Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I've mentioned before that I have a standing rule about podcasts. I will generally only add new podcasts if it increases the diversity of voices I hear. Some podcasts I listen to have ended, and I purged a few a while back, and so I've been slowly adding more when I am running low on new shows. Usually, I find new ones by following guests on other podcasts. This works pretty well. I did this recently with some movie podcasts.
Unfortunately, as I've been adding more diverse voices, I'm also running into more nonsense. I am currently listening to one podcast where they are frequently referencing astrology, identifying with their birth signs, assigning people and/or characters with astrological sign attributes. Maybe it's because I'm a Libra, I really dislike this.
I don't know - I may drop this new podcast if I continue to hear a bunch of astrology talk, but I sometime wonder if I'm thinking about astrology wrong. Is it a cultural shortcut to people's behaviors and attitudes rather than a real belief that planets can affect people's lives? Then again, on another podcast I heard one person say completely seriously that they believe the position of the planets can affect people's lives.
Astrology seems to be the most popular nonsense I've heard across these new podcasts, but I've also run into anti-scientific health opinions and conspiracy theories. I've mentally bailed on quite a few guests because they said enough to make me think I didn't need to regard them seriously.
Ugh, I have to pause and think, "Am I disliking this because it's not someone who is like me, or would I dislike this simply because I think some of what they are saying is nonsense?" I'd like to think it's just because of the nonsense.
Am I being too judgemental on people who talk in terms of astrology more often than I'd like? Am I missing something that will let me be OK with this?
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I'd bail on that too. In fact, there was a podcast I started listening to a while back and stopped because they kept talking astrology and goofy stuff like that.
I do suspect it's not all that different from personality inventories and such, though. Sort of a way to think about and ideally accept people's individual differences. I've probably mentioned how my dad's work had them do this personality inventory class-thing, and he got really into it, like it helped him understand why other people sometimes talked just to make social connections and things like that.
So maybe it's just an in for people to try to understand individual differences? Or maybe, like those personality inventories, it's a way for people to talk about themselves more. I don't know. Just speculating.
But to your main question: No, I don't think you're being too judgmental. Astrology is silly, and it's OK to not want to hear a bunch about it. AND if someone is really into it, I think it's reasonable to question their judgment and opinions to some degree.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
Holy shit there really must be something to this astrology thing because I'm also a libra and I agree with what lisarea just said.
I think you would feel the same even if the person was like you. I know I have the same reaction to anyone who believes in astrology. It's not as intense as my reaction to anti-vaxxers, but I definitely do judge them.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I'm just an INTJ Aquarius, but no, astrology chatter is legitimate disqualifying nonsense. That being said, you sound way more open-minded about podcasts that I am, so maybe the only takeaway is that I am much judgier than you are.
A few years ago when I started a long-ish daily commute, I filled it with podcasts because I did not listen to Morning Edition/All Things Considered during the Trump administration. So I would consume 1.5-2+ hours of podcasts daily. I found some that I loved, especially the limited run ones. I think you or lisarea or somebody here sent me to the one about the Satanic Ritual Abuse panic in Canada that was good. But I also concluded that most podcasts are just not very good and adopted a low-bullshit policy. After some number of eyerolls I move on. I unsubscribed from Invisibilia after this episode and wonder to this day why it exists at all. Just a couple months ago I almost shitcanned Planet Money because of this 25 minutes that I am amazed any human - including the immediate family of those involved- could ever give a single fuck about. (It is about a whiny-sounding guy who has spent years trying to make a new pasta shape, and who of course has a podcast about making a new pasta shape. Somehow it is peak NPR.) I stuck with Lore as p. entertaining for a while until it went sorta "some still believe that to this day -insert garbled nonsense-" somewhere a few seasons in.
It was fortuitous because the pandemic eliminated my commute listen time and now I am down to dogwalking listen time, so it is a reasonable volume of content.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I have a hard time with this in general, there are many people I like but who talk just a bit too much about crystal energies.
I don’t really listen to podcasts because I get a bit tired of the conversational aspect vs an edited piece, and so I would say that would probably make the difference, is the astrology just part of the conversational short hand and not really astrology, or is it part of their decision making process.
Many years ago an acquaintance accidentally caused a terrorism scare due to an LED Aqua teen Hunger force character and dumb officials. Because they were facing the potential of serious terrorist charges they were instructed not to answer any media questions, but also this was dumb, so they agreed to answer any questions the press had so long as it pertained to the hairstyles of 70s hair and glam bands (or something like that) and would happily entertain and talk at length on any question… that pertained to hairstyles of 70s hair bands.
This is the perfected version of that. Holy shit, are they being held captive? this must be an anti-interrogation technique!
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by slimshady2357
I know I have the same reaction to anyone who believes in astrology. It's not as intense as my reaction to anti-vaxxers, but I definitely do judge them.
Oddly, it has never occurred to me that a parallel might be drawn between anti-vaxers and astrology followers. The idea led me to the question "Do they share the same tenuous grasp of science?" which led on to the question "How much does science education inoculate against astrological gullibility?" The answer to which may well be this:
Quote:
Originally posted at researchgate.net
Only 52% of science majors said that astrology is “not at all” scientific. We find that students’ science literacy, as defined by the National Science Foundation in its surveys of the general public, does not strongly correlate with an understanding that astrology is pseudoscientific, and therefore belief in astrology is likely not a valid indicator of scientific illiteracy.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mickthinks
Quote:
Originally posted at researchgate.net
Only 52% of science majors said that astrology is “not at all” scientific. We find that students’ science literacy, as defined by the National Science Foundation in its surveys of the general public, does not strongly correlate with an understanding that astrology is pseudoscientific, and therefore belief in astrology is likely not a valid indicator of scientific illiteracy.
