583. Are We Living Through the Most Revolutio...

A ruthless (and ruthlessly efficient) industry is using digital tools to supercharge one of the world’s oldest behaviors. We look at how the industry works, and ask the scam-fighters what they’re doing about it. SOURCES: Kati Daffan, former assistant director at the Federal Trade ...  Show more

Economists don’t usually talk about “culture.” But Joel Mokyr argues that it’s the engine of innovation — and the Nobel Prize committee agreed. Stephen Dubner sits down for a thousand-year conversation (including advice!) with the new Nobel laureate. SOURCES: Joel Mokyr, economic ...  Show more

This week on Babel, Jon Alterman speaks with Prof. Killian Clarke of Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service about his forthcoming book tentatively entitled The Return of Tyranny: How Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed. They talk about the counterrevolution in E ...  Show more

As we approach the 2022 midterms, the outlook for American democracy doesn’t appear promising. An increasingly Trumpist, anti-democratic Republican Party is poised to take over at least one chamber of Congress. And the Democratic Party, facing an inflationary economy and with ...

Economist Daron Acemoglu likes to tackle big questions. He tells Steve how colonialism still affects us today, who benefits from new technology, and why democracy wasn’t always a sure thing.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down with 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to discuss the recent suspension of his campaign, how he fought the traditional media’s best advances against him, who he is endorsing now, and the American values he seeks to defend going forward. ...  Show more