Podcasts you follow?

[Blicero]

The first season of Limetown is really good. It's an x-files esque conspiracy story delivered in the style of a public radio interview series. Definitely recommended.

(The second season is kind of a shitshow; I gather that this is because the first season's writers focused on chasing a potential TV deal instead of continuing their existing project.)

[...You Lost Me]

Wanted to throw my top 3 in here.

Planet Money: Economics and economics-adjacent topics. It's short (20min) and light-hearted, which makes it very approachable.

Revisionist History: Fun tidbits of history, but it's done by Malcolm Gladwell so it has that... Malcolm Gladwell... thing.

Throughline: This is probably my favorite podcast of all. Each episode, they pick a modern topic and draw a throughline from it to some historical event.

My Favorite Murder is also up there somewhere. Maybe not quite top 3, but I like it.

[Maj]

I'm still having hang-ups with fiction. I feel really awkward listening to it. I think that's because it was so Ess' domain. I want to adventure more in that direction, though.

What I'm listening to now depends a lot on my mood. I have a lot more that I've got on my list to listen to in the future, but these are the ones I'm actively listening to.

• Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell
• History Unplugged
• Factually! with Adam Conover
• Stuff You Missed in History Class
• Hidden Brain (I love Shankar Vedantam's voice; I could listen to it all day.)
• You Are Not So Smart
• Kwik Brain (This one gets a little too sales-pitchy at times, but it's short, helpful, and positive. I need that.)
• Spilled Milk (Some of these are way to casual and I don't like riding the long tangents.)
• Every Little Thing
• Anthropocene Reviewed with John Green (I really like this one, and I'm almost caught up with all the episodes, so my addiction will be cured by running out of past episodes.)
• Wow in the World (I listen to this with Gi)
• Short & Curly (Another kid-oriented one - this one is a philosophy/ethics one for kids.)

Imma go through the podcasts mentioned and see what sticks. A few that have been mentioned are on my list, but I haven't gotten to them yet.

[Kaelik]

I don't actually advocate that anyone really listen to Knoweldge Fight, but I run it sometimes on a long drive.

They have over 300 episodes and it's basically two guys, one who watches Alex Jones clips to pull out the weird parts and the revealing parts and plays them for the other guy who is going in blind.

But the interesting part for me is that the guy who actually watches Alex Jones is something like you would imagine your typical news person who isn't pretending to Bothsides stuff, everything about Alex Jones that is bad he is willing to say is bad, but he's also very invested in for example, not saying bad things about people who don't "deserve" it and a niavate belief in the good faith of others (he is willing to say that Alex Jones is probably lying most of the time, but he has to qualify it, and he is clearly really searching for alternatives). The other guy is just 100% on board with "everyone is fucking racist, and fuck all these people" He says things like "any time you have a bunch of old white men on one side of an issue, you can be pretty sure there's some racism going down." Or every time George W Bush or Kissinger, or anyone like that comes up, he immediately just starts going off about how much he wants them to die.

So you'll have Alex Jones talking about how Kissinger wants to kill 80% of the human population, and the main host will be explaining how Alex Jones is wrong because he's taking a descriptive report that predicts future food shortages as a prescriptive call to murder 80% of the population, and the other guy will be jumping in with, "Nah, I think I'm with Alex on this one, Kissinger definitely wants to kill 80% of the people on the planet." And the frustration of the main host makes it fucking hilarious to me.

[Maj]

OK. I found out Jonathan Van Ness (Queer Eye, but the podcast started pre-Queer Eye) has a podcast called Getting Curious. He's a sparkly unicorn sort of person and his podcast is basically him finding people with answers to his completely random questions about topics that he's curious about.

The first episode is about the difference between Sunni and Shi'i Muslims, and I was surprised at how informative it was. It goes from the difference between those two sects to the interwoven political relationships in the Middle East and calls bullshit on the whole Shi'a vs Sunni conflict.

Van Ness comes at the topic as a total ignorant, so the information starts on a really approachable level, but it gets surprisingly deep, surprisingly fast. It was a little messy, but he frequently recaps the information to make sure he's got it. I would actually recommend that people listen to just this episode if they want to understand Middle Eastern relationships a bit more.

I like Van Ness, and I like random shit. I hope the rest of the podcast episodes are like this.

