Plain English with Derek Thompson

Twenty years ago, higher education was one of the most trusted institutions in America. Today, confidence in higher ed is falling among every demographic: young and old, men and women, Republicans and Democrats, those who didn't finish high school and those with framed PhDs on their wall. And it’s not just attitudes. In the fall of 2010, there were more than 18 million undergraduates enrolled in colleges and universities across the U.S. Last year, there were about 15 million undergrads. That’s a decline of roughly 16 percent. In a recent essay for the New York Times, author Paul Tough, who’s published several excellent books about college in America, wrote: “Americans have turned away from college at the same time that students in the rest of the world have been flocking to campus. Why?” Today’s guest is Paul Tough. We talk about why a noxious stew of economics, culture, and inequality has turned a surprising number of Americans against college. Who’s to blame, and what happens next? If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.  Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Paul Tough Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since the 1970s, the General Social Survey has asked thousands of Americans the same question: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” In the past few decades, our well-being seemed to take a nosedive. According to researchers, the decline of marriage seems to be the single most important explanation. Why is marriage the best predictor of happiness in America? Does marriage turn unhappy people into happy people? Are happier people just more likely to get married? Or is something more complicated happening? We welcome back Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, the director and associate director of Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running study of adult happiness ever conducted and the authors of the book 'The Good Life,' to discuss. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're in the midst of a great affordability crisis. It's not just the inflation crisis. It's a greater cost crisis of the last few decades. Everything that matters most in life—health care, housing, education—is getting more and more expensive. Why? One way to investigate this question is to look at the cost and speed of building physical things in America. We build urban transit more slowly than we used to, we build highways more slowly than we used to, we build energy infrastructure more slowly than we used to, we build skyscrapers more slowly than we used to, and we build housing more slowly than we used to. Brian Potter, the author of the newsletter 'Construction Physics,' explains the forces behind the great slowdown, why it matters, and how to turn things around. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.  Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Brian Potter Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Derek is back, and ... he's a new dad! After several weeks of parental leave, he talks about what's surprised him about new fatherhood. Brad Stulberg, the health and science writer, returns to the show to discuss the psychology of major life transitions, why westerners—and, in particular, Americans—are so bad at dealing with challenges to their identity, and his new book, 'Master of Change.' If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.  Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Brad Stulberg Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s show is about what I consider the biggest mystery of the U.S. economy. Last year, economic experts predicted a recession in 2023 with more confidence than they’ve predicted any recession in decades. We ended up with what some people are calling immaculate disinflation: an economy with low unemployment, falling inflation, rising real wages, and narrowing inequality. Harvard economist Jason Furman joins the show to talk about why so many economists were so wrong and what their wrongness teaches us about how the economy works. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.  Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Jason Furman Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Less than 1 percent of college students attend Ivy League colleges and equally selective schools, like Stanford and Duke. But these schools have an outsize influence on American life. Practically every Supreme Court justice of the last 40 years, 25 percent of the U.S. Senate, and one in eight Fortune 500 CEOs went to these schools. A new study on their admissions programs finds that they are heavily biased toward children from rich families. For applicants with the same SAT score, kids from families in the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in compared to the average student. A coauthor on that paper, Harvard economist David Deming, talks to Derek about what his landmark study tells us about college, fairness, and the American Dream. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.  Host: Derek Thompson Guest: David Deming Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb,' discusses the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, the history of nuclear weapons, and the new film on his life by Christopher Nolan. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Richard Rhodes Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The trouble brewing in the media and entertainment industry has become one of the most interesting—and truly perplexing—business stories in the world. How does everything seem so bad at the same time? The domestic box office is still in a recession. Pay TV is a nightmare. Streaming is a money pit. And actors and writers are on strike. How did this happen? And could it get worse before it gets better? Today’s guest is Julia Alexander, director of strategy for Parrot Analytics and a writer with Puck News. We discuss a brief history of Hollywood, how we got to this point, how Disney’s plight in particular tells a story of how streaming has roiled this town, how the strikes fit into this picture, and what these companies should do now. