Podcasts that are "information dense" like yours should outperform those that are less efficient in being actually useful for staying informed. My advice is to keep that as a metric for future plans.
People who think (your audience) are focused on maximizing the yield from their time.
I find myself more inclined to listen to a podcast episode if the topic discussed feels evergreen. Keeping up with the constant news cycle is impossible, and each topic is memory-holed after two weeks, so what was the point of listening to analysts pithy takes for hours a day?
I think that when people are expecting a crescendo politically and culturally then the (feeling of) immensity of moment seems to draw in more news consumption and opinions on current events. But weve seen the battles that we engaged in turn into forever-moments, or be swept away without the long-due victory various factions feel they are due.
If its just gonna be business as usual forever then my intrigue in a podcast is based on acquiring lifelong wisdom, not on learning the fleeting happenings of the day
Second take: During 2017-2020 everybody thought they were either going crazy or the world was. And this caused people to seek out and latch onto voices of reason, moderation, honesty, etc. But now everybody basically realizes that most Americans are totally sane and somewhat moderate, but the elite factions which hold the megaphones are just gaslighting and astroturfing insanity into our mainstream. So the best thing to do for your mental health is ignore all media narratives and experts in general.
If you cant force the elite to be honest even when you can prove they are lying, then why expend the energy to uncover their lies. Just internalize that everything the media says is a lie but theres no point arguing it since you cant change it. And just give less oxygen to all of their dumpster fires and save that oxygen for yourself
Marshall--I think Youtube is overtaking legacy news and entertainment, as well as podcasts. I think people are shifting away from the over-saturated podcast eco system, and the more curated and algorithmic-recommended content creators help connect people to more emotionally aligned subject matter. The last couple of months I have skipped the podcasts of my favorites and expanded the number of Youtube content creators. I typically use Spotify for podcasts, and have cut dramatically my listening on that platform. I watch and listen to The Realignment on the YouTube ap on tv and phone.
One thing that jumped out to me, and something I feel comfortable speaking on, is the issue of what we have learned from our collective response to attacks. German skepticism and U-Boat, Japanese internment and Pearl Harbor, Soviet aggression and the Un-American Activities Committee, 9/11 and the domestic war on terror.
On one hand, these attacks keep happening and our response is largely the same. On the other hand, as someone about to finish law school, all of these are situations that we learn about EXTENSIVELY in school. Everyone reads Korematsu, Barenblatt, and Hamdi. If our future decision and policy makers are coming from this educational background, then they are being set up to have these issues in mind when the future event happens.
Is it perfect? No. Will it fully prevent knee jerk, likely unconstituonal, reactionary politics? Nope. But the seeds are being planted for future lawyers, judges, and politicians to look skeptically on reactionary action lest they become a name in a case book. When the inevitable happens, maybe some of those students now will be the judges deciding to go the way of Korematsu, but maybe some of them will be arguing like the dissent in Hamdi. It's certainly a start in the narrow area of legal education.
In general I personally have been feeling more and more like I want to throw my phone/internet access out the window and be done with it... skynet and the nuclear age be damned.
podcast - I think people are going back to work. I also think its possible people tried podcasting to see if it was easy and discovered it takes some real work so they fvcked off.
All that said, I'm a stay at home Dad and part time teacher so I listen to a SH!T load of podcasts. Great work always. thanks!
Podcasts that are "information dense" like yours should outperform those that are less efficient in being actually useful for staying informed. My advice is to keep that as a metric for future plans.
People who think (your audience) are focused on maximizing the yield from their time.
I find myself more inclined to listen to a podcast episode if the topic discussed feels evergreen. Keeping up with the constant news cycle is impossible, and each topic is memory-holed after two weeks, so what was the point of listening to analysts pithy takes for hours a day?
I think that when people are expecting a crescendo politically and culturally then the (feeling of) immensity of moment seems to draw in more news consumption and opinions on current events. But weve seen the battles that we engaged in turn into forever-moments, or be swept away without the long-due victory various factions feel they are due.
If its just gonna be business as usual forever then my intrigue in a podcast is based on acquiring lifelong wisdom, not on learning the fleeting happenings of the day
Second take: During 2017-2020 everybody thought they were either going crazy or the world was. And this caused people to seek out and latch onto voices of reason, moderation, honesty, etc. But now everybody basically realizes that most Americans are totally sane and somewhat moderate, but the elite factions which hold the megaphones are just gaslighting and astroturfing insanity into our mainstream. So the best thing to do for your mental health is ignore all media narratives and experts in general.
If you cant force the elite to be honest even when you can prove they are lying, then why expend the energy to uncover their lies. Just internalize that everything the media says is a lie but theres no point arguing it since you cant change it. And just give less oxygen to all of their dumpster fires and save that oxygen for yourself
Marshall--I think Youtube is overtaking legacy news and entertainment, as well as podcasts. I think people are shifting away from the over-saturated podcast eco system, and the more curated and algorithmic-recommended content creators help connect people to more emotionally aligned subject matter. The last couple of months I have skipped the podcasts of my favorites and expanded the number of Youtube content creators. I typically use Spotify for podcasts, and have cut dramatically my listening on that platform. I watch and listen to The Realignment on the YouTube ap on tv and phone.
Marshall,
One thing that jumped out to me, and something I feel comfortable speaking on, is the issue of what we have learned from our collective response to attacks. German skepticism and U-Boat, Japanese internment and Pearl Harbor, Soviet aggression and the Un-American Activities Committee, 9/11 and the domestic war on terror.
On one hand, these attacks keep happening and our response is largely the same. On the other hand, as someone about to finish law school, all of these are situations that we learn about EXTENSIVELY in school. Everyone reads Korematsu, Barenblatt, and Hamdi. If our future decision and policy makers are coming from this educational background, then they are being set up to have these issues in mind when the future event happens.
Is it perfect? No. Will it fully prevent knee jerk, likely unconstituonal, reactionary politics? Nope. But the seeds are being planted for future lawyers, judges, and politicians to look skeptically on reactionary action lest they become a name in a case book. When the inevitable happens, maybe some of those students now will be the judges deciding to go the way of Korematsu, but maybe some of them will be arguing like the dissent in Hamdi. It's certainly a start in the narrow area of legal education.
In general I personally have been feeling more and more like I want to throw my phone/internet access out the window and be done with it... skynet and the nuclear age be damned.
podcast - I think people are going back to work. I also think its possible people tried podcasting to see if it was easy and discovered it takes some real work so they fvcked off.
All that said, I'm a stay at home Dad and part time teacher so I listen to a SH!T load of podcasts. Great work always. thanks!