On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… almost affirmative. We don’t yet know what the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action is going to do, tangibly, to college admissions — or how long those impacts will last. But, based on past experiments, we have a decent idea. And many advocates say the implications here are urgent and dire. But affirmative action might not have been the great equalizing force that a lot of people believe it was. Bertrand Cooper, freelance journalist and policy researche...
Aug 08, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… let’s get it on. Whether you watch porn or not — admit it, or not — adult entertainment shapes the way we think about sex, gender, and power. Our guest today argues that porn is an industry, but it’s also a genre, and it’s much closer to fantasy than it is to reality. But if we abandoned porn and replaced it with watching real people have real sex, we might not just shake off taboos; we might also become better lovers, and better people, too. Cindy Gallop, CEO ...
Aug 01, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… safety on. July sees the most accidental shootings involving children of any month on the calendar — but there’s not really a month where these tragedies don’t happen. So put aside your feelings on gun control for a moment and consider: how, in the world we live in right now, can we protect children from their own curiosity? Our guest, author Yehuda Remer, argues that teaching kids what guns can do — and how they can keep themselves safe — is the best solution....
Jul 25, 2023•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… a spoonful of sugar helps the trade protectionism go down. The Farm Bill is up for renewal this year — and there’s a chorus of voices now, as in years past, saying it’s time we stop favoring domestic sugar. The U.S. has subsidized American sugar producers for almost as long as we’ve been a republic, but the current system is very complicated… and very costly for the average consumer. Some argue that it’s closer to a cartel than it is a regulatory model. Colin G...
Jul 18, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Parmesan is a food—but it’s not just a food. Italy’s beloved cheese is often paired with a deep craving for tradition and identity. But its history also involves intrepid immigrants, lucrative businesses and an American version that’s probably available in your local grocery store. After a notorious debunker of Italian-cuisine myths claims this Wisconsin-made product is the real deal, we embark on a quest to answer the question: Has an Italian delicacy been right under our noses this whole time?...
Jul 12, 2023•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sleep is objectively worse when splitting a bed. Yet that’s the default for most couples. But that doesn’t mean sharing the covers is easy. Especially when one person is having trouble falling or staying asleep. On this episode of How To!, the second in a two-part series, co-host Carvell Wallace continues the conversation with Dr. Wendy Troxel, author of Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to Better Sleep. Dr. Troxel explains how couples can experiment with sleeping arrangements in a way th...
Jul 11, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… royal pains. The British Royals are far from the imperial power they once were. Whether you love the institution, hate it, or simply don’t care, it’s hard to deny that it feels like an artifact of another time. Which is perhaps why Meghan Markle’s arrival on the scene – and subsequent departure, with Prince Harry at her side – threw so many people for a loop. Meghan continues to receive racist, sexist, and downright fabricated harassment from the public, and pa...
Jul 11, 2023•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast America’s winner-take-all electoral system casts third-party candidates as spoilers—but what would it take to open the door to not just a third party, but a fourth or more? Guest: Lee Drutman, senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America, author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’l...
Jul 05, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… don’t you know they’re talking ‘bout a revolution? July 4th celebrates one of the least bloody milestones of the American Revolution. But we have a complicated relationship with overthrowing the powers that be in this country – not to mention when other nations do it. We call what happened on January 6th, 2021 an insurrection. But what do we do with the George Floyd uprisings? Other efforts to buck the system? Who, as the “common man,” should we be rooting for?...
Jul 04, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Josh Levin and Stefan Fatsis are joined by TV producer Mike Schur for a special episode: a debate on which sports have generated the best art and made the greatest contributions to culture. Topics discussed include Schur’s Field of Dreams adaptation, whether basketball or football has a greater canon, and if boxing will lose its cultural footprint. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 03, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… gendering, everywhere, all at once. In the final days of Pride Month, we wanted to turn our attention to another complicated and contentious facet of the LGBT+ dialogue: gender identity. If gender isn’t a binary, but a fluid spectrum, what do we do with our notions of sexism, misogyny, and toxic masculinity? As it turns out, we do very much live in a patriarchal society — but the truth of how that society operates, and who it advantages, might be more complicat...
