[TobyD]

I should have added to the above that Neil is mainly very well researched,  and asks short,  pithy questions,  but he does allow the General to claim that fully autonomous battlefield weapons are the future of warfare without any further probing.
The second one with Fiona Hill is perhaps better.

[Will Hunt]

The Explorers podcast has just had a very good series on Richard Francis Burton.
Explorer, writer, scholar, soldier, diplomat, Sufi muslim, ethnologist, linguist, poet, fencer, and perhaps a spy. He spoke 29 languages – many fluently. He was one of the first Europeans to visit the holy city of Mecca, which he did in disguise. He explored extensively in Africa, including the Great Lakes District, and is acknowledged as the first westerner to reach Lake Tanganyika – the second largest freshwater lake in the world.

https://explorerspodcast.com/richard-francis-burton/

[Davo]

Hardcore History by Dan Carlin.

Just listened to my first episode (about the development of nuclear weapons and the Cold War) which was brilliant. Each episode is about 5hrs long! Initially I found this off putting but in the end it really worked and it was more like a short history book.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dan-carlins-hardcore-history/id173001861

[TobyD]

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis.
On unfairness in modern America, the current third season focusses on the role of experts in various aspects of life. I listened to the one on weather forecasts (and broadly the use of data to make forecasts with a degree of uncertainty).

[slab_happy]

Hardcore History by Dan Carlin.

Just listened to my first episode (about the development of nuclear weapons and the Cold War) which was brilliant. Each episode is about 5hrs long! Initially I found this off putting but in the end it really worked and it was more like a short history book.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dan-carlins-hardcore-history/id173001861

Yeah, I really enjoy Hardcore History (and shelled out money to buy some of the older multi-part series which are no longer available for free). He's got a great voice and storytelling style, and I share some of his fixations, like trying to work out what the experience of historical battles was actually like.

The length of episodes does take some adjusting to, versus the podcasts where you can knock off an ep or two in a bus ride (and wait until you get into the series where you might have 6 eps covering a particular story and they're each 3-5 hours long!), but yeah, treating it like an audiobook and expecting to listen in chunks works fine.

[TobyD]

Hardcore History by Dan Carlin.

Just listened to my first episode (about the development of nuclear weapons and the Cold War) which was brilliant. Each episode is about 5hrs long! Initially I found this off putting but in the end it really worked and it was more like a short history book.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dan-carlins-hardcore-history/id173001861

I'd like to get round to trying this, he recently did a team episode (2 part) of the rest is history which was good, and a mere 2 hours!

[teestub]

Love Hardcore History, assumed it must have been on this thread before. The WW1 and WW2 series are amazing/harrowing.

[CapitalistPunter]

The Chris Chan podcasts are a wild wide

[crzylgs]

Another vote for Hardcore History - I listened to a lot of them a while back and my personal fave was the Mongol Series.

[highrepute]

I've been enjoying Slow Burn, which I think was recommended on here. This led me onto Floodlines which is a multi episode look into the New Orleans floods.

I've really enjoyed these in-depth looks into fairly recent events but all the ones I'd listened to were American.

I did a bit looking around and found Hillsborough: The full story. Which I think is from BBC Liverpool. Brilliant but an incredibly emotional listen. I would finish my commute having wept most of the way. Powerful stuff that I'd highly recommend.

Anyone have any recommendations for similar multi episode breakdowns of significant UK social/political events?

[slab_happy]

Marc Thompson's series about the HIV/AIDS crisis, "We Were Always Here", is very good.

Interview with him about it: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/12/01/we-were-always-here-podcast-hiv-marc-thompson/

[highrepute]

Marc Thompson's series about the HIV/AIDS crisis, "We Were Always Here", is very good.

Interview with him about it: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/12/01/we-were-always-here-podcast-hiv-marc-thompson/

Thanks for this. Just started listening, just the kind of thing I was looking for.

[slab_happy]

Been listening to "Londongrad", about Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev, which is fascinating and damning re: the cosy corruption of British politics.

[seankenny]

Does anyone else listen to “Conversations with Tyler”? US economics professor asks lots of good questions to a range of interesting guests. I enjoyed Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Catalogue guy, if you’re familiar with the 60s counterculture), a recent one on the search for talent was also good. There’s a bit of a bias towards econ/finance/tech but also has on people like Piketty and feminist philosopher Amia Srinivasan. Avoids the millennial predilection for ever expanding fluff and bluster.

[Steve R]

I do.  Fan of Cowen, such a great and wide ranging thinker.  Haven't got round to his more recent books but found 'Stubborn Attachments' shifted my view some re optimising for growth - brilliant short book, more philosophy than economics really.
Interesting you mention the episode with Amia Srinivasan....  It's a while since I listened to it but I remember it being a fairly unsuccessful interview (though mightily entertaining!)  Though he often sounds a bit grumpy/impatient/wanting to get on with it (style which I like) he sounded like he got pretty hot under the collar and exasperated with Srinvasan?  Seemed like she was only willing to engage on her terms and, as a truth-seeking, Pinkerian 'overlapping but slightly offset bell-curves model of traits and preferences between the sexes' advocate, Cowen wouldn't entertain much of the pseudo intellectual madness.  Maybe I'm misremembering but don't recall them really getting anywhere.  Fun to hear Cowen getting a bit angry though.   

