Today’s episode is about the future of the American city. Many downtowns are "wounded renditions of their once-robust selves." Offices are empty. Commercial real estate is losing value, pulling down municipal tax revenue. Fewer commuters means less transit revenue. Fewer downtown shoppers means less downtown employment. This has led some economists to worry about an "urban doom loop." Dror Poleg, an author and adviser who writes about the future of cities, talks about the knock-on effects of urban change on finance, work, real estate, and technology.

Host: Derek Thompson 

Guest: Dror Poleg

Producer: Devon Manze

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Today’s episode is about guns, drugs, cars, and a big question: Why do Americans die so much younger than people in any other rich country?

Before the 1990s, average life expectancy in the U.S. was not much different than it was in western Europe: Germany, France, the U.K. But since the 1990s, something very strange and clearly bad has happened. Americans got much richer than Europeans. But American life spans have fallen behind those of Europeans so dramatically that today, the typical American has the same healthy life expectancy as someone in the poorest town in England.

So what's going on? To unravel this mystery, today’s guest is John Burn-Murdoch, a data journalist at the Financial Times, who recently published a magisterial investigation of the American death gap.

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: John Burn-Murdoch

Producer: Devon Manze

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Derek talks to ‘Semafor’ political reporter Dave Weigel about how the Trump indictment could reshape the election—or turn out to be a big ole nothing burger. But before that, Norman Eisen, a lawyer who served as cocounsel for the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment and trial of Donald Trump, argues that Alvin Bragg's case is much stronger than the conventional wisdom.

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: Norman Eisen and Dave Weigel

Producer: Devon Manze

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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 PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. 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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Donald Trump has been indicted. But what do we actually know about the case against him? What will the charges be? Is there any legal precedent for the prosecution? What happens when he's arrested? Could he run for office from prison? How does this change the Republican presidential race? What about all those other investigations proceeding against Trump, in Georgia and D.C.? Is this indictment good for Donald Trump's presidential hopes in an underrated way or the beginning of a bigger downfall? Derek answers your burning questions to the best of his ability.

Host: Derek Thompson

Producer: Devon Manze

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Today’s episode is about how we think about success—and how our high school and college systems might be teaching us the wrong lessons about achievement and personal progress. Our guest is Lisa Damour, a psychologist and the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including 'The Emotional Lives of Teenagers.'

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: Lisa Damour

Producer: Devon Manze

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Sometimes on this show, we talk about the news. This episode is about the diametric opposite of the news. It’s about thinking deeply about human history and trying to appreciate the awesome length of time and the finitude of our lives. It's an interview with Tim Urban, a blogger at the mind-expanding site Wait But Why, and the author of a new book What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies. If you don’t know Tim and his work, I would sum up his thing this way: Tim is a kind of alien. He has an incredible talent for seeing our world as if from the perspective of a goofy but smart extraterrestrial, who takes not the 30,000-foot view on life, but the 300,000-foot view of life, and history, and human nature. In this show, we talk about … you know what. I'm not even going to try to sum up the hour. Just enjoy.

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 Urban

Producer: Devon Manze

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Derek unpacks his thoughts about GPT-4 and what it means to be, possibly, at the dawn of a sea change in technology. Then, he talks to Charlie Warzel, staff writer at The Atlantic, about what GPT-4 is capable of, the most interesting ways people are using it, how it could change the way we work, and why some people think it will bring about the apocalypse.

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: Charlie Warzel

Producer: Devon Manze

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Derek answers your burning questions in a special mailbag episode!

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

Producer: Devon Manze

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Derek welcomes back the economic roundtable of Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson, cohosts of the 'Animal Spirits' podcast, to debate who killed Silicon Valley Bank, how much we should blame the Fed, how much we should blame Silicon Valley venture capital firms, whether this will change the direction of monetary policy, and whether the U.S. has too many banks in the first place.

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: Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson

Producer: Devon Manze

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