Factually! with Adam Conover

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.

The internet once connected people to independent creators, forums, and ideas beyond corporate media. Now search ads, AI summaries, and scraping threaten the websites that made discovery possible. From bot-choked databases to Reddit’s synthetic conversations and covert advertising, the discussion explores how the “dead internet” theory is taking shape and what it means for genuine online communities.

Quill R. Kukla, philosopher and Georgetown professor who studies ethics, consent, and sexual agency. They challenge consent as merely a minimum and explore sex as ongoing collaboration. They use metaphors like walking and music, discuss scaffolding agency (exits, communication, supports), power dynamics, and why sex ed should teach cooperative, pleasure-oriented practices.

Lev Facher, a health reporter who covers addiction and policy, and Isabella Cueto, a health and science journalist focused on medicine and public health, dig into alcohol’s outsized harms. They discuss why alcohol remains an invisible public-health crisis, flawed studies about “moderate” drinking, industry marketing and lobbying, treatment gaps, and practical policy fixes like labeling and taxes.

A comedic investigation into the health and pollution harms of gas-powered leaf blowers. An explanation of why two-stroke engines are so dirty and noisy. A look at ecological benefits of leaving leaves and the politics behind half-hearted bans. Discussion of behavioral resistance, media framing, and incentive-based solutions like electric swaps and vouchers.