History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps
It is massive podcast that runs for over a decade, starts in Ancient Greece and attempts to go through whole of history of philosophy as in the title, without any gaps. It covers European and, let’s say, Europe-adjacent philosophy. So starting from Greece, going through Rome and then going to Arabic/Muslim, Byzantine, European medieval philosophy. As of now it arrived only to Descartes with almost 500 episodes on the way.
History of Philosophy: India, Africana, China
Spin-off of the podcast above. I still didn’t start to listen to it, but actually I found about those podcast through that, because I was listening to some podcast about Indian philosophy that was referring to this one. As much as main podcast try to cover any gaps in time, this spin-off covers gaps in space, philosophical traditions from different parts of the world. From what I see it covers so far only Indian philosophy up to end of antiquity as far as I saw and I’m most interested in Indian philosophy.
Fight Like An Animal
It’s probably the best political-adjacent podcast I ever encountered. It’s hard to even describe simply what this is all about. It’s one host podcast with this man who has long history with radical environmental politics, but was disillusioned with ineffectiveness of it. He ended up with deep dive into reading disparate fields of research and somehow connecting it in very surprising and convincing way. There is so much covered, anthropology, psychology, developmental evolutionary theory, domestication, medieval dancing epidemics, cults and even Yeti (and if that last one activates your crackpot detector, don’t worry, I promise). Additionally, it’s not random assortment of topics, but the host has ability to make them into cohesive framework.
Tech Won’t Save Us
My general go-to podcast for perspective on so-called Tech industry, by which I mean Silicon Valley and attached fields or equivalents from different country. Host has fabulously fitting name Paris Max. Every episode brings great guests. This podcast is rather matter of fact analysis of particular issues at hand. Usually doesn’t dwell into political systematic theory, but still provides well researched cover of topics.
Exolore
(finished) Pop-science worldbuilding podcast, almost as if created just for my tastes. Host is this amazing lady who holds somehow PhD in both astrophysics and folklore studies, which makes her perfect person to host such podcast. Typical episode formula is when she brings as guests interesting people, usually other scientists, but also people from different walks of life, and she guides them to imagine different worlds. Occasionally pathway is shaken, but typically they start from imagining physical characteristic of the planet (and its solar system) and then go to biology of dominant creatures and then their culture. Every step builds on top of previous, creating layered worldbuilding with room for imagination of the listener.
Friends at the table
In my humble opinion, the best actual play podcast out there. Always experimenting, always considerate and original. They mix up various RPG systems to tell their stories, split into groups to cover wider stories of their worlds. Initial seasons alternated between campaigns in fantasy and space opera mecha worlds. They are direct inspiration behind my essay How to build mecha gods
Sesje na podsłuchu
(PL) As apparent from the title, it’s one of the few polish podcasts I ever listened. For non-polish readers, it means roughly something like “Sessions on wiretap”. It’s also one of better actual play podcasts I encountered. Maybe it’s not accident, because game referee here is big fan of ‘Friends at the table’. They usually play in their own worlds in indie game systems. Their flagship world ‘Ghostpunk’ is amazing. Currently they are making second campaign in this world.