Plain English with Derek Thompson

• Is Pop Culture Worse Than Ever?

  In music, billion-dollar investments in old catalogues are squeezing out new music. In film, Hollywood has become addicted to the regurgitation of familiar IP. In visual art, critics bemoan the straitjacket of political correctness. On TV, as Derek told Bill Simmons, we're in a Gilded Age of television, where every prestigious show looks absolutely amazing—but that gilded veneer often covers up for dull storytelling. What do these trends all have in common? The slow decline of modern media. This month, The Atlantic's Spencer Kornhaber published a blockbuster essay, "Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?" Today, he joins Derek to answer that question. They discuss the four horsemen of the pop culture apocalypse—stagnation, cynicism, isolation, and brain rot—and the case that, maybe, things aren't quite as bad as they seem. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Spencer Kornhaber Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• The Job Market for Young Grads Is Flashing Red

  Last month, the unemployment rate for recent college grads surged to nearly 6 percent. Compared to the overall economy's jobless rate, the unemployment rate for recent grads is higher now than in any month on record, going back at least four decades. Business school grads are struggling, too. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that elite MBA programs saw that their most recent classes had "worse job-placement outcomes last year than any other in recent memory." What’s going on? Today’s guest is David Deming, an economist at Harvard who studies education and the future of work. We walk through some plain-Jane theories about the weakening labor market for young college grads. But then, as you’ll hear, the conversation expands to consider the coming storm of AI—and how artificial intelligence is changing education and the workforce for young people. To read more on this topic, check out Derek's Atlantic column from last week. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: David Deming Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• Megapod: The Crisis in American Science

  Today, we are witnessing an unprecedented assault on American science. Thousands of workers have been dismissed from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Billions of dollars are being cut from the NIH and NSF. Talented scientists are leaving the field (or leaving the country). Clinical trials and longitudinal studies are ending without explanation. Major research universities are under direct attack, with billions more dollars being withheld for political purposes. Today, I want to do three things: First, I want to review what's happening to American science and why it’s so serious. Second, I want to explore how we got here—how the American science system works, and where it came from. And third, I want to discuss what a real reformist agenda for American science would look like. So, for the first time, this is a triple-barreled podcast. First we speak to Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of Science and the prestigious Science journals. Second, we talk to Bhaven Sampat, a researcher and historian at Arizona State University, about the history of the NIH. And finally, we talk to Pierre Azoulay, a researcher at MIT, who has spent considerable time and energy studying how American science works and how it could work better. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Holden Thorp, Bhaven Sampat and Pierre Azoulay Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• Is This the Chinese Century?

  In the last few weeks, for the first time in my life, I’ve seriously thought about the 21st century not being another American century. A recent essay in the journal Foreign Affairs by Rush Doshi and Kurt Campbell put things as starkly as I’ve ever seen. Some people are still stuck in a mode of thinking about China as being a place that just makes things of little value and significance. But Made in China means something different now. Technologically, China dominates everything from electric vehicles to fourth-generation nuclear reactors. Militarily, it features the world’s largest navy. Its shipbuilding capacity is 200 times as large as America’s. In a world built of cement and steel, China makes 20 times more cement and 13 times more steel than the U.S. In a world whose future will be full of electric vehicles, batteries, drones, and solar power, China makes two-thirds of the world’s EVs, three-quarters of its electric batteries, 80 percent of consumer drones, and 90 percent of solar panels. In a world where wars are won by the largest militaries, consider that China’s navy will be 50 percent larger than the U.S. Navy by the end of the decade. Today's guests are Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi. Both men served on the Biden National Security Council. Campbell is the chairman and cofounder of The Asia Group. Doshi is director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations and an assistant professor at Georgetown University. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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  1:10:45
• What Americans Get Wrong About ADHD

  In 1937, a Rhode Island psychiatrist named Charles Bradley ran an experiment on 30 child patients who had complained of headaches. He gave them an amphetamine, that is a stimulant, called Benzedrine, which was popular at the time among jazz musicians and college students. The experiment failed, in one sense. The headaches persisted. But he noted that half of the children responded in what he called spectacular fashion, as teachers said these children seemed instantly transformed by the drug. Rather than being bored by their homework, they were interested in it. Rather than being hyperactive, they became more “placid and easygoing.” Rather than complaining to parents about chores, they would make comments like: “I start to make my bed, and before I know it, it is done.” Bradley published the results in The American Journal of Insanity, and it marks perhaps the origins of our treatment model for ADHD. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, has always been hard to define. It’s harder still in an age when everybody feels like modern entertainment and the omnipresence of our screens make it hard for anybody to concentrate and sit still. But clearly, some people struggle with concentration and stillness more than others. ADHD has many classic symptoms, but it is typically marked by patterns of inattentiveness—frequently losing items, failing to follow multistep instructions—or by hyperactivity: say, fidgeting, or, for some children, being literally incapable of sitting in one place for more than half a second. In a way, I’ve always disliked the phrase "attention-deficit disorder," because ADHD is not about a deficit of ordinary attention but a surplus of feral attention—an overflowing of raw, uncontrollable noticing. Last week, the journalist Paul Tough published a long, 9,000-word essay in The New York Times Magazine about ADHD called "Have We Been Thinking About ADHD All Wrong?" Tough asked hard questions about why diagnoses are soaring. Is this evidence of an epidemic? Or is it evidence of overdiagnosis? Paul is today’s guest. We talk about his blockbuster essay, what its loudest critics said about it, what its loudest advocates said about it, and why they both might be wrong. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Paul Tough Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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