Plain History Volume 1: Who Killed President James Garfield?

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 Research Translational Institute. But first, Derek attempts a 'Plain English'-y summary of the most confusing thing he's ever covered—QUANTUM COMPUTING—with a major assist from theoretical computer scientist Scott Aaronson from the University of Texas at Austin. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Scott Aaronson and Eric Topol Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

31 Dec 20241h 16min

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 considered a “rich death trap” for its young and middle-aged citizens. That’s the bad news. Now here’s the good news. In the past 12 months, quietly and without much media fanfare, the government reported that drug deaths declined, murders declined, traffic fatalities declined, and the standard measure of obesity declined. This inside straight of good news has never happened before in the 21st century—and perhaps decades before that. Today’s guest is Charles Fain Lehman. He’s a fellow at the Manhattan Institute whose expertise is unpacking complex trends in the most gruesome areas, like drugs, murder, and death, in America. Today, he explains why the U.S. seems to be experiencing a sort of mysterious health wave and whether we should expect it to last. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Charles Fain Lehman Producer: Devon Baroldi Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/violence-obesity-overdoses-health-covid/681079/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

27 Dec 20241h 7min

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 pretty sure your week couldn’t possibly take one more featherweight of responsibilities, the HVAC unit sputters to a stop, requiring a call to the local heating and cooling guys, which obliterates four hours of Monday. You can tell yourself that this week is cursed. Or you can tell yourself the truth: Feeling an imbalance between the time you have and the time you want to have isn’t really a curse at all. It’s a bit more like ... the definition of being alive. To see life clearly in this way is what I’ve come to think of as Oliver Burkeman brain. Oliver is the author of the books 'Four Thousand Weeks' and 'Meditations for Mortals.' Today, in what's become a holiday tradition of sorts, we bring back Oliver to chat about doing more by doing less, the dubious benefits of scheduling, and the freedom that comes from accepting our limitations. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Oliver Burkeman Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

20 Dec 20241h 1min

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 state of American health care. And there ought to be. The U.S. is the most expensive health care system in the world, while for many people it delivers bad care at exorbitant prices. But anger is not always a signal of accuracy. And while some of the most popular reasons to be furious at American health care are based on truth, many are based on misunderstandings and myths—especially about the insurance system. This week, I wanted to present a calm and informed conversation with a health care expert to walk me through what I consider the biggest health care questions of the moment. Why are American health care costs so high? How much are insurers to blame? How do other countries handle health care differently? What can we learn from them? And what, if anything, should make us optimistic about the future of American health care? Today we have two guests. First we have Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at MIT and a key architect of several health care laws, including the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform and the Affordable Care Act. Jon walks me through the key drivers of health inflation and American anger at the health care system. The second, David Cutler, is an economics professor at Harvard who served as senior health care adviser for Barack Obama; he helps us think comparatively about the weaknesses and strengths of the U.S. health system and what reforms could help Americans live longer and healthier lives. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Jonathan Gruber and David Cutler Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

13 Dec 20241h 21min

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 a wave of investors bet that the next four years will mark a new renaissance. And this isn’t just a time for optimism. It’s also a time for recrimination. In the last few weeks, several major tech figures, including the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, have condemned democrats for what they describe as an illegal war on crypto. Austin Campbell is finance vet, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, and the founder of Zero Knowledge Consulting. Today, we talk about the purported war on crypto, starting with the origins of "debanking" practices under Obama; we talk about why crypto now seems like a majority-republican technology in an industry that has historically been democratic; we talk about the biggest use cases of crypto around the world; and Austin tells me why he thinks many people in the industry still aren't thinking clearly about the future of finance. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Austin Campbell Producer: Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

6 Dec 202450min

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 replicate. Or perhaps you have heard of ego depletion—the more famous assertion that, when people make a bunch of decisions, it exhausts their ability to make future decisions. Again: did not replicate. “There’s a thought that’s haunted me for years,” social psychologist Adam Mastroianni has written. “We’re doing all this research in psychology, but are we learning anything? We run these studies and publish these papers, and then what? The stack of papers just gets taller? I’ve never come up with satisfying answers. But now I finally understand why.” Today’s episode features two interviews. First, I talk to Adam about his big-picture critique of his own field: how psychology too often fails as a science, and what it can do better. Second, we speak with journalist Dan Engber from The Atlantic, who has been reporting on a billowing scandal in psychology that has enveloped several business school stars—and raised important questions about the field. What is psychology for? What would progress in psychology mean? And how can this field—which might be the discipline I follow than any other in academia—become more of a science? If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Adam Mastroianni and Daniel Engber Producer: Devon Baroldi Links: “Is psychology going to Cincinnati?” by Adam Mastroianni  https://www.experimental-history.com/p/is-psychology-going-to-cincinnati "I’m so sorry for psychology’s loss, whatever it is" by Adam Mastroianni  https://www.experimental-history.com/p/im-so-sorry-for-psychologys-loss#footnote-anchor-3-136506668 “The Business-School Scandal That Just Keeps Getting Bigger” by Daniel Engber  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/01/business-school-fraud-research/680669/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

27 Nov 20241h 48min

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 consider her a model of public health communication. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Emily Oster Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

22 Nov 202439min

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 the U.S. Waymo One, a commercial ride-hailing service that spun off from Google, has been rolled out in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin. Every week, Waymo makes 150,000 autonomous rides. Tesla is also competing to build a robo-taxi service and to develop self-driving capabilities. There are two reasons why I’ve always been fascinated by self-driving cars: The first is safety. There are roughly 40,000 vehicular deaths in America every year and 6 million accidents. It’s appropriate to be concerned about the safety of computer-driven vehicles. But what about the safety of human-driven vehicles? A technology with the potential to save thousands of lives and prevent millions of accidents is a huge deal. Second, the automobile was arguably the most important technology of the 20th century. The invention of the internal combustion engine transformed agriculture, personal transportation, and supply chains. It made the suburbs possible. It changed the spatial geometry of the city. It expanded demand for fossil fuels and created some of the most valuable companies in the world. The reinvention of last century’s most important technology is a massive, massive story. And the truth is, I’m not sure that today’s news media—a category in which I include myself—has done an adequate job representing just how game-changing self-driving technology at scale could be. Today’s guest is Timothy Lee, author of the Substack publication Understanding AI. Today I asked him to help me understand self-driving cars—their technology, their industry, their possibility, and their implications. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Timothy Lee Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

15 Nov 20241h 8min