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The Ringer

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 plainenglish@spotify.com! You can also find us on tiktok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_

Plain English with Derek Thompson

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
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Why American Health Care Is a "Broken System"

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
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The Productivity Paradox: Why Less Is More With Oliver Burkeman

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/
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A Mysterious Health Wave Is Breaking Out Across the U.S.

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
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The Year's Biggest Breakthroughs in Science and Tech (Feat.: OK, But Seriously, What Is Quantum Computing?)

Happy new year! And what better way to celebrate the freshly torn calendar page than by welcoming one of Derek's favorite writers to the show to tell us what's in store for the 2025 economy. Michael Cembalest is the chairman of market and investment strategy for JPMorgan Asset Management, and the author of the truly spectacular newsletter, 'Eye on the Market.' Today, we start with stocks and describe the truly historic—and historically unprecedented—dominance of the so-called Mag-7 tech giants. Then, we draw the connection between Big Tech’s historic run and the surge of AI spending. After a discussion on the history and future of nuclear power in America, we do a pit stop on the European economy, where we evaluate the continent’s tradeoff between safety and growth, and move on to China to disentangle that economy’s slowdown. Finally, we connect it all back to a Trump agenda that is a fascinating brew of old-fashioned Reaganite deregulation, newfangled crypto enthusiasm, mid-19th century tariff obsession, mid-20th century industrialization policy, and ... a bunch of other ingredients that I think I’ll just let Michael tell you about.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.

Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Michael Cembalest
Producer: Devon Baroldi
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The Big 2025 Economy Forecast: AI and Big Tech, Nuclear’s Renaissance, Trump vs. China, and What’s Eating Europe?

My new feature for The Atlantic magazine is called "The Anti-Social Century." It's a long article that revolves around a simple point: Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. This surging solitude is changing our personalities, our politics, our culture, and our relationships. On this episode, University of Chicago psychologist Nick Epley joins the show to talk about why aloneness matters. We talk about his research on relationships and solitude, on why we need people in our lives, and why sometimes we disregard or misunderstand that need, and why "social fitness" is so critical to a good life.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.

Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Nick Epley
Producer: Devon Baroldi
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‘The Anti-Social Century’: America’s Epidemic of Solitude—and How to Fix It

With so many confusing narratives unfolding around a fire that is still raging out of control, I wanted to talk to somebody I knew and trusted to get stories like this right. Robinson Meyer is the founder and editor of Heatmap News and a former staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covered climate news and related disasters. We talk about why this Los Angeles fire is so unusual, how it differs from most recent forest fires in California, the role of climate change, and what Los Angeles and other places can do to protect people from the inevitability of future disasters.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.

Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Robinson Meyer
Producer: Devon Baroldi

Links: 

Could More Controlled Burns Have Helped? 

5 Startups Working on LA Fires 

What Started The Fires? 

Why LA’s Fires Are Exceptionally Hard to Fight 

Does climate change make the Santa Ana winds worse?

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The L.A. Fires: How They Happened, Climate Change’s Role, and What the City Must Do Now

Today's episode has been a long time coming. For years, more scientists and health influencers have claimed that even moderate drinking does serious damage to one's health. As someone who likes being healthy and also loves a glass of wine (or scotch), Derek really wanted to understand this issue more deeply. This week, he published a long article in The Atlantic about his research on the health effects of moderate drinking—meaning one or two drinks a night. In today's episode, he breaks down his research process and conclusions, sharing audio from his interview with Canadian health researcher Tim Stockwell, who is one of the most prominent skeptics of the supposed benefits of moderate drinking.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.
Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Tim Stockwell
Producer: Devon Baroldi

Links

Derek's original article in The Atlantic (free gift link!): https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/moderate-drinking-warning-labels-cancer/681322/?gift=o6MjJQpusU9ebnFuymVdsD7vJ9S6Vd2LMCE-zROPKQs&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

"The Battle Over What to Tell Americans About Drinking" in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/health/alcohol-dietary-guidelines.html

"Alcohol and Cancer Risk 2025" The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/oash-alcohol-cancer-risk.pdf

A meta-analysis in The Lancet on alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(18)31310-2/fulltext

Vinay Prasad on alcohol and the meta-analysis https://www.drvinayprasad.com/p/what-is-the-truth-about-alcohol-consumption

Emily Oster on alcohol and health https://parentdata.org/alcohol-and-health/

Tim Stockwell, et al, meta-analysis on alcohol, 2023 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2802963

"Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the UK Biobank" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28735-5

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What's the Truth About Alcohol, Cancer, and Your Health?

This is the first episode of a little experiment we’re trying this year, a podcast within a podcast on history that we’re calling, simply enough, 'Plain History.' There are, I am well aware, a great number of history podcasts out there. But one thing I want to do with this show is to pay special attention to how the past worked. In this episode, for example, we're using the assassination of an American president to consider the practice of medicine in the 19th century.

Our subject today is the bestseller 'Destiny of the Republic' by the historian Candice Millard, on the incredible life and absurd and tragic death of President James Garfield.

In the summer of 1876, the United States celebrated its 100th birthday at the U.S. Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Of the millions of people who walked through the grounds, one was Garfield, who attended the centennial with his wife and six children. In four years' time, he would be elected president at a shocking and chaotic Republican convention. But at the time, he was a 44-year-old congressman known in Washington for being a rags-to-riches genius.

