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

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

#81

Two hours and no one mentioned Lex Fridmans podcast on AGI? Interesting. Hard to pinpoint a specific episode, here is last weeks episode [0] with Stephen Kotkin, on "Stalin, Putin, and the nature of power". Fridman has a lineup of one-of-a-kind guests, each providing an individual perspective on -to me- interesting topics, mostly in the scope of artificial general intelligence. I'm looking forward to check the other…

Agreed, Lex Fridmin was a standout podcast for me this year. I didn't have any idea who he was before the podcast but he has been getting some insanely famous guests on his show in what seems like the very year it was becoming popular.

My favourite episode of the podcast was his interview with Geohot I think because I just like hearing Geohot speak and when he's speaking to someone that's not asking easy questions you end up with George giving some very interesting answers to questions about AGI and self driving.

https://pca.st/0773

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

#82

Two hours and no one mentioned Lex Fridmans podcast on AGI? Interesting. Hard to pinpoint a specific episode, here is last weeks episode [0] with Stephen Kotkin, on "Stalin, Putin, and the nature of power". Fridman has a lineup of one-of-a-kind guests, each providing an individual perspective on -to me- interesting topics, mostly in the scope of artificial general intelligence. I'm looking forward to check the other…

I second the AGI podcast. Listen to it on my commute. Very interesting since it’s just not about computer science but all sorts of fields and a diverse array of experts that he interviews.

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

#83

Two hours and no one mentioned Lex Fridmans podcast on AGI? Interesting. Hard to pinpoint a specific episode, here is last weeks episode [0] with Stephen Kotkin, on "Stalin, Putin, and the nature of power". Fridman has a lineup of one-of-a-kind guests, each providing an individual perspective on -to me- interesting topics, mostly in the scope of artificial general intelligence. I'm looking forward to check the other…

Agreed, Lex Fridmin was a standout podcast for me this year. I didn't have any idea who he was before the podcast but he has been getting some insanely famous guests on his show in what seems like the very year it was becoming popular. My favourite episode of the podcast was his interview with Geohot I think because I just like hearing Geohot speak and when he's speaking to someone that's not asking easy questions yo…

Geohot was great. I immediately bought a comma ai eon kit after listening to it.

My fav was Gary Marcus though. Really showing what breakthroughs we’d need to make to truly have intelligent AI. Without it self driving cars and conversational AIs are always a decade away. I immediately bought his book “Rebooting AI” afterwards too.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/artificial-intelligenc...

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

#85
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Has walker responded to this?

The answer is sort of ambiguous; see this Andrew Gelman post for details: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/12/26/whassup-wi...

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

#86
post #74

If you're a history geek you should definitly check out Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. This year he only made 2 episodes. 'Supernova in the east' II & III. At a whopping 4 hours each these feel more like an audiobook crammed with history rather than a Podcast. But I can definitly recommend them both & the complete works of him of course.

I want to like Dan carlin, but their is something weirdly alex jones about his voice and mannerism. However thehistoryofrome.com and revolutionspodcast.com are fantastic alternatives.

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

#87
The playwright John Cameron Mitchell was on RuPauls podcast and that episode really stood out for me. There’s a part in particular about finding your place in the world and it was a totally different way than I think about it, but it was really beautiful

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

#88
post #68

This is entirely off-topic, but if you're going through and downvoting people for posting their favorite podcasts in a thread like this, you should take a break from here, or the internet for a while, it's not that serious.

That's one way to view it, certainly. The other way is that downvotes are a great tool for ensuring high quality discussion, and if the thread is about podcast episodes, then downvoting full podcasts helps keep the thread organized. Downvotes aren't necessarily bad, they may just mean - hey, this doesn't belong as much in this thread, so I'm voting on it to help organize the thread for other readers.

Agreed. I wish everyone who posted an entire podcast would have at least recommended a single impactful episode, especially as a place to start for those of us who haven't listened to the podcast at all.

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

#89

Episode 3 of the 1619 Project 's podcast: The Birth of American Music: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/podcasts/1619-black-ameri... And generally Why Is This Happening is fantastic. Here are three of my favorite episodes from the past year: Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/how-break-federal-gove... David Wallace-Wells on climate change: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/fi…

I'd recommend episodes 4/5 (one story split over two episodes) of the 1619 Project as well, learned a lot about how finance works in an agriculture setting.

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

#90
post #68

This is entirely off-topic, but if you're going through and downvoting people for posting their favorite podcasts in a thread like this, you should take a break from here, or the internet for a while, it's not that serious.

That's one way to view it, certainly. The other way is that downvotes are a great tool for ensuring high quality discussion, and if the thread is about podcast episodes, then downvoting full podcasts helps keep the thread organized. Downvotes aren't necessarily bad, they may just mean - hey, this doesn't belong as much in this thread, so I'm voting on it to help organize the thread for other readers.

Agreed. I wish everyone who posted an entire podcast would have at least recommended a single impactful episode, especially as a place to start for those of us who haven't listened to the podcast at all.

"What's your favorite podcast" is a vastly less interesting and different question to answer. Impactful episodes can even appear in podcasts you generally dislike or don't agree with.

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