I listen to podcasts almost daily. I discovered them in my
compulsion to feel ‘utilizing’ about the time. I feel that when I exercise, prepare
food, wash utensils, go for a run (in pre Covid-19 life!), I also have to make
use of that time, since my ability to pay attention is free during these
activities. I first used to listen to audios of lectures, but I understood that
too much is lost in consuming only audio of a product which is meant to be
video. Then I discovered podcasts.
In lockdown,
podcasts are regular feature of life. I end up listening to 1 or 2 podcasts in
the day, listening of around 2 hours. I use ‘Podcast Addict’ app which allows
me to follow updates of all the podcasts I intend to follow, updates me about
new episodes and has download facility as well.
In this
blogpost, I am planning to talk about one of the podcasts specifically and
about podcasts in general as well. I like podcasts which run at least for an
hour, if not more, especially when I cook. One such podcasts in ‘The Seen and the Unseen’ by Amit Varma. Typical episode is 1 hour 50 minutes, if not more. It is
a great intellectual product with some quite weak points. First and foremost being too
much time lost on talking about life-path of the guests which invariably makes
the episode very long. Second, too much and too strong participation from the
host, sometime making really repetitive mundane sentences like ‘individuals
respond to incentives’. Third, is choice of guests, which almost makes it an
echo chamber and often results in intellectual sounding, but very casual conversation.
(Anup Malani’s episode was a bright exception to this. Anup Malani answered to
questions without sounding partisan and yet made his point.)
Why do I
think these are weak points? Because I have compared ‘The Seen and the Unseen’
with some other podcasts in the same genre. Those are, ‘Econtalk’ by Russ
Roerts, ‘Conversations with Tyler’ by Tyler Cowen, and ‘The Ezra Klein show’ by
Ezra Klein. All these podcasts have long conversations. But one key difference
is they often kickstart with topic, than tracing the life journey of participant. Amit
Varma’s choice of putting nearly 20% time of episode, at the start, for life
journey of participant is strange, considering our short attention spans. The
way Tyler Cowen jumps directly to the core of discussion topic is amazing. Ezra
Klein and Russ Roberts take some time to talk about topic and guest, but never
go biographical.
Podcast is
an intellectual product and will be enjoyed by individuals with such bent of
mind. It is not a pedagogical tool. It is a good marketing tool for books. It is
a good place to offer various perspectives about topic. It adds a lot to the
podcasts when host asks questions which go against the story guest is telling,
rather than meek, mutually pleasing concurring statements. Tyler Cowen, Ezra Klein
do it extremely well, Russ Roberts to some extent. Amit Varma ends up doing it
rarely, mainly because guests are often part of same tribe. His episodes with
Ram Guha, Aakar Patel were good examples of what can go wrong with podcasts. The
casual, non-empirical nature, the unhidden and unacknowledged biases were
really surprising, though I am happy that I end up knowing them.
Intellectuals must put great value
to precision and consistency of arguments because these are defining features
of an intellectual, not making an argument. It is how one argues makes one intellectual,
not what one argues. Ability to make subtle, consistent chain of arguments is a
hallmark of an intellectual argument. If that’s missing, if an intellectual is
making a general point out of an anecdote too often, if an intellectual is
making personal comments about someone they do not personally know, if there
are too many statements involving ‘should’, one should see red flags.
I wish ‘The Seen and the Unseen’
reduces the time span to 80 minutes or so, get rid of biographies and there
will be episodes with conservatives from right, for example, Swapan Dasgupta, Tripurdaman
Singh and even some one from RSS. And I also wish that host will reduce stressing
of his personal views. It goes too far and generally very naïve.
I also want to mention few other
podcasts I enjoy. ‘All Things Policy’ is a daily podcast by Takshashila Institute.
It is crisp, factual, and illuminating, though too much advertisements for the short
duration. I loved their episodes on ‘lockdown and testing’ and ‘new proposed policy
of 3-year service bonds by armed forces. Another podcast, in same genre but
with less frequency and much more intellectual bent is ‘Capitalisn’t’ by Luigi
Zingales and Kate Waldock. They just make a remarkably interesting pair, taking
often contrasting views, Luigi going to for extreme views often and then
checked by subtler arguments from Kate.
BBC’s ‘In Our Times’ is another podcast
I listen too. At times, they have episodes on extremely specific topics, like ‘The
evolution of horses’ or ‘Zeno’s paradox’ or ‘Absolute Zero temperature’. Another
podcasts in same genre is ‘Partially Examined Life’.
‘History of Philosophy without gaps’
is a fascinating podcast. They have section on ‘Indian Philosophy’ which takes
chronological view of developments in Indian philosophy. Their episodes on
Mahabharata and on Buddhism (with Rupert Gethin) were the ones I have liked a
lot.
Another podcast I must mention is ‘Brown Pundits’. It is different than typical podcasts as guests are not necessarily
intellectuals, but just people interested in thinking about world. More
importantly, it is a podcast which examines religions in a quite different way
and has some striking conversations about Hindutva and Hindu-Muslim question in
India.
So far, so good!