Podcast Episodes

Is AI Really About to Solve Human Disease?

Season 4 Episode 61

I’ve had the privilege of talking to many brilliant people about artificial intelligence. And when you ask them to imagine the most beneficial consequences of this technology, they almost always give…

Published on 1 month ago

How America Became a Nation of "Free Speech Hypocrites"

Season 4 Episode 60

The past few weeks have marked a low point for free speech principles in America. The head of the FCC openly threatened ABC for the language of a comedian. The president told a reporter that networks…

Published on 1 month, 1 week ago

What’s the Matter With America’s Food?

Season 4 Episode 58

In the past few weeks, we’ve done several episodes on obesity, GLP-1 drugs, and nutrition science. What we haven’t talked about as much is the politics of food.

And today’s guests say: If you really …

Published on 1 month, 1 week ago

This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

Season 4 Episode 57

This year, American tech companies will spend $300 billion to $400 billion on artificial intelligence, which is in nominal dollars more than any group of companies have ever spent to do anything. Not…

Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago

The Jimmy Kimmel Saga and America's Free-Speech Crisis

Season 4 Episode 56

Matt Belloni, the host of the Town podcast and the author of Puck’s 'What I’m Hearing' newsletter, joins the show to talk about Jimmy Kimmel's punishment, what happened behind the scenes at ABC and D…

Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago

If GLP-1 Drugs Are Good for Everything, Should We All Be on Them?

Season 4 Episode 55

To read more of Derek's reporting on GLP-1 drugs, you can subscribe to his Substack here.

GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound don't just help with Type 2 diabetes and weight loss. They seem to curb…

Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago

Charlie Kirk's Killing and America's Age of "Salad-Bar Extremism"

Season 5 Episode 54

In the past few years, we have witnessed a frightening spiral of political violence. We’ve seen the killing of Charlie Kirk; the killing of Brian Thompson, the health insurance executive; the assassi…

Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago

America in the Age of Diagnosis

Season 4 Episode 53

America is sicker than ever. That’s what the data says, anyway.

Psychological and psychiatric diagnoses have soared. Between the 1990s and the mid-2000s, bipolar disorder among American youth grew by…

Published on 1 month, 4 weeks ago

Trumponomics Explained, Part 2: The Enshittification of American Power

Season 4 Episode 52

In the second of our two-episode series on Donald Trump, economics, and power, we talk to Henry Farrell, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins. Farrell has written extensively on how the …

Published on 2 months ago

What Is Trumponomics? Part 1: How Donald Trump Is Breaking American Capitalism

Season 4 Episode 51

Today is the first of two interviews this week trying to answer this question: What is Trumponomics?

From the 1980s to the 2010s, it was generally assumed that Republicans and Democrats had settled d…

Published on 2 months ago