline doing to the way we think? Derek talks with The Atlantic's Rose Horowitch about why Americans are reading fewer books than ever and struggling more with complex texts and what that means for education, work, politics, and culture. Together, they discuss this phenomenon’s effects on literacy and attention as they examine the surp
What Translator Emily Wilson Thinks of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey'
Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' has brought one of history's oldest stories back into the spotlight. It’s also sparked a fresh debate about what it means to adapt a classic.
Today, Derek is joined by acclaimed classicist and translator Emily Wilson, whose celebrated translation of 'The Odyssey' helped inspire Nolan's film. They explore why Homer's epic has remained the foundation of so much Wes
Why 'The Odyssey' Is the West’s Greatest Story
Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' is finally here, but how exactly has a 3,000-year-old story endured long enough to become the foundation of Western storytelling? Derek is joined by Karen Ní Mheallaigh, chair of Classics at Johns Hopkins University, to explore the mysterious origins of Homer's epic and the timeless themes that have captivated audiences for millennia. They discuss how 'The Odyssey
A Philosopher’s One-Word Theory for Why the World Feels So Weird
Why does it feel like everything is more divided and exhausting than it used to be? Philosopher Agnes Callard has a surprisingly simple answer: the unicontext. It's her term for what happens when billions of people are all forced to inhabit the same global conversation through the internet and social media.
In this episode, Derek talks with Callard about how the unicontext has reshaped the way we
How Israel Is Transforming American Politics
Peter Beinart joins Derek to unpack a major shift inside the Democratic Party. As Democratic Socialist-backed candidates notch a string of surprising primary victories, one issue has emerged as a defining political litmus test: Israel and the war in Gaza. But it's difficult to hold two ideas at once … that the war in Gaza is a moral catastrophe, and that antisemitism is rising in some of the space
MEGAPOD: The Most Overrated American Who Ever Lived
To celebrate America's 250th birthday, Derek is joined for a history draft by three of the country's leading historians: Beverly Gage, H.W. (Bill) Brands, and Richard White. The goal isn't to revisit the familiar stories everyone learned in school. It's to uncover the people, events, and ideas that deserve far more attention.
The historians make their picks for the most underrated president, the
A Surprising Theory About the Future of War
From the bombing campaigns of World War II to the precision strikes of the modern era, for 80 years air power has defined modern warfare. But today, a new technology is changing the battlefield: drones.
From Ukraine to the Middle East, cheap drones are transforming how wars are fought, giving countries and even small groups capabilities that once belonged only to the world's most powerful militar
SpaceX, AI Bubble Fears, and The Age of the Trillion-Dollar, Zero-Profit Company
For decades, investors valued companies based on a familiar formula: Grow revenue, earn profits, and reward shareholders. But a new era may be beginning - one where trillion-dollar companies can lose billions of dollars a year and still command enormous valuations.
SpaceX recently became one of the world's most valuable public companies despite reporting multibillion-dollar losses. Meanwhile, Ope
The Iran War Is Ending. Everybody Lost.
Four months ago, the U.S. and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran. Supporters predicted a decisive victory that would curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and reshape the balance of power in the Middle East. Instead, the war became a costly stalemate. Iran's power continued, the conflict dragged on, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global energy markets, sending economic shockwaves
The Donald Trump Corruption Scandal Draft
What is Donald Trump good at? In his second administration, he promised lower prices, stronger manufacturing, and an end to foreign conflicts. Instead, inflation has risen, blue-collar job growth has slowed, and the U.S. finds itself involved in another war in the Middle East. But there is one area where Trump has undeniably succeeded: increasing the wealth of the Trump family.
Even as his approv
The Most Exciting Month of Medical Breakthroughs in Years
For years, scientists worried that medical progress was slowing down. Drug development became more expensive than ever with more complex clinical trials, and even then, many new treatments offered only modest gains. But over the past month, a series of breakthroughs has raised hopes that medicine may be entering a new era.
Researchers unveiled a massively promising new therapy for pancreatic canc
Old-igarchy: How the Elderly Conquered American Power
Prior to the 1930s, old age in America often meant poverty. But thanks to Social Security, Medicare, medical advances, and rising asset prices, over the past 90 years, older Americans have become one of the wealthiest and most politically powerful groups in the country.
