Do you think podcasts have that quality? Or is it something else about that media form? [I've enjoyed many podcasts from This American Life, the Long Now, Rationally Speaking, Conversations With Tyler, Dwarkesh, and a few others. But I'd mostly rather read books or papers.] - ThreadSky

michaelnielsen.bsky.social • 98 days ago

Do you think podcasts have that quality? Or is it something else about that media form?

[I've enjoyed many podcasts from This American Life, the Long Now, Rationally Speaking, Conversations With Tyler, Dwarkesh, and a few others. But I'd mostly rather read books or papers.]

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notmahi.bsky.social•98 days ago

I wish it were only podcasts, I am seeing form steamrolling over content in academic papers more and more these days.

eugenevinitsky.bsky.social•98 days ago

I kind of do in that they resist preparation and when you're on them you feel a great push to not be boring. Easy over 5 minutes, hard over an hour. Even Tyler often pushes his listeners to speculate. I generally appreciate this from him but it feels symptomatic

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•98 days ago

Hmm. When with imaginative friends I often enjoy pushing them to speculate. And it seems good. But I suspect there's a kind of social-media-friendly speculation that you're talking about, which is a bit different, and which you think podcasts tend to align toward

eugenevinitsky.bsky.social•98 days ago

Yes, this shouldn't be taken to be an opposition to speculation. Listening to two people springboard off each other is wonderful. It is the specific interaction with virality that's the issue

chrisoffner3d.bsky.social•98 days ago

Harari makes a similar point here from ~4:17 on: "When you're constantly trying to say only extremely important things, you never say anything really important. (...) If you're constantly on the edge, you're just talking slogans."
https://youtu.be/7r5lw3jPrUk?t=257

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•98 days ago

This is excellent, on a related subject: https://scholars-stage.org/public-intellectuals-have-short-shelf-lives-but-why/

chrisoffner3d.bsky.social•98 days ago

"There are things that a mind past its optimum can do to optimize what analytic and creative power it still has. But once a great writer has reached the top of their world, they face few incentives to do any of these things."
I suspect this and the related issue of "audience capture" as the culprit.

appughar.bsky.social•98 days ago

Agree. Long-form podcasts are often consumed while multitasking—at least for me (e.g., driving, cooking working out etc.)—unlike the focused attention typical of books or TV shows from yesteryear. What’s absorbed becomes a mix of the discussion and one’s mental interludes.

eugenevinitsky.bsky.social•98 days ago

It's the combination of resisting preparation and being very long. It means that a certain type of demagogue is going to be best at the format

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•98 days ago

Oh, interesting point. I think that's one thing I enjoy about several (not all) of the podcasts I named - they mostly steer away from people trying to be media figures.

(In general, I think "engagement" is a terrible metric, something to deliberately sabotage in some measure. But it's seductive.)

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•98 days ago

This is something I struggle with. I've talked about it a lot with @andymatuschak.org: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zF9ywLHqHfN5rFuPApiyqmP

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•98 days ago

It's nice to be understood and heard and valued and contribute to important conversations. But where that ends and audience capture begins is pretty tricky to figure out!

michaelnielsen.bsky.social•98 days ago

When I release public pieces I've gotten in the habit of doing at least one, and usually many, pieces of anti-marketing. It's always a bit like pulling my own teeth. And nearly always has consequent good effects on the work, though often not the reach...

tombielecki.bsky.social•98 days ago

Perhaps a broader pattern:

As capability increases, the need for complex demonstration decreases.

The highest form of capability might be one that can afford to be transparent, simple, and direct about both its strengths and limitations.

saiprasanna.in•98 days ago

"Medium is the message"

Strikes again

josephdviviano.bsky.social•98 days ago

The length is the main issue. To produce an hour of well referenced scientific material is an enormous task. These podcasters put out multiple hours roughly every week - even a well meaning person is going to cut corners, and someone less scrupulous can have a field day

eugenevinitsky.bsky.social•98 days ago

Yeah, I have no idea how you could even keep up.

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