Shows / The Most Important Question
The Most Important Question
The most important question in today's world of climate chaos, AI psychosis, and crumbling democracy is: what can I do? Your host, Quinn Emmett is completely unqualified to answer it, so he's calling the people that already are. If you've got the news, the analysis, the outrage, but still no plan — join us as we figure it out together with long-form conversations with amazing people working on the frontlines, and quick updates responding to today's most important headlines, and what you can do…
Episodes
- The Most Important Question
TMIQ Today: A Win For The Amazon
Today: President Lulu won in Brazil, which is a win for the Amazon. Celebrate the good news wherever you find it! ----------- Have feedback? Tweet us, or send…
- The Most Important Question
TMIQ Today: Diapers
Today: A one-year-old boy was killed after a police officer fired three shots into a car pulling away in a Walmart parking lot in Mississippi, following a call…
The Most Important Question*Actually* Pro Life: Our Positions
For two years something has been missing from *Actually* Pro-Life. Obviously, you guys didn't even know about it until recently, but the point is, we had these…
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TMIQ Today: Oregon
Today: Three children and a 25-year-old teacher in Bend, Oregon are dead in yet another school shooting. Police arrived in three minutes, the school had locks…
The Most Important QuestionFacts Are Non-Negotiable, Framing Is A Choice
What is the price of exclusion? Well, if your family paid the price, if your people were ever left out of a textbook you don't need this new book to tell you…
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TMIQ Today: The Talk
Today: We've gotta aim higher than simply meeting a "do not rape" threshold. We've gotta actively work to prevent harm through conversations about consent and…
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TMIQ Today: Trump Accounts
Today: Key word in the Trump Accounts promise: eligibility. As in, only children born after Dec 31, 2024 and before Jan 1, 2029. So, children born before 2024…
The Most Important QuestionMurder Mysteries, But For Trees
In 1904, somebody noticed a sick tree at the Bronx Zoo. Within 50 years, the fungus killing it had wiped out about four billion American Chestnut trees from…
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TMIQ Today: Plague
Today: Your algorithm may have spent the last week scaring you about the plague, but probably the wrong one. Pennsylvania has reported over one thousand…
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New In What Can I Do: Notifcations
After launching What Can I Do to collect all of our recommended actions in one place, we received feedback from you that you still didn't feel like you were…
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TMIQ Today: Political Hobbyism, Part 2
Today: What does it mean to be *Actually* Pro Life? If political power comes from consistently meeting people's basic needs, and if being pro-life means, as…
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TMIQ Today: Gun Laws
Today: Although most Americans want stricter gun laws, campaign money surges after fatal school shootings to prevent change. What Can You Do: Call your reps…
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TMIQ Today: Clearing the Air in Schools
Today: In the 2024-2025 school year, nearly one in five US school districts cancelled school because of building failures. After Congress sent schools $190…
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TMIQ Today: Political Hobbyism
Today: Many people practice "political hobbyism": obsessively following political news and offering hot takes, while doing little constructive work, because…
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What is TMIQ Today?
You've probably noticed short episodes called TMIQ Today popping up in your feed. Today, INI Producer Willow hops on to chat with Quinn about what these…
- The Most Important Question
TMIQ Today: Mitch Voted Against Paid Leave, And Yet
Today: Senator Mitch McConnell was absent from the Senate for three months after falling in June. When he returned in September to vote, his seat was intact…
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TMIQ Today: Florida's Education Loophole
Today: Since 1975, federal law has required public school districts to offer students with disabilities an education. But if parents decline and choose a…
- The Most Important Question
TMIQ Today: Cleaner Air, Smarter Kids
Today: New York City cleaned up its air over 22 years with multiple policies, and a Columbia University study tracking 1100 children tested from toddlerhood…
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TMIQ Today: A Right To Clean Water
Today: The Fifth Circuit just dismissed a Jackson, Mississippi family's lawsuit over alleged lead-contaminated water, stating that "the Constitution does not…
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TMIQ Today: Summarily Slow
Today: When someone is detained in the US, the government must quickly justify the detention to a federal judge. But judges are only instructed to decide cases…
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TMIQ Today: Measles & Misinformation
Today: Parents should have transparent access to measles vaccination rates for their child's specific school and classroom so they can assess their child's…
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TMIQ Today: COVID Vaccines and Pregnancy
Today: Senator Ron Johnson claimed that the COVID vaccine causes an 82% miscarriage rate in pregnant women. How did he get that number? He just made it up by…
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TMIQ Today: Meta's Settlement
Today: Parents often lose the "phone at bedtime" battle because social media is designed to keep users (kids) engaged. The attorneys general in 51 states and…
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TMIQ Today: Dolly's Legacy
Today: Dolly Parton's life is defined by her unmatched generosity and impact, from her Imagination Library, which has distributed at least 300 million books…
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TMIQ Today: Beyond Our Lifetime
Today: We are working on projects we may never live to finish, building cathedrals we won't see completed. Think about the work done so far on lead…
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TMIQ Today: Arkansas Medicaid & Postpartum Coverage
Today: While people focus on newborns, new mothers often go unchecked. In Arkansas, Medicaid covers childbirth but ends 60 days postpartum even though the…
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TMIQ Today: The Future of Childhood Vaccines
Today: The president signed an executive order directing pediatricians to give children 3 separate shots instead of the combined MMR vaccine, despite those…
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TMIQ Today: FDA Food Safety Delays
Welcome to our new series, The Most Important Question Today. These will be short (1-3 minutes) drops, responding to just one news story daily, with action…
