It feels like every time I find a podcast about security/networking/technology the hosts end up saying some pretty off-color stuff, or I look them up and they also host right wing podcasts. Are there any that are more leftist, hosted by LGBT peeps, or at least not actively bigoted ?
Odd. I have never found a tech podcast that is right wing. All of them i have ever heard are done by lefties
Same, I would actually be curious to listen to a right wing tech podcast as the two concepts clash so hard in my brain.
Not specifically about podcasts, but I think there’s a minority (?) of privacy/security enthusiasts who are pretty overtly right-wing libertarians, often because those technologies are anti-establishment. Think Luke Smith. I’ve also met people in the tech sphere (both on the I love Big Tech as well as FOSS side) who have very traditionalist, borderline right-wing opinions.
Not specifically about podcasts, but I think there’s a minority (?) of privacy/security enthusiasts who are pretty overtly right-wing libertarians, often because those technologies are anti-establishment.
yeah–the “techno-libertarians”, as i’ve personally taken to calling them. that tendency was also the case on reddit in the early days (and to some extent still influences the site’s cultural lean) and seems to be particularly common among stereotypical Silicon Valley types. a big calling card of that group is usually waxing poetic about the need to preserve almost unfiltered freedom of speech even though no website trying to preserve that has ever gone well.
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Anarchists will always get persecuted by any state, their goal is to abolish the state itself, and no state is going to go down without a fight.
Libertarians on the other hand, while they share some of the same ideas, can fly under the radar… but only as long as they don’t oppose those of the state, like in an individualist capitalist one, not so much in a communist authoritarian one.
There’s a dude who does Linux videos.
Kind of went off the rails one day after one of the really bad mass shootings happened and he got all worked up about gun control.
I think this was actually after Trump was elected. Might have been the Vegas shooting. I remember because it was also when DuckDuckGo was getting shit from these people about not promoting Russian propaganda, which “interferes with free speech” or whatever the fuck one of their talking points is.
Actually, it might not have been after one of the shootings. But it was definitely around the time these people were complaining about DDG (and I think that was a while after the Vegas shooting) and it kind of devolved into complaining about gun control.
I didn’t really watch him much, but I haven’t bothered since. Can’t even remember the channel name. Some bullshit. Dude was obsessed with xmonad.
It’s distrotube
He also made videos complaining about GNOME’s code of conduct and Mozilla’s suggestion to deplatform Nazis.
There’s very much a Peter Thiel-esque type of libertarian tech bro - think the crypto fanatics, the Elon Musk fanboys, etc. Or, tangentially, how New Atheism collapsed in part because some women had the audacity to point out that sexual harassment is a thing. On a similar note, just go onto any online video game and openly announce yourself to be gay or a woman.
Geek culture and its associated cultures have always had an undercurrent of sexism, probably not unrelated to the fact that they’re historically dominated by somewhat awkward or lonely men. That feeling of male angst and isolation is absolutely something that the Right has been able to successfully exploit. Take Gamergate, for instance.
I don’t listen to tech podcasts at all, but now that you mention it, the concept seems odd to me, too. Tech involves objective facts, scientific reasoning, and logic, which are three things I definitely don’t associate with modern conservatism.
Tech involves objective facts, scientific reasoning, and logic
Maybe the making of tech is, but its application and relevance in modern society is, at the end of the day, a sociological phenomenon.
Ooh, I didn’t consider that. Good point!
I think this is where “compartmentalization” comes in. Similar in concept to how you are forced to wall off sadness when a loved one dies so that you can continue to live your life, I think there are mentally competent right wingers, but they wall off the logic and reasoning so that it applies only to machines. They do this because if those ideas of logic and reason get beyond the wall/outside of the compartment, the meaning of their lives falls apart.
engineering types do seem to fall off the conservatism cliff more frequently than other science-adjacent professions. so do surgeons, for some reason? at least from what i’ve observed. i think something about high performance, high pay jobs that require specialized education can make a person more vulnerable to brain worms.
Tech involves a lot of do x, y, and z to get outcome a with no ambiguity. That appeals to a lot of the right wing.
