If you listen to any podcast(s) you recommend, tell us about it
What general topic or category are you looking for? There’s a lot out there.
My response from the last time I saw this question:
- Trillbilly Worker’s Party - Kentucky-centric Marxist jokers hanging out. They always know how to put a smile on my face, even if they’re talking about bleak stuff.
- Fun City - Well produced live role playing of Shadowrun. The game is a few years in and I am just invested.
- ALAB - Lawyers talking shit. They’re funny and I like learning about interesting cases. One of the characters they covered actually sued them and settled for an interview on the show.
- Desert Oracle Radio - Joshua Tree-centric paranormal stuff. Good for an old X-Files head like me.
- We Have Ways of Making You Talk
- Battleground
- The Rest is Classified
- The History of English
- Ehrman Podcast (Christianity from an atheist expert in the New Testament)
The blindboy podcast!
The fall of civilizations - it tells the story of the rise and fall of different groups of people through history. Often with readings in the original tongue.
From the same creator “vaccine” is the history of the creation of the works first vaccines. Neither podcast has any ads which is awesome.
Lastly factually with Adam conover is great. Comedian discussing often political issues.
Season 1 is essential listening. It’s not very long, and takes you through the journey of putting astronauts on the moon with tech far less advanced that what you’re reading this on. It came sooooo close to failure on more than one occasion. When that lander touched down, it had something like 8 seconds of fuel left.
Season 2 is the story in detail of the Apollo 13 mission. If you loved Season 1 and want more, then go right ahead. I liked season 2, but nowhere near as much.
99 Percent Invisible
Wide variety of topics, all somewhat obvious if a bit niche, but they turn out so much deeper than you thought.
Also Roman Mars has a very pleasant voice.Lateral
Out-of-the-box thinking game show from Tom Scott of (former) YouTube fame.
Podcasts are my thing. I’ve got you covered.
Depends on what you’re into:
More or Less: Behind the Stats - analysis of some statistic from the news
The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - what science says about how to be happy
The Audio Long Read - long form articles from the Guardian newspaper
You Are Not So Smart - cognitive science related. How we know things, our biases, how our thinking is flawed, etc.
Dan Snow’s History Hit - One of the few history podcasts I really like
Short History Of… - a short history of some specific thing
The Forum - expert panel discussion about some topic
Behind the Bastards - Very well known podcast focusing on some bastard personality
CrowdScience - in depth investigation of a listener science question
Radiolab - in depth investigation of a topic of their interest. Quite broad scope.
Unexpected Elements - a very varied mix of discussions around a science topic from the news
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Tim Harford is the podcast king for me. This show is a deep dive into something that went wrong in news or history, and an investigation of all the systemic failures around it. It tries to show how blame is hardly ever warranted on a single person and the systems are at fault.
The Martin Lewis Podcast - UK consumer advocate and saving guru
Show Me The Meaning! A Wisecrack podcast - a couple of philosophers talk about a movie
The Inquiry - a deep dive into a news story
Revisionist History - Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about a range of different things
The Law Show - UK legal system issues
The Infinite Monkey Cage - comedy science panel show
The Supermassive Podcast - space related podcast
File on 4 investigates - detailed story from deep investigative journalism
Thinking Allowed - light philosophical ramblings
When It Hits the Fan - two public relations experts talk about PR issues from current events
Discovery - science related. Currently mostly doing shows about “a life scientific” I.e. talking to a scientist about their life
Overthink - philosophy made accessible
What It’s Like To Be… - a person from a particular occupation talks about their job
People Fixing the World - people from different parts of the world fixing some local problem in their community in a creative way
Hidden Brain - my absolute favourite. Cognitive science related. Explains how the brain works and how to use the understanding to male your own love better.
Within Reason Your Parenting Mojo - evidence based parenting. Can be a very dry long-winded research presentation, but this has improved my parenting (and life) immensely
sideways - different ideas and how to look at things differently
Darknet Diaries - stories from the dark underbelly of the internet
The Reith Lectures - once a year short lecture series, but well worth listening to the backlog
Evil Genius with Russell Kane - comedians discuss how some villains from history weren’t so bad and how some heroes from history were terrible people
Owls at Dawn - ramblings of a couple of philosophers
Sound of Gaming - excellent music show about music soundtracks from videogames
Playing god? - medical ethics discussion
30 Animals That Made Us Smarter - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog
A History of the World in 100 Objects - this series has ended but it is worth listening to the backlog
I would also recommend the podcast series made to accompany the Chernobyl and Last of Us TV series.
S Town - a nice fiction mini series drama story.
Behind the Bastards
BtB’s counterpart, Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff
If Books Could Kill
You’re Wrong About
Sixteenth Minute (of Fame)
The Dollop
Depresh Mod
The Daily Zeitgeist
+1 for The Dollop. Good comedic look at American history.
History podcast from the BBC : You’re dead to me
I enjoy 'This American life, depends on the topic but it can be very interesting.
If you’ve heard of QI from the BBC there is No such thing as a fish when they talk about a couple facts they’ve read. I find it pretty funny too.
Mike Duncan is doing a new seasons of Revolutions about the Mars revolution (fictional of course) but before he did a bunch of others including the Mexican and French revolutions which I particularly enjoyed.
Blowback does seasons about bad US foreign policy. For news about US foreign policy there is also American Prestige.
Also listen to 15 minutes history from the University of Austin Texas. They just did something about the King of Haïti for example. They do new topics each episode.
Also another history one if MartyrMade.
And Trillbilly Workers podcast because I like to have no clue what they’re talking about lol
I answered this a month ago
This is my list from 2017: https://jeena.net/podcasts-listening
Interestingly I still listen to mos of them with the exception of the technology ones. Somehow technology podcasts started boring me a couple of years ago so I stopped listening to them, with one notable exception, the HomeAssistant podcast.
- Swindled - Mostly white-collar true crime with dark humor and disdain aplenty.
- 404 Media - The folks who used to do the Cyber podcast before they left VICE and are doing far better work, indy.
- Better Offline - Another tech podcast by Ed Zitron. He loves tech and can’t stand how fucked up the tech-bros are making the whole thing, at our collective expense.
I’ll have to check out Swindled. +1 for 404 Media and Better Offline.
History on Fire
Hardcore History
500 Rock songs in 500 Days
I don’t have as much time to listen to podcasts at the moment. The only one I’ve continued listening to is “Well There’s Your Problem”, it is sooo good. Just my kind of humor!