I used to listen to long form essays on Youtube. My favourite ones either break down the history of a conspiracy, teach me something new and cool about the world, or explore a hobby I've never been interested in.
I don't like the ones about killers or heavy drama. I also don't like podcasts that spend half the time reading the latest news from [topic] in verbatim .
What are some podcasts you can recommend me while I chip away at other things?
Darknet Diaries is always fascinating: it's all about cybercrime. Sometimes the episodes are breakdowns of particular hacker groups or specific notable hacks; other times, they're interviews with people in the industry: both cybersecurity professionals and criminals.
There are a lot of posts about this podcast. I'm listening to it now!
Blowback - Deep dives into American imperialism. Each season covers a single topic and goes into the background history, through to the conflict, to the aftermath in about 10 hour long episodes each. The first season was on the Iraq War, the second on Cuba, the third on the Korean War and the fourth into Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan. Extremely well produced with some great soundtracks.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb0r5aWGkCI
I don't know if it has already been said, but "Darknet diaries" is a podcast i love to listen to, it's basically a history and breakdown of different hacks that happend all around the world, there are also some interviews with pentesters who tell some amazing story's, so if you're into computers thats something I'd recommend listening to
Seconded. I like the episodes about pen testers. It's so interesting how so many business are super easy to hack into or physically break into and gain access to their networks and other sensitive info.
- If you're tech and history inclined, "Command Line Heroes" tells stories about people who transformed technology "from the command line up".
- For stories about really nasty people (interspersed with some good people for the Christmas Episodes), "Behind the Bastards" is a good source. A story is usually split in two episodes, but for long ones it can be five or six.
- For news about science but with intelligent discussion behind it, and several nice fun an intelligent sections, you can't beat The Skeptic Guide to the Universe. If anything, their only defect is that sometimes they're a little naive and technophilic.
A lot of people have been recommending Blowback. I'm listening to it now!
Black Box Down is interesting. They describe aviation disasters but in a very approachable way, while also not really dumbing it down. No drama, although the stories themselves can sometimes be crazy, they don't play it up.
Not strictly a podcast, but Mentour Pilot on YouTube does a really good job of this too. Has some great visuals but would work as audio only too.
The Delta Flyers is a podcast by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill, who played Harry Kim and Tom Paris on Star Trek Voyager, they rewatch the show and interview other crew members, they have completed Voyager, and have started rewatching Deep Space 9, together with Terry Farrell and Armin Shimerman, who played Jadzia and Quark on that show.
Very interesting.
Damn Interesting is a site with long interesting articles about different subjects, they have a podcast under the same name, where they read the articles, it is very well done, but unpdated slowly, but there is quite a few episodes available.
Tides of History is a very well-produced history podcast that deals with ancient history. It tells history in an engaging way and is founded in recent scholarship.
Podcasting is Praxis, a funny politics podcast made by British communists.
Blowback, all the praise heaped upon it is absolutely justified. Listen to it.
We Are Not So Different, an entertaining podcast about medieval history. It has a leftist outlook on things and treats medieval people like people and avoids romanticising as well as looking down on them.
A People's History of Ideas. An amazingly detailed history of the Chinese revolution with offshoots into international Maoism. If you want to listen to an episode about how CPC safehouses worked in Shanghai in the early 1930's, this is a podcast for you.
Pendejo Time.
Jake, a recovering cokehead, trauma dumps about his time as a drug addicted fuck up and his dead father while his friend Thomas grunts out his fever fantasies about talking animals while googling different types of dicks.
Scratches the same itch as cumtown.
I like to listed to Darknet Diaries if I am not listenting to WANshow.
I like Short History Of…. It’s written well, interesting from the first sentence, and read well. The topics vary widely, so you have plenty to choose from.
Also The Soundtrack Show might be interesting for you, not sure if that fits your needs.
I know it's older but recently I've been listening to Ologies by Allie Ward. She explores all the different types of science, she's funny, and she finds people who are really passionate about their field of work.
I like the Triple J Dr. Karl podcast for easy listening. Basically people call the radio and ask science questions.
