Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episode of 2020? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Favorite Podcast Episode of 2020?

260 pointshawktheslayer118 comments

Mine was the audio essay on this episode of The Portal:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/39-admission-to-sugar-...

Hardcore History: Supernova in the East, part 5.

It's about Japan during the second world war and there's something about the absolutely insane Japanese mentality that lead civilians to commit mass suicide that captivated me.

The whole series, and really the whole of Hardcore History is absolutely amazing and even if you think you don't like history you absolutely should give it a try. Blueprint of Armageddon is still the best piece of entertainment I've ever had, regardless of media.

https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-66-supern...

Strongly agree. Blueprint for Armageddon [1] about the machinations of WW1 is still the best audio narrative I've ever heard. I recently listened to it again after my first binge back in 2014 and it's still unparalleled.

Supernova in the East is also deeply fascinating and disturbing.

[1] https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepr...

This is my recommendation as well. I've been listening to these as they have come out. I listened to part 5 on a long car ride recently. The description of the mass suicide after the Battle of Saipan was shocking. Most people today don't know the horrors of Imperial Japan. Most assume there couldn't be such a fanatical, vicious, and atrocity-oriented culture in contemporary times.

I'm a big fan too, but beware of his pretty bog standard reading of history. For instance, he makes plenty of insinuations in the Supernova series about how the US basically had to nuke Japan because they were so fanatical.

There are quite a lot of arguments supporting this view, see e.g. "Jon Stewart, War Criminals & The True Story of the Atomic Bombs" [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylMbvf3sn_g

Here's a thoroughly nuanced analysis of the causes and motivations leading to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go

This is an excellent documentary. Skipping ahead to the “Discussion” section and watching through to the end gives a good summary, and it certainly opened my mind. Thanks for sharing, I’m probably going to go back and watch the whole thing.

Dan Carlin's podcasts are my goto for crazy long (18-24 hour) car trips.

I found the Planet Money episode Big Rigged surprisingly moving. It covered the business model of American trucking company Prime through the story of Kimberly. It was the all too familiar story of employee rights being eroded through a shady business model. Prime were exploiting workers by encouraging them to operate as independent contractors with an exclusive contract whilst also loaning them their truck, setting their rates, assigning their jobs, and asking them to pay for the training they delivered if they left within their first year of operation.

https://pca.st/episode/3740fbb7-654a-4031-ab64-a994b085560e

I loved that episode too, I was extremely informative but also equally saddening.

Planet Money does some great reporting, the things they uncover, man, it's depressing. The episode about plastic recycling and advertising, the episode about REDMAP, the episode about the black woman who had her traffic ticket dismissed and still owed the courts $300. There are happy jems too but right now I can't think of any.

Good call. That one was memorable.

I loved this interview Lex Fridman had with George Hotz. He's very opinionated original thinker with the credentials to back it up. He runs comma.ai, sellers of a device that can plug into many cars and drive for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcYp-XT7UI&list=PLrAXtmErZg...

First episode is really good but the second time he was on lex podcast was even better in my opinion: https://youtu.be/_L3gNaAVjQ4

Yeah, I got on a real big george hotz kick. I wanted to go more in depth into the interview so I built out a transcription platform to easily be able to transcribe and host audio or youtube programs. It uses aws transcribe under the hood. Here's his second interview transcript. I've been meaning to do his first one as well

[0] https://www.deep-chats.com/programs/lex/132

nice you should compair notes with Listen Notes guys they make podcasts searchable using similar tech...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15825900

Loved the episodes with Jim Keller [0] and Brian Kernighan [1] as well. Lex really does a great show and has amazing guests.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9upVbGSBFo

had to give up on that one at about 1:30:00 even Lex seems tired. No offense but the ratio of trolling and content with Hotz is way too high. I enjoyed Lex episodes with his father and Alex Garland though.

I really enjoyed the this one with Lisa Feldman Barrett: Counterintuitive Ideas About How the Brain Works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbdRIVCBqNI

I really enjoyed the ones with Manolis Kellis, particularly number 2: https://youtu.be/t06rkOOUa7g Manolis seems such a genuinely nice person, who's also super clever

The Race to Replace C & C++ [0]

Andrew Kelley of Zig [1], Ginger Bill of Odin [2], and Joshua Huelsman [3] (worked on Jai) debate in earnest about moving beyond these languages and why it might matter.

