For a long time, the story about the world’s population was that it was growing too quickly. There were going to be too many humans, not enough resources, and that spelled disaster. But now the script has flipped. Fertility rates have declined dramatically, from about five children per woman 60 years ago to just over two today. About two-thirds of us now liv ... Show More
Apr 24
Stewart Brand, Silicon Valley’s Favorite Prophet, on Life’s Most Important Principle
Stewart Brand might be the most influential philosopher of the internet – at least in its more idealistic era. In the 1960s, Brand was the central bridge figure between the San Francisco counterculture and the emerging technology scene. He created the legendary Trips Festival wit ... Show More
50 m
Apr 21
Why Are Palantir and OpenAI Scared of Alex Bores?
Leading the Future, a super PAC whose funders include the founders of companies like Palantir and OpenAI, is spending millions of dollars this election cycle, and a considerable amount of that money is going toward attack ads against Alex Bores – even though Bores himself used to ... Show More
1h 32m
Apr 17
Our Tax System Should Make You Furious
Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett are three of the richest people in the world, but they pay little in income tax relative to their wealth. In 2021, ProPublica published an investigation built on leaked tax documents that reveal what some of the richest Americans r ... Show More
1h 5m
Nov 2024
Social infertility: What's behind falling birth rates?
The proportion of people without children is growing around the world. For some, this new reality reflects changing social attitudes and a desire not to have children, but for others, the decision has been taken out of their hands by a range of factors. The latest statistics avai ... Show More
26m 7s
Jul 2025
The Real Reason Birth Rates Are Falling - Lyman Stone - #962
Lyman Stone is a demographer, researcher, and a writer. It’s no surprise that birth rates are plummeting; raising kids feels harder than ever. Life is expensive, the future feels uncertain, and chaos is everywhere. So how do we reverse course? What would actually convince people ... Show More
1h 47m
Dec 2024
The Global Fertility Crisis - Paul Morland | Maiden Mother Matriarch 115
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.louiseperry.co.ukMy guest today is Paul Morland, Associate Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and the author of ‘The Human Tide,’ ’Tomorrow’s People,’ and most recently ‘No One Left.’ We spoke about ... Show More
1h 1m
Aug 2025
08/17/2025: The Promise and The Land of Declining Sons
Twenty-three years later, over 1,000 families are still waiting for news of loved ones lost in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. Correspondent Scott Pelley looks at how efforts to search for and identify their remains have never stopped, driven by the promise made by the Ne ... Show More
44m 48s
<p>For decades, the great fear was overpopulation. Now it’s the opposite. How did this happen — and what’s being done about it? (Part one of a <a href="https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/cradle-to-grave/">three-part series</a>, “Cradle to Grave.”)</p><p> </p><ul><li><strong>SOU ... Show More
<p>Plus, what's so hard about building trains? </p><p><strong>On Today’s Episode:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/business/trump-tariffs-global-stock-markets.html" target="_blank"><strong>Trade War Sets Off ‘Max Pessimism’ in Global Markets as Stocks Pl ... Show More