Jun 27, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… an archaeology of grievances. In honor of the third Juneteenth being celebrated as a national holiday, it’s worth unpacking symbolic gestures like Juneteenth — and, as many states are finding out, like Reparations. The movement to compensate the descendants of slaves is gaining more traction than ever before, in many parts of the country. Could this be our chance to clear a massive, lingering blight on our nation’s history? Our guest today argues no. Podcast ho...
Jun 20, 2023•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… Racism Lite. Racial politics is responsible for a lot of ugliness, in the United States and around the world. Humans want, and even need, to sort themselves into categories — and sometimes, that tribalism yields as much good as it can bad. So do we always need to be a melting pot? Writer Damon Young joins us to make the case that we’re all racist, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise. If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we shoul...
Jun 13, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast If the Supreme Court rules against affirmative action for certain racial groups, as expected, how will colleges and other institutions create diverse student bodies and address racial disparities? Guest: Richard Kahlenberg, non-resident scholar at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and ...
Jun 12, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… these gays are trying to murder my neutral palate. Pride Month festivities come at a time this year when LGBT+ rights are under attack across the country. Brands like Target and Bud Light are facing backlash for lifting up queer voices — but is this all a symptom of pride having gone a little too mainstream? Comedian, writer and podcast host H. Alan Scott joins us to discuss his vision for a pride to be proud of… and, at length, the trouble with rainbows. If yo...
Jun 06, 2023•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… empty thanks? Memorial Day is meant to commemorate those who lost their lives in serving this country. Around such a heavy day — and on many others — the common refrain of “thank you for your service” can feel hollow to living veterans, as well as military families. What are we reflexively thanking these people for, and how could we tangibly show gratitude instead? Third-generation veteran and writer Lucian Truscott IV joins us to propose that, while words may ...
May 30, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… imagine a world without police. Three years after George Floyd’s murder, we’ve seen some incremental change in how we try to prevent police brutality. But it still happens, all too often — and Americans are still dying, in alarming numbers, at the hands of police. Writer and organizer Geo Maher joins us to argue that our law enforcement system is too bloated and corrupt to fix. Instead, we should dismantle it entirely and start from scratch. If you have thought...
May 23, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… if you need a Chief Diversity Officer, you’ve already failed. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) trainings are reaching ubiquity in pretty much every American workplace. There’s no doubt that discrimination, harassment and sequestering — on the basis of sex, sexuality, gender, race, age — all of that exists. The question becomes what to do about it. And there’s an argument to be made that the trainings and buzzwords might be doing more to make workplaces wor...
May 16, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… stop with the breakfast in bed. As we approach the summertime season of parenting holidays in the U.S. — Mother’s Day in May and Father’s Day in June — it’s worth remembering that these holidays’ histories are deeply political… not unlike parenting itself. Parenting is complicated, now more so than ever. In the best of circumstances, it’s a two-way relationship with a person who didn’t ask to be here. So what can we expect from our children? Gabrielle Blair, fo...
May 09, 2023•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Curtis is setting aside a large chunk of money to donate to charity, and it is up to us to persuade him where he should donate it. Luckily, philosophers, economists, and the nonprofit world has been thinking a lot about this issue in recent years. On this episode, effective altruism’s defenders and critics try to persuade Curtis of where he should donate. Who is the most effective in persuading an ordinary person as to the right way to donate to charity? And do the recent scandals involving effe...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… Mission Accomplished? This year marks the 20th anniversary of then-President Bush’s infamous address aboard an aircraft carrier, declaring that the war had been won and Iraqis were free. We know now, of course, that the war had not been won – and in 2003, it was far from over. Many thousands of lives were lost. With the gift of hindsight, can we see the war as anything other than a costly mistake? Iraqi-American and President of Ideas Beyond Borders Faisal Saee...