The Most Important QuestionRun To Defend Democracy
Today, another in our series of conversations with friends who are part of the pipeline at Run For Something. I'm excited to introduce you to Sophia Gibb. She…
The Most Important QuestionRun To Build The Future You Want
Today we're gonna talk about Florida and representation, and how Florida has very little of it, in even the loosest definition of the word. We're gonna do that…
The Most Important QuestionRun To Unite Your Community
There are a lot of folks in rural America that can say, "No candidate's ever come and knocked on my door." So today, I'm going to introduce you to the one who…
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*Actually* Pro Life: Our Principles
A huge catalyst for our 2025 pivot towards courting a much wider audience was AOC’s post-mortem of the 2024 election: “We can’t just be right. We have to be…
The Most Important QuestionRun To Flip Your State
Today we're gonna talk about Texas. For a decade, maybe 100 years, we've heard over and over, this is the year we flip Texas. Sometimes we get closer…
The Most Important QuestionRun for Working People (And Not For Data Centers)
Today, we're gonna talk about data centers. Now, I know these things are a hot topic amid everything else: the heat, water, prices, lack of homes, lack of…
The Most Important QuestionIntroducing: It's Called Reality
Something new from the team behind The Most Important Question! It's Called Reality is a podcast about reality TV, and the systems hiding inside it. Every…
The Most Important QuestionRun for Soil and Water and Farmworkers
You may feel like you're giving it all you have, but obviously things are tough out there. We're working on all of it, but in particular, you, our listeners…
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Bonus: An *Actually* Pro Life T-shirt
We've spent the last two essays building the case for *Actually* Pro Life: wht it means, where it comes from, and why the logo was designed to be worn…
- The Most Important Question
*Actually* Pro Life: The Design
If the name Actually Pro Life is deliberate, then so is the logo. Because like I said in our intro post, we’re reclaiming "pro-life" from the same people who…
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Introducing: *Actually* Pro Life
250 years after a group of slaveowners wrote that "all men are created equal", we're done letting hypocrites own the language of life. Introducing Actually Pro…
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How You Changed The Lives of 250 Families in Rwanda
Last Christmas we teamed up with about 40 other big podcasts to support our dear friends at Give Directly with a very special campaign called Pods Fight…
The Most Important QuestionA Calm Voice In A Loud World
Your kids are hearing about the news whether you are ready or they're ready or not. One study said two-thirds of kids aged 8 to 14 are absorbing current events…
The Most Important QuestionWhat's In Your Water
Whoever said this country can't come together about anything anymore in the year of our Lord twenty twenty-six was wrong because PFAS, or forever chemicals…
The Most Important QuestionLife Under A Microscope
Since the dawn of recorded history, our living earth has been changed by everyone who spends time on it or in it from the smallest bacteria to the largest…
The Most Important QuestionPublic Health Just Got Personal
The CDC issued six health alerts in all of 2025, down from dozens in a normal year (whatever that means anymore). Measles, a disease we basically eliminated 26…
The Most Important QuestionNot Right Now: Coloring Pages of Karl Marx
This week, we're dropping an episode from our other show, Not Right Now, in the feed, where Quinn and Claire have community organizer and dad, Garrett Bucks…
The Most Important QuestionPublic Health In A Post-Evidence World
Just because we're done caring about an outbreak doesn't mean the outbreak is done with us. Over the last year, we have watched something unsettling happen in…
The Most Important QuestionThe Plastic Crisis Isn't On You, Actually
Plastic. It is the miracle material that has quietly become the infrastructure of modern life over the past 63 years and the almost undefeated business model…
The Most Important QuestionWhat's The Purpose of Your Wealth?
If our mission is to help people, everyone, answer the most important question, what can I do? Then at some point we need to talk to the people who help really…
The Most Important QuestionWe need your help
Hi! It's Quinn. We have huge plans for 2026, and we need your help. So we're running the biggest discount on an Important Membership that we've ever run, and…
The Most Important QuestionPods Fight Poverty: What Really Happens When You Just Give People Money?
Hey friends, I want to talk about something big. Change the actual world big, because the world won't unfuck itself, as we all know. We are joining podcasts…
The Most Important QuestionLet's Talk About Menopause
What if talking about menopause out loud was as normal as talking about sports scores or school pickup? Imagine it in movie plots, in your group chat, at the…
The Most Important QuestionThe American Revolution's Unfinished Promise
If the American Revolution was, as Ken Burns put it, the biggest event since the birth of Christ, then there's probably never been a better time to explore and…
The Most Important QuestionHistory vs Nostalgia
I've recorded hundreds of conversations with incredible people working on the front lines of the future. People who've asked the most important question: what…
The Most Important QuestionRunning for Water (Because Shutoffs Are Immoral)
Chronically parched is not something anyone in this country or anywhere should ever have to feel, but here we are. So how are towns and states making clean…
The Most Important QuestionRunning for School Meals (Because Learning Requires Eating)
I think we can all agree that kids shouldn't go hungry ever really, but especially at school. You might feel right now like you are giving it everything you…
The Most Important QuestionRunning for Gun Control (In The Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens)
Maybe you feel like you're already giving it all you've got. You look around, and things are tough out there. You, our listeners and readers and viewers and…
The Most Important QuestionRunning for Transit (Because Your Commute Doesn't Have to Suck)
Things are a little tough out there. So you, want, no need, more examples of fight and progress you can actually see and touch and feel. And in these series of…
The Most Important QuestionRunning for Housing (Because Someone Has To)
In a moment when the news out of Washington can seem untenably rough, when the gerontocracy that got us here won't give up their hold on power, when…
The Most Important Question(Re)Introducing The Science of Fiction
This week we're rerunning our 2024 episode with Maddie Stone, writer of The Science of Fiction blog, to celebrate the fact that Maddie has joined our team and…
The Most Important QuestionThe Answer is Always Run for Something
Turns out it's our 200th episode. It has been a journey. The show is now called The Most Important Question, and I can't think of a better answer than just…