A Few Worthwhile Podcasts
Almost all of my mornings start with a podcast or an audiobook. It makes me feel like there’s another person in the kitchen which is nice since I live alone and breakfast is an easy enough meal that I can still really pay attention to the actual content.
I know podcasts aren’t everyone’s cup of tea but my god have they opened my eyes to the world. I hope if you listen to even one of those listed below you will gain some insight into how you tick or maybe have your mind blown by the shear vastness of the world around us.
Here are a few of my favourites that have brought me comfort and made for a more intellectual start to my days.
Hidden Brain - This podcast is about the unconscious patterns that drive our decisions and emotions. The podcast usually dives into the neurobiology and evolutionary history of why we are hardwired for that specific response. But it also focus’ on research that is never top of mind, like the impact that metaphors and language have on shaping our political discourse. Another interesting episode looked at the functional differences between conservative and liberal brains.
Understanding that our emotions, thoughts and perceptions are driven almost wholly by unconscious patterns is insane to me. I love learning about how powerless I am at times to react and feel the way I do. I think having an understanding of these facts adds to my ability to remain open minded with people with very different points of view than mine. I highly recommend. Also, Shankar Vedantam’s voice is dreamy.
Some episodes to start with:
Creatures Of Habit: How Habits Shape Who We Are — And Who We Become
Me, Myself, and IKEA: What Our Love For Swedish Furniture Says About Narcissism
The Daily - From The New York Times, episodes usually focus on the biggest news item of the day. And another great voice to start the morning with is Michael Barbaro’s. He has such an odd but lovely cadence. While the content is mostly American news, in the last few months, it’s really what I want to hear. From the election to covid to supreme court decisions; it is digestible and super informative. They are usually less than 40 mins and feature really good interviews that provide depth and insight on headline news.
99% Invisible - Another podcast with a truly exceptional speaker. Roman Mars’ voice is otherworldly and insanely soothing. This podcast is about design and the built environment. One of my favourite episodes is about the design process for signage at nuclear waste sites. Like, how to come up with symbols that will make sense to humans ten thousand years in the future. It blew my mind. Other episodes look at chat bots and what they reveal about our understanding of ourselves, what peat is and why it’s so important. There’s also an episode on sand. If you’re at all interested in how design and infrastructure and the hidden things that happen around us then I highly recommend giving this podcast a try. This podcast will also give you endless random and incredibly interesting facts to liven up your conversations.
Some episodes to start with:
The Next Billion Users - Everyone should listen to this episode. It’s about the next billion internet users and was a collab with Google. It completely reframed my understanding of what the internet can be used for and what it will mean when more users in the global south start to come online - having worked at a start up it was insane to think about app design process as these users have entirely novel use cases. Considering their needs is something almost every major tech company is doing rn
The ELIZA Effect - About chat bots
Ten Thousand Years - Designing a marker system to be operational for lifetime of a nuclear waste holding facility