We are so fucked,
But doesn't astrology at least involve some understanding of how different planets and/or stars are aligned at least? I thought it did.
So being a little nitpicky and hesitant about absolutes, I don't know if I'd say it was not at all scientific. The general premise isn't at all scientific, but as I understand it, there are little dribs and drabs of science in there that just aren't being applied to anything relevant.
I'm not saying that's necessarily why anyone else answered that way, just that I probably would.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
Kepler, and other famous astronomers, were really astrologers who happened to do some good scientific shit in pursuit of better understanding of their woo-belief mindset.
These days, astronomers tend to downplay how important astrology was to many of their pioneering heroes.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I feel like i need to be more cautious approaching astrology because I think it's a way for people to self-identify when they are not "allowed" to in mainstream culture. So, it's complete BS, but it's also BS that may serve some social function, like religion does for so many.
I think I wouldn't like it if I listened to a media commentary podcast that kept on referencing Biblical quotes, so I think I'm justified in dropping this one in particular.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
Yeah. In retrospect, in the twenty first stupid century of our lord, it's easy enough to say that supernatural beliefs are ridiculous because we know better, but many of the people who originally discovered that knowledge we we were taught were superstitious too. And I for one probably wouldn't have figured that stuff out on my own.
I've read something about how a lot of old receipts and formulas would include steps where you recite a prayer or incantation, which seems silly if you don't know it's how they timed steps and measured heat levels and stuff before they had tools for that.
And then all the little rules in religious doctrine that are ultimately health and safety regulations.
So anyways, it wouldn't be the craziest thing ever if the weather and daylight patterns during your super-early development in and out of the womb had some small influence on your personal traits. And maybe astrology was just a misguided, hemisphere-centric way of explaining that.
We don't know everything yet by a pretty long stretch. I'm not interested in listening to people who are confident and invested in things like astrology, but I'm also not confident and invested in debunking anything as a whole, because yeah, a lot of things we dismiss now served real legitimate purposes so we shouldn't necessarily dismiss them all wholesale.
and also because i cannot fathom multiverse theory not being true because if things are not infinite then what so of course everything must exist in the infinite possibilities because they're infinite so you know i'm saying no but probably also yes but no it's ok i don't really think that most of the time ok bye
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I like the This Week in Trek podcast. Little to no woo-woo to be found there. Other than that I have no other recommendations since I mostly listen to podcasts for sleeping.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
:awakes from a deep slumber and puts headphones on pause:
Yes, I am subscribed to many, maybe too many, but now appear to have a bearable balance where I always have some waiting on my playlist, but now only a few days behind. I used to get all my news at least two weeks late, which always made me seem needlessly uncool.
BUT I am comfort zone oriented so I don't diversify much or thus broaden my mind enough* - as who has the time - and I am really quick to drop ones I am not/no longer fond of. New ones I will generally give a few episodes; if they don't spark joy they are going to have to be dropped make room for others that might. All of the atheism ones have gone, except The Thinking Atheist, which as really more thinking than atheist these days, a few movie ones, a few history ones, a few geeky ones, a few book/tv series ones, a few sciency ones, and many more than I would like to admit of celebrities interviewing each other in some sort of infinite loop.
The book ones have the most woo of the ones I listen to, to the point where I had to drop some of them as their constant chatter about aromatherapy and the ghosts in the hosts' lives was just wearing me down.
*Hey, I listen to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, isn't that enough "Whoah!"?
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SharonDee
I like the This Week in Trek podcast. Little to no woo-woo to be found there. Other than that I have no other recommendations since I mostly listen to podcasts for sleeping.
I do that, too, but I have to be careful, lest I end up using a true crime podcast as some kind of guided dream meditation. Ask me how I know.
Does anyone remember that novella about Law & Order: SVU where it got all freaky and magical realist sort of? I loved that story because it's exactly like what'd happen to me when I used to fall asleep to the TV.
So I have to be careful not to listen to anything too gruesome or too interesting, but still engaging enough that my mind doesn't wander.
There were a few older podcasts I liked that were intentionally boring for those purposes, like Bedtime EULA and the Insomnia Project, but neither one is doing new episodes anymore, and I've listened to existing episodes enough times they stopped working as well.
Bedtime EULA is just a guy reading End User Licensing Agreements (sometimes, I'd start getting mad about how intrusive they were, though). The Insomnia Project was two non-expert people talking about really mundane things for about half an hour. Like they have episodes called "Math, Indexing & Nail Care" and "Trains, Wallpaper & Office Supplies." I want a new podcast like that.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea
There were a few older podcasts I liked that were intentionally boring for those purposes, like Bedtime EULA and the Insomnia Project, but neither one is doing new episodes anymore, and I've listened to existing episodes enough times they stopped working as well.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I use Pocketcast but I'm not in love with it or anything.
IN FACT, I just discovered that The Insomnia Project IS still releasing new episodes. They just haven't been updating in Pocketcast for some reason. Harumph.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I added a "two white people" podcast recently. Normally, I'd say this doesn't really increase my podcast diversity, but it's Peaches Christ (and some guy), I can bend my own rules.
It's "Midnight Mass" and the discussion is cult movies. I have already added a few to my watchlist. They try to bring both a creator and fan onto each episode, and so far not only have they done a great job, but there hasn't been any red flags like the other one.
Re: Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
I've been spending a great deal of time watching podcasts on YouTube (oddly enough) over the past year, all heavily political and absent any astrocrystology. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to watch all the content I'm interested in so I definitely wouldn't stick with a program that spent any amount of time talking about something I'm not. <- (what's the grammatical term for what I just did there?)
Diversifying my listening habits is adding more nonsense.
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