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Julia Alexander Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By many measures, this is one of the best times to find a job in decades. And by many measures, Americans are locked in a state of extreme glumness about the country. Jordan Weissmann, Washington editor at Semafor, rejoins the show to talk about why the economy is much better than many Americans—and many economic commentators—think, and whether "Bidenomics" can fix what ails us. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Jordan Weissmann Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Calvin Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University and the author of, among other books, 'Deep Work' and 'A World Without Email.' At the heart of so much of Newport’s work is this incredibly rich mystery: Why hasn't the internet produced more geniuses? One possibility is that the productivity tools ironically inhibit our productivity. The average white-collar worker in marketing, advertising, finance, and media now spends up to 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication. In a recent survey, Microsoft found that video meetings had taken up so much of the day that a significant share of its workforce was logging online between 9 and 10 p.m. to finish their actual non-email, non-meeting work. In response to this relentless need to loop back and back and back, Newport came up with what he called the Deep Work Hypothesis: He said to learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. But the ability to perform this kind of deep focused work is becoming rare at exactly the same time it is becoming most valuable in our economy. In this conversation, we talk about deep work and shallow work, how our productivity tools make us less productive, and how to actually get things done. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Calvin Newport Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

University of Chicago professor Paul Poast breaks down Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion, Vladimir Putin's weakness, Russia's military incompetence, and the long-term implications of Saturday's bizarre 36-hour rebellion. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Paul Poast Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s episode is the first in a new miniseries about getting stuff done. This episode in particular is about NOT getting stuff done. I consider myself an exceptional procrastinator. There are many times when I sit down at my computer to accomplish one task—say, answer my email; write five paragraphs—where I’ll immediately get swept into a text conversation, which will lead to some snooping around ESPN, which will remind me I should check The Atlantic homepage, where I’ll open three articles in separate tabs, and those articles will birth even more tabs, but they’re long articles and I want some coffee as a companion so maybe I should make some coffee, so I listen to a podcast while I do that, and I might as well check Twitter while I’m listening to the show, and three hours later, I’ve written absolutely nothing. I’ve spent way too much time thinking about procrastination, which is why it was such a pleasure to think out loud about it with an actual scientist: Tim Pychyl, a retired professor of psychology at Carleton University and a long-time productivity researcher. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Tim Pychyl Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last year, there were 3,661,220 babies born in the U.S. That sounds like a lot. But historically speaking, it’s really not. It’s actually 15 percent below our peak in 2007. And it means America’s total fertility rate—the average number of babies a woman today is expected to have in her lifetime, based on current trends—is essentially stuck at its all-time record low. For decades, the U.S. birthrate has been below the so-called replacement level of 2.1. Today it’s around 1.6. Sometimes, I feel a little weird talking about fertility and birthrates like they’re just ordinary numbers with decimal points, like monthly used-car inflation. Fertility is complicated. It is emotional. And it is private. But I’m fascinated by this issue because the collective private decisions of hundreds of millions of families really do shape the future of population growth. And there’s just no getting around the fact that population growth is one of the most important factors in determining economic growth, tax revenue, productivity, innovation, and public finance. We’re in a moment now in world history where every major country is projected to have a shrinking population in the next 20 years. No country gives us a better glimpse of this impending future than South Korea. In 1960, the average Korean woman had six children. Today, Korean woman average less than one child. Today, the country has the world’s lowest fertility rate. Today’s guest is Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies and a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. In this episode, we look at this thorny and important issue by first zooming in to South Korea, where Andrew gives me an education on a country I’m extremely curious about, but frankly know very little about. And then we zoom out and talk about how South Korea is a canary in the coal mine for the rest of the planet when it comes to the many ways that fertility rates affect just about everything else. