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. Watch 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! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson
369 episodes transcribedToday’s episode is about guns, drugs, cars, and a big question: Why do Americans die so much younger than people in any other rich country? Before the...
Derek talks to ‘Semafor’ political reporter Dave Weigel about how the Trump indictment could reshape the election—or turn out to be a big ole nothing...
Today, we go wading in the murky waters of 2023 wellness trends. We’re talking cold plunges, fitness trackers, and recovery scores. And on the more pr...
Donald Trump has been indicted. But what do we actually know about the case against him? What will the charges be? Is there any legal precedent for th...
Today’s episode is about how we think about success—and how our high school and college systems might be teaching us the wrong lessons about achieveme...
Sometimes on this show, we talk about the news. This episode is about the diametric opposite of the news. It’s about thinking deeply about human histo...
Derek unpacks his thoughts about GPT-4 and what it means to be, possibly, at the dawn of a sea change in technology. Then, he talks to Charlie Warzel,...
Derek answers your burning questions in a special mailbag episode! If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at Plai...
Derek welcomes back the economic roundtable of Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson, cohosts of the 'Animal Spirits' podcast, to debate who killed Silicon...
RIP, SVB. America's 16th-largest bank was just destroyed by the largest bank run in U.S. history. To talk about what happened and what happens next, w...
Under President Biden, the U.S. is pivoting toward what some people call “industrial policy”—that is, using the government to support key industries,...
Today’s episode is a long one: It’s about the debate over media coverage of COVID. Three years after the fateful March of 2020, when it feels like the...
This is our second installment of happiness week on the Plain English podcast. On Tuesday, I spoke with the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult De...
Americans have never had more access to social technology. It’s easier to talk to friends and family members hundreds of miles away; easier to see the...
How does technology shape art? Why has songwriting become more of a visual skill in the 21st century? Why are today's hit songs shorter than songs fro...
Large language models like ChatGPT and Bing’s chatbot can tell stories. They can analyze the effects of agricultural AI on American and Chinese farms....
Since a big white Chinese spy balloon floated across the ocean and into U.S. airspace, the United States has shot down four objects over North America...
Last fall, three-quarters of voters told CNN that the U.S. was in a recession. A Bloomberg economic model said that the odds of a recession by the fal...
For the past 50 years, Americans have basically responded to the case against eating animals by eating more animals. The share of Americans who call t...
If we’re being honest, the whole thing is kind of funny. A Chinese spy balloon floated across the U.S. Nobody died, unless we count the balloon itself...
