The Casino-ification of America
In 2017, Americans legally bet about $5 billion on sports. Last year, that number rose to $160 billion. Gambling hasn’t just taken over sports. It’s invaded culture, politics, and even international w...
20 Mar 1h 11min
"Yes, AI Is a Bubble. There Is No Question."
The AI buildout continues to break records, as the hyperscalers pour hundreds of billions of dollars into chips and data centers, even as investors punish their stock prices. But the revenue side of t...
17 Mar 1h 9min
The Pill That Works Even When You Know It's Fake
Why do placebo effects work, even when patients know that they're taking a sugar pill? How do "nocebo" effects work, and why do some people hold onto beliefs that they suspect might bring them pain an...
13 Mar 1h 11min
The Economic Crisis of the Iran War Goes Far Beyond Oil
The Strait of Hormuz is the tiny bottleneck that could destabilize the global economy. As a critical passageway for crude oil, natural gas, and critical inputs for fertilizer, computer chips, and plas...
10 Mar 55min
"American Democracy as We Know It Might Not Survive This Technology"
What happens when the two biggest stories in the world—the Trump White House and the development of advanced artificial intelligence—collide? Well, nothing good, apparently. When contract negotiations...
9 Mar 1h 4min
Trump Is Doubling Down on Iran. How Should Democrats Respond?
Donald Trump’s polling has continued to edge down week after week. And yet approval of the Democratic Party is still stuck near its all-time low, according to Gallup and other surveys. One interpreta...
6 Mar 42min
The Four Ways That the Iran War Could End
Dramatic regime change. Moderate regime evolution. A calamitous regional conflict. Or … no change at all. Today we consider how the Iran conflict might evolve following the killing of Supreme Leader K...
3 Mar 55min
How Metrics Make Us Miserable
The modern world swims in numbers: work metrics, fitness metrics, health metrics, social media metrics. Sometimes the quantification of life can make things better. But very often, I think they force ...
27 Feb 1h 3min