Tech also involves corporate $$, “disruptive” (read: anti-worker) innovation, etc. the general skew of tech as an industry seems center-right to me plus lots of tech bros fully engaged (sometimes “ironically”) with the alt right.
At the local level, tech bros form natural partnerships with right wing interests around gentrification and policing.
They’re really ideologies orthogonal to each other:
- Technologist/Luddite
- Progressive/Conservative
- Anarchist/Libertarian/Statist/Authoritarian
- Communist/Socialist/Capitalist
The “right wing tech”, in a US-centric definition, would likely fall under “conservative libertarian capitalist technologist”, which is a possible combination.
I’m still pretty new into looking, this post was inspired by listening to Self-Hosted and one of the hosts has a “news” podcast and one of the more recent episodes was recommending other creators, which were like Megyn Kelly and right wing people :( There were also a few YouTubers that I tried to get into to learn networking but some of them had rant videos about women and stuff. I maybe could have worded it as also like…not corporate-worshipping codebro type podcasts? If that makes sense. There seems to be a lot of libertarian types in computer networking and I just wanted some recommendations by people who have been listening longer than I have.
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Hi nicholas, this comment is not made in good faith and definitely doesn’t fit within Beehaw’s ethos. I believe you know this considering your previous break. Goodbye.
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When Noah was on some of the Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts, he had a number of right-wing editorialized viewpoints during discussions. Chris didn’t seem to bite much on them (at least, at the time), so I’m guessing Chris didn’t care for it much (speculating here). I stopped listening simply because of off-handed comments I’d hear Noah make. It didn’t happen that often, but it was enough to put me off listening. I honestly suspect Noah is more center than right-wing, but I’d much rather he just kept on topic and checked his political leanings at the door.
Now that it’s Chris and other hosts, Linux Action News and Linux Unplugged might be good ones to check out, if you’re into Linux.
Yeah I think it was just Noah. Chris hosted a news podcast for a while that treaded into some conspiracy areas, but wasn’t right-wing.
Either way I find their current setup pretty good at staying away from politics unless they’re directly related to the technology conversation at hand.
Darknet Diaries. It’s more of a “stories in the web security space” kind of podcast. But I have not noticed any political leaning in the host so far.
Highly recommend it. I binged all existing episodes last year.
This is my favorite podcast ever. So good.
Start from some more recent episodes like around ep 60 or 70.
The very first ones, like 1 through 10, I think he was still trying to find his groove then.
Yeah, but the earlier episodes also has some good stories, mostly just less production quality
I really enjoy Darknet Diaries. It is unfortunate he went to a once a month release cycle but I understand it is for a better work life cycle.
If you are a fan of Darknet Diaries I would also recommend Hacked. It has two hosts which have a good dynamic. Plus they don’t touch politics so it avoids any controversy.
I’ll put it in my backlog! Thanks!
Yep. Darknet Diaries, Cyber, and Malicious Life are all good.
The wan show is one
The WAN show is a great option for a one stop shop for broad tech stuff. It is often very long but they add very clear chapters to the youtube video that make it easy to jump to the stuff that interests you. Luke is a software developer/manager so he is fairy knowledgeable in that realm, and Linus is a very transparent CEO of a tech media company, so the coverage is actually very good between the two of them. Just dont expect in depth conversations about RHEL forks and node.js code efficiency and stuff, its very much meant to be consumed by regular tech enthusiasts and not hyper deep code monkeys.
Only issue I’d see with the WAN show is that a large chunk of it is LTT meta discussion. If you don’t watch/care about LTT that could get a little dull. Same with merch messages.
The move is to watch it with a delay of 1-2 days, so that every section will be labeled by them and/or sponsorblock.
/whispers elteeteestoredotcom
Another one would be that Linus has dropped his fair share of Hard Rs in the past (/s)
Oo this looks great, thank you!
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I love Laporte’s personality, although he’s not strong technically. I feel like 90% of schtick on TechTV was to act like a confused grandpa while others did the explaining.
