Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 81 posts

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#61

Post by burntsushi »

kingofpandora wrote: post #58
kqr2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any good sources?

Trying to remember where I've read this in the past. I used to follow AskHistorians on Reddit and a quick search shows questions about him being asked quite a bit, for example here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ppmsm/comme... (it's not all negative!). There are a ton of other threads too.

That doesn't seem to support "Carlin is discredited by most serious historians in general." Reading that comment, it sounds like I shouldn't treat Carlin as a definitive source on anything. Which seems fine? And the closest thing I can see to a specific criticism there is "oversimplification of the Roman Republic." Which I'm not even sure is a criticism. I generally expect lay history to oversimplify things.

Also... that comment was written 10 years ago.

I also follow and read r/askhistorians. I love it.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#62

Post by burntsushi »

alangibson wrote: post #37

I love Dan Carlin too, but you have to listen with a critical ear. He endorsed the standard, but very questionable, idea that the US basically had to atom bomb two Japanese cities because if we didn't they'd fight to the last grandmother. IIRC he also endorsed the now largely discredited idea that the atom bomb attack is what caused the Japanese to surrender.

> the now largely discredited idea that the atom bomb attack is what caused the Japanese to surrender

Do you have a source for this? I just spent 10 minutes searching, and I could find nothing compelling. The closest I could find was Racing the Enemy, which argues that it was the planned Soviet invasion that pushed the Japanese to surrender. But otherwise, the story seems a lot more complex than that, and is certainly nowhere near "discredited" to suggest the atom bomb caused the Japanese to surrender.

Further reading (and these themselves contain references to even further reading):

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1505pek/was_...

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15gsdme/i_un...

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wwa2ie/were_...

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cawabr/were_...

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#64

Post by satvikpendem »

freedomben wrote: post #25
Simon_ORourke wrote: post #20

Most (almost all) of Dan Carlin's podcasts are nothing short of excellent. Twilight of the Æsir Parts I and II are top quality. Apart from that I used to listen to Mike Duncan's Revolutions series, even though he finished up that project in 2022. Likewise the BBC produced an Apollo-era podcast called 13 Minute to the Moon, which was excellent, and technical enough to keep even a space nerd like me interested. Shout-o…

Second on all of Dan Carlin's podcasts. I absolutely loved his World War I series called "Blueprint for Armageddon". Even though I listened to quite a few of them while they were free, I recently bought the whole back catalog from his website and have been working through them. Absolute gem and worth every penny. For anyone not familiar, he makes the most recent episodes "free" (he does ask for a standard donation of…

I wonder how much money he actually makes, since most of his content is initially free for most listeners. I suppose it's for people who listen but don't keep up regularly or want to listen again who pay for his content.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#65

Post by kingofpandora »

burntsushi wrote: post #61
kingofpandora wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to remember where I've read this in the past. I used to follow AskHistorians on Reddit and a quick search shows questions about him being asked quite a bit, for example here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ppmsm/comme... (it's not all negative!). There are a ton of other threads too.

That doesn't seem to support "Carlin is discredited by most serious historians in general." Reading that comment, it sounds like I shouldn't treat Carlin as a definitive source on anything. Which seems fine? And the closest thing I can see to a specific criticism there is "oversimplification of the Roman Republic." Which I'm not even sure is a criticism. I generally expect lay history to oversimplify things. Also...…

Like I said, that comment was by no means exclusively negative and I don't recall where I read the more critical take, but it might have been one of the other (many!) posts about Carlin on r/askhistorians.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#66

Post by burntsushi »

kingofpandora wrote: post #65
burntsushi wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem to support "Carlin is discredited by most serious historians in general." Reading that comment, it sounds like I shouldn't treat Carlin as a definitive source on anything. Which seems fine? And the closest thing I can see to a specific criticism there is "oversimplification of the Roman Republic." Which I'm not even sure is a criticism. I generally expect lay history to oversimplify things. Also...…

Like I said, that comment was by no means exclusively negative and I don't recall where I read the more critical take, but it might have been one of the other (many!) posts about Carlin on r/askhistorians.