Garfield was a perfect match for the centennial grounds, which were themselves a gaudy showcase of genius. In Machinery Hall, visitors could pay for a machine to embroider their suspenders with their initials. They could gaze at one of the world’s first internal combustion engines, a technology that would in the next 50 years remake the world by powering a million cars, tractors, and tanks. They could see the first Remington typewriter and Edison telegraph system.

In the Main Exhibition Building, a little-known teacher for the deaf caused a riot with his science experiment. In one room, the teacher held up a little metal piece to his mouth and read Hamlet’s soliloquy into a transmitter. In a separate room, the emperor of Brazil, sitting with an iron box receiver pressed against his ear, heard each word—to be or not to be—reverberating against his eardrum. The teacher’s name was Alexander Graham Bell, and the instrument in question had three months earlier received a patent as the world’s first working telephone.

A few yards away, a scientist named Joseph Lister was having much less success trying to explain his theories of antisepsis to a crowd of skeptical American doctors. He claimed that the same tiny organisms that Pasteur said turned grape juice into wine also turned our wounds into infestations. Lister encouraged doctors to sterilize wounds and to treat their surgical instruments with carbolic acid. But American doctors laughed off these suggestions. Dr. Samuel Gross, the president of the Medical Congress and the most famous surgeon in America, said, “Little if any faith is placed by any enlightened or experienced surgeon on this side of the Atlantic in the so-called carbolic acid treatment of Professor Lister.” American surgeons instead believed in “open-air treatment,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

Here are three characters of a story: James Garfield, Alexander Graham Bell, and Lister’s theory of antisepsis. They were united at the 1876 centennial. They would be reunited again in five years, under much more gruesome circumstances, brought together by a medical horror show that would end with a dead president.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.

Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Candice Millard
Producer: Devon Baroldi
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Plain History Volume 1: Who Killed President James Garfield?

Today, tech talk with an old friend of the pod, Kevin Roose of The New York Times, who is also host of the 'Hard Fork' podcast.

This is a show about everything. And it’s going to remain a show about everything because I’m a little bit interested in everything. But one cost of that purposeful lack of narrow focus is that sometimes you fail to communicate the gravity of the important things that are happening in the world.

And at the moment, I think some of the most important stories in the world are in tech—and more specifically, in the relationship between government and technology. A relationship that is closer now than it’s been in many decades.

We begin with TikTok—the most popular source of news for Gen Z in America and the most downloaded mobile app in the world in 2024. Last year a bipartisan bill signed by Joe Biden demanded that the parent company of TikTok, which is the Chinese firm ByteDance, sell its American business or else face a ban. Well, today, TikTok is legally banned in America, and also in broad use, because Donald Trump—the man who called for banning the app in 2020—saved it in 2025 by essentially declaring that he won’t uphold the law.

We then spend most of this episode talking about the crescendo of predictions from Silicon Valley that the AI frontier is nearing a breakthrough. In the past few weeks, members of OpenAI, Anthropic, and other frontier labs have claimed that they are less than three years away from building AI agents that are, to borrow their language, better than humans at everything. I ask Kevin how widespread these predictions are, whether we should believe them, what it would mean if they’re right, why they might wrong, what’s the biggest bottleneck still standing in their way, and why it’s so hard for the news media to report responsibly on a story like this, where we’re asked to take seriously the economy-shifting potential of a technology that we can’t actually report on because it doesn’t actually exist.

And then, because I’m also completely bewildered by the bonfires of corruption that are erupting in crypto-land, we close on crypto.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.

Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Kevin Roose
Producer: Devon Baroldi
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Tech Talk: AI Supremacy, TikTok’s Fate, and Crypto Decadence

Something alarming is happening with reading in America. Leisure reading by some accounts has declined by about 50 percent this century. Literacy scores are declining for fourth and eighth graders at alarming rates. And even college students today are complaining to teachers that they can’t read entire books. The book itself, that ancient piece of technology for storing ideas passed down across decades, is fading in curricula across the country, replaced by film and TV and YouTube.

Why, with everything happening in the world, would I want to talk about reading? The business podcaster Joe Weisenthal has recently turned me on to the ideas of Walter Ong and his book 'Orality and Literacy.' According to Ong, literacy is not just a skill. It is a specific means of structuring society's way of thinking. In oral cultures, Ong says, knowledge is preserved through repetition, mnemonics, and stories. Writing and reading, by contrast, fix words in place. One person can write, and another person, decades later, can read precisely what was written. This word fixing also allows literate culture to develop more abstract and analytical thinking. Writers and readers are, after all, outsourcing a piece of their memory to a page. Today, we seem to be completely reengineering the logic engine of society. The decline of reading in America is not the whole of this phenomenon. But I think that it’s an important part of it.

Today we have two conversations—one with a journalist and one with an academic. First, Atlantic staff writer Rose Horowitch shares her reporting on the decline of reading at elite college campuses. And second, Nat Malkus of the American Enterprise Institute tells us about the alarming decline in literacy across our entire student population and even among adults.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.

Host: Derek Thompson
Guests: Rose Horowitch and Nat Malkus
Producer: Devon Baroldi

Links
"The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books"
"Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends" 
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The End of Reading

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