Podcast needs a complete overhaul...
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“I reviewed the pod earlier and gave it a tentative three stars, with the review heading “Content VS quality & quantity”. In that review I commended the quality of the content (guests, subject matter and quality of conversations) and deducted stars for sound quality and for overwhelming quantity of releases each week. I still stand by both of those opinions.
Recording quality is typically abysmal, with frequent echo, distortion, latency and dropouts between Richard and his call-connected interviewees, and very poor volume control. Not to mention unsettling background noises that remain unexplained. I am not averse to the “home-made”, but this lacks the minimum stand of care about listen-ability any conscientious amateur should bring to the table.
The quantity of releases means that it is impossible for me, at least, to subscribe to this podcast. I have a list of about twenty-five podcasts that I subscribe and listen to faithfully each week, some that I have listened to for more than a decade. There is only so much time available in a week, so with Future Tech dropping an average of three or four a _day_, even if it was the best produced and most reliably fascinating cast ever to come down the pike it would not be easy to make room for it.
Now, though, I have dropped my rating star-count a notch, based on a reassessment of the quality of content. After listening to a recent show on addiction (a subject that is of great interest to me, and about which I am pretty well informed from a medical science perspective) in which Richard seemed to be talking past his guests, arguing against a point they were not making, and which remained uncomfortably unresolved, I realized that there are also issues with the quality of the content that go beyond production values.
Richard often interrupts his guests while they are in the middle of answering one of his questions. Now, it’s true that scientific experts can sometimes tend to go on and on about things and might need a bit of reining in occasionally in the interest of time management. But this habit has been jarring enough that I’ve found it off-putting to the point of (obviously) needing to respond to it in writing (and I don’t do this often). Don’t get me wrong: Richard has an amazing store of knowledge, and a fertile imagination, and there are times when he stimulates his guests to see things in ways they hadn’t considered before, sometimes as a result of his excitedly throwing a thought-bomb into the conversation in the form of an interruption. This is forgivable, once in a while, and if done with some sensitivity and awareness, and an acknowledgement that this is what is happening. Unfortunately that is often not the case, and I find such instances unsettling.
Sometimes, too, it seems that the host, when talking with an expert that he shares a fairly high level of technical expertise with, he interjects his own knowledge into the conversation such that effect is to have two people who share this very esoteric language talking in Snoopy “wah-wah” voices, increasingly unintelligible to the average listener (for which I feel I am a good stand-in). Sometimes it feels like showing off in front of the class. My desire would be to have the host keep his audience in mind and to work a bit harder to recognize that his guest is going to be going way over most peoples heads, and to help the guest understand the need to translate their thoughts, their work, into more commonly understandable language.
Now I am realizing that I have a new beef: Maybe it’s the sheer number of episodes the pod is cranking out, there are folks showing up here as guests, that have an extremely low credibility quotient. Michael Behe is an example. I am an advocate for open-mindedness and for conversation with people who don’t share my perspective in an obvious way. But here is an “intelligent design” creationist being presented on an equal footing with the communications director of the National Academy of Science (different episodes). And then there’s the guy who’s a proponent of “grounding” (which has been thoroughly discredited from a scientific and medical point of view)... I will go listen to both these shows. I admit I haven’t yet, but the write-up for each (I presume written by the host?) is enough to show that they are being give the same platform as people who actually are respected in the scientific and medical communities. So. I have had to revise my earlier opinion, and dropped another star. If after listening to the offending episodes I find I am mistaken, and the host turns out not to have been giving a credulous platform to snake-oil salespeople I will come back here and correct this.
Richard: I think you have a potentially great thing going here. I’ve been interested enough to put up with really poor audio quality because there have been some truly remarkable conversations with some great people. I’ve enjoyed your creative imagination, and ability to bring out unexpected turns of thought and conversation. My wish would be: Fix the audio. It’s important! There are too many great podcasts with better production values. Do LESS! One a week is plenty, but focus on the content. Hard. And spend the time to vet the guests for credibility. Your show is meant to be about future tech, I presume, based on the best science and tech has to offer, and not meant to be a let’s-make-it-up-as-we-go fantasy show, right? I basically NEVER do this, so I’m hoping the time I’m taking to write this is well-spent. Best wishes!”
Wordragon via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
09/06/19
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Vythilingam via Apple Podcasts ·
Malaysia ·
06/30/20
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“Awesome podcast, great host, interesting topic, give it a listen.”
Roman Prokopchuk via Apple Podcasts ·
United States of America ·
07/07/20
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