# Podcasts?

I discovered podcasts last year, and I love them! Why not be hearing about new ideas while I'm walking to where I'm going? (Some of you might shout "insight porn!", and I think that I largely agree. However, 1) I don't have any particular problem with insight porn and 2) I have frequently been exposed to an idea or been recommenced a book through a podcast, on which I latter followed up, leading to more substantive intellectual growth.)

I wonder if anyone has favorites that they might want to share with me.

I'll start:

**Radiolab** is, hands down, the best of all the podcasts. This seems universally recognized: I’ve yet to meet anyone who disagrees. Even the people who make other podcasts think that Radiolab is better than their own. This one regularly invokes a profound sense of wonder at the universe and gratitude for being able to appreciate it. If you missed it somehow, you're probably missing out.  
  
The **Freakonomics podcast**, in my opinion, comes close to Radiolab. All the things that you thought you knew, but didn’t, and all the things you never knew you wanted to know, but do, in typical Freakonomics style. Listening to their podcast is one of the two things that makes me happy.  
  
There’s one other podcast that I consider to be in the same league (and this one you've probably never heard of) : **The Memory Palace**. 5-10 minute stories form history, it is really well done. It’s all the more impressive because while Radiolab and Freakonomics are both made by professional production teams in radio studios, The Memory Palace is just some guy who makes a podcast.  
  
Those are my three top picks (and they are the only podcasts that I listen to at “normal” speed instead of x1.5 or x2.0, since their audio production is so good).  
  
I discovered **Rationally Speaking: Exploring the Borderlands Between Reason and Nonsense** recently and I’m loving it. It is my kind of skeptics podcast, investigating topics that are on the fringe but not straight out bunk (I don't need to listen to yet another podcast about how astrology doesn't work). The interplay between the hosts, Massimo (who has a PhD in Philosophy, but also one in Biology, which excuses it) and Julia (who I only just realized is a founder of the CFAR), is great.  
  
I also sometimes enjoy the **Cracked podcast**, which has topics that touch on cognitive bias and statistics but also analysis of (pop) culture and interesting things about the world in general. They are comedians, not philosophers or social scientists, and sometimes their lack of expertise shows (especially when they are discussing topics about which I, and I think the average LW reader, know more than they do), but comedians often have worthwhile insights and I have been intrigued by ideas they introduced me to or gotten books at the library on their recommendation.

To what is everyone else listening?

Edit: On suggestion from several members on LessWrong I've begun listening to **Hardcore History** and it's companion podcast **Common Sense**. They're both great. I have a good knowledge of history from my school days (I liked the subject, and I seem to have strong a propensity to retain extraneous  information, particularly information in narrative form), and Hardcore History episodes are a great refresher course, reviewing that which I'm already familiar, but from a slightly different perspective, yielding new insights and a greater connectivity of history. I think it has almost certainly supplanted the Cracked podcast as number 5 on my list.