Plain English with Derek Thompson

Today's episode has been a long time coming. For years, more scientists and health influencers have claimed that even moderate drinking does serious damage to one's health. As someone who likes being healthy and also loves a glass of wine (or scotch), Derek really wanted to understand this issue more deeply. This week, he published a long article in The Atlantic about his research on the health ef...

With so many confusing narratives unfolding around a fire that is still raging out of control, I wanted to talk to somebody I knew and trusted to get stories like this right. Robinson Meyer is the founder and editor of Heatmap News and a former staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covered climate news and related disasters. We talk about why this Los Angeles fire is so unusual, how it differs fr...

My new feature for The Atlantic magazine is called "The Anti-Social Century." It's a long article that revolves around a simple point: Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. This surging solitude is changing our personalities, our politics, our culture, and our relationships. On this episode, University of Chicago psychologist Nick Epley joins the show to talk about why aloneness ma...

Happy new year! And what better way to celebrate the freshly torn calendar page than by welcoming one of Derek's favorite writers to the show to tell us what's in store for the 2025 economy. Michael Cembalest is the chairman of market and investment strategy for JPMorgan Asset Management, and the author of the truly spectacular newsletter, 'Eye on the Market.' Today, we start with stocks and descr...

Our final episode of the year is also my favorite annual tradition: conversations with scientists about the most important and, often, just plain mind-blowing breakthroughs of the previous 12 months. Today we’re talking about "organ clocks" (we'll explain) and other key biotech advances of 2024 with Eric Topol, an American cardiologist and author who is also the founder and director of the Scripps...

Why do Americans die younger than citizens of other rich countries? The most important reason is that life in America is inexcusably dangerous. The U.S. has more fatalities from gun violence, drug overdoses, and auto accidents than just about any other similarly rich nation, and its obesity rate is about 50 percent higher than the European average. Put this all together, and the U.S. is rightly co...

So, here’s a scenario: It’s Monday. And you open up whatever calendar or planner or to-do list you use to organize the essential activities of the upcoming week. There’s a large project due Thursday. And an important meeting Wednesday. Your nine-to-five is chockablock with meetings, and your kid has a school function Tuesday, and there are holiday gifts to buy before Friday, and just when you’re p...

Last week, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot to death outside a hotel in Manhattan by a young man motivated by rage at the insurance industry. His rage is clearly felt widely. In the aftermath of the killing, many people seemed to delight in the man’s assassination. Their reaction was a grotesque illustration of something real: There is an enormous amount of anger and frustration about...

The crypto industry seems poised for a new golden age. But what exactly does that mean? Who would benefit? And, oh by the way, what does this technology do other than serve as a set of assets to bet to the moon? I have lots of questions about the state of crypto right now. Last week, Bitcoin traded above $100,000 for the first time in history. Its price has skyrocketed since Donald Trump’s win, as...

In the last decade, several major findings in social psychology have turned out to be hogwash—or, worse, even fraud. This has become widely known as psychology's "replication crisis." Perhaps you have heard of power poses—based on a study finding that subjects reported stronger “feelings of power” after they posed, say, with their hands on their hips for several minutes. But that finding did not r...

Emily Oster, professor of economics at Brown University, joins the show to talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his theories about fluoride and vaccines, and how the media and science community should treat the most controversial topics. This is a new age of science and information, where trust seems to be shifting from institutions like the FDA and CDC to individuals like RFK Jr. and Oster, and I co...

What would a world of self-driven cars look like? How would it change shopping, transportation, and life, more broadly? A decade ago, many people were asking these questions, as it looked like a boom in autonomous vehicles was imminent. But in the last few years, other technologies—crypto, the metaverse, AI—have stolen the spotlight. Meanwhile, self-driving cars have quietly become a huge deal in...

Derek shares his big-picture theory for Trump's victory. Then, Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson explains how Trump shifted practically the entire electorate to the right. Links: Derek's article that inspired his open: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/donald-trump-covid-election/680559/ The Washington Post voter shift map:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/int...

Today’s guest (our final preelection guest) is David Wasserman, political analyst with the Cook Political Report, who also helps out with the NBC decision desk. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people whose job on election night is to help Americans understand when we can safely call specific districts and states for Congress, Senate, or the presidency. However, I truly don’t think I know anyb...

Today, a close look at the history of a Pennsylvania town and how that history contains within it the story of the 2024 election. In September, Donald Trump claimed that the city of Charleroi, Pennsylvania, was being overrun by immigrants who brought violence, gangs, and economic destruction. Last month, The Atlantic's George Packer went to Charleroi to report on what's actually going on there, an...

My favorite sort of social phenomenon is something that seems normal to modern eyes that is actually incredibly unusual. We take it for granted that every presidential election is a nail-biter these days. But this era of close elections is deeply strange. We used to have blowouts all the time. In 1964, 1972, and 1984, LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan, respectively, won by more than 15 points. This never hap...

In 1900, the average US life expectancy was 47 years old. That's the current age of Tom Brady, Ryan Reynolds, and Shakira. But extraordinary advances in medicine and public health have surged lifespans in the US and throughout the world. The average American currently lives to about 79 years old. How long can this progress continue? As we have gotten so much better at allowing people to live to ol...

Today: the state of men and what's really happening in the gender divide in politics. Many young men are falling behind economically and socially at the same time that men and women are coming apart politically. What's really happening here? Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, joins the show to talk about the state of men, young men, working class men, the gender...

Since October 7, 2023, many have feared that the conflict between Israel and Hamas would bloom into a wider war that would consume the Middle East. Today, we are dangerously close to that reality. In just the last month, Israel carried out several attacks against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which, like Hamas, is backed by Iran. Israel is widely believed to be behind the remote detonatio...

Derek shares his biggest frustrations about the 2024 election, like the lack of a policy debate and blind spots in news coverage and polling analysis. Then he welcomes Jamil Zaki to the show: a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. Zaki is the author of ‘Hope for Cynics,’ a new book that explores tension at the heart of human affai...

Today, a mystery about what some people consider the most important position in sports: What the hell is going on with the NFL quarterback? We are two weeks into the 2024 football season. And as several commentators have pointed out, the quarterback position just doesn’t look right. Passing yards per game are lower than any other year in the 21st century. Passing touchdowns have fallen off a cliff...

We may be on the cusp of a revolution in medicine, thanks to tools like AlphaFold, the technology for Google DeepMind, which helps scientists predict and see the shapes of thousands of proteins. How does AlphaFold work, what difference is it actually making in science, and what kinds of mysteries could it unlock? Today’s guest is Pushmeet Kohli. He is the head of AI for science at DeepMind. We tal...

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 ans...

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 cardiovas...

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices