Less Wrong: The podcast
Would it be possible to have a monthly podcast on Less Wrong topics? A possible format could be roughly four panelist (maybe half core and half rotating members) discussing theoretical and practical aspects or rationality, AI/singularity, cognitive science etc.
Episodes can be also easily framed by assigning some reading from sequences or recent LW articles and then discussing them in podcast form. This format seems to work great for www.partiallyexaminedlife.com (quite entertaining and informative podcast albeit on the diseased discipline of philosophy).
To keep things interesting occasional episodes could be done in the form of discussions with guests (via skype), e.g. the usual suspects from the SAIA and fellow AI scientists, people like Robin Hanson, Aubrey de Grey, other rationalist/skeptical bloggers/podcasters but also AI skeptics and so on.
The level of the podcast should be still accesible to newcomers but the discussion could thread into bit deeper waters. I would love to hear discussions also on more technical topics (like CEV, Solomonoff induction, AIXI etc.). Just imagine how exciting could be discussions on the more controversial decision-theoretic paradoxes!
Further possibility is from time to time plan ahead and cover in more depth the topic from that week’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality podcast, which would potentially help to increase the audience (it would be like a post-grad HPMoR).
What do you think? Could this be done? With the depth and breadth of material we have here and all the interesting people to talk to I don’t think there would be a shortage of topics.
Edit: Changed the (bi-)weekly timescale to monthly.
Note that doing a podcast well requires more planning, episode prep, editing, and participant selection than you might think. Relatively few people and conversations are interesting to listen to for a relatively broad audience (even “broad” within the LW + skeptics communities).
I have no experience with podcasting but was assuming that this is a lot of work. I now think a monthly podcast would be better and more feasible than a bi-weekly one. I was reluctant to post this suggestion because I know I don’t have the knowledge and time to drive it, but I hoped that there could be people in the audience who might like the idea and could bring it to fruition.
Yup, maybe we’ll get lucky and somebody awesome will decide to be the Hero on a project like this.
Lots of things are possible—someone just has to do them, or organize someone to do them. The constraint here, as you’ve noted, is definitely not material or topics. It’s manpower.
I think this is a great idea! Something new people have mentioned in local meetups is that they are much more interested in learning via discussion, than by reading a massive volume of blog posts.
Perhaps the podcasts could alternate between an episode covering introductory review material, and an episode covering advanced material.
I would definitely be down with contributing to this, if no one better steps up.
...also, I noticed that I didn’t recognize your name. If you’re a new person, I most definitely recommend making an Introductory post, to let us know who you are. Welcome to LW!
I’d also contribute in some manner to this. Like (what I assume) most people, I don’t have the time to take the lead on something like this I would help in any of the following areas:
Technology. Getting the RSS working...whatever.
Moderation/hosting. I’ve not spent any time doing a podcast, but I do have a decent public speaking ability (funnily enough obtained by being raised in a religious organization that trains in that), and a good ability at helping others break their arguments and explanations down to a layperson’s level).
I’d certainly willing to help somehow, but my wording was careful on purpose—I haven’t yet gotten through all the sequences and don’t think I could contribute much to the discussion at this stage. But I’d like to help with organizing and making this work.
The technical parts of doing something like this are fairly easy. I went from knowing nothing to having a podcast within a couple weeks once I decided to do one. The hard part is driving it. Whoever takes the helm has to be prepared to put in some hours. I was surprised that producing a 30-min episode takes 8+ hours. I’m not sure if that would be less for an unscripted podcast, but it still won’t be nothing. Warn your SO you’ll be taking on a long-term project, and be prepared for them to be irate for several weeks as they adjust.
Sure, rather than 8+ hours it takes you about 1 hour… plus the decade or two that it took you to get your ad hoc pseudopublic speaking and domain knowledge up to the level where you can produce that amount of content at approximately the same level of quality without previous preparation.
The assumption is that at least part of the panel already have the relevant domain specific knowledge. There is some time investment to re-read and prepare for the discusion of course (plus the technical part of editing etc.). A monthly podcast could be possibly doable.
The occasional Grace-Hanson podcast comes pretty close to this.
I came into contact with LW partly through watching bloggingheads of Eliezer. That is to say I like the idea. But a weekly even bi-weekly podcast seems like a lot of work. And you also would have the problem of selecting the level of sophistication, if you present old material, quite a few LW lettered (not that I am one of them) will probably find it quite mundane. And if you go of in the other direction it will become virtually inaccessible to newcomers.
I like this idea. So, how do we start? Are you willing to do the podcast yourself? do you go to meetups where you can find people to help you? Can we find any volunteers with more knowledge or experience with podcasts to take this up? Who’s going to pick the topics? Should it be a community poll? Are you going to post pages for everyone to suggest topics?
I would love to see a podcast, it would really help with getting people to give LessWrong a chance. If we’re going to make this happen we should have a plan and execute it quickly before everyone loses interest.
I’m willing to help. I’ve got some brief familiarity with recording through audacity and I’m listened to many podcasts.
Also, it seems like a great idea. Depending on how it turns out, you can affiliate it more or less strongly with LessWrong.