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Plain English with Derek Thompson

Plain English with Derek Thompson

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4.8

(12)

Longtime Atlantic tech, culture and political writer Derek Thompson cuts through all the noise surrounding the big questions and headlines that matter to you in his new podcast Plain English. Hear Derek and guests engage the news with clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday, and if you've got a topic you want discussed, shoot us an email at [email protected]! You can also find us on tiktok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_
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34 Listeners

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4.8

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Top 10 Plain English with Derek Thompson Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Plain English with Derek Thompson episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Plain English with Derek Thompson for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Plain English with Derek Thompson episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Today, we go wading in the murky waters of 2023 wellness trends. We’re talking cold plunges, fitness trackers, and recovery scores. And on the more prosaic side, the real science of coffee and alcohol.

Today’s guests are Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness. They are the cofounders of The Growth Equation, a multimedia platform dedicated to health, excellence, and well-being. They are authors of ‘Peak Performance,’ ‘Do Hard Things,’ and ‘The Practice of Groundedness.’ And for quite a while I have considered them to be ideal guides in this hype-filled world of biomarkers, biohacks, and fitness.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Guests: Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness

Producer: Devon Manze

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11 Listeners

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - Health Fads and Fictions: VO2 Max, Supplement Mania, Sunlight, and Immortality
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04/19/24 • 60 min

Today's show is a critical look at some of the most popular health fads of the moment, with return guests Steve Magness and Brad Stulberg, from the Growth Equation and the ‘FAREWELL’ podcast. We’re talking VO2 max, the benefits of sunlight, so-called morning and nighttime “stacks” (complex multivitamin routines for optimizing your energy and sleep), and Silicon Valley dreams of immortality. Plus, a rant from Derek about the supplement mania of independent media.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guests: Steve Magness & Brad Stulberg

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Links:

The ‘FAREWELL’ podcast: https://thegrowtheq.com/farewell-podcast/

The FDA's note on dietary supplement regulation: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/rumor-control/facts-about-dietary-supplements

Joe Rogan's supplement stack: https://jrelibrary.com/articles/joe-rogans-supplement-stack/

Huberman's sleep stack: https://www.nsdr.co/post/andrew-hubermans-sleep-cocktail

The Mayo Clinic on creatine: https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-creatine/art-20347591

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6 Listeners

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - The News Media’s Dangerous Addiction to ‘Fake Facts’
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06/07/24 • 47 min

What do most people not understand about the news media? I would say two things. First: The most important bias in news media is not left or right. It’s a bias toward negativity and catastrophe. Second: That while it would be convenient to blame the news media exclusively for this bad-news bias, the truth is that the audience is just about equally to blame. The news has never had better tools for understanding exactly what gets people to click on stories. That means what people see in the news is more responsive than ever to aggregate audience behavior. If you hate the news, what you are hating is in part a collective reflection in the mirror. If you put these two facts together, you get something like this: The most important bias in the news media is the bias that news makers and news audiences share toward negativity and catastrophe. Jerusalem Demsas, a staff writer at The Atlantic and the host of the podcast Good on Paper, joins to discuss a prominent fake fact in the news — and the psychological and media forces that promote fake facts and catastrophic negativity in the press.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Jerusalem Demsas

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Links:

"The Maternal-Mortality Crisis That Didn’t Happen" by Jerusalem Demsas https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/no-more-women-arent-dying-in-childbirth/678486/

The 2001 paper "Bad Is Stronger Than Good" https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf

Derek on the complex science of masks and mask mandates https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/covid-lab-leak-mask-mandates-science-media-information/673263/

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4 Listeners

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - "Exercise May Be the Single Most Potent Medical Intervention Ever Known"
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08/30/24 • 59 min

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 cardiovascular medicine and the chair of the Stanford Department of Medicine, is a member of a new research consortium that studies rats and humans to understand the molecular changes induced by exercise. Today we talk about the earliest findings from this new consortium, how exercise might have disparate effects in men versus women, why nature’s most effective cardiovascular intervention also seems to be nature’s most effective mental health intervention, as well as whether it will one day be possible to identify the molecular basis of exercise precisely enough to develop exercise pills that give us the benefits of working out without the sweat.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Euan Ashley

Producer: Devon Baroldi

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3 Listeners

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - Why Americans Stopped Hanging Out—and Why It Matters
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02/27/24 • 70 min

Today’s episode is about the extraordinary decline in face-to-face socializing in America—and the real stakes of the country’s hanging-out crisis.

From 2003 to 2022, American adults reduced their average hours of face-to-face socializing by about 30 percent. For unmarried Americans, the decline was even bigger—more than 35 percent. For teenagers, it was more than 45 percent.

Eric Klinenberg is a sociologist and the director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He is the author of several books on the rise of living alone and the decline of social infrastructure. His latest is _'_2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed.' And he's not afraid to challenge the popular notion of an epidemic of loneliness in America. “There is no good evidence that Americans are lonelier than ever," he has written. Today, Eric and I talk about teens and parenting, the decline of hanging out, why America sucks at building social infrastructure, and why aloneness isn’t always loneliness.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Eric Klinenberg

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/america-decline-hanging-out/677451/

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3 Listeners

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - Breathing Is Easy. But We’re Doing It Wrong.

