Note: This episode was originally published on July 27, 2025.
There’s an entire economy devoted to seeing what products are trending—clothing, skin care, even Greek Islands—and delivering you a cheaper knock-off to buy.
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell and Patrick Fort.
The first English settlers in America learned a hard lesson about socialist economics in the early years of their new colonies as they faced starvation. Once they embraced free enterprise, however, they had something to be thankful for.
While the What Next team works their way from preparing
food to sleeping it off, enjoy this episode on fall’s flavorful favorites from
our friends at Decoder Ring. We’ll be back to regular programming on Sunday.
Autumn may have more cozy signifiers than any other
season—though we all have our own favorites. Maybe for you it’s sweater
weather, football games, spooky season, apple picking, leaf peeping, or
mainlining candy corn. Whatever it is, in today’s episode we’re looking closely at three of these autumnal staples.
First, we get to the bottom of a recurring complaint about the taste of the pumpkin spice latte. Then we gaze deep inside the enigma hiding inside colorful fall leaves. Finally we ask some hard-hitting questions about the seasonal availability of an elusive cookie. Snuggle up and enjoy!
We’d also like to thank Brian Gallagher, Tom Arnold, Sylvie
Russo, and Laura Robinson.
This episode was produced by Katie Shepherd. Decoder Ring
is also produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
Is your Thanksgiving dinner more or less affordable this year? Human Progress's Marian Tupy joins the Cato Institute's Ryan Bourne to discuss the political battle over affordability, the long-term costs of high inflation, and how time-prices show most goods becoming more abundant over time. Plus, the pair discuss human progress developments and why they are both thankful for the USA.
Fear is mounting about the integrity of next year’s elections and all the tricks MAGA World might be able to pull. How valid are those concerns? What are the reasons for confidence? Jane Coaston convenes a discussion with some of the elected officials and experts who know best: Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, and Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar. This episode was recorded at Crooked Con on November 7th.
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Public sector economics is a fundamental piece of the discipline. So we wanted to give our hosts an opportunity to put their knowledge to the test in a game we’re calling Indicator Quizbowl. Today on the show, Wailin and Darian go head to head to see who the bigger public policy nerd is.
With the release of Wicked: For Good, spectacle is back in theaters and back on the press circuit: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are again “holding space” along with each other’s individual fingers and other quirks they picked up along the way. This is, apparently, how movies are promoted now.
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. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplusto get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Cato's Chad Davis and Travis Fisher examine the gulf between symbolic climate pledges and the real-world complexities of energy use — from EV carbon costs to fossil-fueled resilience against natural disasters. They argue that the “climate homicide” narrative misreads the data, and that abundant, affordable energy remains humanity’s greatest defense against climate risk.
