Slate Debates
A feed from the Slate podcast network featuring episodes with enlightening conversations, opposing views, and plenty of healthy disputes. You'll get a curated selection of episodes from programs like What Next, The Waves, and the Political Gabfest, with deep discussions that go beyond point-counterpoint and shed light on the issues that matter most.
Episodes
July 23, 2024 • 41 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: make the friendship bracelets. Or don’t.
Like all relationships, friendships can grow, change… and, yes, end. Sometimes for good reason. But we romanticize the BFF as the goal – to find your person – and that might not be realistic.
Author and podcast host Kristen Meinzer joins us to make the case for not needing a best friend forever.
If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a...
Mark as Played
July 16, 2024 • 36 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: tried and Turing tested.
Coming into the 2024 election cycle, generative AI was one of the main concerns for democracy watchdogs; its power to create deceptive text, images and sounds at a rapid, unfettered pace seems ripe to spread misinformation. But of all the controversies and current events that have shaped the election thus far… AI, somehow, might not be one of them.
Writer and social str...
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July 10, 2024 • 49 mins
Few drugs in the last century have changed the landscape of healthcare and weight management like GLP-1 agonist drugs — drugs like Ozempic and WeGovy.
On this week’s episode of Well, Now we talk with Harvard professor and clinician Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford.
Her research revolutionized obesity medicine and helped pave the way to get a diabetes drug approved for treating a condition millions have in the U.S.
If you liked this episod...
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July 9, 2024 • 40 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: Bezos vs. the British invasion.
The Washington Post, like most legacy media outlets, can’t seem to catch a break. Right now, the newsroom is reeling under leadership changeups — and an editor who’s part of what appears to be a British invasion into American media leadership.
It’s hard to imagine Jeff Bezos, a soon-to-be trillionaire, as anyone’s folk hero. When he bought the Post in 2013, many ...
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July 2, 2024 • 46 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: get back to work.
When your job becomes obsolete, is it the government’s job to teach you to do something else?
That’s the theory behind federal workforce training programs – which have existed, in various forms, for a long time. The problem is that studies are starting to show that these programs don’t provide much of an edge to workers… and that the jobs they place for might not be good jobs....
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June 26, 2024 • 42 mins
For years, psychiatrists have been researching new methods to help people with treatment-resistant mental illness. These include severe cases of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other debilitating diagnoses.
One type of drug has seen some positive results in clinical trials: psychedelics like psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, and LSD.
In professional medical settings, they’re used as a part of a multifaceted approach to me...
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June 25, 2024 • 43 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: aprons off.
Has there ever been a better time to be a woman in America? Probably not… but that’s a low bar. Modern feminism is having trouble making a case for itself, in the face of a challenging economy and backslides in reproductive rights. So when women on social media present themselves as traditional wives and homemakers, achieving the self-actualization of heteronormativity, have they give...
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June 18, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: all aren’t welcome.
Pride Month festivities have a complicated legacy. On the one hand, being out, proud and supportive in public has been a game-changing force for the LGBTQ+ community; on the other hand, pride began as a protest, and the movement has been, and is, at odds with the status quo and acceptability politics.
So, should uniformed cops be welcome at Pride? Should politicians like Jill...
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June 11, 2024 • 48 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: base instincts.
Democratic strategists are reportedly freaking out about Joe Biden. Despite his opponent’s felony convictions, Biden remains unpopular and isn’t polling well in swing states. Young voters are mad about his handling of the war in Gaza; many Americans remain convinced that the economy is bad and the president is to blame for it.
So if strategists’ worst fears come to pass… how much...
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June 4, 2024 • 37 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: placing bets.
Betting on the results of elections is illegal in the United States – though that hasn’t stopped sportsbooks overseas from cashing in. And that doesn’t mean that Americans haven’t placed bets on election results in the U.S., either; that’s a tradition that dates back centuries.
There’s a push now to make elections betting legal on American soil — and for American companies to run o...
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May 28, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: self-limiting.
Congress is historically unpopular; it’s one of the few things that people on both sides of the aisle can agree on. But what could be done to actually fix our legislature?
Term limits are often posed as a good potential start. But there are those who argue that that’s not the best way to fix our legislature — and the pool of people who feel that way isn’t exclusively career politi...
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May 22, 2024 • 41 mins
Youth mental health has hit a crisis point.
Just last year, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released an advisory connecting young people’s use of social media with adverse mental health outcomes.
But Murthy and other public health leaders are fighting back, including New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan. He’s leading the charge against social media platforms like Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube through litigation a...
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May 21, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: don’t scare me like that, colonizer.
Understanding the legacy of colonialism is a project relatively few Americans have undertaken — and most have done so only relatively recently, at that.
But understanding the forces that led to the foundation of this country, and the creation of modern racism as we know it, is an important project. And it’s one that is also increasingly hard to bring into sch...
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May 14, 2024 • 44 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: live from Seattle.
Hear Me Out had its first-ever live show on May 4, 2024 — and it was such a great conversation that we wanted to make sure our podcast listeners heard it, too.
The Cascade PBS Ideas Festival was full of smart, unconventional thinkers on the biggest issues facing this country… so what better place to have a conversation about Donald Trump, and the future of this country?
It’...
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May 7, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: prosecuting parents.
Ethan Crumbley’s parents didn’t pull the trigger that killed 4 students in 2021 — but they’ve been sentenced to prison time for it all the same.
School shootings are devastatingly common in this country, but punishing the parents of the killer is a new tactic of handling the aftermath. Even if you think the Crumbleys were bad parents, though, the questions should be posed: ...
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April 30, 2024 • 44 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: solidarity?
College campuses across the country are grappling with protests and occupations in the name of a free Palestine. Many hundreds of students, faculty, and outside community members have been arrested in tense clashes with police — called onto campuses by the universities themselves.
Student protestors have shaped public discourse on matters like war and the environment for many decade...
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April 29, 2024 • 32 mins
As some members of Congress call for crackdowns, how do college administrators ensure the safety of their entire student body – while also respecting its right to free speech?
Guest: Peter Beinart, Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents and the author of “The Beinart Notebook” on Substack.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcast...
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April 24, 2024 • 30 mins
Protests at Columbia University have become a talking point across national media, but does the situation on campus actually resemble the one in the press?
Guest: Aymann Ismail, Slate staff writer.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page....
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April 23, 2024 • 35 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: nobody wins with two parties.
A competitive presidential election draws closer every day – and as ever, every vote will count. So is it fair to accuse third-party voters of wasting a vote, as often happens? Or are third-party candidates actually preserving what little we have left of a competitive democracy?
Bernard Tamas of Valdosta State University joins us to make the case for the power of t...
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April 16, 2024 • 36 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: blaze it.
Ahead of the honorary stoner holiday that is 4/20, we’re taking a look at the marijuana landscape. Public opinion has warmed considerably to legal weed in the past few decades – both medicinal and recreational – even though it remains a Schedule 1 drug on the federal level.
But some public health experts are still sounding the alarm, because this has all happened very quickly… and thou...
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