A Big Heap of Shining Wit
…by a long shot, is courtesy of Anu Garg, the editor of Wordsmith.org: Rev. William Archibald Spooner, the father of spoonerism, not only gave the English language a new word,…
…by a long shot, is courtesy of Anu Garg, the editor of Wordsmith.org: Rev. William Archibald Spooner, the father of spoonerism, not only gave the English language a new word,…
…research that chalks up these productivity gaps to the all-too-human ways that different companies (and divisions within a single organization) are managed. The fact that management matters—a lot—shouldn’t come as…
…list The Marshall Project, a “not-for-profit, non-partisan news organization dedicated to covering America’s criminal justice system.” It’s being launched by Neil Barsky, a former journalist, hedge-funder, and most recently film…
…with Yale Law student, Colson Lin, I’ve launched belfortvictimsfund.org, which tells anyone how they can contribute. I am not claiming that moviegoers have a moral duty to remedy the harms…
…from New Jersey named India Unger-Harquail to try to do something about it. We’ve just launched a new website, AcadiumScholar.org. You can go to site, enter a score, and it…
…with our policy.” Even more heartening, DoSomething.org just posted a photo of a manager’s notice on the wall of an actual McDonald’s store instructing employees: “When a customer orders a…
The accidental futurist Kevin Kelly on why enthusiasm beats intelligence, how to really listen, and why the solution to bad technology is more technology.
In the American Dream sweepstakes, Andrew Yang was a pretty big winner. But for every winner, he came to realize, there are thousands upon thousands of losers — a “war…
Nearly 2 percent of America is grassy green. Sure, lawns are beautiful and useful and they smell great. But are the costs — financial, environmental and otherwise — worth the…
Stephen Dubner’s conversation with the C.E.O. of Microsoft, recorded for the Freakonomics Radio series “The Secret Life of a C.E.O.”…
Starting in the late 1960s, the Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Danny Kahneman began to redefine how the human mind actually works. Michael Lewis’s new book The Undoing Project explains…
Nearly 2 percent of America is grassy green. Sure, lawns are beautiful and useful and they smell great. But are the costs — financial, environmental and otherwise — worth the…
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, the South African divestment campaign, Chick-fil-A! Almost anyone can launch a boycott, and the media loves to cover them. But do boycotts actually produce the change…
We Americans may love our democracy — at least in theory — but at the moment our feelings toward the Federal government lie somewhere between disdain and hatred. Which electoral…
Also: How do you recover from a bad day?…
If the big social-media companies are unable or unwilling to make major changes from within, it may be up to outsiders to create better, healthier digital communities. Whether it’s smaller…
Sure, we love our computers and all the rest of our digital toys. But when it comes to real economic gains, can we ever match old-school innovations like the automobile…
In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes (No. 39!), we asked a bunch of economists with young kids how they approached child-rearing. Now the kids are old enough to…
That’s what some health officials are saying, but the data aren’t so clear. We look into what’s known (and not known) about the prevalence and effects of loneliness — including…
He’s the award-winning author of hugely popular books like Guns, Germs, and Steel; Collapse; and Upheaval. But Jared actually started his varied career as an expert on gallbladders and birds….
Steve Levitt has so far occupied the interviewer chair on his new show, but in a special live event — recorded over Zoom and presented by WNYC and the Greene…
A clever study tracking the survivors of Hurricane Katrina came to a bold conclusion: when it comes to your health, place is destiny. So how can the benefits of healthier…
Kevin Kelly calls himself “the most optimistic person in the world.” And he has a lot to say about parenting, travel, A.I., being luckier — and why we should spend…
In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes, we asked a bunch of economists with young kids how they approached child-rearing. Now the kids are old enough to talk —…
Harvard economist Raj Chetty uses tax data to study inequality, kid success, and social mobility. He explains why you should be careful when choosing your grade school teachers — and…
Sure, markets work well in general. But for some transactions — like school admissions and organ transplants — money alone can’t solve the problem. That’s when you need a market-design…
Must one always strive for excellence? Is perfectionism a good thing? And can Mike have two bad days in a row?
Reginald Dwayne Betts spent more than eight years in prison. Today he’s a Yale Law graduate, a MacArthur Fellow, and a poet. His nonprofit works to build libraries in prisons…
Does anyone really know what they’re doing? How do we reward the competent and not the confident? And what’s wrong with using TikTok for research?…
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