Ask HN: What are your favorite non-tech podcasts?

planet money and freakonomics.

Helps me understand how the world actually works.

POLITICS:

"Pod Save America" - politics podcast by funny guys (former Obama staffers)

"Lovett or Leave-it" - comedy show about politics

"Pod Save the World" - serious podcast about world issues

Anything by Crooked Media, basically.

Also, "Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara" - serious, smart look at current events by former US attorney

"FiveThirtyEight Politics" - insight into current events, with an emphasis on polls and facts.

Politico's "Nerd Cast" - not my favorite, but actually winds up being a bit more conservative than the other podcasts I listen to

SORTA RANDOM:

"99% Invisible"

"The Way I Heard it" - by Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame. They're short, about 10 minutes each

"Freakonomics"

"This American Life"

"You are Not So Smart" - dives into human biases and ways in which we really aren't that smart

"Stuff You Should Know" - random trivia

SERIALS:

"Serial" - murder mystery

"S-Town" - mystery in Alabama

"Steal the Stars" - scifi

ARTS:

"Splathouse" - B-movie / horror

"Writing Excuses" - for writers, hosted by authors such as Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Taylor, and Mary Robinette Kowal

"Country Gold" - a podcast about 90s country (my guilty pleasure) hosted by Terri Clark

Of all the podcasts listed so far radiolab is hands down my favorite.

I also like “wait wait don’t tell me”

How I Built This - This is a podcast from NPR that interviews founders of businesses. They have had the founder of Southwest Airlines to the founder of Atari to the founder of Chipotle. There are some tech companies involved but it is always interesting hearing the stories of the founders on how they built their business.

Upvote for Revisionist History. I rarely revisit episodes from a podcast, but there are several episodes from Revisionist History that I've listened to 3 or 4 times apiece.