I want to make a few remarks about the recent EconTalk Survey of your favorite episodes of last year. A little over 2400 people listening in 65 countries filled out the Survey, which I’m very grateful for. You gave me some wonderful feedback and some great ideas.
Many of you remain unaware of the Archives of EconTalk. You can find every episode we’ve ever recorded, which is now about 670-something at econtalk.org. [See also the EconTalk Archives by date.–Econlib Ed.] But it’s much easier to download a year of past episodes at a time. You can do that by searching “econtalk” on the podcast app of your iPhone or on an app like PodBean, or other players, I assume. And that will allow you to not just access the main subscription feed, but you’ll see annual episode collections going back to 2006. So you can download all the episodes of 2006, 2007,…, if you want. And feel free, please, to do that, and listen. [There is a complete list of the annual feeds at RSS Feeds for EconTalk.–Econlib Ed.]
There’s also a wonderful app for the iPhone that just plays episodes, and it’s extremely well-designed. It is not designed by us here at EconTalk, but it’s very nice. If you search EconTalk at the iPhone App Store, it will pull up an app that’s simply called “Economics.” But it’s all EconTalk, all the time. Check it out.
I love suggestions generally, especially for guests. Do check the Archives. Some of the suggestions I received in the Survey were people we’ve already interviewed. So, check those out.
And, sometimes, unfortunately, there are guests who turn me down. So, sometimes, if I don’t have a guest on that you love, I’ve been trying, and I appreciate your help.
Also, you can follow me on Twitter at Econtalker. Some of you said it would be great if we could find out about upcoming guests. On Twitter I usually do that. I usually let listeners and people who follow me on Twitter know what some of the upcoming guests are and the books that they are going to be talking about. So, if you want to get to those in advance, following me on Twitter is one way to do that.
And now for your Favorite Episodes of 2018.
- Number 10: Bill James on Baseball, Facts, and the Rules of the Game, January 15, 2018.
- Number 9: Michael Pollan on Psychedelic Drugs and How to Change Your Mind, June 25, 2018.
- Number 8: Ryan Holiday on Conspiracy, Gawker, and the Hulk Hogan Trial, April 30, 2018.
- Number 7: Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Rationality, Risk, and Skin in the Game, March 5, 2018.
- Number 6: Michael Munger on Sharing, Transaction Costs, and Tomorrow 3.0, October 29, 2018.
Now for the Top 5:
- Number 5: Frank Dikotter on Mao’s Great Famine, August 6, 2018.
- Number 4: Bryan Caplan on the Case Against Education, February 12, 2018.
- Number 3: Sebastian Junger on Tribe, December 31, 2018.
- Number 2: Jordan Peterson on 12 Rules for Life, February 19, 2018.
And, the most popular episode as voted by listeners:
- Number 1: Jonah Goldberg on The Suicide of the West, April 23, 2018
which received just over 25% in the balloting–that is one in every four of the respondents rated that in their Top 5.
And finally I want to mention that we had 6.6 million downloads last year. That’s way above our previous high of last year, which was 5.1 million. For the first time we had an episode with over 100,000 downloads, and it happened three times: the Jordan Peterson episode, 115,000; the Nassim Taleb episode with 112,000; and Jonah Goldberg with 106,000. And Sebastian Junger’s episode may end up with that high as well, but being at the end of the year, it didn’t have as much time to accumulate downloads.
I appreciate all your time, both as Survey Respondents and as listeners, so much. And your feedback. Please spread the word about EconTalk to friends and family.
READER COMMENTS
Mike w
Feb 20 2019 at 11:03pm
Thank you for all the time you put into your podcast. The quality is evident.
Mario A
Feb 21 2019 at 6:04am
Thanks Russ, Econtalk has been an education all these years. If I could offer a suggestion, could you interview Paul Berliner? He’s the author of Thinking in Jazz, an etnomusicologycal account of the style, an excellent example of an emerging order, a sort of Adam Smith meets Duke Ellington.
Rob
Feb 21 2019 at 7:24am
I couldn’t help but notice that both of the top two episode are related to the ‘culture wars’:
Number 2: Jordan Peterson on 12 Rules for Life
Number 1: Jonah Goldberg on The Suicide of the West
As provocative as that topic can be, I hope it won’t come to occupy a larger fraction of EconTalk episodes. Discussions of the merits and excesses of ‘social justice’ are so widespread, they are among the least neglected issues one could do interviews about.
David Walker
Feb 24 2019 at 11:05pm
Seconding Rob. Yours is the greatest podcast on the planet, and I liked the Jordan Peterson talk a lot. But last year’s crop seemed to have less economics than previous years, and more culture war, when the economics is what I love most about the show.
That said, you have to go where you want to go as well, so there may be good reasons to ignore my advice.
Catherine Hyatt
Feb 21 2019 at 10:49pm
Hi Russ,
I am a nurse global health graduate student and have found your podcasts worth their weight in gold. Thank you for demonstrating how to frame an argument in a compelling way.
Catherine
Ken Mann
Feb 24 2019 at 1:10pm
I became a fan because Jonah Goldberg was such a fan. Your format, demeanor, choice of guests, etc. etc. never disappoint. I am always stimulated in my thinking and frequently find myself on Amazon consider new book purchases.
Rick Murphy
Mar 8 2019 at 7:59pm
Two that I really enjoyed, and I don’t know where they ended up, were Alan Lightman on Science (I am currently reading his latest book) and John Gray on the 7 kinds of Atheism. I have listened to both a number of times, especially Mr. Lightman’s, even though I am a religious person not in the sciences.
Keep up the great work Russ. As Mr. Lightman explains that everything will come to an end and die out one day, I hope this keeps going for a long, long time!
Randy Matheson
Mar 10 2019 at 11:24pm
I recommended Jonah Goldberg on The Suicide of the West podcast to my three economics classes and will follow up with my modern history classes after we look at totalitarianism and tribalism. Once again, thanks for Skyping into my economics classes. We started the year with “The Invisible Heart”, last month we visited the Bakery, and last week Keynes and Hayek battled in the ring.
The course is changing next year to Economic Theory – from the Greeks to present, so I have had a head start this year. Thank you.
Mark
Apr 5 2019 at 11:24am
Having just listened to the No 1 entry “Suicide of the West” I would like to make the following observation/request;
Please be as surgical with the guests from your camp as you are with those from without.
I came to Econtalk in 2010 to find out how the ‘other side’ thinks. I stayed because Dr Roberts is honest, interesting, intelligent and makes all his guests come across as clever.
One of the reasons I, like many others, admire Dr Roberts is the dignified and gracious way he treats people we all know he probably doesn’t agree with, but does find interesting. It is this quest to understand such guests that lends Econtalk its dignified air. The irony of this is that I often come to appreciate how those guests from the other (my) side came to their opinions but have no idea how the likes of Jonah Goldberg came to his. Dr Roberts would call, rightly, politely and with push-back, for context from a more left wing interviewee making comments such as;
“I agree with almost all climate change policy…” or “people who wish to live in a liberal economy are wrong.”
and yet Mr Goldberg’s comments about the NRA and socialism are left without a defining context (I do not live in the US and need to make it clear that given the way the NRA is portrayed in the European media, agreeing with them en masse is tantamount to saying “I want more school shootings.” )
I therefore respectfully request that Dr Roberts, in his legendary way, unpick statements from the right so that I can come to understand how the clearly intelligent, and interesting, guests on this side of the debate have come to their viewpoint.
With thanks for making me a much more interesting person.
Comments are closed.