Let's Know Things
A calm, non-shouty, non-polemical, weekly news analysis podcast for folks of all stripes and leanings who want to know more about what's happening in the world around them. Hosted by analytic journalist Colin Wright since 2016. letsknowthings.substack.com
Episodes
This week we talk about BYD, Tesla, and the Blade Battery 2.0.
We also discuss EVs, internal-combustion engines, and autonomous vehicles.
Recommended Book: Blank Space by W. David Marx
Transcript
Petroleum-powered vehicles, cars and trucks and SUVs of the kind that have become the standard since the mid-20th century, work by mixing fuel that you put in the tank when you fill up at the gas station with air, in the engine, and then creat...
This week we talk about Khamenei, Trump, and Netanyahu.
We also discuss Venezuela, Cuba, and cartels.
Recommended Book: Plagues upon the Earth by Kyle Harper
Transcript
Ali Hosseini Khamenei was an opposition politician in the lead-up to the Iranian Revolution that, in 1979, resulted in the overthrow of the Shah—the country’s generally Western government-approved royal leader—and installed the Islamic Republic, an extremely conservativ...
This week we talk about Anthropic, the Department of Defense, and OpenAI.
We also discuss red lines, contracts, and lethal autonomous systems.
Recommended Book: Empire of AI by Karen Hao
Transcript
Lethal autonomous weapons, often called lethal autonomous systems, autonomous weapons systems, or just ‘killer robots,’ are military hardware that can operate independent of human control, searching for and engaging with targets based on the...
This week we talk about Trump’s tariffs, the Supreme Court, and negotiating leverage.
We also discuss trade wars, Greenland, and the IEEPA.
Recommended Book: Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh
Transcript
I’ve spoken on this show before about tariffs and about US President Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs as an underpinning of his trade policy. Last October, back in 2025 I did an episode on tariff leverage and why the concept of an ongoing t...
This week we talk about mass surveillance, smart doorbells, and the Patriot Stack.
We also discuss Amazon, Alexa, and the Super Bowl.
Recommended Book: Red Moon by Benjamin Percy
Transcript
In 2002, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the US government created a new agency—the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, operating under the auspices of the US Department of Ho...
This week we talk about OpenAI, nudify apps, and CSAM.
We also discuss Elon Musk, SpaceX, and humanistic technology.
Recommended Book: Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler
Transcript
xAI is an American corporation that was founded in mid-2023 by Elon Musk, ostensibly in response to several things happening in the world and in the technology industry in particular.
According to Musk, a “politically correct” artificial intelligence, e...
This week we talk about the European Union, India, and tariffs.
We also discuss trade barriers, free trade, and dumping.
Recommended Book: The Kill Chain by Christian Brose
Transcript
A free trade agreement, sometimes called a free trade treaty, is a law that reduces the cost and regulatory burden of trading between two or more states.
There are many theories as to the ideal way to do international trade, with some economists and politi...
This week we talk about social networks, propaganda, and Oracle.
We also discuss foreign adversaries, ByteDance, and X.
Recommended Book: Rewiring Democracy by Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders
Transcript
In 2021, TikTok, a short-form video platform that’s ostensibly also a social network, though which leans heavily toward consuming content over socializing, was ranked the most popular website by internet services company Cloudflare...
This week we talk about war, inflation, and currency devaluation.
We also discuss tyrants, police violence, and social media threats.
Recommended Book: Post-Growth Living by Kate Soper
Transcript
Back in mid-June of 2025, a shooting war erupted between Iran and Israel, with Israeli military forces launching attacks against multiple Iranian military sites, alongside sites associated with its nuclear program and against individual Irania...
This week we talk about Venezuela, Maduro, and international law.
We also discuss sour crude, extrajudicial killings, and Greenland.
Recommended Book: The Keep by F. Paul Wilson
Transcript
Back in mid-November of 2025, I did an episode on extrajudicial killings, focusing on the targeting of speedboats, mostly from Venezuela headed toward the United States, by the US military. These boats were allegedly carrying drugs meant for the US m...
This week we talk about prediction markets, incentives, and gambling addiction.
We also discuss insider trading, spot-fixing, and Gatorade.
Recommended Book: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta
Transcript
Prediction markets are hundreds of years old, and have historically been used to determine the likelihood of something happening.
In 1503, for instance, there was a market to determine who would become the next pope, a...
This week we talk about energy consumption, pollution, and bipartisan issues.
We also discuss local politics, data center costs, and the Magnificent 7 tech companies.
Recommended Book: Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth
Transcript
In 2024, the International Energy Agency estimated that data centers consumed about 1.5% of all electricity generated, globally, that year. It went on to project that energy consumption by data centers co...
This week we talk about NVIDIA, AI companies, and the US economy.
We also discuss the US-China chip-gap, mixed-use technologies, and export bans.
Recommended Book: Enshittification by Cory Doctorow
Transcript
I’ve spoken about this a few times in recent months, but it’s worth rehashing real quick because this collection of stories and entities are so central to what’s happening across a lot of the global economy, and is also fundamenta...
This week we talk about in-game skins, investment portfolios, and Counter-Strike 2.
We also discuss ebooks, Steam, and digital licenses.
Recommended Book: Apple in China by Patrick McGee
Transcript
Almost always, if you buy an ebook or game or movie or music album online, you’re not buying that ebook, or that game, or whatever else—you’re buying a license that allows you access it, often on a specified device or in a specified way, and...
This week we talk about floods, wildfires, and reinsurance companies.
We also discuss the COP meetings, government capture, and air pollution.
Recommended Book: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares
Transcript
The urban area that contains India’s capital city, New Delhi, called the National Capital Territory of Delhi, has a population of around 34.7 million people. That makes it the most populous city...
This week we talk about radioactive waste, neutrons, and burn while breeding cycles.
We also discuss dry casks, radioactive decay, and uranium.
Recommended Book: Breakneck by Dan Wang
Transcript
Radioactive waste, often called nuclear waste, typically falls into one of three categories: low-level waste that contains a small amount of radioactivity that will last a very short time—this is stuff like clothes or tools or rags that have be...
This week we talk about Venezuela, casus belli, and drug smuggling.
We also discuss oil reserves, Maduro, and Machado.
Recommended Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Transcript
Venezuela, which suffered all sorts of political and economic crises under former president Hugo Chávez, has suffered even more of the same, and on a more dramatic scale, under Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.
Both Chávez and Maduro have ruled over au...
This week we talk about OxyContin, opium, and the British East India Company.
We also discuss isotonitazene, fentanyl, and Perdue.
Recommended Book: The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt
Transcript
Opioids have been used as painkillers by humans since at least the Neolithic period; there’s evidence that people living in the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas kept opium poppy seeds with them, and there’s even more evidence that the Ancient G...
This week we talk about Mach 1, the Bell X-1, and the Concorde.
We also discuss the X-59, the Tu-144, and Boom Supersonic.
Recommended Book: Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow
Transcript
The term “supersonic,” when applied to speed, refers to something moving faster than the speed of sound—a speed that is shorthanded as Mach 1.
The precise Mach 1 speed of sound will be different depending on the nature of the medium through which an object...
This week we talk about robots, call center workers, and convenience stores.
We also discuss investors, chatbots, and job markets.
Recommended Book: The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton
Transcript
Though LLM-based generative AI software, like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, are becoming more and more powerful by the month, and offering newfangled functionality seemingly every day, it’s still anything but certain these tools, and the chatbo...
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