[Mord]

The Second Ethiopian-Italian War and the Abyssinian Crisis were the names of the events. The podcast that utterly failed to mention either was episode three of Hardcore History, subtitled The Organization of Peace.

The episode with the 'encoded in DNA' thing was Episode Two, Guns and Horses. (I hope you're happy that you made me look that up, because I am happy to look things up for the purposes of a well-deserved rant.) Here's a tip: whenever anyone is talking about Western Culture, especially in contrast to Eastern Culture - unless they are narrowly talking about the Greeks in conflict with the various near-Eastern empires like the Achaemenids or the Sassanians - it is code for all that Proud Boy, Spartan myth-making, Western chauvinist bullshit. Even if he said "cultural DNA," it's still about Christian Western Europe being the best.

I'll be honest, though - I cannot be bothered to relisten to the podcast to try to tease out his exact verbiage, though.

You'll note that I started at the beginning, and that the bias piled up on me really early and caused me to rage-quit before any of the episodes that people always mention. Looking up the episodes I did listen to, it looks like they are no longer freely available, but can be purchased for $1.99 an episode. I won't tell you how to vote with your dollars, but you can guess how I would vote with mine.

I won't deny anything you're saying. I should have qualified my recommendation: the early episodes of Hardcore History are bad. No two ways about it. I'm aware of Dan Carlin's politics to the extent that they leak into Hardcore History, and based on that exposure, I can say that I disagree with them and don't want to hear about them. The fact that he has interviewed Victor Davis Hanson and occasionally cites his work may be enough for you to hard pass. That's fair; Hanson is scum, basically the Ann Coulter of historians, and lie down with dogs etc.

From my perspective, Hardcore History got good once Carlin changed formats from short-form, lightly-researched extemporization on "things I'm thinking about right now" to the heavily-researched, audiobook-length multi-part series that the podcast is now known for. He recently did a series about the Achaemenid Persians, "Kings of Kings," that is leagues more even-handed and defensible than his earlier work regarding non-white non-Westerners. Additionally, a (relatively) short while ago he did an episode "Thor's Angels" about how Western Europe became Christian that does not at all present that as a a uniformly or uncontroversially good development.

Either Carlin has changed his views over time or he's gotten better about objectivity. I don't know but the results are better either way. He's certainly made a real commitment to doing the homework before talking about stuff, which may by itself explain the better quality and lower bias. Every now and then he does say something that pings on my "unsupported and politically motivated interpretation" radar, but it's much, much less frequent than in the old days.

I stand by my recommendations of "Blueprint for Armageddon," "Wrath of the Khans," and "Logical Insanity." Unfortunately, the only one of those that is still free is "Blueprint for Armageddon." I do not under any circumstances recommend anything older than "Ghosts of the Ostfront." I actually bought the old crappy episode bundle some years ago and I was pretty uniformly disappointed with the early content of the show.

Still, forgetting Dan Carlin for a moment - the Fall of Rome is really good. Go listen to it. I can't think of anyone here other than possibly FatR who would have cause to disagree politically with anything Patrick Wyman has to say.

[shinimasu]

The first season of Limetown is really good. It's an x-files esque conspiracy story delivered in the style of a public radio interview series. Definitely recommended.

(The second season is kind of a shitshow; I gather that this is because the first season's writers focused on chasing a potential TV deal instead of continuing their existing project.)

A TV and a book deal, the book actually got written and was pretty unanimously panned by fans of the podcast for going back and shoehorning in a bunch of stuff that wasn't present in season 1 (like the MC of season one having been to limetown before the crisis among others). I haven't read it but apparently the writing itself was also on the stiff and dull side.

I've been listening to Behind the Bastards which is kind of a mixed bag. It's entertaining but also kind of depressing because so many of these people never face lasting consequences for the things they've done. Also some of his cohosts are obnoxious, he's got a rotating set of them, some are definitely better than others. Would recommend the episodes on Gary Young of Young Living essential oils though.

[SeekritLurker]

The Second Ethiopian-Italian War and the Abyssinian Crisis were the names of the events. The podcast that utterly failed to mention either was episode three of Hardcore History, subtitled The Organization of Peace.

