I haven't spent the last month only doing this post, I do have another few on the way. There are so many topics mashed up in there and it's taking me longer than I thought to polish them. I wrote this in the meantime just to keep this kind of regular. I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, and while I weave most of them in to my blog posts (often the source of the line of thinking in the blog post is a podcast), I figured I might as well do a post on some that I like. How detailed they are depends on my mood at the time of writing and other irrelevant things, but they are all great in my opinion, depending on what you want to get out of them. Standouts for me are Revisionist History, Waking Up and Hardcore History, which are all very different. CJ’s Key Podcast Recommendations
Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell Episode Length: 35 - 45 minutes Speed: 1.4x Listen time: 25 - 35 minutes (short walk along the river) You should try this if: you’re interested in why things are the way they are. Major topics covered: inequality, unfairness and generally strange things. From gender to income, Gladwell focuses on the effect of inequality through education and opportunity. There’s a really interesting one about Toyota and stuck accelerators too. This has changed my life by: helping me to intuitively think twice about what “everyone is saying”. Often things are the way they are because that’s the way they are, not because that’s the best way. Recommended one to start: just start from the start and work through. The first one is about moral licensing and is super interesting, though when you get to the bit on Julia Gillard, you’ll be a bit ashamed to be an Australian man if you are, in fact, an Australian man. Waking Up with Sam Harris by Sam Harris Episode Length: 30 - 150 minutes Speed: 1.6x Listen time: 20 - 90 minutes (riding to work) You should try this if: you watched Westworld and don’t know what life means any more. If you think about actual moral things rather than what people do to think they are moral. I’m super into this guy at the moment. Major topics covered: religion, morality, free will, consciousness, politics, science. This podcast is mainly in the form of conversations with a few AMAs in there. This has changed my life by: I’ve started to meditate. Recommended one to start: the AMAs are quite good to get an idea of what he’s on about, then move into some conversations with people you like (Paul Bloom is a good one). “Why I don’t criticize Israel” is a good one too (#2). Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History by Dan Carlin Episode Length: 3.5 - 5.5 hours Speed: 1.6x Listen time: 2 - 3.5 hours (all day) You should try this if: you want to think about what life would have been like in the past. Major topics covered: Persia, WWI, Mongols. This podcast could be the high school history curriculum and it would improve things. (He goes into a whole thing on the Common Sense podcast about what history at school should actually be like and it’s not Hoardcore History. His idea is that kids should learn the process of history, not the facts of history. In well taught science, you learn the scientific method and use it to discover facts, not just the facts themselves. In history, this might mean learning how to discern what actually happened from evidence and a good project would be to let kids pick any topic they want from punk rock and hair straighteners to shoes and Hinduism and have them work out what the critical steps were for those things to be what they are today. This would encourage a strong critical thinking filter through which to process one’s experience in the world, which is something that we could use more of given the sheer volume of media and other inputs these days.) This has changed my life by: opening myself to the way people used to think. And now I pronounce Genghis Khan correctly. Recommended one to start: The King of Kings series is a good one to start but the Wrath of the Khans (pay on website to download on app) series is my favourite. Freakonomics Radio Episode Length: 30 - 60 minutes Speed: 1.3x Listen time: 25 - 45 minutes (walking to the shops) You should try this if: you want to learn to think like a freak. Major topics covered: too many to list, but basically they apply economic thinking to a broad range of issues. This has changed my life by: teaching me to teach myself in a different way. Recommended one to start: Bad Medicine series. S-Town Episode Length: 40 - 60 minutes Speed: 1.3x Listen time: 30 - 45 minutes You should try this if: You liked Serial and want to get drawn into a compelling story. Major topics covered: Mental health, The South. This has changed my life by: enlightening me to what happens in The South. Recommended one to start: the first one, it’s a story. Common Sense with Dan Carlin by Dan Carlin Episode Length: 45 - 80 minutes Speed: 1.6x Listen time: 30 - 50 minutes (riding to work) You should try this if: you’re interested in American politics and imagining a future which makes sense, not which conforms to the current norms. Major topics covered: US politics, morality. Dan Carlin tells it how it is and back up his claims with evidence. This has changed my life by: enlightening me to the fact that the whole deal we’ve been given is fraudulent. Recommended one to start: In Search Of Context or The Illusion Of Control. This American Life Episode Length: 50 - 60 minutes Speed: 1.4x Listen time: 35 - 45 minutes You should try this if: you like being taken in by a story about something new. Major topics covered: everything, but from the point of view of the person it’s happening to. This has changed my life by: realising that everyone is the protagonist of their own story. Recommended one to start: this list (pay to download, listen online for free, recent episodes are free to download on Podcast Republic.) The Tim Ferriss Show by Tim Ferriss Episode Length: 45 - 180 minutes Speed: 1.4x Listen time: 30 - 130 minutes You should try this if: you want to actually improve your life in the way you think you want to improve your life. Major topics covered: lifestyle design by way of mental tricks and techniques that top professional performers being interviewed use. This has changed my life by: making my work life more efficient, resulting in me working less and doing things I like to do more. Recommended one to start: just pick an interviewee that you like. Planet Money Episode Length: 15 - 25 minutes Speed: 1.3x Listen time: 12 - 19 minutes (any time!) You should try this if: you want to learn about the hidden side of everything. Major topics covered: everything, based in economics. This has changed my life by: broadening my interest in things which I didn’t initially think were interesting, because they have such a range of topics and are only around 20 minutes long. Recommended one to start: the series on The Planet Money T Shirt (around #500) The Joe Rogan Experience by Joe Rogan Episode Length: 2 - 4 hours Speed: 1.5x Listen time: 1.5 - 2.5 hours You should try this if: someone you like is on there. Major topics covered: depend on interviewee, a lot about drugs, martial arts and the meaning of life. This has changed my life by: nothing concrete yet, but it’s interesting that a lot of people I like that are interviewed here are into some form of martial art. Recommended one to start: #804. Flip It BackThese are my recommendations. What are yours? There are at least five podcasts out there that should be on this list for me, but I haven’t heard of them. So tell me.
I’m going to do one of these on the books that I’ve read in the last two years that I really recommend. I think my last two years of reading has been by far cumulatively more amazing that all other reading I’ve done, but hey, that’s just me.
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