100. Our 100th Episode!

Turkey sex and chicken wings, selling souls and swapping organs, the power of the president and the price of wine: these are a few of our favorite things.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 0:43Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 1:25Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 1:54Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 2:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, hang on. Why don't you say, why don't you pretend that you're introducing the episode of the 100th anniversary? So be like, over the top radio guy. I'm Steve Levitt from Freakonomics, and I want to welcome you to the 100, whatever, something like that. You want to try that?

• 2:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  You sure?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  You're better at that.

• 2:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  No, let me just, here, let me just tell you what's, we'll do it line by line. Hi, I'm Steve Levitt.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Steve Levitt.

• 2:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  From Freakonomics Radio.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  From Freak, Freak, Freak, Freakonomics Radio.

• 3:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  And I'd like to say thank you.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  And I'd like to say thank you.

• 3:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  For listening to our previous 99 podcasts.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  For listening to our previous 99 podcasts.

• 3:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  And I hope you enjoy this number 100.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  I hope number 100 is the most special of them all.

• 3:24Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's it, okay? Great. Good job.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  From WNYC and APM, American Public Media, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 3:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  This is the 100th Freakonomics Radio episode. And to thank you for listening to all the other 99, we wanted to put together a kind of greatest hits package. Problem is, we didn't actually have any greatest hits, or any hits of any kind. So instead, we decided to put together a kind of retrospective to show you what we think about the show, how the show was made. Maybe you're thinking of starting up your own podcast. So if that's the case, rule number one is this: do not invite boring people to be on your show.

• 4:31Speaker 03

  I run a large organization composed of bounty hunters. For the first three years of my life, my mother told me we slept in an airage shelter every night. I'm Stephen Dubner from New York.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Thomas Paine, sir. Very nice to meet you. I hope you're being wary of the loyalists up there in New York.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  I trained as a physicist, and then I worked with Stephen Hawking on quantum field theory and curve spacetime and the origin of the universe.

• 4:57Speaker 05

  I'm the editorial page editor of The New York Times. I'm Don Rumsfeld. I'm Alice Waters.

• 5:01Speaker 06

  Glenn Beck. I'm an entrepreneur, reluctant, believe it or not, commentator, and dad.

• 5:11Speaker 07

  My name is Steve Sexton. I am a PhD student at UC Berkeley studying agricultural and resource economics.

• 5:18Speaker 08

  I'm Allison Sexton. I'm a PhD student at the University of Minnesota studying health and information economics.

• 5:24Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, so I'm a little suspicious. Share a last name you've related to each other, perhaps?

• 5:32Speaker 07

  We are. We also shared a womb.

• 5:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  My Freakonomics partner is the inimitable Steve Levitt.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  If you want to ask about what economists do, I'm probably the wrong person to ask, because I do things that are quite different than what the typical economist do. I study strange things, like sumo wrestling, and prostitutes, and terrorism, and things like that. I don't think mathematics is necessary to understand reality. I always think to myself, why do more people commit suicide? I just don't want to have to go places, talk to strangers, things like that. One of the easiest ways to differentiate an economist from almost anyone else in society is to test them with repugnant ideas, because economists are pretty much immune to repugnance. I try to talk to my grad students into quitting all the time.

• 6:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Quitting grad school?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Quitting grad school, yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  As I look back on my life, one of the greatest regrets I have is that I spent my youth thinking that I could get a date, when I never could get a date.

• 6:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  You love teenage girl novels, that's kind of your favorite genre.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  I know, The Hunger Games is next on my list, I haven't had a chance to get to that yet. Just take a little can, like say a baby food jar, and fill it with vomit, okay? And wear it around your neck. Think about what a great conversation starter that would be.

• 7:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  With what kind of people? Who are you trying to start a conversation with?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  The ladies at ladies' night at the bars.

• 7:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  And we can't figure out why people don't like economists, I don't understand.

• 7:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  Most of our stories fall into one of two categories. The first category is things you always thought you knew, but didn't.

• 7:27Speaker 09

  One in five American adults said their greatest chance of accumulating hundreds of thousands of dollars was through the lottery. That number jumps to 40% for folks making less than $25,000 a year.