Self-plug since I hosted the podcast, but three compiler devs in the same room generated my favorite banter of 2020!

[0] https://media.handmade-seattle.com/the-race-to-replace-c-and...

[1] https://ziglang.org

[2] https://odin-lang.org

[3] https://twitter.com/machinamentum

Just listened to this last night and I second this! It was fascinating hearing all of the different perspectives and design decisions. I've rarely heard a podcast done so well with so many guests so kudos on a great job hosting it Abner. (You may have seen me around the discord, I'm PH Test)

Yes! While I have you here, may I ask how you listened to it? There's the video with closed captions and the audio-only version... which one did you find most convenient?

I listen to my podcasts via the Pocket Casts app on Android (audio only).

No Special Duty - Radiolab[1]

From the link below: "What are the police for? Producer B.A. Parker started wondering this back in June, as Black Lives Matter protests and calls to “defund the police” ramped up. The question led her to a wild story of a stabbing on a New York City subway train, and the realization that, according to the law, the police don’t always have to protect us. Producer Sarah Qari joins Parker to dig into the legal background, which takes her all the way up to the Supreme Court... and then all the way back down to on-duty officers themselves."

[1]: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/no-sp...

Darknet Diaries - Episode 65: PSYOP - https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/65/

I find the whole Darknet Diaries podcast really fascinating. It covers topics like hacking (black hat, white hat), activism, hacktivism, cyber security and so forth, with a narrative approach that's very pleasant to listen to. This episode in particular talks about what PSYOP (Psychological Operations) is (basically how to use techniques to manipulate people to reach an outcome both in a war scenario and not) by talking to experts in the field and telling their stories. The episodes are all very good and high quality in my opinion, in fact I'm still working my way through the whole backlog, but I don't have much left already. I picked this one because it left me particularly uncomfortable at the end, while at the same time having taught me something.

Each episode also lists its sources (of the information, ndr) on the episode page of their website, which I find amazing.

Bonus episode: The Athens Shadow Games - https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/64/

JACK: Okay, so what is psychological operations?

HENRY: Psychological operations is a skill set which is used to persuade, change, and influence the behavior of the target audience.

JACK: To persuade, change, and influence the behavior of a target audience. To persuade, change, and influence the behavior of a target audience. Huh.

HENRY: That could be with your adversary or with your friendly population. The main thing that PSYOP does not do is PSYOP – perform PSYOP on the American public.

Sure they don't! This is as reassuring as "The NSA does not wiretap Americans".

"The Program audio series" is the only fiction podcast I listen to I heard about it first on HN.

It's hard to single out one episode as a favorite, but I really liked a recent one that is a good standalone episode. ("Read-only memory Computer" == ROM-COM) is the perfect display of the show's signature combination of humor, tech, and wit.

Link to the episode: https://programaudioseries.com/15-what-you-see-is-what-you-g... (but really, you should check out the whole show!)

Came here to promote “The Program” as well! My favorite episodes are “The White Algorithms’ Burden”.

Art Of Manliness Podcast #619: What Driving Tells Us About Agency, Skill, and Freedom

Self-driving cars are the future of transportation, right? No more car maintenance, no more traffic, no more accidents. It may sound great on the face of it, but in this thought-provoking conversation, Matthew Crawford argues that shifting from being a driver to being a mere passenger represents a kind of existential risk.

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-619-what-dri...

Joscha Bach: Artificial Consciousness and the Nature of Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast #101

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-2P3MSZrBM

Aside from the very interesting content, I really enjoyed how Joscha sounded kind of perpetually amused.

Joscha Bach was for sure one of my favourite discoveries this year. He seems like someone who has deeply thought about many disciplines including CS, philosophy and psychology

Reply All - #158 The Case of the Missing Hit

I was going to put this one. I'm a fan of Reply All, but this was an episode that was so good it almost didn't seem real. Low spoilers, but they downplayed the ending so much that even without it, it'd have been a really good episode. But with the ending, I straight up dropped my jaw. Such a cool, relatable, story.

I'm listening now and enjoying it. Very relatable as I have an 80s horror movie I saw one scene of when I was a kid and I still have not been able to find it. Haunts me to this day. A family is outside all afraid and some force is tugging a chain into the sky.

I had a scene that haunted me as a kid and I thought there was no way I'd ever find it (literally had little more than the fading scenes from the dreams).

And this year I found it. I'd always remembered it wasn't a cartoon or live action - but something in between. So it turns out it was the scenes of 'death' from Jim Henson's "The Storyteller". Just something about the creepy face that did it as a kid. Was definitely a strange sensation to connect it all and see the images anew. Humans/memories/brains are weird. (The Storyteller, Season 1, Ep 5 - it's on Amazon Prime in Canada)

Wow and yes that must have been a surreal moment. Your anticdote gives me hope that I'll find my missing scene!

As a bonus, the episode of 99% Percent Invisible which followed it[1] has an excellent callback.

[1]: This one, I think: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/roman-mars-describes-...

I heard this episode first. I was confused by the fact that Roman knew all the words to this song that I had never heard of.

I listened to the Reply-All episode some weeks later and had that deja vu of "I know this song -- but from where??".

Took me a bit to connect them!

Thanks. Just listened to this and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I really liked the whole Wind of Change podcast: https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/

It’s about how the CIA might have written the Wind of Change song sung by the Scorpions in the 80s, but it has a nuanced take on it.

There was also a really good podcast about the Iraq war called blowback: https://blowback.show/

Mine is Acquired’s overview of SpaceX: https://overcast.fm/+FaxmmY8Jw.

It was done right before the first Crew Dragon launch. They do such a great job of digging into a company’s history and the business model that powers them.

First deep dive into the business model I’d heard - really fascinating

100% agree with SpaceX, mine 2nd would be Pinduoduo and how revenue and cash held can be completely different and how advanced China is many areas (like logistics) compared to the west. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/pinduoduo

Oops it was from July 2019, but I heard it in 2020...

13 Minutes to the Moon.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2

A magnificent BBC podcast series that covers in extreme detail the Apollo 11 mission, including explanations of the busy chatter that you hear from mission control audio.

Agreed.

Made even more magnificent by the amazing theme written by Hans Zimmer:

https://youtu.be/-sExd3yNG2A

They had a series about Apollo 13 this year. It needed to be paused because one of the producers were a doctor that needed to help with Covid, but later it was completed.

Yeah, the Apollo 13 season in 2020 was also amazing. It was the mission that had to abort the mission and return to Earth without landing on the Moon.

Jim Keller: Moore's Law, Microprocessors, and First Principles - Lex Friedman

https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA

Lex's podcast needs a special cut which includes only the guest's part of each conversation.

Bellingcat - The Executions & The Hunt ‘the two-part series tells the story of a gruesome video that captured the world’s attention in 2018 and how a remarkable open source investigation sought to unravel its secrets.

The video, which had spread rapidly online, appeared to show unarmed women and children being murdered by men in army uniform. Which army the men belonged to was not clear. Nor was it apparent where the incident had taken place or who the victims were. But an international team of investigators and volunteers was determined to uncover the truth.’

Incredible & horrifying to listen to.

https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/podcasts/2020/07/21/the...

You're Wrong About episode [0] about Disco Demolition Night [1]

0: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112270/4815227-disco-demolition-...

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night

You're Wrong About is probably my favorite podcast discovery of the last year. I generally dislike shows with the format of "the host reads a few articles and pretends to be an expert on it." But they do an above-average job on this show.

I haven't listened to the Disco Demolition Night episode. There was a good treatment of it years ago on the short-lived Gimlet podcast Undone: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/undone

To me it was the conclusion of a series rather than a single episode: the 5-part "How to duck up an airport" podcast [1] explaining what went wrong with Berlin's long-delayed BER airport published their last episode this year.

The airport is a master class in how not to plan a project. The airport spent more than 5 times it's budget, it opened 9 years late, and may already be too small. There was talk that they may already be broke, and that was before Corona brought down air traffic to a halt. The podcast goes through everything that went wrong, starting in the early 90s.

[1] https://www.radiospaetkauf.com/ber/

Cum Town Premium episode 214

One of the hosts, Nick, does a funny parody of the Eric Clapton song Change the World

I thought I'd never see a Cum Town - Hacker News crossover, but here we are.

Nick is a genuine monster at impressions.

Naval - "how to get rich" is truly a masterpiece. https://youtu.be/1-TZqOsVCNM.

