5 ms·

I'm repeating myself, but Planet Money's podcast is genuinely very good. It was spun out as it's own entity after an episode of This American Life about the fin

I'm repeating myself, but Planet Money's podcast is genuinely very good. It was spun out as it's own entity after an episode of This American Life about the financial crisis got really good feedback. They explain some fairly complicated financial stuff in an easy to understand way, without dumbing it down. They have lots of good, heavy-hitting guests on. Go subscribe to the podcast. It's free: http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=94411890 http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=944...

16s 16y ago
You should avoid everything that requires an expert "explaining" things in an "easy to understand way". Avoid religion and stocks markets. No one understands either. Both require a great deal of faith. And only a few people (ministers and stock brokers) proclaim to speak expertly on them... the rest of us just have to give them our cash and believe.
- lmz 16y ago
  A lot of things fall into that category. Among others: computer programming, government bureaucracy, global warming. Should they be avoided too?
  - derefr 16y ago
    Creating government bureaucracy should definitely be avoided. We're stuck with inherently-complex problem domains of global climate and large-scale information manipulation, though.
  - lzw 16y ago
    Global warming.... A hilarious topic you hear a lot of lies about. It is actually a simple topic since the ear is getting cooler and it is easily proven. What's complicated is the extensive lengths the global warming religion will go to to try and pretend like this totally politically motivated movement has a relationship with science. It is amazing what you can get people to believe by constantly repeating unscientific claims and the mantra that "all scientists agree" even though in grade school you should have learned that this is not how science works. PT Barnum was right... I didn't believe it myself, until I tried to talk about global warming with NPR programmed automatons.
    - lmz 16y ago
      That may be true. Haven't looked into it myself. (I didn't downvote you BTW). I think the problem is that the world simply cannot sustain the entirety of its population living with first-world standards. Better medicine in developing countries makes this worse since they now have as many children as before, but more of them survive - taking up resources. The global warming alarmists are probably keen to bring down the standards of the first world and handing it over to the rest of the world via carbon credits and the like. That strikes me as a traitorous view to take given that most of them are from the first world.
lzw 16y ago
They're dumbing it down, but they are patronizing you so that you will feel smart...so you won't listen to someone who tries to correct the carefully planted misconceptions.

16s 16y ago

You should avoid everything that requires an expert "explaining" things in an "easy to understand way". Avoid religion and stocks markets. No one understands either. Both require a great deal of faith. And only a few people (ministers and stock brokers) proclaim to speak expertly on them... the rest of us just have to give them our cash and believe.

lmz 16y ago
A lot of things fall into that category. Among others: computer programming, government bureaucracy, global warming. Should they be avoided too?
- derefr 16y ago
  Creating government bureaucracy should definitely be avoided. We're stuck with inherently-complex problem domains of global climate and large-scale information manipulation, though.
- lzw 16y ago
  Global warming.... A hilarious topic you hear a lot of lies about. It is actually a simple topic since the ear is getting cooler and it is easily proven. What's complicated is the extensive lengths the global warming religion will go to to try and pretend like this totally politically motivated movement has a relationship with science. It is amazing what you can get people to believe by constantly repeating unscientific claims and the mantra that "all scientists agree" even though in grade school you should have learned that this is not how science works. PT Barnum was right... I didn't believe it myself, until I tried to talk about global warming with NPR programmed automatons.
  - lmz 16y ago
    That may be true. Haven't looked into it myself. (I didn't downvote you BTW). I think the problem is that the world simply cannot sustain the entirety of its population living with first-world standards. Better medicine in developing countries makes this worse since they now have as many children as before, but more of them survive - taking up resources. The global warming alarmists are probably keen to bring down the standards of the first world and handing it over to the rest of the world via carbon credits and the like. That strikes me as a traitorous view to take given that most of them are from the first world.

lzw 16y ago

They're dumbing it down, but they are patronizing you so that you will feel smart...so you won't listen to someone who tries to correct the carefully planted misconceptions.