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

Let's Know Things is a commentary podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 535 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Let's Know Things, a commentary show with 535 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Let's Know Things

  2026 DRC Ebola Outbreak

  May 26, 202615 minS0

  <p>This week we talk about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, malaria, and healthcare infrastructure.</p><p>We also discuss militants, Uganda, and the Bundibugyo virus.</p><p>Recommended Book: We Should Get Together by Kat Vellos</p><p>Transcript</p><p>Ebola, which is more formally called Ebola Virus Disease or Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, is caused by an infection by a type of RNA virus called an orthoebolavirus.</p><p>There are six known species of orthoebolavirus, and four of them have at some point infected and caused illness in humans. Those four are the ebola virus, sometimes...

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  Let's Know Things

  Super El Niño

  May 19, 202614 minS0

  <p>This week we talk about oceanic surface temperatures, trade winds, and global climate change.</p><p>We also discuss the Polar Jet Stream, hurricanes, and climate models.</p><p>Recommended Book: Kleptopia by Tom Burgis</p><p>Transcript</p><p>Under normal circumstances, the Pacific Ocean’s average surface temperature, the distribution of heat across its vast expanse, is moderated by trade winds that blow east to west along the equator, which help move warm water from South America over toward Asia.</p><p>Those winds are called trade winds because, back during the European age of Exploration, they he...

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  Let's Know Things

  2026 UK Local Elections

  May 12, 202614 minS0

  <p>This week we talk about Keir Starmer, Labour, and the Reform UK party.</p><p>We also discuss Tories, the Lib Dems, and two-party systems.</p><p>Recommended Book: Peak by K. Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool</p><p>Transcript</p><p>For more than 100 years, the British political system has been dominated by two parties: Labour and the Conservative Party, often called the Tories.</p><p>In practice, that means these two parties, which are center-left and center-right in their leanings, respectively, have tended to shape the direction of British politics and the Overton Window of thinkable proposals—th...

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  Let's Know Things

  Child Mortality

  May 5, 202615 minS0

  <p>This week we talk about industrialization, antibiotics, and child mortality rates.</p><p>We also discuss corruption, instability, and progress.</p><p>Recommended Book: Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio</p><p>Transcript</p><p>Demographic transition is a social sciences theory that posits, based on all sorts of modern historical data, that societies tend to change, demographically, as they transition from a largely agrarian, low-industrial society, to that of a less-agrarian, high-industrial society.</p><p>Most modern, post-hunter-gatherer societies have started out plowing the vast majority of their labor into bare subsistence, human beings spending their days, throughout...

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  Let's Know Things

  Iran War Costs

  Apr 28, 202612 minS0

  <p>This week we talk about the Strait of Hormuz, oil, and Russia.</p><p>We also discuss Patriot missiles, expensive weapons, and peer rivals.</p><p>Recommended Book: Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff</p><p>Transcript</p><p>During 2025 and early 2026, about 20 million barrels of crude oil and other petroleum products was shipped through the Strait of Hormuz every day. That’s about a quarter of the world’s total seaborne oil, and essentially all of that oil, and gas, and those other energy products that pass through this strait are from Middle Eastern suppliers like Saudi Arabia, Iraq...

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