Transcript: https://nav.al/rich

American Rehab

Reveal exposes how a treatment for drug addiction has turned tens of thousands of people into an unpaid, shadow workforce.

https://revealnews.org/american-rehab/

Sounds like A Scanner Darkly from Philip K. Dick.

Technically from 2019 but heard it this year, it's 1984 (the year not the book) [1] an outstanding episode from the excellent Theory of Everything podcast [2] by Benjamin Walker. As bonus you also have an episode about the book 1984 [3].

[1] https://beta.prx.org/stories/288310

[2] https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/

[3] https://beta.prx.org/stories/288314

A few good ones:

Decoder Ring: Jane Fonda Workout tapes.

Hang up and Listen: The Last Last Dance. An exploration of Michael Jordan's time on the Wizards.

99% Invisible: In the Unlikely Event. About the design of airplane safety cards and how getting people off the plane quickly saves lives.

Planet Money: All Your Genes Are Belong to Us. On gene patenting. Good interview subject with the plaintiff who overturned these patents.

Software Engineering Daily: Federated Learning with Mike Lee Williams. Don't usually like this podcast very much, but this episode was an excellent overview of how federated learning works.

The Allusionist: No Title. Interesting examination of titles (e.g. "mrs.", "mr."). This podcast always has hilarious asides.

30 for 30 Bloodlines. A mini-series on the state of horse racing.

Retronauts: '90s Video Game Websites.

You're Wrong About: Shaken Baby Syndrome. Exploration of how this basically made-up syndrome became weaponized.

Don't remember the exact episode name but there was a recent episode of The Weeds on college debt which added some nuance to that discussion that I wasn't aware of.

A Grenfell Story, spoken poetry about the fire. I had no idea who George the Poet is, this episode completely floored me.

https://www.scpr.org/programs/snap-judgment/2020/03/11/78074...

If you like that story, I also enjoyed the rest of George the Poet's podcast, "Have you heard george's podcast?"

https://www.georgethepoet.com/podcast-library

David Patterson: Computer Architecture and Data Storage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naed4C4hfAg.

Second this one. I remember his very cogent explanation of RISC vs CISC.

Another 'The Portal' recommendation:

41: Douglas Murray - Heroism 2020: Defense of Our Own Civilization

https://podcastaddict.com/episode/114260279

Two old friends riffing off each other about the world.

I've listened all the way through twice and both times have found myself laughing out loud and deep in thought simultaneously.

I look forward to seeing how Eric Weinstein will continue to evolve The Portal in 2021. No doubt he will continue to deliver outstanding content in his own uncompromising style.

Naval Ravikant on Joe Rogan. From 2019, but without doubt the best podcast I listened this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qHkcs3kG44

I recently curated a list of the best shows and episodes of 2020 with the help of 8 other podcast listeners. Here's a link to the list:

https://repod.io/blog/best-podcasts-2020

My absolute favorite of this year is in my native tounge Swedish and is about fires in our perhaps dystopian future: https://podd.app/podcast/p3-dystopia/brandernas-tidsalder

On second place, it got to be Notpetya, by Darknet Diaries (https://podd.app/podcast/darknet-diaries/54-notpetya). Technically released in late december 2019, but I listened to it in januari 2020. It's about Notpetya, the virus/worm that attacked a country in 2017.

Yes! Darknet diaries. Episode 67 - The Big House, where he gets his mum to break into a prison for him, it was just so well done. Made me want to change careers ;)

This episode from Signals and Threads was surprisingly amusing: Clock synchronization with Chris Perl

https://signalsandthreads.com/clock-synchronization/

1. Tiny Habits for Behavior Change with BJ Fogg - The One You Feed Podcast

https://www.oneyoufeed.net/tiny-habits/

I'm a big fan of BG Fogg and his Fogg Behavioural Model for understanding behaviour change.

2. Jim Collins on The Value of Small Gestures, Unseen Sources of Power, and More - The Tim Ferris Show

https://tim.blog/2020/11/30/jim-collins-returns/

I also recommend Jim Collins' earlier episode on Tim's podcast.

For me the Changelog podcast with the CTO of Github: https://changelog.com/podcast/395 and this podcast about the slack data platform: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2020/01/10/slack-data-p...

Edit: updated correctly that the podcast was with the CTO.

