Decoder with Nilay Patel

Adam Conover explains how YouTube ruined everything

I feel the word 'creator' was created by the social media companies as a way to trick people into entering an extremely inequitable economic bargain. Basically they promise, 'Hey, Mr. Beast makes a billion dollars. You could be Mr. Beast. Why don't you work for us basically for free for the rest of your life in the hopes that one day, we'll break off a little chunk of ad revenue for you?' Creator is like when Avon or Mary Kay calls you an entrepreneur.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

I think, you know, I would call the 2010s maybe the doom and gloom era of climate change communication. And the thing is that it got people's attention. So I think the focus on kind of scaring people and talking about how, you know, awful everything was made people sit up and listen for a period of time. But the problem is doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

I would call the 2010s maybe the doom and gloom era of climate change communication. And the thing is that it got people's attention. So I think the focus on kind of scaring people and talking about how, you know, awful everything was made people sit up and listen for a period of time. But the problem is doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action. Negative emotions get exhausting over time.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

Negative emotions get exhausting over time. So there was a really incredible global mega study looking at 60,000 participants from 63 different countries and testing 11 interventions that were all designed to promote action on climate change. Now, one of these messages was kind of a traditional doom and gloom message about how terrible climate change is and how bad everything's going to be. And at first glance, it looks like that message worked really well. It was one of the messages that people were most likely to share on social media. However, this doom and gloom message actually undermined people's willingness to take a more effortful form of action.

TED Radio Hour

Less guilt, more joy: A new chapter for climate action

I think I would call the 2010s maybe the doom and gloom era of climate change communication. And the thing is that it got people's attention. So I think the focus on kind of scaring people and talking about how awful everything was made people sit up and listen for a period of time. But the problem is doom and gloom messaging doesn't necessarily motivate action.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We don't just fail to say things because we're afraid of rejection or conflict. We also stay silent because we don't realize how much our words matter to other people. We consistently underestimate the power of our own voices.

Hidden Brain

The Things We Don't Say

We think that people will judge us harshly when we acknowledge a weakness or a struggle. But the research suggests that vulnerability often has the opposite effect — it actually makes people like us more and trust us more.

Semafor

'It's Intense Defamation': Hasan Piker Considers Suing His Democratic Critics

You don't need a Joe Rogan of the left. I'm certainly not the Joe Rogan of the left. You need better policies.

Founders

#430 How to Write Ads That Sell

The average salesman seeks favors. He seeks profit for himself. His plea is, 'Buy my goods.' He makes a selfish appeal to selfish people, and of course, he meets resistance. I was selling service.

TED Radio Hour

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons for not being vaccinated or getting vaccinated. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I wouldn't normally write off. That was the most important thing that I did. It wasn't what I said. It was what I did around listening.

Semafor Media

Is Tucker Carlson Running for President? | Semafor Media

Tucker is a savvy media player. He understands how the attention economy works and he knows that it's not necessarily a bad thing for people to speculate about whether you're running for president. It means people pay more attention to the things that you're saying.

TED Radio Hour

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons for not being vaccinated or getting vaccinated. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I would normally write off. That was the most important thing that I did. It wasn't what I said. It was what I did around listening.

TED Radio Hour

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons for not being vaccinated or getting vaccinated. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I wouldn't normally hear. And that was the most important thing that I did. It wasn't what I said. It was what I did around listening.

TED Radio Hour

Trusting medicine in an age of doubt

What I didn't necessarily realize before that moment was that listening was the biggest part. Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own reasons for not being vaccinated or getting vaccinated. And most of what I did during that time was just hear someone out that I would normally write off. That was the most important thing that I did. It wasn't what I said. It was what I did around listening.

The Prof G Pod

Sam Harris: The Democrats’ Far-Left Problem

All you have to be is a charismatic fraud and uh be incapable of feeling shame no matter how many times you're proven wrong and uh you know, you our politics will will promote you to somewhere near the top of the heap.

Radiolab

Neither Confirm Nor Deny

Whether it comes from government spokespeople or celebrity publicists, the phrase "can neither confirm nor deny" is the perfect non-denial denial. It's such a perfect deflection that it seems like it's been around forever, but reporter Julia Barton takes us back to the 1970s and the surprising origin story of what's now known as a "Glomar Response."

