When Russ Roberts, my favorite interviewer, speaks with Adam Mastroianni, the author of my favorite newsletter, of course I have to share it. No excerpts, just listen to the whole thing, please.

Good to know I wasn’t the only one who thought Lex Fridman’s podcast was dull.

I tend to avoid Joe Rogan and knockoffs, and even get slightly upset when people tell me how “he made podcasting happen” (ditto with Serial, to a lesser extent).

I’ve been listing podcasts since 2014 and 5 years ago to the day it became a yearly ritual. Here is to another year of quality podcasts.

1. The Joy of Why by the mathematician Steven Strogatz is the best science podcast from the best science website, Quanta Magazine. He doesn’t pander to the listener and focuses more on the practicality of science than the gee-whiz isn’t science so gosh darn great ethos that plagues other popular science podcasts. The downside is that it is sometimes just at the edge of my understanding ⊕ Or, if the talk is about mathematics, way way off. but is that really such a bad thing?

2. The Jim Rutt Show is a strange beast. The topics are more about the philosophy of science than science itself — with rare but brilliant exceptions — and Jim has a no-nonsense, tells it like it is personality that I find endearing but some might say is a bit grating. He also has unusual ideas about the future of humanity — “Game B” is the preferred name — which I am yet to digest, but that only comes up rarely.

3. FT Weekend by Lilah Raptopoulos is probably the heart of “Game A”: nominally it is for and about the ultra-rich readers of the Financial Times — think the abominable passengers of the yacht in Triangle of Sadness — catering to their tastes and interests, but really it is there to satisfy the podcast-listening upper middle class’s interest in that world. Funnily enough, I watched Triangle of Sadness based on Lilah’s interview with the director.

4. Conversations with Tyler by Tyler Cowen haven’t made an appearance in a while, but I continue listening and this year has been one of the better ones. His interview with Jeremy Grantham, the investor turned philanthropist, is hands down the best one hour I’ve spent listening in 2022.

5. Countdown with Keith Olbermann is my guilty pleasure which at one point I listened daily but then realized it was unsustainable and saved it only for special moments like the day after the American midterm elections or Keith’s twitter ban. Snark is like candy — pleasurable in tiny bursts, but too much will rot your brain. Caveat audiens.

These are only the new or semi-new regulars. Others continue being in rotation: ⊕ With rare exceptions, but so it goes. 2022 — 2021 — 2020 — 2019 — 2018 — The one where I took a break from podcasts — The very first one

Today I learned that the IMDB rating of This Is Spinal Tap… goes up to 11!

Many thanks to Russ Roberts and his recent critique of utilitarianism for pointing this out. The essay itself is a perfect Thanksgiving weekend read for both its topic and length.

🎙️ Two recent episodes of EconTalk reminded me why it was the best podcast around:

• Devon Zuegel on Inflation, Argentina, and Crypto brought back memories of living with hyperinflation in 1990s Serbia
• Roland Fryer on Educational Reform was simultaneously frustrating and fun

This is when you spend a couple of extra minutes in your car, parked in the driveway, because you want to finish that truly engaging episode of a podcast. I just made it up, but I’m sure it’s been used before.

This interview with Roland Fryer by Russ Roberts easily passed it. Roberts is a sharp interviewer who does not throw out easy questions, and more than once he asked one milliseconds before it crystalized in my own mind. The truly engaging part is that Fryer had well thought-out answers to each.

It helps that the topic was close to my heart, of course. Some of the experiments in education — paying students per book read, etc. — were done in Washington DC, and I am a DCPS parent myself. Lucky that we won’t need to implement the scheme in our own household, since we would have to file for bankruptcy faster than a crypto billionaire.

🎙 Still, 2022 is the best year to be alive, and 2023 will be better. Many reasons, but JWST should be a big one for everyone. This episode of the Joy of Why podcast nicely explains why.

A not so great Plenary Session 🎙 episode this week, in which Vinay wonders why people are leaving academia for industry while his guest explains how important page breaks and pictures are in NIH grant proposals he reviews, while “the science is all the same”.

Infuriating!

Two excellent episodes of Healthcare Unfiltered 🎙 in two weeks:

• Aaron Goodman on heme malignancies.
• Amer Zeidan on MDS and AML.

More podcasts with both would be a very good thing. Highly recommended!

🎙 Out of the two podcasts about randomized controlled trials that came out this week, I much preferred this one. Confirmation bias.