Podcast Episodes

The Argument: Should We Say "Hi" to Aliens?

We're taking this week off from publishing new episodes, so today we're bringing you an episode from "The Argument" about one of my favorite topics: …

4 years, 11 months ago

Best of: George Saunders on Kindness in a Cruel World

We’re taking a week off from releasing new episodes, so today I wanted to re-up one of my favorite episodes of the show, a conversation with fiction …

4 years, 11 months ago

How Identity Politics Took Over the Republican Party

One problem with the conversation around political polarization is that it can imply that polarization is a static, singular thing. That our division…

4 years, 11 months ago

We’re Living in the World the War on Terror Built

The Sept, 11 attacks might have taken place almost 20 years ago, but we’re still living in the America that the war on terror built. Its legacy is no…

4 years, 11 months ago

The Good and Bad News About the Delta Variant

“The war has changed.” That’s what the leaked C.D.C. document says about the way the Delta variant has upended our coronavirus policies. Delta is ast…

4 years, 11 months ago

41 Questions For The Technologies We Use, and That Use Us

We all know by now that Zoom causes fatigue, social media spreads misinformation and Google Maps is wiping out our sense of direction. We also know, …

4 years, 11 months ago

Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Fight Over U.S. History

You’ve heard plenty by now about the fights over teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. But behind those skirmishes is something deeper:…

5 years ago

Ross Douthat Has Been ‘Radicalized a Little Bit, Too’

Am I too panicked about the future of American democracy?

My colleague Ross Douthat thinks so. He points to research suggesting that voter ID laws and…

5 years ago

How Blue Cities Became So Outrageously Unaffordable

Joe Biden’s economic agenda is centered on a basic premise: The United States needs to build. To build roads and bridges. To build child care facilit…

5 years ago

Our Workplaces Think We’re Computers. We’re Not.

For decades, our society’s dominant metaphor for the mind has been a computer. A machine that operates the exact same way whether it’s in a dark room…

5 years ago