Abandoned

Here, I outline my personal reasons for leaving a few podcasts behind. From bad faith reasoning to boring, pointless content, many podcasts are just not worth listening to.

Of course, none of this is hard and fast. Occasionally, I’ll check in on recent JRE episodes to see if interesting guests have come on, and old episodes of The King and the Sting are great for a quick laugh, but I generally don’t have an intention to devote real time to future episodes.

Above all, this list is really here to remind me from time to time why I haven’t listened to something in a while.

Red Scare

It looks like I’m establishing a bit of a pattern here. I haven’t listened to Red Scare in quite a while but have meant to place it here—if only for posterity. Maybe I’ll update this description with something more substantive in the future; suffice it to say that these IDW-style Putin/Russia-sympathizers just aren’t worth the time. They were sort of funny during the 2020 election at least. So, there’s that.

The Portal

I haven’t paid much attention to Eric Weinstein for a couple of years. So, naturally, I listed his podcast above as “inactive”—worth remembering and maybe revisiting in the future. After some seemingly relentless criticism on the Decoding the Gurus podcast and going back to listen to a few episodes myself, I’ve realized that Eric has become something of a conspiracy theorist and, at best, a charlatan. I’ve always thought the Intellectual Dark Web moniker he coined was a bit silly, but the silliness of his thinking has since become (or maybe always was) almost transcendental.

The Joe Rogan Experience

At the risk of sounding pretentious, Rogan seems unable to grasp nuance in complex ideas, routinely advocates “both-sides-are-badism,” and generally doesn’t seem to add much value to a political, scientific, or cultural discussion. Rogan himself is…fine, I enjoy his comedy, and I value his martial arts insight, but simply speaking with a massive variety of (mostly) interesting guests is not enough to justify the time investment.

The King and the Sting

Hosted by comedian Theo Von and mixed martial artist Brendan Schaub—who in recent years has been practicing as a comedian—The King and the Sting featured the hosts riffing off audience-submitted videos and questions. While intensely funny at times, the podcast quickly loses its charm as it becomes clear that Theo, who has mastered the art, is carrying the comedy. Schaub’s reliance on juvenile bits drags down the whole show.

Quillette Podcast

Quillette bills itself as a magazine of “heterodox ideas.” While this is okay (even admirable) in theory, it often results in moral or journalistic confusion—fearmongering about cancel-culture, for example.