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Andrew Yeo Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s episode is about the state of men in America. Last week, the non-profit institute Equimondo published a report on the state of men and boys in America: “Many men—especially younger men—are socially disconnected, pessimistic about the future, and turning to online anger," they wrote. "They are facing higher rates of depressive symptoms, suicidal thoughts, and a sense of isolation, as seen in the agreement of 65 percent that 'no one really knows me well.'" One survey is one survey. It doesn’t do a lot of good to overreact and proclaim one set of findings the iron law of American sociology. But this report is in line with other polls and also with the analyses of experts like Richard Reeves, the Brookings scholar who wrote the book ‘Of Boys and Men.’ Richard is today’s returning guest. We talk about how complaining about masculinity is history’s oldest trope; why this time might be different; what young men think about feminism; the effect of social media on boys and why it might be different than the effect of social media on girls; and what a positive version of masculinity might look like. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Richard Reeves  Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In May of this year, the Writers Guild of America went on strike. For weeks, TV and film writers have been walking in picket lines in Los Angeles and New York, and the strike threatens to bring TV and film development to a screeching halt. Historically, strikes both reflect history—the ever-changing business models behind the media we consume—and change history. The 2007-8 strike famously accelerated the rise of reality TV. Today’s guest is Matt Belloni, the host of the Ringer podcast 'The Town' and a writer with Puck News. He breaks down what’s at stake for writers and studios and answers my deeper questions about how this strike could change the future of TV and film. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Matt Belloni Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the last five years, high school sports participation has fallen for the first time on record. The number of boys playing high school sports today is lower than in any year since 2007. While travel leagues are thriving, local leagues are flailing—for football, soccer, baseball, basketball ... you name it. And this is happening, of course, in a decade when young people are spending less time in the physical world, less time with their friends, less time moving around, and more time sitting hunched over a phone. So what’s going on, and what should we do? Today’s guests are Jason Gay, sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and Tom Farrey, the executive director of the Aspen Institute's Sports and Society Program. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Jason Gay and Tom Farrey Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s episode is about how artificial intelligence will change the future of war. First, we have Brian Schimpf, the CEO of Anduril, a military technology company that builds AI programs for the Department of Defense. Next we have the Atlantic author Ross Andersen on how to prevent AI from blowing up the world. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Brian Schimpf and Ross Andersen Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s episode is about a narrow question and a broad question. The narrow question is: Is ice cream secretly good for you? The broader question is about the nature of uncertainty and truth, how diet science actually works, and how bias plays a role in scientific discovery. Our guest is public health historian and journalist David Johns, who has reported on ice cream science for The Atlantic. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: David Johns Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The world is engaged in a multitrillion-dollar project to decarbonize the economy to slow or reverse climate change. But what exactly does that mean? How optimistic should we be that we can pull this off? And what new technology do we need to build to make it happen? This is a mega-pod with two guests. Ramez Naam is a writer, speaker, and one of the best technologists I know at explaining the progress we’re making toward building a clean-energy economy. And Vinod Khosla is one of the most famous venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, the founder of Khosla Ventures, and an investor in several sci-fi-sounding companies, including one that is working on fusion technology—which might be one of the most exciting and important technologies we'll ever build. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Ramez Naam & Vinod Khosla Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I am fascinated by sleep and also—perhaps, relatedly—not very good at it. Like tens of millions of Americans, I've had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep for most of my life. I also know that sleep is the glue that holds together health—a fact that sometimes haunts me as I toss and turn at night. Behind the fitness and health fads, what's the truth about insomnia? How dangerous is it? When do we know when we have a problem? How is it different from sleep deprivation? What have we learned about sleep in the last few decades that's most important for average people to remember? Dr. Jade Wu, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist and researcher at Duke University School of Medicine and the author of 'Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications,' explains how the modern panic about sleep and insomnia misunderstands some fundamental facts. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Dr. Jade Wu Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices