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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. Watch 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! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

Plain English with Derek Thompson

Humans are unusual dads. Across the animal kingdom, dads are often absent from child-rearing altogether. But among humans, fatherhood takes many forms, and in the last half century, it has changed dramatically. College-educated American fathers now spend nearly four times as much time caring for their children as they did in the 1960s.

And according to new research, this new type of fatherhood doesn't just change a man's schedule or priorities—it can literally change his brain.

Today, Derek talks with USC psychologist Darby Saxbe, author of 'Dad Brain,' about the science of modern fatherhood. They discuss how active parenting affects men's psychology and how changing expectations around fatherhood are reshaping families and men themselves.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Darby SaxbeProducer: Devon BaroldiAdditional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
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How Modern Fatherhood Is Changing Men’s Brains

For generations, we've defined creativity by its products: the novel, the painting, the song, the breakthrough idea. We look at the work, and from the work we see the creator as “creative.” But AI is getting remarkably good at producing creative work. In some cases, experts now prefer AI-generated writing to work created by humans and can't reliably tell the difference between the two. In fact, a major literary prize even recently honored a work that was largely written by AI.

It all raises a deeper question than whether or not AI can write well. It forces us to reconsider what creativity actually is.

Today, neuroscientist Adam Green joins the show to discuss how AI is changing the way we write, think, and generate ideas. His research finds that while AI can make our language more polished and sophisticated, it may also make our thinking more uniform. The sentences get sharper. The ideas get more predictable. And If creativity is no longer something we can recognize from the final product alone, we may need a new, more human definition.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Dr. Adam GreenProducer: Devon BaroldiAdditional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
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What 400,000 Essays Reveal About AI and Creativity

Modern loneliness is often treated as a simple problem: People are simply spending more time alone. But what if that's not the whole story? Over the last several years, Derek has written about workism, the rise of a culture that puts work at the center of our lives, and the "antisocial century," in which technology has made it easier than ever to avoid spending time with other people. The result is a world where many of us trade deep connection for convenience, productivity, and fleeting hits of entertainment.

Today, Derek talks with Yale psychology professor and Happiness Lab host Laurie Santos about the science of friendship, connection, and loneliness. What do we misunderstand about being alone? Why are male friendships harder to maintain? And how can we build stronger relationships in a world that seems designed to pull us apart?

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Laurie Santos

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
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The Surprising Truth About America's Friendship Crisis

The NBA’s vibes have been unusually awful recently. There has been widespread hand-wringing about the homogenization of modern offenses and the league’s notoriously weak regular-season TV ratings. A tanking crisis saw about a third of teams purposely try to lose games in a race to secure the top pick in the 2026 draft. A barrage of gambling scandals took out a head coach and several players. And the playoffs have brought relentless complaining from fans about foul-baiting and flopping, tactics that have often been rewarded by the referees.At the center of this is Adam Silver, who was once the most popular and celebrated commissioner in all of sports. In recent years, though, his reputation has soured. Fans have begun to wonder: Why isn’t he addressing the problems that everyone else seems to see? Is the right guy running the league?In a profile of Silver for The Atlantic, the journalist Tim Alberta wrote, “Companies take on the personality of their leader.” Today, Alberta joins Derek to talk about the state of the modern NBA, whether the league has optimized the fun out of basketball, and what the impact is when a sport stops being treated like a game that exists to remind people that there is more to life than work and money.

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Subscribe to our YouTube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Tim AlbertaProducer: Chris SuttonAdditional Production Support: Ben GlicksmanLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Why the NBA Feels Broken—and Why the League Can’t Fix It

Over the past century, attitudes about gender roles have become one of the clearest dividing lines in the country. Many Republicans, both men and women, say men are getting a raw deal in modern America. Many Democrats see that claim as completely off base.

So where does that split come from, and why has it become so central to politics?

Journalist Helen Lewis calls this emerging worldview “masculinism,” an ideology that pushes back against feminism and reflects a broader nostalgia for traditional gender roles. Today, Lewis joins Derek to talk about the rise of this phenomenon and what it reveals about the growing schism in American politics.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: 

https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Helen Lewis

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
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The Men Who Think Toxic Feminism Destroyed America

On his 40th birthday, Derek Thompson takes a step back and looks at how his thinking on the national debt has changed. Back when he first covered fiscal policy, concern about government borrowing was mostly a conservative position, with many liberals arguing it was overblown.