May 02, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Willy and Heidi were both gig workers for Shipt, the fast-delivery app for groceries or same-day shopping. In 2020, they both realised: the pay algorithm had changed. Now, they couldn’t tell what a job would pay, or whether it would earn or lose them money. Instead of just taking it, they decided to fight back. In the gig economy, companies like Shipt, Instacart, and UberEats all use black box pay algorithms to try and get workers to accept gigs but hide information from them to do so. Early in ...
May 02, 2023•55 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… Kim, there’s people that are dying. We can probably all agree that reality shows aren’t exactly peak TV. But there’s a time, a place, and an audience for pretty much everything. In a world where Love Is Blind’s chart-topping run is frequently described as brilliant and awful in the same breath, it’s easy to dismiss this stuff as a product of the social media era. But that’s not quite accurate. Culture critic and podcast host Kristen Meinzer joins us to talk all...
Apr 25, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast We explore the lives of people who are in love with their AI chatbots. Replika is a chatbot designed to adapt to the emotional needs of its users. It is a good enough surrogate for human interaction that many people have decided that it can fulfill their romantic needs. The question is whether these kinds of romantic attachments are real, illusory, or good for the people involved. Apps like Replika represent the future of love and sex for a subpopulation of people, so we discuss the ethics of th...
Apr 25, 2023•54 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… a tail as old as time. As part of Slate’s weeklong pet advice column, Faux Paws, Hear Me Out is tackling a debate that gets animal lovers on all sides heated up: should cats be allowed to roam outside? Stacy LeBaron, longtime cat advocate and host of the Community Cats Podcast, argues yes… under the right circumstances, that is. It turns out, humans have an important role to play in helping our four-legged friends be healthy, happy, and helpful — whether they’r...
Apr 18, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast A zoopolis is a future society that philosophers envision where wild, domesticated, and denizen animals have full political and legal rights. What would that look like? In this episode, we look at how animals were put on trial in medieval European courts, and how animal rights advocates and bringing animals back into the courtrooms to sue people and the US government. We then look at what the science of animal minds tells us about how much agency animals have, and envision what political and leg...
Apr 18, 2023•47 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… a former president got indicted, and all we got was this stupid t-shirt. Writer and former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori joins Celeste to make the case that, while historic, this indictment is not a victory for anyone; it’s far from a legal slam dunk, it’s a symptom of a sluggish Justice Department, and it might actually worsen this nation’s political divide (which, in case you haven’t noticed, is already pretty bad). Read the pieces Ankush mentions here a...
Apr 11, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… the right to life and socialized healthcare walk into a delivery room. Writer and journalist Liz Bruenig joins Celeste to discuss her vision for a United States where childbirth costs nothing. In a nation with skyrocketing healthcare costs, attacks on reproductive rights, and potential rollbacks on preventive care, we tell birthing people that not only do they have to give birth — they have to court financial ruin in order to do it. Liz says it doesn’t have to ...
Apr 04, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… the case for breaking up the union. Frank Buckley, professor at George Mason University and author of American Secession, makes a case for allowing states to peacefully secede — not just in the interest of preventing another civil war, but in hopes of creating a happier, more functional society for us all. Podcast production by Maura Currie You can skip all the ads in Hear Me Out by joining Slate Plus. Sign up now at slate.com/hearmeoutplus for just $15 a month...
Mar 28, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s episode of Hear Me Out… host Celeste Headlee introduces Slate’s newest podcast with a question: what if we could argue with each other without hating the results? Hugh Breakey, writer and moral philosopher, thinks it’s possible. He and Celeste discuss the case for arguing with each other on difficult topics, and giving up the idea that every argument needs a winner. It’s not just a good idea, according to Breakey — it’s a moral imperative. Podcast production by Maura Currie You can sk...
Mar 21, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
