Quick edit. I had no idea pod casts were so popular. Thank you all for posting. I have a lot of content to check out.
Breaking Points has amazing coverage on American politics which matches up with reality unlike those CNN casters which keep getting “surprised” their coverage turned out to be wrong.
- RadioLab: so many great episodes on random topics, some absolute gold here.
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: relatively new, from the author of the best still book of the same name. So far, great!
- Planet Money: US focused but still really interesting. Economics focused, non political.
- The Inquiry: BBC deep dive on current affairs.
- The Forum: BBC deep dive on various topics, some really interesting stuff.
- Critical Role: its critical role…
- The Kākā: NZ focused economics and politics.
- Unexpected Elements: BBC science podcast.
- The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps: very deep dive into the history of philosophy.
- Fall of Civilizations: in depth look at how and why civilizations fell.
- Completely Arbortrary: all about trees and sometimes tree-like things, super funny and wholesome, love these guys.
- Hello from the Magic Tavern: improv comedy with a (sometimes super slowly) evolving story featuring a human, a wizard, and a talking badger. I fall asleep to this all the time. My favorite bit is sometimes they play their world’s version of D&D, Offices and Bosses 😂
- Levar Burton Reads: Levar’s favorite stories, expertly narrated by him. Best vibes ever!
I enjoy a podcast or two, and i only see a few here i know, so heres a few favourites that i didn’t see yet,
Battleground: Ukraine, podcast that was being started about historical battles at the same time as the march on Kyiv happened. They pivoted and have kept abrest of events weekly since then. Its been very valuable during times the rest of the media aren’t covering it.
Age of Napoleon, an all time favourite, Everett Rummage is a well researched unassuming host. His excursion into the history of Haiti and its ties to the Napoleonic era is some of the best podcast hours i’ve ever spent.
Philosophize This, Stephen West is the happiest podcaster in a state that most philosophers would refer to as alive. He has gone through so many philosophers from all ages and gives them all a fair go.
Capitalisn’t, Bethany Mclean and Luigi Zingales take an issue with the capital system today, interview an expert, and discuss.
Debunking Economics, Welcome to the mind of economist Steve Keen. The most heterodox economist kicking goals today. Slightly MMT but has some disagreements, and shines a new lense over the field of economics.
Dot Social, Interview Podcast for the fediverse curious. Don’t know if anybody here would be interested in that kind of thing though…
Rest is Politics UK/US, both UK and US ones are great. These political current affairs podcasts are hosted by former political insiders. Their insights are valuable, even if you disagree with them. The podcasts motto is “disagree agreeably”. Rory Stewart and Allastair Campbell’s discussion on the Iraq War was an extremely poignant and honest moment and is well worth listening.
Climate Deniers Playbook, Same guy from Climate Town on YouTube, but even more annoying because he’s right there in your ear holes telling you about all the ways Big Oil is going out of its way to fuck you, and specifically you, over.
The Tally Room, Ben Raue interviews a guest or two on Australasian elections. He analyses and discusses the electoral possibilities in upcoming elections, and historical electoral practices. This is not a politics podcast, its an election analysis podcast. Therefore he generally only strays into the policies of a certain party as it impacts on the electoral outcomes of the government area in question.
I hope theres some podcasts in there that interest people.
My favorite podcasts are super geeky:
- The Hackaday podcast: https://hackaday.com/category/podcasts/
- The Pick, Place podcast: https://www.pickplacepodcast.com/
(They’re both available on just about every podcast platform)
Hackaday is catered to a much more general audience than The Pick, Place podcast which is all about the PCB manufacturing/assembly industry. So if you’re a geeky sort you’ll love Hackaday because just about everything they talk about is super interesting (to geeks) and it’s never boring (unlike a lot of other geeky podcasts where the hosts can ramble on for too long about topics that are only mildly interesting).
About the Pick, Place podcast: Never in a million years would did I think I could enjoy such a podcast. They go over the steps and equipment used to make the circuit boards that live inside all the electronics we use every day and it’s way more interesting than you’d think! Like, did you know that most professionally-made circuit boards go through the equivalent of a dishwasher? As in, they’re washed… With (denatured/deionized) water! Furthermore, these washing machines only need their water changed out like once a month (or sometimes after several months) then they take the little bits of metal it collects over time and they sell them to companies that deal with precious metals (because they’ll have multiple pounds of tiny balls of tin, silver, gold, etc).
Oh man I learned so much interesting obscure shit from that podcast! I love it 👍
I’d recommend The Blindboy Podcast, in which one half of the comedy rap duo the Rubberbandits talks about whatever’s taken his fancy that week. Sometimes it’s an hour about sniffing the crotch of a rented tuxedo, other times it’s a long, rambling conversation with Hollywood actor Chris O’Dowd. Or he could go on a deep dive about the history of a tennis ball.
I used to listen to a lot of podcasts. These days Blindboy’s is the only one I’m guaranteed to listen to every week.
I’ll also heartily recommend The Memory Palace.
It’s not as frequent as it used to be, but it’s always pleasant seeing an episode pop into my feed. They’re usually no longer than 15 minutes, and are a lovely little lens on some previously unknown facet of American history.
A Brief Eulogy for a Commercial Radio Station is the kind of writing that makes me sad, because I know I could never write something so beautiful.