That’s starting to shift.

The U.S. now spends far more than it brings in, and the gap is still growing. For the first time, interest payments on the debt have surpassed military spending. And deficits that once rose during crises like the Great Recession and the COVID pandemic haven’t really come back down.

So what changed, and how worried should we be?

Derek is joined by economist Justin Wolfers to walk through the basics of the federal budget, the evolving debate around the national debt, and why more economists are starting to take persistent deficits seriously.

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Justin Wolfers

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman

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Does Anybody Know How to Solve an American Debt Crisis?

Fertility rates are collapsing around the world. In rich countries and poor ones, in secular societies and religious ones, people are having fewer children than ever before. Some explanations focus on economic factors like housing costs, childcare costs, and student debt. Others point to a harder-to-measure, broader sense of uncertainty about the future.

At the same time, economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde thinks we are underestimating how big a deal this really is. In his view, only two forces will truly shape the future of human history in this century: artificial intelligence and fertility, and changes are already underway.

Today, Fernández-Villaverde joins Derek to talk about the global fertility decline, why it is happening across so many different societies, and why he believes this shift could reshape economics, culture, and the future of civilization.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Jesús Fernández-Villaverde

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
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The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Think

For the past few years, Silicon Valley executives and economists have warned that artificial intelligence could wipe out millions of jobs. Some companies have even blamed AI for layoffs. But what if the AI job apocalypse isn’t actually happening?

Today, Derek talks to economist Alex Imas about the growing gap between the rhetoric around AI-related job loss and the facts. Despite widespread fears of mass unemployment, surveys show most executives expect AI to create jobs or have little impact on hiring. Even employment in software engineering (one of the fields thought to be most vulnerable to AI) continues to grow.

Derek and Alex discuss why automation fears persist despite contradictory evidence, the history of technological disruption, and why AI may not be destroying work as much as it is simply redirecting us toward entirely new industries and opportunities.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Alex Imas

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman

Visit https://www.uber.com/safety to learn more.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Case Against the AI Job Apocalypse

America is richer than ever. Unemployment is low. Wages are high. According to traditional metrics, the economy looks strong. So why are Americans feeling so bad?

Today, Derek talks with bestselling author Morgan Housel and journalist David Wallace-Wells about what Derek calls the “Tragic Twenties”: the strange and sudden collapse in American happiness that began during COVID and never really stopped.

What's behind the country’s emotional downturn? Inflation and the lingering psychological effects of the pandemic are certainly part of the story. But so are collapsing trust in institutions, rising social isolation, the negativity feedback loop of social media, and the feeling that we’re living through one crisis after another. Derek, Morgan, and David unpack why the wealthiest society in history still feels deeply adrift and what this happiness recession says about the future of American life.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek ThompsonGuests: Morgan Housel and Derek Wallace-WellsProducer: Devon BaroldiAdditional Production Support: Ben Glicksman

Links: https://www.derekthompson.org/p/if-americas-so-rich-howd-it-get-so
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Why American Happiness Just Fell Off a Cliff

Hard to detect and almost impossible to treat, pancreatic cancer has long been one of medicine’s most ruthless killers. For decades, it’s been the cancer that science couldn’t crack. But that might be starting to change.

Recently, cancer researchers have announced a series of breakthroughs that, taken together, sound almost too good to be true: a drug that targets the “undruggable” gene behind most pancreatic tumors, a personalized mRNA vaccine that teaches the immune system to recognize pancreatic cancer as an enemy, and, now, an AI program that can spot the elusive disease years before doctors typically find it.

So is this breakthrough a real turning point? Or another case of medical hype outrunning reality?

On today’s episode, Dr. Ajit Goenka of the Mayo Clinic joins Derek to walk through the science behind the latest advances in cancer detection and what they could mean for the future of health care. They discuss Dr. Goenka’s new research using artificial intelligence to detect pancreatic cancer earlier than ever before … and whether machines might soon see what doctors can’t.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

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

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Dr. Ajit Goenka

Producer: Devon Baroldi

Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Surprising Truth About America's Friendship Crisis

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