That was not Nat Friedman, but Jason Warner (CTO at GitHub).

If I had to pick only one, Dev Game Club's episode 236 where they start talking about Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

It's a weekly podcast where two veteran game developers play and discuss games of the past and their relevance today. There's tons of podcasts where random gamers discuss games, but very few that can do a deep dive into the technical aspects. Each game gets discussed for several episodes. It's a fascinating perspective and the two hosts have great chemistry.

Hidden Brain, Episode titled, "Our Pursuit of Happiness": https://www.npr.org/2020/07/31/897673162/you-2-0-our-pursuit...

I found a section in podcast that talks about: "we tend to present our best sides to strangers rather than to people who inhabit our lives is very sad", really insightful.

The "David Tennant Does a Podcast With…" episode where he interviewed George Takei, talking about his imprisonment as a child during WWII because he is Japanese-American was very interesting.

https://www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/DIRA3698D3E3VB3

This is a really good interview podcast, I also recommend the episodes with Olivia Colman & the one with Ian McKellen. Honestly most of the episodes are worth checking out.

The Song Exploder episode about Mobb Deep was great because it explored the genesis of a legendary hip hop act and very touching for the story of their friendship through fame and eventually the death of Prodigy. And as with all these episodes the background into the song (Shook Ones pt II) is also very interesting

Completely non Hacker News fit but I really like listening to the German Gemischtes Hack podcast.

It's essentially just two funny guys talking trash with little space for serious topics.

With a media landscape that's become increasingly geared towards always showing you the extremes, listening to Gemisches Hack is simply relaxing.

https://lemire.me/blog/2020/12/01/interview-by-adam-gordon-b...

Daniel Lemire details how he was able to massively speed up json parsing by thinking from first principles.

TLDL: he removed all abstractions and coded directly for the hardware.

Great interview. Makes me want to learn assembly programming (perhaps ARM64 since that seems to be the latest hotness thanks to the M1).

I also enjoyed this interview on the upcoming JIT/AOT for the BEAM: https://thinkingelixir.com/podcast-episodes/017-jit-compiler...

Tim Ferriss’ My Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse (Includes Extensive Resource List) https://tim.blog/2020/09/14/how-to-heal-trauma/

Bianca Giaever is my favourite story teller. She made a mini series podcast called Constellation Prize for the Believer magazine this year. I want to say that my favourite episode is "My Year with Franz" where she spends a couple of years listening to Franz Wright's (a poet) recordings which he made in the last years of his life. It is very moving and sad story. However, I am not 100% sure that this qualifies as a 2020 release, since its a re-release of her work and the original was released on 2019.

However, Crossing Guard (first episode in Constellation Prize) is also very good. It is Bianca interviewing a crossing guard and it gets very existential. I listen to it when I feel lonely.

Not Overthinking - How can we treat children morally? (Pt. 1)

"In this episode, we review Ali's unemployment, talk about how to talk about workism, and Taimur finally elucidates some concrete ideas about how society treats children immorally, and how we treat children better.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/not-overthinking/id145...

This is the first of a two-part discussion about how society short-changes children. I don't agree with all the ideas, but it's certainly changed how I think about children.

Sam Harris, episode #227, “Knowing the mind”. A really solid walkthrough of meditative practice, the science behind it, and more https://pca.st/episode/e838d883-1fc5-41a1-8f54-83af8475990d

https://computingup.com/ episode Artificial death was a good one.

Thanks for the recommendation--I'm listening to it now and enjoying it. It's inspiring me to want to create my own simulation in R. This was a good quote: "if you think things are static, you aren't looking big enough".

Cold War Conversations: A Childhood under the eye of the Secret Police (147) http://www.coldwarconversations.com

An incredibly emotional story on my favorite podcast about cold War history making one of the most powerful narrative from the lady who experienced it all. Listen to her story on Cold War Conversations.

Real Vision interview of crypto book authors. "Thank God For Bitcoin"

https://www.realvision.com/shows/the-interview-crypto/videos...

I liked Martymade #10, Anything that moves — the My Lai Massacre

https://www.stitcher.com/show/martyrmade/episode/10-anything...

I can't find the link but there was a podcast earlier in the year, around February I think, with Bob Iger and the strategy for Disney and Disney+. It's stayed with me as the timing for the launch was almost perfect with the lockdown 1 starting here in the UK.

