483. What’s Wrong With Shortcuts?

We tend to think of tragedies as a single terrible moment, rather than the result of multiple bad decisions. Can this pattern be reversed? We try — with stories about wildfires, school shootings, and ...

9 Maj 202555min

It used to be that making documentary films meant taking a vow of poverty (and obscurity). The streaming revolution changed that. Award-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler talks to Stephen Dubner about capt...

2 Maj 202554min

It’s been in development for five years and has at least a year to go. On the eve of its out-of-town debut, the actor playing Lincoln quit. And the producers still need to raise another $15 million to...

25 Apr 202546min

In an episode from 2012, we looked at what Sleep No More and the Stanford Prison Experiment can tell us about who we really are. SOURCES:Felix Barrett, artistic director of Punchdrunk.Steven Levitt, p...

23 Apr 202537min

A hit like Hamilton can come from nowhere while a sure bet can lose $20 million in a flash. We speak with some of the biggest producers in the game — Sonia Friedman, Jeffrey Seller, Hal Luftig — and l...

18 Apr 20251h 1min

It has become fiendishly expensive to produce, and has more competition than ever. And yet the believers still believe. Why? And does the world really want a new musical about ... Abraham Lincoln?! (P...

11 Apr 202559min

Why do so many promising solutions in education, medicine, and criminal justice fail to scale up into great policy? And can a new breed of “implementation scientists” crack the code? SOURCES:Patti Cha...

9 Apr 202545min

There is no sludgier place in America than Washington, D.C. But there are signs of a change. We’ll hear about this progress — and ask where Elon Musk and DOGE fit in. (Part two of a two-part series.) ...

4 Apr 202548min