In his new book, 'Gerontocracy in America,' Samuel Moyn argues that this success has created a dangerous imbalance. He says Amer
How Modern Fatherhood Is Changing Men’s Brains
Humans are unusual dads. Across the animal kingdom, dads are often absent from child-rearing altogether. But among humans, fatherhood takes many forms, and in the last half century, it has changed dramatically. College-educated American fathers now spend nearly four times as much time caring for their children as they did in the 1960s.
And according to new research, this new type of fatherhood do
What 400,000 Essays Reveal About AI and Creativity
For generations, we've defined creativity by its products: the novel, the painting, the song, the breakthrough idea. We look at the work, and from the work we see the creator as “creative.” But AI is getting remarkably good at producing creative work. In some cases, experts now prefer AI-generated writing to work created by humans and can't reliably tell the difference between the two. In fact, a
The Surprising Truth About America's Friendship Crisis
Modern loneliness is often treated as a simple problem: People are simply spending more time alone. But what if that's not the whole story? Over the last several years, Derek has written about workism, the rise of a culture that puts work at the center of our lives, and the "antisocial century," in which technology has made it easier than ever to avoid spending time with other people. The result i
Why the NBA Feels Broken—and Why the League Can’t Fix It
The NBA’s vibes have been unusually awful recently. There has been widespread hand-wringing about the homogenization of modern offenses and the league’s notoriously weak regular-season TV ratings. A tanking crisis saw about a third of teams purposely try to lose games in a race to secure the top pick in the 2026 draft. A barrage of gambling scandals took out a head coach and several players. And t
The Men Who Think Toxic Feminism Destroyed America
Over the past century, attitudes about gender roles have become one of the clearest dividing lines in the country. Many Republicans, both men and women, say men are getting a raw deal in modern America. Many Democrats see that claim as completely off base.
So where does that split come from, and why has it become so central to politics?
Journalist Helen Lewis calls this emerging worldview “mascu
Does Anybody Know How to Solve an American Debt Crisis?
On his 40th birthday, Derek Thompson takes a step back and looks at how his thinking on the national debt has changed. Back when he first covered fiscal policy, concern about government borrowing was mostly a conservative position, with many liberals arguing it was overblown.
That’s starting to shift.
The U.S. now spends far more than it brings in, and the gap is still growing. For the first tim
The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Think
Fertility rates are collapsing around the world. In rich countries and poor ones, in secular societies and religious ones, people are having fewer children than ever before. Some explanations focus on economic factors like housing costs, childcare costs, and student debt. Others point to a harder-to-measure, broader sense of uncertainty about the future.
At the same time, economist Jesús Fernánde
The Case Against the AI Job Apocalypse
For the past few years, Silicon Valley executives and economists have warned that artificial intelligence could wipe out millions of jobs. Some companies have even blamed AI for layoffs. But what if the AI job apocalypse isn’t actually happening?
Today, Derek talks to economist Alex Imas about the growing gap between the rhetoric around AI-related job loss and the facts. Despite widespread fears
Why American Happiness Just Fell Off a Cliff
America is richer than ever. Unemployment is low. Wages are high. According to traditional metrics, the economy looks strong. So why are Americans feeling so bad?
Today, Derek talks with bestselling author Morgan Housel and journalist David Wallace-Wells about what Derek calls the “Tragic Twenties”: the strange and sudden collapse in American happiness that began during COVID and never really sto
One of the Deadliest Cancers in America May Have Met Its Match
Hard to detect and almost impossible to treat, pancreatic cancer has long been one of medicine’s most ruthless killers. For decades, it’s been the cancer that science couldn’t crack. But that might be starting to change.
Recently, cancer researchers have announced a series of breakthroughs that, taken together, sound almost too good to be true: a drug that targets the “undruggable” gene behind mo
Why Too Much Freedom Is the Enemy of Success
Freedom is one of the few ideas everyone agrees on. Surely more choice and autonomy is a good thing, right? But what if our endless pursuit of freedom is actually making us more anxious, less creative, and holding us back from reaching our full potential?Today, Derek Thompson talks with bestselling author David Epstein about the surprising upside of constraints. After arguing for breadth in 'Range
Why the Iran War Is Tearing MAGA Apart
For nearly a decade, critics have predicted that this would be the moment Trumpism finally fractures - January 6, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, endless internal feuds, even Trump’s online beef with Pope Leo. And yet the movement endures. Derek is joined by Ross Douthat to unpack the contradictory coalition Trump has built: Christian conservatives who overlook increasingly pagan behavior, anti-es
The Triple Crisis That’s Breaking Hollywood—and Changing the Future of Movies
Hollywood is in the middle of a triple crisis. You can measure it in tickets, jobs, and ideas.
