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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, the Bureau of Economic Analysis published the latest GDP report. It contained a startling detail. Spending on artificial intelligence added more to the U.S. economy than consumer spending last quarter.

This is very quickly becoming an AI economy.

I’m interested in how AI will change our jobs. But I’m just as curious about how it will change our minds. We’re already seeing that students in high school and college are using AI to write most of their essays. What do we lose in a world where students sacrifice the ability to do deep writing?

Today’s guest is Cal Newport, the author of several bestsellers on the way we work, including 'Deep Work.' He is also a professor of computer science at Georgetown.

One of the questions I get the most by email, in talks, in conversations with people about the news is: If these tools can read faster than us, synthesize better than us, remember better than us, and write faster than us, what’s our place in the loop? What skills should we value in the age of AI? Or, more pointedly: What should we teach our children in the age of AI? How do we ride this train without getting run over by it?

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Calvin Newport

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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Will AI Usher In the End of Deep Thinking?

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In 1991, the median age of first-time homebuyers was 28. Now it’s 38, an all-time high. In 1981, the median age of all homebuyers was 36. Today, it’s 56—another all-time high. This is the hardest time for young people (defined, generously, up to 40!) to buy their first home in modern history.

Derek talks about the history of how we got here and then brings on Bloomberg columnist Conor Sen to talk about the state of American housing today and how the national housing market has broken into “two Americas.”

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Conor Sen 

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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The New Geography of Housing in America

Even before the cancellation of 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,' the business of comedy was changing rapidly. Twenty years ago, comedians aspired to be late-night hosts, or to star in movies, or to have their own sitcoms. But in 2025, late-night shows are going extinct, adult comedies in Hollywood are a thing of the past, and popular sitcoms are so rare these days that Gen Z viewers are still watching 'The Office' and 'Friends.' Instead, many comedians rightly recognize that they can make more money as solo acts. In comedy, as in much of our culture, the age of institutions is giving way to an age of individuals talking to individuals.

Lucas Shaw, a reporter for Bloomberg and frequent commentator on the Town podcast, joins the show to talk about the cancellation of 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' and what it says about the history and the future of comedy and media. We also talk about the death of adult comedies, the retreat of sitcoms on TV, why comedy as a field is becoming more of a solo business—and what that says about entertainment culture more broadly.

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Lucas Shaw

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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The Demise of Late-Night TV Is an Omen for American Culture

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Harvard economist Jason Furman returns to the show to answer two big, burning questions. First, if Trump's economic ideas are as bad as most economists say, why isn't the U.S. economy doing much worse? Second, if Trump fires Jerome Powell, would it be the final blow that finally pushes the economy into a recession?

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Jason Furman

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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If Trump’s Economic Ideas Are So Bad, Why Isn’t the U.S. Economy Doing Much Worse?

Couples are having kids much later in their lives. As young people spend more of their 20s and 30s getting established in their careers, and marriage is delayed, and home buying is delayed, the unstoppable force of delay runs up against the immovable object of human anatomy. It is harder for a 40-year-old to get pregnant than for a 20-year-old to do so.

The best solution we have for the fertility dilemma of the modern age is in vitro fertilization. IVF is a decades-long practice based on science, so you might think that the procedure is highly predictable, something close to an act of precision engineering. But people who have gone through the process know it can be messy, painful, frustrating, and expensive.

So, what would a real scientific revolution in fertility look like? How close are we to a game-changing invention in this space?

Today’s guest is Ruxandra Teslo, a scientist and writer. We talk about the fertility dilemma that exists, the fertility technology that doesn’t exist, and how a revolution in egg science could produce a second baby boom.

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Ruxandra Teslo

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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Fertility Needs a Scientific Revolution

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In Game 7 of this year's NBA Finals, Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles in the first quarter while attempting to drive to the basket on an injured calf. It was the third major Achilles injury of the 2025 NBA playoffs. Curiously, Achilles tears are typically an older-dude injury, as they're most common in middle-aged men, according to a 2018 study published in the Journal of Biomechanics. So the sudden clustering of this injury among star athletes in their prime has inspired a lot of head-scratching among NBA fans and even the league itself. “We had already convened a panel of experts before Tyrese’s most recent Achilles rupture,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said.

When you zoom out from basketball and consider the broader landscape of sports, the injury surge seems quite real. In baseball, we’ve seen a huge increase in the so-called "Tommy John surgery," which repairs a torn UCL in a pitcher’s elbow. In soccer, ACL injuries have been rising, particularly in women's soccer. And that's before we get to the huge amount of media attention that’s been paid to concussions in football.

What's going on here? Vern Gambetta, a conditioning coach, trainer, and adviser to professional soccer, baseball, basketball, and Olympics teams, explains why major injuries might be surging across sports—and what it tells us about the risks of pushing the human body to its physical limit.

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Vern Gambetta

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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The Mysterious Rise of Major Injuries in Professional Sports

The California housing crisis is a disaster and an emergency. Housing construction per capita has steadily fallen in the last few decades, while home prices, rent, and homeless rates have all soared. By some estimates, the state is three million units short of housing demand—the equivalent of seven San Franciscos.

One of the major barriers to building more housing has for decades been provisions in the California Environmental Quality Act. Signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 1970s, the CEQA has been called "the law that ate California." It essentially allows anybody with a lawyer to stop any project they don’t like, for any reason.