Yeah I've read a lot of the more critical takes in r/askhistorians. They don't seem overly bad in broad strokes to me at least. And I think some of the critics may overstate their conclusions, even if I agree with their analysis.

But even with that background knowledge, I think your claim is far too strong.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#67

Post by bcantrill »

js2 wrote: post #36

The Call , Episode 809 of This American Life touched me deeply. It's an hour of radio I'll never forget. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/809/the-call

Thank you for this -- listened to this last night, and it was indeed very affecting. I have always loved This American Life (it is, in my view, the renaissance of audio narrative[0]), but I haven't listened as much in recent years -- and it's a good reminder that they (unlike many/most long-running shows!) continue to turn out terrific stuff.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8qiDhlFVCE

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#68

Post by mcmoor »

freedomben wrote: post #25
Simon_ORourke wrote: post #20

Most (almost all) of Dan Carlin's podcasts are nothing short of excellent. Twilight of the Æsir Parts I and II are top quality. Apart from that I used to listen to Mike Duncan's Revolutions series, even though he finished up that project in 2022. Likewise the BBC produced an Apollo-era podcast called 13 Minute to the Moon, which was excellent, and technical enough to keep even a space nerd like me interested. Shout-o…

Second on all of Dan Carlin's podcasts. I absolutely loved his World War I series called "Blueprint for Armageddon". Even though I listened to quite a few of them while they were free, I recently bought the whole back catalog from his website and have been working through them. Absolute gem and worth every penny. For anyone not familiar, he makes the most recent episodes "free" (he does ask for a standard donation of…

Funnily that series is so good that it brought me into podcast ecosystem as a whole, but I still can't relisten to it. WW1 is just too bleak and hopeless to be "enjoyed".

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#69

Post by elevation »

burntsushi wrote: post #61
kingofpandora wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to remember where I've read this in the past. I used to follow AskHistorians on Reddit and a quick search shows questions about him being asked quite a bit, for example here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ppmsm/comme... (it's not all negative!). There are a ton of other threads too.

That doesn't seem to support "Carlin is discredited by most serious historians in general." Reading that comment, it sounds like I shouldn't treat Carlin as a definitive source on anything. Which seems fine? And the closest thing I can see to a specific criticism there is "oversimplification of the Roman Republic." Which I'm not even sure is a criticism. I generally expect lay history to oversimplify things. Also...…

> I shouldn't treat Carlin as a definitive source on anything

Isn't this a key lesson in the study of history? There are no "definitive sources." Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary sources have their own biases, limitations, and cultural influences, sometimes to the point that they say more about their own lives than the history they portray. Sometimes it takes centuries for anyone to notice.

Your best hope for assembling an accurate picture of the past is to characterize how the biases you're aware of may have influenced the evidence available to you.

Re: Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episodes of 2023?

#70

Post by hortonew »

I haven't gone back to re-listen, but here's a selection from what I favorited in my podcast app:

- Changelog and Friends - Even the best rides come to an end (Kelsey Hightower) - https://changelog.com/friends/6

- The Changelog - What it takes to scale engineering (Rachel Potvin) - https://changelog.com/podcast/527

- Ship It - Rust efficiencies at AWS scale (Tim McNamara) - https://changelog.com/shipit/89

- Practical AI - Generative models: exploration to deployment - https://changelog.com/practicalai/240

- Soft Skills Engineering - Staying at a sinking ship and behavioral interview questions - https://softskills.audio/2023/08/14/episode-369-staying-at-a...

- Developer Tea - Career Growth Starts with Improving your Clarity - https://developertea.com/episodes/ae130e5f-239a-450c-9505-9d...

- You Are Not So Smart - Procrastination (Britt Frank) - https://youarenotsosmart.com/2023/02/06/yanss-252-why-procra...

Post reply on HN