Start with tickets. The best year for the movie business this century was 2002, when Americans and Canadians bought 1.6 billion tickets, or about five per person. Last year, Americans bought half that number. Eighty years ago, the typical American went to the movies twice a month. Now they go about twic
The Most Powerful and Dangerous AI Model Yet
Two weeks ago, Anthropic announced an AI model so capable and so dangerous that it decided not to release it to the public.
The model, codenamed Mythos, could autonomously infiltrate computer systems around the world, exploit security vulnerabilities, conceal its own reasoning, and fabricate false explanations for what it was doing. Anthropic instead shared it with a small consortium of companies
The Whole World Is Fighting About Energy
The two biggest stories in the world right now—the war involving Iran and the rise of artificial intelligence—are, at their core, the same story: energy. The Iran conflict has become a war of competing energy blockades, with Iran squeezing American allies and America squeezing Iran. And AI is its own energy arms race, with tech companies scrambling not just for customers but for supply—chips, elec
‘The Job Market for Young People Is Brutal’
Something weird is going on with the elevated unemployment rate for young people today, but no one knows what exactly it is.
For the last year, as the unemployment rate for recent college graduates has crept up ominously, one of the questions I’ve reported more deeply than any other is: Is AI replacing young workers’ jobs? To make a long story short: I initially thought yes, then some economists
America's Religious Revival Is a Mirage
Perhaps you’ve heard the news: The U.S. is experiencing a religious revival, and it’s concentrated among young people, who are flocking back to the fold. The Economist announced that “the West has stopped losing its religion.” The Washington Post declared that “Catholicism is drawing in Gen Z men.”
This is shocking news. Since the 1990s, the share of Americans who say they have no religious affil
Is China the Winner of the Iran War?
The 1970s oil crisis changed the world in ways that many people forget today, from the transformation of American politics to the rise of the Japanese electronics industry. The Iran war of 2026 could have similarly global consequences, from the rise of China to changes in the future of war to the acceleration of the global renewables transition. Today, Australian investor and writer Alex Turnbull
Why We're Addicted to ‘Sh*tty Flow’
One of the themes we’ve circled in the last few weeks is the way that the modern world can hijack our values. This principle was recently articulated by the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen in an episode called "How Metrics Make Us Miserable." Thi told us that he became a philosopher to answer the biggest questions in life but discovered, in grad school, that everybody around him mostly cared about numbe
Anthropic Thinks AI Might Destroy the Economy. It's Building It Anyway.
Today’s podcast is an interview with one of the cofounders of the AI company Anthropic, Jack Clark. One thing I’m trying to do with the subject of artificial intelligence is offer a balance of perspectives on an issue that tends to receive mostly one-sided coverage. Some people are certain that AI is a bubble; some are certain it is not. Some are certain that AI will destroy millions of jobs; some
America's Tax System Is Broken
If you're a typical worker with a salary, you have almost no control over how much tax you owe. But if you own a company worth billions of dollars, the income tax is, in the words of my guest today, "largely optional." Countries around the world struggle to get billionaires to pay a higher tax rate than middle-income families.
Gabriel Zucman is one of the world's leading experts on tax inequality
The Casino-ification of America
In 2017, Americans legally bet about $5 billion on sports. Last year, that number rose to $160 billion. Gambling hasn’t just taken over sports. It’s invaded culture, politics, and even international warfare. Bettors have already made millions of dollars wagering on the precise dates and locations of bombing campaigns in Iran, and journalists have been hounded for reporting on events that can lose
"Yes, AI Is a Bubble. There Is No Question."
The AI buildout continues to break records, as the hyperscalers pour hundreds of billions of dollars into chips and data centers, even as investors punish their stock prices. But the revenue side of the ledger is showing signs of takeoff. In the last few weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic have added billions of dollars of cash, on their way to becoming two of the fastest growing companies in history.
