Factually! with Adam Conover

Isabella Weber, a German economist and UMass Amherst professor, explores the economic roots of fascism. She connects inflation, deindustrialization, austerity, and weakened worker security to scapegoating and far-right politics. The conversation examines Hayek, Polanyi, FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights, and how public provision, price stabilization, housing, childcare, and affordable essentials could strengthen democracy.

Lisa Hanawalt, the cartoonist behind BoJack Horseman and creator of Tuca & Bertie, joins for an unusually personal conversation. They explore turning a breakup into collaborative art, Hanawalt’s lifelong horse obsession, horse ownership and communication, and how childhood experiences shape sex, relationships, and storytelling. They also discuss vulnerability, friendship after separation, and the risks of autobiographical comedy.

Saul Justin Newman, an Oxford research fellow, Ig Nobel laureate, and author of Morbid, investigates the dubious world of longevity science. They examine fraudulent oldest-person records, the shaky foundations of blue zones, Okinawa’s longevity myth, and the business selling wellness fantasies. They also explore resveratrol’s spectacular failure, billionaire immortality schemes, and what meaningful research can actually accomplish.

Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, examines Flock’s license-plate surveillance network and its nationwide ambitions. They explore how location data can enable stalking, political targeting, immigration enforcement, and insurance discrimination. The conversation also covers weak safeguards, bipartisan opposition, police marketing, grassroots campaigns, and ways communities can push back.

Lindsay Owens, an economic sociologist and president of the Groundwork Collaborative, examines how corporate power drives rising prices. They discuss crisis-era price gouging, artificial scarcity, hidden monopolies, algorithmic cartels, and the spread of dynamic and personalized pricing. The conversation also explores surveillance through loyalty programs, antitrust enforcement, transparency, and practical ways to push back.

Brooke Nichols, a Boston University public-health professor and infectious-disease modeler, examines the human cost of dismantling USAID. They explore how aid cuts disrupted maternal care, nutrition, and healthcare worldwide, the evidence of rising child deaths, competing mortality estimates, and why uncertainty over the exact toll should not obscure the scale of preventable suffering.

Paris Marx, journalist, author, and creator of Tech Won’t Save Us, explores Big Tech’s hyperscale data empires. They discuss AI’s enormous power and water demands, pollution, fossil-fuel dependence, community disruption, and the growing bipartisan backlash against data-center projects. Could the AI infrastructure boom become a speculative bubble, and can local movements challenge tech’s expanding power?

Naomi Klein, author and activist on corporate power and climate, and Astra Taylor, filmmaker and Debt Collective co-founder, examine “apocalyptic fascism.” They explore Silicon Valley’s embrace of authoritarianism, AI, climate anxiety, Christian Zionism, media fragmentation, and elite escape fantasies. The conversation turns toward unions, local movements, debt campaigns, and collective action rooted in care for the living world.

Cory Doctorow, a science fiction author, journalist, activist, and digital-rights advocate, joins the conversation to examine AI’s impact on work. They explore “centaurs” versus “reverse centaurs,” the AI investment bubble, why automation can worsen services, and how management uses AI to discipline workers. They also discuss writing, copyright, labor organizing, and resisting AI-driven replacement.

Robert Zacny, videogame journalist, critic, and Remap Radio co-founder, joins a lively discussion about gaming’s upheaval. They explore layoffs, studio closures, stalled hardware, rising component costs, live-service failures, and finance-driven decision-making. The conversation also examines Fortnite and Roblox’s dominance, the struggle of indie developers, Nintendo’s resilience, and whether regulation and smaller creative operators could spark a revival.