Also really enjoyed the rare earth catalogue guy one.  And lots of others.  And remember Margaret Atwood came across as very cool.



The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss can be really interesting.  Diverse range of guests often very famous and quite a few long interviews with old codger physics laureate types if you like that sort of thing.  Must admit I found the episodes he did with Chomsky unlistenable and have abandoned a couple of others I wrote off as too boring... 

[TobyD]

Sideways has a new series on BBC sounds or R4.
Syed is a good presenter, I liked the variety of stories in the previous ones and it's a decent premise.
I'm not yet convinced about the fact that the current ones are all about nuclear weapons, although the anecdote in the first one about the name of the bikini swimsuit is good: it's a tasteless joke about the famous test site and splitting the atom.

[Steve R]

Couple of interesting conversations I enjoyed recently:
- Demis Hassabis CEO DeepMind on Lex Fridman's podcast.
- Max Tegmark on 80k hours.  Interesting and some new (to me a least) ideas on finding solutions to the problems with news/media.

[TobyD]

British Scandal This is absolutely amazing, despite my original reservations about it on just reading the description. I've only listened to the 4 part 'Coughing Major ' episodes, these are consistently funny, engaging and well narrated. It manages to tell the story really well and it is a great light hearted and entertaining listen.

[TobyD]

This is brilliant: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2qni65aROR3kg0DxS5vzNE?si=phyIv2DAQrKTPF3kyXuEQQ&utm_source=copy-link

It's the McTaggart lecture by Emily Maitlis, listen if you're interested in contemporary journalism or politics.

[Steve R]

A couple of weeks ago my podcast feed suddenly filled up with lots of conversations with 'philosopher of the moment' Will Macaskill, primarily promoting and discussing his new book 'What We Owe the Future'.  Surprisingly varied ground covered in the different conversations. He was pressed pretty hard by both Tyler Cowen (conversations with Tyler) and Sean Carol (Mindscape) so was interesting to hear his defence of long termism and effective altruism more generally in those.  Personally, I think I enjoyed the 80k hours one the most.

[TobyD]

 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0u3bnWmIU6IbDRc3lQIU5h?si=3KwxKGeNRxepLIMy9P6-qQ&utm_source=copy-link

Link to latest cautionary tales, I thought it was a good installment.

[Fultonius]

A couple of weeks ago my podcast feed suddenly filled up with lots of conversations with 'philosopher of the moment' Will Macaskill, primarily promoting and discussing his new book 'What We Owe the Future'.  Surprisingly varied ground covered in the different conversations. He was pressed pretty hard by both Tyler Cowen (conversations with Tyler) and Sean Carol (Mindscape) so was interesting to hear his defence of long termism and effective altruism more generally in those.  Personally, I think I enjoyed the 80k hours one the most.

He was also on Lex Fridman recently. Both interesting characters. Not listened much to Lex yet, but quite like the deep dive, long form format.

I felt Macaskill's viewpoint, while laudable - was slightly too "human-centric" for my liking, as if fixing the ills of inequality is going to fix the biggest of our looming issues. I'm not against what he says, whatsoever, I just think the aims might be wrong - with the environment, biodiversity and general long term health of the planet being higher priorities for me than saving the maximum number of lives....

That said....if you take his argument to the extreme, and invoke the paperclip theory....humanity is going to fuck itself quick sharp while striving for more technological advancement. Bravo humans!

[Duma]

Only 20 min in, but this is very interesting so far:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/24iJZACbJ7YjDp6NSTCc0r?si=ftN5pDXQTGalwt8AaD6Yqg&utm_source=copy-link

Alise Zvigule (https://instagram.com/hungrylatvian?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= )
on routesetting. As one might expect from her SM, she has some strong views.

[Falling Down]

A couple of weeks ago my podcast feed suddenly filled up with lots of conversations with 'philosopher of the moment' Will Macaskill, primarily promoting and discussing his new book 'What We Owe the Future'.  Surprisingly varied ground covered in the different conversations. He was pressed pretty hard by both Tyler Cowen (conversations with Tyler) and Sean Carol (Mindscape) so was interesting to hear his defence of long termism and effective altruism more generally in those.  Personally, I think I enjoyed the 80k hours one the most.

He was also on Lex Fridman recently. Both interesting characters. Not listened much to Lex yet, but quite like the deep dive, long form format.

I felt Macaskill's viewpoint, while laudable - was slightly too "human-centric" for my liking, as if fixing the ills of inequality is going to fix the biggest of our looming issues. I'm not against what he says, whatsoever, I just think the aims might be wrong - with the environment, biodiversity and general long term health of the planet being higher priorities for me than saving the maximum number of lives....

That said....if you take his argument to the extreme, and invoke the paperclip theory....humanity is going to fuck itself quick sharp while striving for more technological advancement. Bravo humans!

Macaskill has some dodgy bedfellows too.  Silicon Valley longtermist types, libertarians and nut jobs.

[Steve R]

Think he just went up in my estimation 
Which bedfellows are you referring to? Bankman-Fried?