La
The Pill That Works Even When You Know It's Fake
Why do placebo effects work, even when patients know that they're taking a sugar pill? How do "nocebo" effects work, and why do some people hold onto beliefs that they suspect might bring them pain and suffering? What do the major world religions have to teach secular athletes and workers about the power of belief, and what does the psychological research tell us about the benefits of prayer, even
The Economic Crisis of the Iran War Goes Far Beyond Oil
The Strait of Hormuz is the tiny bottleneck that could destabilize the global economy. As a critical passageway for crude oil, natural gas, and critical inputs for fertilizer, computer chips, and plastic, this small stretch of water is a tiny chokepoint for global trade, and the war in Iran has all but shut it down. What does this mean for the U.S. economy and other countries around the world? Ge
"American Democracy as We Know It Might Not Survive This Technology"
What happens when the two biggest stories in the world—the Trump White House and the development of advanced artificial intelligence—collide? Well, nothing good, apparently. When contract negotiations broke down between the Pentagon and Anthropic, a leading AI lab, the Department of War took the extraordinary step of labeling Anthropic a "supply chain risk," a designation typically reserved for Ch
Trump Is Doubling Down on Iran. How Should Democrats Respond?
Donald Trump’s polling has continued to edge down week after week. And yet approval of the Democratic Party is still stuck near its all-time low, according to Gallup and other surveys.
One interpretation of these polls is that the deep unpopularity of the party is an albatross around the neck of Democratic candidates. But there’s another interpretation that I think is more interesting—and perhaps
The Four Ways That the Iran War Could End
Dramatic regime change. Moderate regime evolution. A calamitous regional conflict. Or … no change at all. Today we consider how the Iran conflict might evolve following the killing of Supreme Leader Khamenei with Karim Sadjadpour, an American policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThomp
How Metrics Make Us Miserable
The modern world swims in numbers: work metrics, fitness metrics, health metrics, social media metrics. Sometimes the quantification of life can make things better. But very often, I think they force us to play the games we can measure rather than the games we value. The quantified life has become a modern religion: a system of values that takes us over and keeps us from living the life we want.
The Future of GLP-1 Drugs and AI Medicine, With Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks
The GLP-1 drug revolution has taken the medicine world by storm. I’ve done several episodes on the science of GLP-1s. But we’ve never done an episode like this before, where we talk to one of the most important people in charge of guiding the GLP-1 drug revolution.
Our guest is Dave Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. First we talk about what makes the GL
The Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Tariffs. Now What?
Donald Trump suffered a huge blow Friday when the Supreme Court struck down the centerpiece of his economic policy: his vast system of tariffs. So, what happens now? Harvard’s Jason Furman explains the implications for the U.S. economy, consumers, global trade, and Trump’s strategy of centralizing power in the executive branch and using trade policy as a means of wringing concessions out of other
The Media Theory That Explains “99% of Everything”
In the mid-20th century, a group of media and communications scholars proposed that the shift from spoken to written language—from orality to literacy—transformed our politics, our media, our social relations, and even our sense of consciousness. Today we’re undergoing another shift: from a literate culture to something stranger—a post-literate world awash in social media and digital communication
"America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs"
In his epic cover story for The Atlantic this month, staff writer Josh Tyrangiel spoke to dozens of economists, workers, tech CEOs, and AI experts about the danger that artificial intelligence might pose to the labor force. Is AI developing the capacity to automate and even replace millions of white-collar jobs, as many technologists and some economists predict? Or is this a normal technology that
The Meltdown at The Washington Post—and the Crisis in News
Hello! I’m back from paternity leave just in time to talk about the biggest media earthquake of the year (so far): the Washington Post meltdown. For decades, the Post was a journalistic gem with superior coverage of politics. Last week, billionaire owner Jeff Bezos decided to gut roughly a third of the staff after the paper lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the last few years.
Today’s guest
Plain English BEST OF: What’s the Matter With America’s Food?
Throughout December and January, we’ve been re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond, and today's episode marks the end of our "best of" series for this year! This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!“What’s the Matter With America’s Food?” originally aired September 26
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst” originally aired September 23, 2025.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future
Plain English BEST OF: The Healthiest "Super-Agers" Have One Thing in Common, According to a 25-Year Study
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“The Healthiest "Super-Agers" Have One Thing in Common, According to a 25-Year Study” originally aired August 27th, 2025.