The episode with the 'encoded in DNA' thing was Episode Two, Guns and Horses. (I hope you're happy that you made me look that up, because I am happy to look things up for the purposes of a well-deserved rant.) Here's a tip: whenever anyone is talking about Western Culture, especially in contrast to Eastern Culture - unless they are narrowly talking about the Greeks in conflict with the various near-Eastern empires like the Achaemenids or the Sassanians - it is code for all that Proud Boy, Spartan myth-making, Western chauvinist bullshit. Even if he said "cultural DNA," it's still about Christian Western Europe being the best.

I'll be honest, though - I cannot be bothered to relisten to the podcast to try to tease out his exact verbiage, though.

You'll note that I started at the beginning, and that the bias piled up on me really early and caused me to rage-quit before any of the episodes that people always mention. Looking up the episodes I did listen to, it looks like they are no longer freely available, but can be purchased for $1.99 an episode. I won't tell you how to vote with your dollars, but you can guess how I would vote with mine.

I won't deny anything you're saying. I should have qualified my recommendation: the early episodes of Hardcore History are bad. No two ways about it. I'm aware of Dan Carlin's politics to the extent that they leak into Hardcore History, and based on that exposure, I can say that I disagree with them and don't want to hear about them. The fact that he has interviewed Victor Davis Hanson and occasionally cites his work may be enough for you to hard pass. That's fair; Hanson is scum, basically the Ann Coulter of historians, and lie down with dogs etc.

From my perspective, Hardcore History got good once Carlin changed formats from short-form, lightly-researched extemporization on "things I'm thinking about right now" to the heavily-researched, audiobook-length multi-part series that the podcast is now known for. He recently did a series about the Achaemenid Persians, "Kings of Kings," that is leagues more even-handed and defensible than his earlier work regarding non-white non-Westerners. Additionally, a (relatively) short while ago he did an episode "Thor's Angels" about how Western Europe became Christian that does not at all present that as a a uniformly or uncontroversially good development.

Either Carlin has changed his views over time or he's gotten better about objectivity. I don't know but the results are better either way. He's certainly made a real commitment to doing the homework before talking about stuff, which may by itself explain the better quality and lower bias. Every now and then he does say something that pings on my "unsupported and politically motivated interpretation" radar, but it's much, much less frequent than in the old days.

I stand by my recommendations of "Blueprint for Armageddon," "Wrath of the Khans," and "Logical Insanity." Unfortunately, the only one of those that is still free is "Blueprint for Armageddon." I do not under any circumstances recommend anything older than "Ghosts of the Ostfront." I actually bought the old crappy episode bundle some years ago and I was pretty uniformly disappointed with the early content of the show.

Still, forgetting Dan Carlin for a moment - the Fall of Rome is really good. Go listen to it. I can't think of anyone here other than possibly FatR who would have cause to disagree politically with anything Patrick Wyman has to say.

That's fair. I never got that far - and I won't, because I've made up my mind. However, I have listened to enough podcasts to know that Early Episode is a common condition and that many podcasts improve dramatically after their early episodes - but I most often find that the ones I stick with find their biggest gains in sound quality over content improvement. But that's just me.

Some of my podcasts:

I mentioned The Magnus Archive, and I want to plug it again here. It is the best horror fiction podcast - the concept being that each episode is a recording made of a statement given to a paranormal research institute, and then the archivist makes a little commentary on each. The statements are self-contained, but there are plot threads that reach on further to create a larger surrounding plot through line. Check out Episode 4, Page Turner, and if you like it, it's a good bet you'll like the whole thing.

My other favorite podcast is Jay and Miles Xplain the X-Men. I always found the X-line to be relatively impenetrable with the amount of continuity, and I've found this podcast to be charming and informative.

There's also 25 Years of Vampire: The Masquerade - A Retrospective Podcast. The hosts are kind of up their own asses about how awesome they are as Vampire players and storytellers and are supreme apologists for some of the material, but they do bring a lot of continuity knowledge and mind-caulk that I find at least vaguely amusing, if only for some coverage of the Vampire stuff I never got around to reading. Definitely give the first episode a skip; it's just a sloppy blowjob for the Dotmeister.

Also, in their earlier episodes, they repeated use a slur for the Rom people, but they learn why that is bad and stop doing that.

But it's also amusing to listen to, because they know a whole lot about Vampire and apparently not much about *anything* else. So I guess this one is a sort of ironic recommendation.

[Iduno]

I've been listening to Behind the Bastards which is kind of a mixed bag. It's entertaining but also kind of depressing because so many of these people never face lasting consequences for the things they've done. Also some of his cohosts are obnoxious, he's got a rotating set of them, some are definitely better than others. Would recommend the episodes on Gary Young of Young Living essential oils though.