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

John Kim - How to Raise a Few Billion Dollars - [Invest Like the Best, EP.482]

The best fundraisers I've seen don't pitch — they teach. They walk into a room and they make you smarter about the space they're operating in, and the ask almost becomes secondary because you're so compelled by what you've just learned.

Radiolab

Neither Confirm Nor Deny

The phrase 'can neither confirm nor deny' is the perfect non-denial denial. It's such a perfect deflection that it seems like it's been around forever.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

John Kim - How to Raise a Few Billion Dollars - [Invest Like the Best, EP.482]

The biggest thing I learned from all of those experiences is that confidence really comes from preparation. Most people that I've seen fail in fundraising try to shortcut the preparation phase and just rely on the charisma and the story. The story's important, but you have to be prepared for anybody to punch holes in that story.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Jeremy Giffon - The Billion Dollar PDF - [Invest Like the Best, EP.481]

The brilliant insight of the PDF was, nobody cares about the operating history of a company, they care about the story of the company. And the story of the company is best told in a document that you control, that you craft, that has beautiful graphics and beautiful fonts and compelling narrative.

TED

The Counterintuitive Secret of Leadership | Jessica Kriegel | TED

People don't change because you implemented new processes. People will act in alignment with what they believe. And so if you want to change their behavior, you have to shift what it is that they believe.

The Prof G Pod

OpenAI’s First Acquisition: How TBPN Built a $30M Media Business

If someone quotes your post with a thoughtful commentary that's filmed in 4K with cinema cameras and the hosts are wearing suits and they print it. They took the time to print out your post. It's just wow. These people went a lot further to say something. I'm at least going to see what they had to say about the thing that I fired off in the shower.

Idea Knock Down

How Algorithms Manipulate You (and How to Fight Back) | Idea Knock Down | TED

We're basically unleashing the most powerful predictive persuasive algorithms in the history of the world on brains that aren't fully developed yet. When these lawsuits go forward and we get discovery from tech companies, they know that these are problems and then they're doing it anyway.

Idea Knock Down

How Algorithms Manipulate You (and How to Fight Back) | Idea Knock Down | TED

We're basically unleashing the most powerful predictive persuasive algorithms in the history of the world on brains that aren't fully developed yet. Yeah, there's been these like exponential rises in anxiety, depression. Um, you know, young women and girls have fallen off a cliff almost with the rise of social media.

Book of the Day

Revisiting the story of the American Revolution with Rick Atkinson

A people not used to being forced to do things will not be drove. They must be led. And he is a leader and um in the army that he's commanding the army we have today actually that's a fairly critical insight that he's got and a recognition that this is the essence of leadership.

The Prof G Pod

Top House Intelligence Democrat on How Trump Misread Iran

Some people got in his ear and just said, "You know what you know you need to say to Donald Trump to persuade him," which is, "You will be the greatest leader since Napoleon." And painted a picture of Trump Towers being built in Shiraz and Tehran and that sort of thing.

Fresh Air

Writer Kennedy Ryan uses romance novels as a vehicle for discourse

I refer to my romance the way I write it, as Trojan horse, you know? I'm smuggling in discourse, I'm smuggling in the conversation I want to have in what, to me, is the most accessible genre in publishing.

TED Radio Hour

Are we using screens as a scapegoat for teen mental health?

Scary stories sell They always have And the more often you hear something the more likely you are to believe that it's true And scary stories are really easy to sell to parents We are an anxious lot

Pivot

Elon Musk Is a Trillionaire. "He Can Pick the Next President" | Pivot Excerpt

Musk has always been able to do is to create this narrative over numbers that's like no one else in history.

Book of the Day

'The Yahoo Boys' investigates Nigeria’s network of cyber crime 'sweetheart scams'

I know that all these scams sound preposterous to most people. But I think when talking about these victims, one has to make the effort to put themselves in their shoes. And we are talking about people who have gone through hell.

Hidden Brain

A Secret Source of Connection

Most of us think of listening as a passive activity. We imagine that the goal of a good listener is to be a kind of empty vessel — a mirror that reflects back what the speaker is saying. But research by psychologist Guy Itzchakov and his colleagues suggests this view is mistaken. Good listening, they find, is not passive at all; it is a form of active engagement that changes how the speaker thinks.