• 7:39Speaker 10

  Signaling theory is another way of talking about showing off. It's all about what we do to look good, or at least not to look bad.

• 7:47Speaker 11

  The truth is, I don't have to be very financially literate in order to get along very well financially in life.

• 7:56Speaker 12

  Regions with a higher quality of life have a higher suicide rate.

• 7:59Speaker 13

  Believe it or not, violence has been in decline for long stretches of history, and we may be living in the most peaceful era in our species' existence.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Walking drunk is one of the most dangerous activities you can engage in.

• 8:11Speaker 14

  In all honesty, I do sometimes think, you know, what if my kids don't turn out well and then everyone blames me? And, you know, I would still say, well, the data just say it was going to happen anyway.

• 8:21Speaker 15

  This is what in economics we call the Cobra Effect, where you have a well-intended scheme, but instead of solving the problem, it makes the problem actually worse.

• 8:31Speaker 16

  Amartya Sen looked at the total number of women in Asia and compared it against the number of women who should be there if the continent had a natural sex ratio. And in 1990, he found that there were 100 million women who were missing, who hadn't been born, but who should have been born.

• 8:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  And the second big category of Freakonomics radio material: things you never thought you wanted to know, but do.

• 9:05Speaker 17

  Rene Descartes had this, apparently, this room, sort of with heads of cows and livestock in different stages of disassembly. And he would, sometimes when dinner guests were over, he would open the door to this room and say, "These are my books." And you kind of had to think that after a while, people didn't want to go over to Rene's house for dinner very much.

• 9:27Speaker 18

  It's hard to imagine that there was any Bostonian during his time period who did as much damage to the environment as Henry David Thoreau did.

• 9:35Speaker 19

  I was talking with one of my colleagues here at Harvard. They confessed to me that they dyed their hair gray. And I said, "Why would anyone do that?" And he says, "Well, I want people to take me more seriously."

• 9:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  Americans will probably eat about 40 million turkeys this month. Now, I hope this doesn't kill your appetite, but what percentage of those 40 million birds do you think were the product of artificial insemination? Really? That's the question. That's the question. It's really the question. Wow, okay. 82.6, I don't know. It's a great, great guess, great guess. The truth is, it's actually pretty close to 100%.

• 10:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  As we all know, Freakonomics Radio is kinda, sorta about economics.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  When I met Dubner, he knew nothing about economics.

• 10:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  But somehow, we almost always end up talking about food. Not just on the show, but while we're in the studio making the show.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Can I talk for a minute? Hello. Steven Levitt. Chicken wings, 45-minute wait. What a pain in the ass.

• 10:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  I would like to hear the tape, yeah. You know what? Let me grab my salad. Man, doesn't that make you want a Big Mac? I'm starving. Could we spare Jeff? I'm buying.

• 10:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  Kinda made me want tacos. Hey, you wanna go get tacos?

• 11:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Pizza time.

• 11:05Speaker 12

  Beef, pork, bacon, milk, cheese, yogurt, potato chips, corn chips, beer, wine, liquor, coffee, tea, soda pop, illegal drugs, which I don't really do anyway.

• 11:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  You cheat with bacon.

• 11:14Speaker 20

  Not in my own kitchen, but I'll go out and I'll order bacon and pancakes. But at home, it would be simply pancakes.

• 11:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, does your husband know about this?

• 11:25Speaker 20

  He knows.

• 11:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  He knows because you tell him or because you come home with the scent of your lover on your lips?

• 11:31Speaker 20

  A little of both, I have to admit.

• 11:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  If we did a bunch of them, even if they're all bad, it would be good. How to get the most bang for your buck, trick for your treat, Snickers in your knickers.

• 11:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  I got a...

• 11:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  I got a laugh cramp.

• 11:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  So Levitt, this is our 100th episode of Freakonomics Radio. What do you have to say about that?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  That's 99 more than I expected when you started off on the first one. Maybe 100 more than I expected.

• 12:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  And if you had to pick an adjective for how it makes you feel, proud, blah, blah, what would the adjective be for having participated in 100 episodes of this podcast?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Gratified.

• 12:23Stephen J. Dubner?

  Really? Truly? I'm so surprised you're... Why gratified?