I agree with the sentiment. I'm glad somebody is making those, but I wish it was someone I could stand listening to for over 30 seconds.


I've been enjoying Beef and Dairy Network. It's about a very serious NPR-ish host in a dumber version of our world, interviewing very serious people about their mostly beef/cow/dairy-related insanity. For example: the story of a man who drinks so much milk, he passes what sound like very large kidney stones daily. It's good for shutting your brain off and listening to entertaining noise.

I also listen to Retail Nightmares. It's a comedian and a musician in Canada and a guest describing things they've seen and experienced working in retail (and the associated poverty/near-poverty), and how they cope with life. They added a segment where they talk about something in life that brings them happiness early on, because it got kind of dark. It sounds like the 2 hosts have mostly run out of stories after 2 years, but the guests always have good ones. It's more rambling and jokes with friends now, but the message of "try treating other people like people" is still there.

[Maj]

Not sure where to put this, but I thought it was really good. It's just under 45 minutes long.

Jonathan Van Ness's Getting Curious on why the census is important

If you listen to podcasts elsewhere, it's the latest version of Getting Curious.

It has a very liberal bent, and JVN is very gay. He's also ADHD so he gets distracted at times, but he always brings it back (and this is one of his more focused episodes). The information is great.

[shinimasu]

Darknet Diaries is one I would recommend. It's almost exclusively stories about hackers and the various things they've accomplished. My favorite episodes so far have to be about the professional penetration testers. People hired to break into secure locations in order to test security. Their methods are wild.

[Kaelik]

http://www.pitchforkeconomics.com/episo ... jayaraman/

Good episode, probably a good podcast, will keep listening and update in the future.

[Hicks]

I listen to The Ensign's Log, a podcast about the crazy stuff happening to the junior officers aboard the Origional Enterprise, and puts a fun new spin on The Origional Series.

[Iduno]

The Worst Idea of All Time is two hilarious dudes from New Zealand. Each week, for an entire year, they review a movie they just watched.

The movie is Grown-Ups 2, because it was the worst movie they can find.

I understand they've also done a year of Sex and the City 2, and have started on We Are Your Friends. They are hilarious, but I felt bad for them after a while. It sounded like the bad movie was actually taking a toll on their mental health, but in their defense, they were watching an Adam Sandler movie repeatedly.

[Hiram McDaniels]

I've been listening to Behind the Bastards which is kind of a mixed bag. It's entertaining but also kind of depressing because so many of these people never face lasting consequences for the things they've done. Also some of his cohosts are obnoxious, he's got a rotating set of them, some are definitely better than others. Would recommend the episodes on Gary Young of Young Living essential oils though.

I've been listening to Behind the Bastards recently.

I started with the episode on news grifter, fasc collaborator and professional victim Andy Ngo, since that pertains to my neck of the woods.

Also listened to the first episode where Rboert Evans reads from his book about fascism. Put me in a mind to reread Eco's Ur-Fascism essay, which led me to wonder if the evangelical super church where I grew up are fascists.

[Kaelik]

I have switched up my podcasts a fair amount.

No in addition to Citations Needed and Knowledge Fight which I have mentioned previously, I listen to a few very new podcasts:

Blowback: Currently on sticher Premium, but will eventually be released for free once finished and you CAN get it without though I won't discuss how.

A podcast going over the Iraq War from the beginning of the Baath party to now in detail with a particular focus on how incredibly fucked up and evil the US has always been both before and during and after, but obviously especially the Bush admin.

Two Legal podcasts which may or may not be to everyone's taste:

5-4. The tagline is "A podcast about how the Supreme Court sucks" to give you a rough idea.

ALAB (All Lawyers Are Bastards). This one is of similar sentiment but more broad, covering all sorts of fucked up law stuff, including the concept of Lawyer Brain which is how lawyers are trained to think in ways that are basically psychotic and told this is good.

Media podcasts:

"The West Wing Thing" is a podcast where two writers and some guests go through episodes and make fun of the incredibly stupid politics. As writers they also cover shit TV writing though they initially tried hard not to.

Michael and Us: Two people originally started watching Michael Moore movies then movies about Michael Moore, now they are 200 episodes in and have changed to "basically any movie about politics and political propaganda."