2025-03-04 19:00:00
As the second Trump administration dismantles federal DEI programs and removes trans Americans from the military, the crusade on “wokeness” seems to be a core focus of the president’s second term. In this encore episode, host Jerusalem Demsas speaks with the New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg about the end of wokeness and why we might miss it when it’s gone.
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2025-02-28 19:00:00
The sound designer Randy Thom was faced with a challenge: What does a robot sound like? And what if that robot learns to love?
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2025-02-27 19:00:00
We talk with staff writer Anne Applebaum about what she calls the “end of the post–World War II order (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/trump-ukraine-postwar-world/681745/) .” We also talk with staff writer Shane Harris, who covers national security, about how intelligence agencies are responding to changing positions under the Trump administration. Allies that routinely share intelligence with the U.S. are reassessing how much to trust the U.S.
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2025-02-25 19:00:00
If researchers could go back in time 100,000 years, they’d find at least three different types of humans walking the Earth. Today, only the dominant group, Homo sapiens, survives. The scientist Johannes Krause explains how new discoveries in paleontology and genetics help pinpoint the exact period in which human groups interbred. Understanding this timeline, he says, brings us closer to understanding what makes modern humans unique.
Further reading:
“Earliest Modern Human Genomes Constrain Timing of Neanderthal Admixture (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08420-x) ,” by Johannes Krause, et al.
“Neanderthal Ancestry Through Time: Insights From Genomes of Ancient and Present-Day Humans (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq3010) ,” by Leonardo N. M. Iasi, et al.
“DOGE Is Failing on Its Own Terms (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/nih-nsf-science-doge/681645/) ,” by David Deming
Interview with Svante Pääbo (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2022/paabo/interview/) , 2022 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine
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2025-02-20 19:00:00
Americans used to move all the time to better their lives. Then they stopped. Why?
Read Yoni Appelbaum’s cover story on The Atlantic here (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/american-geographic-social-mobility/681439/) .
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2025-02-18 19:00:00
Why do governments educate their citizens? More than 200 years ago, Western regimes shifted the responsibility of education from the family to the state. The political scientist Agustina Paglayan argues that this transition happened not in pursuit of democratic ideals, but in the interest of social control.
Further reading:
Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education (https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691261270/raised-to-obey?srsltid=AfmBOorJuprsaN_w9_Narqpf4tOf9Gvv7uTP7Qnz5JyI9MIByumLTfgd) , by Agustina Paglayan
“How Reconstruction Created American Public Education (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/12/reconstruction-education-black-students-public-schools/675816/) ," by Adam Harris
“Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History (https://docs.iza.org/dp2886.pdf) ,” by Sascha O. Becker Ludger Woessmann
“Understanding Education Policy Preferences: Survey Experiments with Policymakers in 35 Developing Countries (https://www.cgdev.org/publication/understanding-education-policy-preferences-survey-experiments-policymakers-35-developing) ,” by Lee Crawfurd, et al.
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