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Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

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31–40 of 206 posts

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#31
Sean Carroll's solo podcast where he explains how the plank lenght is relative and how we should arrive at quantum gravity through the means of quantum physics, not by quantizing relativity. Blew my mind several times over.

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/09/09/63-s...

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#32
post #11

Can't think of a specific episode, but all the controversial ideas discussed in the Red Scare podcast have really twisted around my brain (and put words to things I thought only I were alone in observing) recently.

ideas about what? i'm dimly familiar with it, or at least the hosts, but haven't listened to it.

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#33

Other podcasts come and fall by the wayside, but I'll always look forward to the next episode of In Our Time ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot ). I'm excited to try others listed here that are new to me, though.

I also listen to In our time. But maybe it is because I am not native English speaker, but I find the host quite rude to the experts, often interrupts them unnecessarily etc?

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#34

Matthew Walker, PhD on sleep - part I and II on The Peter Attia Drive podcast. It was really a wake up call for sleep hygeine, and prompted me to get a sleep study, which has changed my life after getting a sleep device.

I really enjoyed his book Why We Sleep, but I think it important to inform people about the criticisms that have been been raised against some of his claims [0]. If you listen to him remember to take claims with a grain of salt. HN discussion from two months ago [1]. The thesis is still solid though: sleep is incredibly important for your health. [0] https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/ [1] https://news.ycombinator.…

I take most claims by experts with a grain of salt or two. If you listen to the podcast, he basically covers the fundamentals of sleep hygeine (which are not controversial) and provides references for further study. He is also very careful to point out speculation vs evidence, and correlation vs causation.

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#35
Impactful for me in terms of making my daily 1h commute actually enjoyable...a bunch of funny, crazy, sad, happy stories about drugs, homelessness, prison and lots more called "It's All Bad" https://www.instagram.com/itisallbad/?hl=en

Came across it on a Marc Maron WTF episode..which is also great (WTF podcast)

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#36
Sam Harris speaking to ex-muslim Yasmine Mohammed about the West's double standard on women's rights and the unique difficulties of leaving Islam.

https://samharris.org/podcasts/175-leaving-faith/

It's a major social/political issue of our time with no obvious/imminent end in sight and I recommend the episode to everyone.

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#37
post #33

Other podcasts come and fall by the wayside, but I'll always look forward to the next episode of In Our Time ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot ). I'm excited to try others listed here that are new to me, though.

I also listen to In our time. But maybe it is because I am not native English speaker, but I find the host quite rude to the experts, often interrupts them unnecessarily etc?

I know what you mean, but I think it’s more down to the fact that it’s broadcast live on BBC radio, and they have 45 minutes to cover as much as they can of the week’s topic. The host, Melvyn Bragg, has to run a tight ship to keep the guests from drifting from the topic or going in to too much detail. (The opposite problem — a poor chairperson — is often why meetings at work can drag or seem unfocused.)

I love In Our Time. Broadcast since 1998, a podcast since 2004, over 800 episodes. And almost every single one is pure gold.

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#38
post #33

Other podcasts come and fall by the wayside, but I'll always look forward to the next episode of In Our Time ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot ). I'm excited to try others listed here that are new to me, though.

I also listen to In our time. But maybe it is because I am not native English speaker, but I find the host quite rude to the experts, often interrupts them unnecessarily etc?

That's interesting. Without a doubt, he directs the conversations forcefully. I've never thought of him as rude or interrupting, but now that you point it out it's easy for me to imagine him coming across that way.

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#39
post #32
post #11

Can't think of a specific episode, but all the controversial ideas discussed in the Red Scare podcast have really twisted around my brain (and put words to things I thought only I were alone in observing) recently.

ideas about what? i'm dimly familiar with it, or at least the hosts, but haven't listened to it.

Tbh, some anti-tech ideas (essentially eloquently presenting steelmanned ideas I'd only had at the periphery of my mind). All their ideas which goes against the grain, that I find valuable. (Warning tho: there's a lot of dopey-ness, amateurishness, and ideas in the podcast that I don't agree with. It's not for everyone. But I've found a lot of value in it the last month of listening to it.)

Re: Ask HN: What were your most impactful podcast episodes from 2019?

#40
I would say Naval Ravikant in Joe Rogan Experience [0]. A bit preachy (similar to Osho whom he quotes) but there is some things that are actionable and is an interesting point of view.

I'm catching up on Knowledge Project (which is quite a listen) so these are not from 2019, I just happened to listen to them last year. The ones that had the most impact are:

- Is Sugar Slowly Killing Us? My Conversation with Gary Taubes [1]. I got interested in this subject following the NYT expose on how sugar lobby shifted blame onto fat [2]. This builds up on that for me.

- Survival of the Kindest: Dacher Keltner Reveals the New Rules of Power [3] This may be a selection bias as I had a feeling "survival of the fittest" is perhaps productive in short run but would end with species of one. Imho, the way to succeed is to collaborate and share knowledge else we may never have survived hunter gathering phase. So this episode resonated with me.

A16Z's Incenting Innovation Inside Loonshots to Moonshots [4]. Having been through a significant cultural shift at my organization, the analogy of water freezing at 32F and hysteresis to explain how company culture could change dynamically or how in the same organization there are pockets that could be at two extremes on a spectrum, was quite spot on.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qHkcs3kG44

[1] https://fs.blog/2017/11/gary-taubes-sugar/

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-in...

[3] https://fs.blog/2018/03/dacher-keltner-power/

[4] https://a16z.com/2019/03/24/loonshots-moonshots-incentives-o...

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