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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Are conspiracy theories more popular than ever? Are Americans more conspiratorial than ever? Are conservatives more conspiratorial than liberals? Joseph Uscinski is a political scientist at the University of Miami and one of the nation's preeminent experts on the psychology of conspiratorial thinking and the history of conspiracy theories in America. He has some counterintuitive and surprising answers to these questions. Today, he and Derek discuss—and debate—the psychology and politics of modern conspiratorial thinking.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.
Host...
Episode 53 • 6 September 2024 • 1h, 20m and 7s
Exercise is a conundrum. On the one hand, physical activity is clearly one of the best interventions for preventing physical disease and mental suffering. On the other hand, scientists don't really understand how it works inside the body or what exactly running, jumping, lifting, and squatting do to our tissues and organs. That's finally changing. Euan Ashley, a professor of genomics and cardiovascular medicine and the chair of the Stanford Department of Medicine, is a member of a new research consortium that studies rats and humans to understand the molecular changes induced by exercise. Today we talk about the...
Episode 52 • 30 August 2024 • 59m and 57s
Derek offers a short but sweet review of the Democratic National Convention, the science of post-convention bounces, and the reality of the 2024 polling: It's still a toss-up.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.
Host: Derek Thompson
Producer: Devon Baroldi
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Episode 51 • 23 August 2024 • 11m and 48s
Today's episode is about how we change our minds—and what political science tells us about the best ways to change the minds of voters. Our guest is David Broockman, a political scientist at the University of California Berkeley, and the coauthor, with Josh Kalla, of a new essay in Slow Boring on Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and the most persuasive arguments and messages to decide this election. Today, David and I talk about the four biggest myths of political persuasion—and in the process, David will attempt to do something that I’m not entirely sure is possible: He’ll...
Episode 50 • 16 August 2024 • 46m and 23s
Laurie Santos is a superstar in the crowded field of happiness research. She is a cognitive scientist at Yale University whose course on the psychology of happiness was the most popular class in the school's history. She is the host of the immensely popular ‘Happiness Lab’ podcast. Today, she and Derek talk about her favorite lessons from modern happiness research, lessons on striving and anxiety from existential philosophy, our relationship to time, the science of cognitive time travel, temporal mind tricks to reduce anxiety like "psychological distancing," and more.
If you have questions, observations, or ideas for futu...
Episode 49 • 9 August 2024 • 1h, 7m and 19s
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 Sen
Producer: Devon Baroldi
L...
Episode 48 • 5 August 2024 • 28m and 36s
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, how spammers do that thing where they make a call look like it’s coming from a loca...
Episode 47 • 2 August 2024 • 54m and 46s
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...
Episode 46 • 26 July 2024 • 55m and 6s
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 housing production, and whether Trump's signature economic policy idea—high tariffs in an age of global inflation—would help the...
Episode 45 • 19 July 2024 • 52m and 10s
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 Residential Club, join to talk about the state of the U.S. housing market—wh...
Episode 44 • 12 July 2024 • 55m and 26s
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