For our final episode, Omar sits down with his dear friend Lydia Kiesling to discuss something near and dear: literature. What’s it like working as a writer? How do you get your start? Make money? Deal with the advent of AI? All is discussed.

Growth

1 month ago 32m 41s

More! More! More! Today, Omar speaks with Jon D. Erickson about society’s seemingly insatiable appetite for growth. Can the scales be tipped to value qualitative expansion of the economy over quantitative?A HyperObject Industries & Sony Mus

Affordable Housing

May 1st, 2024 34m 46s

“Is the system functioning exactly as it’s meant to?” That’s the question on Omar’s mind in today’s episode–a conversation with Jacob William Faber about the future of affordable housing.A HyperObject Industries & Sony Music Entertainment p

Advertising

Apr 24th, 2024 30m 4s

A world without advertising? Wishful thinking. Or is it? Omar’s interrogating how and why ads weave through our lives, and if a world without them is conceivable. Today's episode features two conversations: Ryan Lough discusses his background m

Billionaires

Apr 17th, 2024 37m 44s

What does the one percent really mean? What do people get wrong when they think about their own wealth? And what the world could look like without billionaires? Omar’s asking these questions in conversation with Rachel Sherman.A HyperObject

Guns

Apr 10th, 2024 34m 46s

Is having a gun an expression of some sort of freedom? The ubiquity of guns in the United States certainly suggests so. Today, Omar talks with David Yamane about his changing relationship to firearms, and if a world without them is conceivable.

Humans

Apr 3rd, 2024 38m 2s

What does the world look like without … us? This week, Omar speaks with David Farrier and imagines what the future could look like for, and perhaps without, humans.A HyperObject Industries & Sony Music Entertainment production.Find more

Bonus

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Mar 27th, 2024 37m 30s

E.R. Fightmaster, Tien Tran, and Katie Kershaw are talking sports. Namely all things queer and woman-forward in the world of sports. From buzzer beater moments during March Madness to weekly-crowned sports MILFs. Basketball, soccer, Power Slapp

Meat

Mar 27th, 2024 38m 7s

Today, Omar speaks with Alicia Kennedy about the food-industrial complex, the massive climate footprint of our eating habits, and what the world could look like without meat.A HyperObject Industries & Sony Music Entertainment production.

Fossil Fuels, Part 2

Mar 20th, 2024 38m 13s

Resources we use to power our lives aren’t going to be employed in the same way in the very near future. In part-two of our fossil fuel series, we’re speaking with planetary futurist Alex Steffen about what the world could look like without the

Fossil Fuels, Part 1

Mar 13th, 2024 47m 23s

Omar sits down with Adam McKay to discuss the state of our environment and society. This is part-one of our series imaging a world without fossil fuels.A HyperObject Industries & Sony Music Entertainment production.Find more great podca

Local Journalism

Dec 20th, 2023 30m 37s

All over the United States, more and more communities are losing their most important source of information: local newspapers. At the same time, a small group of hedge funds and investors are swooping in to buy these businesses, strip them for

Mosquitoes

Dec 13th, 2023 33m 15s

Mosquitoes and the deadly diseases they carry are a public health crisis. Today, thanks to climate change, they're even starting to show up in parts of the world where they'd never existed previously.Additional note on episode contents: The

Social Security

Dec 6th, 2023 39m 52s

Social security has provided relief for millions of elderly, bereaved, and disabled Americans, but just about everyone on all sides of the ideological spectrum agrees that if nothing is done, the whole system is going to collapse.A HyperObj

Glaciers

Nov 29th, 2023 28m 14s

Thwaites is maybe the most famous glacier on earth. And to get a sense of why, you should also know its nickname: The Doomsday glacier. If Thwaites melts, a lot of water that was once solid will end up in the ocean...and the collapse has alread

Touch

Nov 22nd, 2023 38m 25s

It’s undeniable–touch is growing scarcer in our increasingly digital world. We learn about the physiological importance of touch and speak to the professional cuddlers who are putting touch for sale.A HyperObject Industries & Sony Music Ent

Drug Laws

Nov 15th, 2023 35m 16s

According to the CDC, deaths from opioids more than doubled to 105,000 from January 2015 to January 2023. Some states are enacting stiffer penalties for drug dealers, while others are decriminalizing drugs, but neither of these approaches are w

Batteries

Nov 8th, 2023 36m 40s

Whatever going green is – be it using electric cars or installing solar panels – it doesn’t happen without big, expensive batteries. And that’s an issue, because it’s not exactly the most environmentally friendly way to save the world.A Hyp

White Rhinos

Nov 1st, 2023 38m 23s

Today, a whopping one million species are on the verge of extinction, with animals dying off at a rate not seen in the last 10 million years. We tell the story of a single subspecies, of which only two members remain, a number that makes it all

Death

Oct 25th, 2023 36m 26s

Over the past few years, some of the richest people (mostly men) on the planet have funded all kinds of research labs and institutions whose core mission is to eradicate aging and stave off death. But how close are we really to living forever?

Libraries

Oct 18th, 2023 28m 51s

Today, libraries are shouldering societal burdens like addiction, and have become a central battleground in this country’s raging culture wars. A HyperObject Industries & Sony Music Entertainment production.Find more great podcasts from

Prisons

Aug 9th, 2023 31m 12s

The prison abolition movement has long called for the end of mass incarceration. What are the consequences and why should we care?A HyperObject Industries & Sony Music Entertainment production.Find more great podcasts from Sony Music En

Unions

Aug 2nd, 2023 45m 53s

So much of what we take for granted about the American labor force, from weekends to work hours, comes from union agitation, and yet union participation has dropped to historic lows. How and when did this shift happen, and what does this mean f

Cash

Jul 26th, 2023 22m 55s

What does a world without cash look like? Who isn’t able to participate and why is a cashless society something folks pushing for? From Denmark to Peru to Kenya, we examine the possibilities and considerable pitfalls. A HyperObject Industri

Phosphorus

Jul 19th, 2023 44m 29s

If we run out of phosphorus, which is what we use to enable massive-scale farming, millions of people will starve to death. There is hope, though, in the form of a growing effort to extract it from human waste.A HyperObject Industries & Son