But this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills to defang the CEQA. Housing reform advocates are calling it one of the most important legislative breakthroughs in modern state history. It could make it easier to build downtown housing and other urban development projects such as health clinics and childcare facilities. As Newsom wrote, “I just enacted the most game-changing housing reforms in recent California history. We're urgently embracing an abundance agenda by tearing down the barriers that have delayed new affordable housing and infrastructure for decades."

Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks wrote the bill to encourage more high-density housing projects, while State Senator Scott Wiener wrote the bill to exempt several types of projects from environmental review. Wicks and Wiener are today’s guests. We talk about the long road to breakthrough, the art of political persuasion, and the future of abundance in California.

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guests: Buffy Wicks and Scott Weiner

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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How Abundance Won in California

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Donald Trump rose to power in the Republican Party as a critic of the neoconservative tradition and was opposed to war in the Middle East. But after weeks of Israel’s aerial attacks of Iran, Trump shocked the world with targeted strikes of several Iranian nuclear facilities, including Natanz and Fordo. Suddenly, it seemed like President Trump was getting the U.S. involved in another Middle East conflict.

And then, just as suddenly, he declared a ceasefire. (Which was immediately violated, and then agreed on, and perhaps re-violated by the time you read these words.)

There are several questions to ask here. How did Trump, noted enemy of international entanglement, become the first U.S. president to ever bomb Iran? What is the U.S. trying to accomplish here? Is regime change in Iran something to hope for or a fast track to chaos? Ray Takeyh is an Iranian-born scholar and researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations. We talk about what just happened, how we got here, and the ways it could play out.

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Ray Takeyh

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Links: 

 "The Right Path to Regime Change in Iran" by Ray Takeyh 

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What's Next for the Middle East: War, Peace, or Revolution?

Before today’s show, a personal announcement. After almost 17 years at The Atlantic, I have just officially moved my writing full time to Substack, the newsletter platform. If you like this show, if you’re a fan of my work, I think you’ll love what I’m trying to build. Sign up here.

'Abundance,' the book I cowrote with Ezra Klein, has received sharp pushback from left-wing commentators. But the response among left-wing politicians has been strikingly different. While Bernie Sanders devotees have repeatedly bashed the book, Representative Ro Khanna (D-California), an outspoken advocate of Bernie’s signature policy proposal, Medicare for All, has announced his support for abundance on several occasions. While several people have accused the book of ignoring policies to increase welfare, Wes Moore, the progressive Maryland governor whose private-sector career was devoted to reducing poverty, said in a recent speech that Democrats have to change from being the party of “no” and “slow” to the party of “yes” and “now.”

Then there is Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist candidate for mayor of New York City. Mamdani and I have very different politics on a range of issues: housing, affordability, education, levels of taxation, and spending. But Mamdani has in the last few weeks embraced what he calls an agenda of abundance. He’s told podcasts like Pod Save America that he thinks leftist critics of abundance have oversimplified the book and that our approach to making government work better is exactly what the left needs.

I saw some people point to Mamdani’s name-checks of 'Abundance' and say, "This is great!" while others warned, "It’s a ruse! Stay away!" I wanted to talk to the man himself. So I was very gratified that Mamdani and I found 30 minutes to sit down Saturday and talk calmly about abundance and the left, how we agree, how we disagree, why government efficiency ought to be a virtue of all leaders (especially those on the left who want government to do much more), and, finally, how to change our minds. On this point, Mamdani and I are in full agreement: To see the errors in our own thinking requires that we have the courage to talk to people we do not agree with.

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Zohran Mamdani

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani on Abundance, Socialism, and How to Change a Mind

Americans are unusually overweight and chronically ill compared to similarly rich countries. This episode presents a grand, unified theory for why that's the case. Our food environment has become significantly more calorie-rich and industrialized in the past few decades, sending our obesity rates soaring, our visceral fat levels rising, and our chronic inflammation surging. The result is an astonishing rise in chronic illness in America. That's the bad news. The good news is that GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic and Zepbound, seem to be astonishingly successful at reversing many of these trends.

This episode blends two interviews with Dr. David Kessler and Dr. Eric Topol. Kessler was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under the Bush and Clinton administrations, from 1990 to 1997. He helped lead Operation Warp Speed in its final months. He is the author of the book 'Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine.' Topol is a cardiologist and the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. He is the author of the book 'Super Agers.'

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guests: Dr. David Kessler and Dr. Eric Topol

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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A Grand, Unified Theory of Why Americans Are So Unhealthy

Today’s episode is a long one: It’s about the debate over media coverage of COVID. Three years after the fateful March of 2020, when it feels like the world shut down for COVID, we are revisiting two of the most contentious debates in this space. No. 1: The lab leak hypothesis; which is the debate over the possibility that COVID originated at a laboratory in China and not, as the official story went, at a wet market in Wuhan. And no. 2: the mask debate. And why a seemingly simple question—do masks work—is so hard to answer. Today’s guests are Dan Engber, a science writer and editor at The Atlantic who has chronicled the ups and downs of the media’s relationship to the lab leak. And Jason Abaluck, a Yale economist who has conducted masking research in Bangladesh.
Host: Derek Thompson 
Guests: Dan Engber & Jason Abaluck
Producer: Devon Manze
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How the Media Failed Its COVID Test: The Truth Behind the Lab Leak and Masking Debates

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