Breathing Is Easy. But We’re Doing It Wrong.

Plain English with Derek Thompson

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06/14/24 • 54 min

Today’s episode is about the science of breathing—from the evolution of our sinuses and palate, to the downsides of mouth breathing and the upsides of nasal breathing, to specific breath techniques that you can use to reduce stress and fall asleep fast. Our guest is James Nestor, the author of the bestselling book 'Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art.'

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: James Nestor

Producer: Devon Baroldi

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3 Listeners

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - Donald Trump vs. the FBI: Everything We Know About the Investigation So Far
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08/16/22 • 44 min

I've never before recorded an episode specifically about Donald Trump. I guess I’ve been holding out for the chaos that typically swirls around him to exceed an extremely high bar of freaky nonsense. This week, I am forced to conclude that the bar has been surpassed. The January 6 investigations in D.C. and the New York state business investigation are newsworthy on their own. But last week, federal agents descended on Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club and Florida home, and came away with a trove of top secret documents and papers. This investigation could implicate the president as an agent of law-breaking espionage. Or it could lead to ... nothing at all. In this episode, the author, CNN analyst, and former government official Juliette Kayyem joins the show to separate fact from speculation and to help us imagine several ways this saga could end.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Juliette Kayyem

Producer: Devon Manze

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3 Listeners

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - Is Old Music Killing New Music?

Is Old Music Killing New Music?

Plain English with Derek Thompson

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08/03/22 • 55 min

Why does it seem like the old is eating the new in pop culture? This year, the song of the summer is arguably Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”—which was released in 1985. It was launched by the most-watched global TV show of the summer, 'Stranger Things'—an homage to the 1980s. In movies, the biggest hit of the season is 'Top Gun: Maverick'—a sequel to the 1986 film. The '80s was four decades ago!

The triumph of nostalgia and familiarity in culture is deeper than one summer. The five biggest movies of this year are the second 'Top Gun,' the second 'Doctor Strange', the sixth 'Jurassic Park', the 14th Batman-related film, and the fifth 'Despicable Me'. Amazing original films, like 'Everything Everywhere All At Once', show up here and there, but as far as slam dunk blockbusters go, the last decade has suffered from a new movie curse.

There's a new music curse, too. Total music consumption is rising across album sales, track purchases, and streaming. But consumption of new music is down. The entire growth in music is happening in so-called catalog music, or older songs.

What's happening here? Today’s guest is Ted Gioia. We talk about his viral essay “Is old music killing new music?”, the dearth of young stars in Hollywood, and the rise of risk-aversion in American culture and business.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Ted Gioia

Producer: Devon Manze

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - The Biggest Breakthroughs in Science Happening Right Now
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12/27/23 • 63 min

If you're looking for a hopeful and mind-expanding conversation to round out the year, this one is for you.

It's our breakthroughs of the year episode, covering 2023's biggest achievements in science and tech, including space technology, life extension, fusion, gene editing, vaccines, and, of course, GLP-1s.

It has become a 'Plain English' tradition—after weeks of stories that often take us into sad areas, like anxiety, depression, and war—to close the year with a nerdy conversation about the most important developments at the frontier of science and technology. Today's frontier guide is Dr. Eric Topol. He is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and a bestselling author on the future of medicine.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Eric Topol

Producer: Devon Baroldi

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3 Listeners

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Plain English with Derek Thompson - The Media is Missing Something Big in Biden’s Bad Polling Numbers
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11/17/23 • 50 min

Today’s episode is about the question of the moment in politics: the meaning of Joe Biden’s terrible polling numbers. Today’s guest is Nate Cohn, chief political analyst at the New York Times, where he does public opinion, polling, demographics, and politics. We talk about the notorious New York Times poll that showed Donald Trump trouncing Biden in the swing states. We talk about why it’s not crazy to take presidential polls seriously right now—even though we're 300 days out from the election. We talk about the multi-layered problems of Biden’s age. And we talk about why the new "engagement gap" might be the most important, under-discussed phenomenon in American politics today.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Nate Cohn

Producer: Devon Manze

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2 Listeners

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FAQ

How many episodes does Plain English with Derek Thompson have?

Plain English with Derek Thompson currently has 251 episodes available.

What topics does Plain English with Derek Thompson cover?

The podcast is about News, News Commentary and Podcasts.

What is the most popular episode on Plain English with Derek Thompson?

The episode title 'Myth-Busting Wellness Hacks: Cold Plunges, Coffee, Alcohol, and Fitness Trackers' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Plain English with Derek Thompson?

The average episode length on Plain English with Derek Thompson is 50 minutes.

How often are episodes of Plain English with Derek Thompson released?

Episodes of Plain English with Derek Thompson are typically released every 4 days.

When was the first episode of Plain English with Derek Thompson?

The first episode of Plain English with Derek Thompson was released on Nov 11, 2021.

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