The Coffee with the Greats episode?

https://castbox.fm/vb/334490959

Nice White Parents https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-paren...

Chapo episode about Avatar (the Cameron Movie).

A sincere discussion of the film as an anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist film, that challenges the common view of the film as a 'white saviour' ferngully-like and attempts to explain why the film was so "un-meme-able" in contrast to recent Marvel movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7CtTo88QOI

How is this the only reply that was downvoted? Is CTH that much more polarizing than Cumtown or True Anon? (Haven't yet listened to the episode)

I've enjoyed this year's Chapo episode about White Fragility, "No Crying in Raceball", but it has probably not aged well as the hype about the book has since died down.

Checkout https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25553772

Why Theory?: Incels, Misogyny, and Castration

A really interesting discussion of the incel phenomena, it’s connection to misogyny and conservativism, and it’s roots.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-theory/id129986383...

Joe Rogan Brett Weinstein

Fairly off topic for HN, but this is my honest answer.

The Bugle: Spready Mercury. I’ve listened to the bugle since 2008 and hearing John oliver on it again gave me hope that there are still good things that can happen in spite of all of the chaos that’s going on in the world right now.

Wow, I was an enthusiastic Bugle listener years ago and it fell off my radar. Zaltzman and Oliver's comedic chemistry is nearly unmatched in podcasting. Going to listen now, thank you for mentioning it!

you'll like this one:

Talking with Jim Dworkin, Sr. Director of Cloud Business Unit at Intel PSG

https://soundcloud.com/dez_blanchfield/conversations-with-de...

Greta Thunberg “Humanity has not yet failed”.

If for nothing else, just to hear the descriptions of travelling across America through the eyes of complete alien (a “socialist European).

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7E2Wz3C5XwtEw3Pi96tLQA?si=X...

TrueAnon podcast episode 100: Brat Camp.

It's about "therapy boarding schools" or "residential treatment facilities" that purport to help teens with behavioral or emotional issues, drug addiction etc. but often are absolutely horrifying dens of severe child abuse and borderline cult-like brainwashing techniques to get kids in line.

I can personally attest to the accuracy of their description of what goes on at these places, as I spent 18 months in one of the facilities that they're talking about. In fact, I'd say that Brace Belden didn't even cover some of the most terrible parts. That being said, it's a great intro for the uninitiated.

Keep in mind that this is kind of a comedy podcast that's highly irreverent and critical of society as a whole, and is often pottymouthed.

I suggest skipping the first 15 minutes or so, as it's a lot of goofing around before they get to the main topic.

To clarify, I do not endorse this podcast overall. I don't endorse any podcasts as I rarely listen to any of them. I had a friend suggest this particular episode because she knew about my experiences at this facility and thought I'd find it interesting. This is the only episode of this show that I've ever listened to.

https://www.stitcher.com/show/trueanon/episode/episode-100-b...

Wow. Thank you for sharing. That was super fascinating, I’ve never heard of these schools.

I’ve never really listened to TrueAnon but the host is pretty interesting. He fought with some socialists against isis in syria and helped unionize anchor steam brewery here in sf.

I will be launching a podcast soon and would love to listen to you about this. Can promise nothing regarding audience size but do guarantee a good interview (used to have a radio show back in the day). This subject has begun to haunt me. Deets in profile.

I appreciate the offer, but sadly it's not something I'm really comfortable reliving. When I get into details about that time period I have a tendency to dissociate somewhat, which I've been told by psychiatrists and psychologists is due to PTSD that I developed from the experience.

I normally do my best not to think about it at all, but the recent Paris Hilton documentary brought a lot of eyeballs to these places which has led to a lot of public discourse. I think that's great, I'm happy that it's not being ignored as much as usual, but there are plenty of other people that would be better suited to educate the public than me.

Thank you for the reply. Obviously I understand, and my best to you.

Thanks! A thought just popped into my head on this topic. There's apparently a podcast called Troubled that specifically tackles this topic. I have no idea if it's good or not, but it was also suggested to me. I didn't get around to it because I don't really listen to podcasts often. You might find some interesting people on that!

That podcast is a national treasure. Thanks for the pointer, am listening now.

I made a free podcast episode that can read your mind! https://www.patreon.com/posts/take-card-free-45313834

Tried it. Didn’t work for me.

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