Pivot

Elon Musk Is a Trillionaire. "He Can Pick the Next President" | Pivot Excerpt

Musk has always been able to do is to create this this uh narrative over numbers that's like no one else in history.

Diet TBPN

Anthropic Drama, Meta Now Tokenminning, Fox's $22B Roku Deal | Diet TBPN

Big parties and sporting events are potentially the most underutilized political strategy, right? I would actually expect uh the the admin's like overall popularity uh approval rating to go up based on uh based just on this event

Fresh Air

An inside look at President Trump's campaign to acquire Greenland

the strange thing about this propaganda is it wasn't actually directed at persuading Greenlanders that it would be good for them to join the United States. It was mostly aimed at convincing conservative Americans that this is something that Greenlanders wanted, rather than actually building organic support.

Hidden Brain

A Secret Source of Connection

We typically think that what creates closeness between people is talking about yourself — sharing your opinions, your experiences, your feelings. But the researchers found that asking questions, and in particular, asking follow-up questions, was just as powerful a tool for creating connection.

Hidden Brain

The Cowboy Philosopher

Will Rogers had a way of saying things that made people laugh, and then think. He understood that humor could be a Trojan horse — a way of sneaking past people's defenses to deliver an uncomfortable truth.

TED

Mark Rober’s $60 Million Science Experiment | TED

I can't teach you if I don't have your attention. But if I can get your attention with something remarkable, well, now I suddenly have something to attach the learning to.

The Prof G Pod

How to Actually Succeed in a New Leadership Role | Office Hours

That only lasts so long because after a while people start hearing the same stories and get a little bit cynical and get sick of the kind of rahrh.

Hidden Brain

How to Change the World

Pop culture and conventional history often teach us that violence is the most effective way to produce change. But is that common assumption actually true?

Fresh Air

Have we been reading Toni Morrison all wrong?

You can spend all your time trying to prove that we are humans, that we had a civilization, that we have art, that we have culture. But it's a distraction because there's always going to be one more thing. And actually, the problem is not us. The problem is the racist who has no other way of feeling full, no other way of having integrity other than putting someone else down.

Pivot

Pollster: Trump's Approval Ratings At "Five-Alarm Fire" Level | Pivot

The MAGA movement is about a quarter to a third depending on I mean it's a it's a pretty fluid section of the Republican party, but it's not half the country.

Fresh Air

Arsenio Hall

You're going to take money out of my wallet and food off my family's plate in the middle of my job here when you don't know what you're talking about. You're going to blame me for something that is absolutely not true. And I think I was sick of being criticized by everyone because everyone wanted it to be something else.

Semafor

'Lobbyists Weren't Created in 2025,' Says DOJ Antitrust Chief

Lobbyists weren't created in 2025. They've been around for a long time. Um, and I think when you're I think the position, I don't speak for Andrew, but the position we try to take is we'll meet with anybody. If you want to come and discuss your matter, deal on the criminal side, whatever it is, we'll always give you an audience, but that doesn't entitle you to anything and certainly not entitled to outcomes.

Fresh Air

Former Infowars employee on Alex Jones' conspiracy machine

Jones wasn't necessarily explicitly telling us to lie. I think if he was doing that, he wouldn't have as many people working for him because there was this pretend idea that we were searching for the truth. He more so undermined us, made us question our own findings, made us question our own abilities, our own competence.

Fresh Air

Remembering Action Hero Chuck Norris

When there's something to say, say it. If it isn't important, then keep your mouth shut.

TBPN

Hill & Valley Gigastream, The Fastest Companies, Apple's Next CEO, OpenAI's Non-Profit

I do think interjecting with a ton of factchecking during the debate would be disruptive. I'm not a fan of that. I sort of just like having one person like the guest, the debater fact check the other person because if they know the fact and the other person who they're debating against drops something that's not factual, that's their opportunity to come in and say, "No, that's not accurate."

Hidden Brain

Group Think

How do the groups you identify with shape your sense of self? Do they influence the beer you buy? The way you vote?

Code Switch

What Trump's language has in common with cult language

Language can be used to build a following, how words can be used to divide people into an us versus them mindset, and actually shape people's perception of reality