{"podcast":{"title":"Current Affairs","slug":"current-affairs-1140771","podcast_index_feed_id":1140771,"rss_url":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/6HSzsHPR","website_url":"http://www.currentaffairs.org","image_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/a8e3828a-375e-49fd-973f-025700235a18/ddb430f0-40cf-4c6d-97bd-6ee26bf1a3eb/3000x3000/currentaffairs.jpg?aid=rss_feed","author":"Current Affairs","episode_count":600,"summary":"A podcast of politics and culture, from the editors of Current Affairs magazine.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-14T12:17:39.472417+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/current-affairs-1140771"},"episode":{"title":"“Progress” Is Making Things Worse (w/ Sam Miller McDonald)","slug":"progress-is-making-things-worse-w-sam-miller-mcdonald","published_at":"2026-05-05T23:36:11+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/current-affairs-1140771/progress-is-making-things-worse-w-sam-miller-mcdonald","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/current-affairs-1140771","url":"http://www.currentaffairs.org","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/cdn.simplecast.com/media/audio/transcoded/40a1dc4d-22d4-4862-912d-9e9b9e98c6d9/e26bd405-faef-4e0b-9697-3600e4831623/episodes/audio/group/4b46a7e9-859c-418b-8e90-e480243b7302/group-item/8db4e694-d2fb-4d48-879e-b756ac9cd5ab/128_default_tc.mp3?aid=rss_feed&feed=6HSzsHPR","summary":"Sam Miller McDonald is a writer and longtime Current Affairs contributor. He joins Nathan Robinson to discuss his new book Progress: How One Idea Built Civilization—and Now Threatens to Destroy It, a sweeping critique of the belief that history is a story of constant improvement.","meta_description":"Sam Miller McDonald is a writer and longtime Current Affairs contributor. He joins Nathan Robinson to discuss his new book Progress: How One Idea Built Ci…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2497,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/current-affairs-1140771/episodes/progress-is-making-things-worse-w-sam-miller-mcdonald/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/current-affairs-1140771/progress-is-making-things-worse-w-sam-miller-mcdonald.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}