If you have
Plain English BEST OF: The Modern World Is Changing America’s Personality for the Worse
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“The Modern World Is Changing America’s Personality for the Worse” originally aired August 13, 2025.
If you have questions, observati
Plain English BEST OF: If GLP-1 Drugs Are Good for Everything, Should We All Be on Them?
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“If GLP-1 Drugs Are Good for Everything, Should We All Be on Them?” originally aired September 16, 2025.If you have questions, observa
Plain English BEST OF: What Experts Really Think About Smartphones and Mental Health
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“What Experts Really Think About Smartphones and Mental Health” originally aired June 4th, 2025.
If you have questions, observations,
Plain English BEST OF: How Gen Z Sees the World
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“How Gen Z Sees the World” originally aired March 12, 2025.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email
Plain English BEST OF: A Grand, Unified Theory of Why Americans Are So Unhealthy
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“A Grand, Unified Theory of Why Americans Are So Unhealthy” originally aired June 18, 2025.
If you have questions, observations, or i
Plain English BEST OF: The Antisocial Century
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“The Antisocial Century” originally aired January 10, 2025.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email
Plain English BEST OF: How to Be Happy and the Science of Cognitive Time Travel
Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!
“How to Be Happy and the Science of Cognitive Time Travel” originally aired August 9, 2024.
If you have questions, observations, or i
A Grand Unified Theory of Cultural Stagnation
One of my favorite theories about the modern world is the idea that culture is "stuck." Whether the decline of ornamentation in modern architecture, or the fact that every corporate logo looks the same now, or the fact that Gen Z's favorite television was all made in the 1990s and 2000s, or the sequel fetish in Hollywood, or the theory that old music is eating new music on Spotify, the evidence of
The American Math Crisis
The University of California San Diego is one of the best public colleges in America. So it was fairly shocking when the school released a report on the steep decline in academic preparedness of its freshman. The number of incoming students in need of remedial math has surged in the past few years. These students did not fail high school math. Many of them got straight A's. Other colleges have see
How Superintelligent AI Could Upend Work and Politics
Many AI experts believe that some time in the next few years, we will build something close to artificial general intelligence (AGI), a system that can do nearly all valuable cognitive work as well as or better than humans. What happens to jobs, wages, prices, and politics in that world?
To explore that question, Derek is joined by Anton Korinek, an economist at the University of Virginia and one
Everything Is Television
Sometimes, the perfect guest to discuss your own writing is ... you. On this special crossover episode, I am interviewed by Ben Smith and Max Tani of Semafor's Mixed Signals podcast about my recent essay, "Everything Is Television." During our conversation, which you can also find on the Mixed Signals feed, we discuss TV, politics, the definition of charisma, and much more.
If you have questions,
Are Young People Screwed?
Youth unemployment is rising. Hiring is freezing up. The housing market is a mess. How did things get so bad for young people in the economy? And are things as bad as they seem? Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson of the Animal Spirits podcast join the show to discuss.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.
Host: Derek Thompson
Guest
The Democrats Have a New Winning Formula
This week was a straight flush for Democrats. Zohran Mamdani completed his heroic arc to become mayor of the world’s most important city. Democrats ran up huge margins in the big governor races in Virginia and New Jersey, where Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, respectively, won by double digits. What unified the three victories was the Democratic candidate’s ability to turn the affordability
How the American Revolution Changed the World, With Ken Burns
Ken Burns—the award-winning filmmaker whose documentary films and television series on American history include 'The Civil War' (1990), 'Baseball' (1994), 'Jazz' (2001), and 'Country Music' (2019)—joins the show to talk about the American Revolution and the art of storytelling.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.
Host: Derek Th
The Problem With Sports Gambling
Last week, an FBI investigation into gambling led to the arrest of several prominent basketball stars, raising questions about the state of legalized sports betting, which has enriched professional sports and sports media.
The problems with sports gambling extend far beyond the integrity of the game. A 2024 working paper from economists at UCLA, Harvard, and USC found that states that legalized s
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The Bread and Banter Podcast
The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament
Busted Open
Deadline: White House
Crickets Corner
History of the Earthquake and Fire in San Francisco
Fox news
K-Drama Obsessed Mamas | Beyond “Just One More Episode!”
True Crime Classics