• 12:28Speaker 01

  You know, because I just thought it was such a bad idea from the beginning, and I thought it was such a waste of your time and a little bit of my time. And it's turned out that wherever I go, nobody really wants to talk about the books or the movie. Everyone wants to talk about the podcast. Somehow, somehow the podcast turns out to be the medium that works great for us.

• 12:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  Why do you think that is?

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Sure, it's free. I think it's the fact that you can listen to the podcast while you do something else, and it takes about half of a person's brain to capture what we're trying to say.

• 13:05Stephen J. Dubner?

  In addition to thanking people, what do you want to say to our listeners on the occasion of our 100th episode?

• 13:11Speaker 01

  I would say let's raise our glass to 100 more.

• 13:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC, APM, American Public Media, and Dubner Productions. Our staff includes Susie Lechtenberg, Catherine Wells, David Herman, Beray Lamb, Colin Campbell, and Chris Bannon. But many, many, many more people have helped produce the previous 99 episodes, and I'd like to thank them, too. They include Amanda Aronchik, Jesse Baker, Jacob Berman, Corey Bootleer, Chrissy Clark, Sean Cole, John Delore, Andrew Gartrell, Elizabeth Giddens, Dwyer Gunn, Diana Nguyen, Justin Jimenez, Dylan Keefe, Austin Killam, Shia Levitt-- no relation to Steve Levitt-- Ethan Lindsay, David Maxson, Jeff Mosenkis,

• 14:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  Amy Machado, Chris Neary, Michael Rayfield, Kate Rope, Paul Schneider, Jake Smith, Stacy Vanek Smith, Sean Wen, Verlin Williams, and Molly Webster, whose voice you may recognize is sounds like this.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  You ready?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Okay. Freakonomics. Sorry.

• 14:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  Also, a big thanks to all the folks at American Public Media and Marketplace, especially Deb Clark, Peter Clowney, Megan Larson, Judy McAlpin, Sotara Neves, Coyote Rizdal, Celeste Wesson, and JJ Yor, who answered the door when we first knocked a few years ago. And thanks to everyone here at WNYC, especially Dean Capello, Ellen Horn, and Laura Walker. Thanks to Peter Fields, even though he's a lawyer. And thanks to the folks at iTunes and Stitcher and everybody else that gets this podcast into your ears. And most of all, thanks to you for listening, for spreading the word, and for sending us

• 15:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  your comments, ideas, even your complaints. Keep those emails coming at [email protected] or just come visit us at freakonomics.com. And if you subscribe to this podcast at iTunes, you will get the next episode in your sleep.

• 15:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  Holy cow, I cannot believe you actually listened to the end of our credits. Well, you know what comes next, then. Yep, it's the bloopers.

• 16:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, you ready? I feel like I sound froggy. Do I sound froggy or no? Froggy, froggy, froggy. Here's the thing. No? Okay.

• 16:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  Does it sound as weird in there as it does in here?

• 16:24Stephen J. Dubner?

  We go down, we go down, we go down and we go down. We go down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. We got tape and we got tape and we got tape and we got tape and we got tape and we got tape, tape, tape. Okay, you're still rolling?

• 16:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  I want you. No, I can't do it.

• 16:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  What? I didn't touch anything. No, I'm not. You thought I was making my voice like helium reverb? Oh, my God.

• 16:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  I am on fire. Fire!

• 17:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by EverPure. Is the value of AI not living up to the promise? The problem is probably your data, not your AI models. When it's scattered across different systems, getting your data AI-ready is a challenge. You keep your AI waiting and everything slows down. EverPure unifies your data so you can see it, understand it, and control it all from one simple place and get it AI-ready fast. Unlock the true value of your AI at everpuredata.com.

• 17:36Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 18:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern Company. The world and its energy needs are always changing. Southern Company's commitment to meeting this demand stays the same. That's because Southern Company believes energy is more than a utility, it's what powers possibilities. So they are looking ahead and investing $80 billion in infrastructure upgrades and are committed to fueling growth in ways that benefit all customers so that reliable and affordable energy is accessible for generations to come. Go to southerncompany.com to learn more. Southern Company: building the future of energy.

• 18:44Speaker 21

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