Why the New NBA Deal Is So Weird. Plus, How Sports Rights Actually Work.
In an age of cults, sports are the last gasp of the monoculture—the last remnant of the 20th century mainstream still standing. Even so, the new NBA media rights deal is astonishing. At a time when ba...
28 Touko 202448min
What America’s Bold New Economic Experiment Is Missing
The news media is very good at focusing on points of disagreement in our politics. Wherever Democrats and Republicans are butting heads, that's where we reliably find news coverage. When right and lef...
24 Touko 202459min
The Five Superstars Who Invented the Modern NBA
The game of basketball has changed dramatically in the last 40 years. In the early 1990s, Michael Jordan said that 3-point shooting was "something I don’t want to excel at," because he thought it migh...
21 Touko 202449min
Are Smartphones Really Driving the Rise in Teenage Depression?
Today—a closer critical look at the relationship between smartphones and mental health. One of the themes we’ve touched on more than any other on this show is that American teenagers—especially girls—...
14 Touko 202438min
Are Flying Cars Finally Here?
For decades, flying cars have been a symbol of collective disappointment—of a technologically splendid future that was promised but never delivered. Whose fault is that? Gideon Lewis-Kraus, a staff wr...
7 Touko 202459min
How the Logic of Cults Is Taking Over Modern Life
Several years ago, I told some friends that I had an idea for a second book. It would be called ‘Everything Is a Cult.’ I’d noticed that in an age of declining religiosity, capitalism was filling the ...
3 Touko 202456min
How Will the Gaza War Finally End?
Today, with Gaza protests spreading across the country and around the world, we dive deep into what’s actually happening on the ground in the war between Israel and Hamas—and how this war might actual...
30 Huhti 202442min
A Political Scientist on How Protests Can Change Minds or Backfire
In the last week, hundreds of protests across college campuses and American cities have taken place in response to the war in Gaza. Campus life has shut down at Columbia University in NYC. The news is...
26 Huhti 202455min