But it’s a pretty good trick for running a balanced, and not overly technical, video stream.
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Thank you for so many suggestions and taking the time to write up descriptions, really appreciate it 😊
I’ll second Security Now!
Listened to it for years but kind of lost track when I stopped having to commute. Kind of miss it really but I don’t find as much time for podcasts these days sadly.
I 100% recommend TWIT, best tech podcast I listen to.
I usually listed at 1.2x speed with gap skipping on, because they can talk a bit slow.
Really great for weekly overviews of tech news, and excellent guests.
I’ll second TWIT too. Have to agree with the other comments, but I still stick with them. I listen on 1.5x which you get used to.
The main dude talks too much. I used to watch them, but stopped because of the main dude.
I occasionally listen to twit and my only major complaints are: 1) Leo interrupts his guests too much, and 2) whenever Amy Web or Owen Stone come on I have to skip the episode…
Everyone loves him but essentially the same reason I can’t watch/listen to Louis Rossmann. I support the right to repair cause but his other views go way off.
Don’t know anything about him other than right to repair. What are his other views?
He does a lot of videos shitting on New York and thus has brought in a lot of right-wing people who hate the “liberal elites” who live there. I don’t find his views too bad tbh but his comments sections are always a complete shit show. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has changed for the worst due to audience capture.
The thing about Rossman is that yes, he echoes some right-wing talking points. Unlike most of us, he actually is a small business owner who was been repeatedly harassed and mishandled by regional authorities in New York city.
He’s a soldier on the front lines of the over-regulation and regulatory capture crisis. And I think folks on the right and left can agree that big companies working hand-in-hand with government to suppress new business hurts poor people. Whether he’s talking about John Deere’s or Apple’s anti-repair stance, Amazon’s over-reach when banning accounts for frivolous reasons, or New York’s labyrinthine rules, he’s really talking about the same fundamental problem: big organizations using rules and regulations to hurt poor folks.
With that said, I think his opinions on those matters are pretty narrowly confined to the details of running a business. I’ve watched quite a few of his YT videos and I never see him going “out of his lane” to express opinions on broader social trends. He’s not opining on abortion or trans people or any of the other cultural touchstones on the right. He’s no Qanon nutjob.
With that said, he’s not a general interest tech presenter, and he probably doesn’t have much to offer the OP. He’s pretty narrowly focused on repair and government/corporate abuse.
So you’re saying commenters are jerks - which is out of his control - then you speculate that you “wouldn’t be surprised if he has changed for the worst”
This is how a bad reputation spreads - through speculation and low effort commentary. You’ve said nothing valid but insulted the guy without any basis.
Not attacking you here - we all get lazy, but cite a personal interaction or observation of him specifically. Because otherwise you could just be besmirching a genuinely decent guy who’s trying his best.
Personally, I think he’s doing extraordinarily good things for the consumer world without a shred of reward for his efforts. Every gigantic company that enjoys screwing over consumers for extra profits hates him and tries to derail his work at every turn. He certainly doesn’t need to be shit on by someone who’s going purely on conjecture. So please don’t. :)
So you’re saying commenters are jerks - which is out of his control - then you speculate that you “wouldn’t be surprised if he has changed for the worst”
i don’t have a horse in this race but he absolutely has the power to moderate his comment section and his community’s vibes generally, and he is responsible for that (or delegating another person to do so) whether he thinks he should be/takes responsibility for that or not. the audience a creator has is ultimately a reflection of the creator’s priorities, and if he isn’t proactive in removing shitters from his community then you really can’t blame other people for assuming he’s in with or agrees with the shitters.
Why should a creator be responsible for the voiced opinions of their fans? That standard makes no sense no matter how you slice it. A creator’s job isn’t to police their audience, it’s to provide information/entertainment.
Just because he has the power to censor people you don’t like doesn’t mean he should, or that it’s a reasonable ask. Instead of passively alienating you by not acting, censoring those people would actively alienate them. He’s much better off letting individuals take responsibility for their own comments, rather than joining any given side’s thought-police.
As soon as you create the standard that you are responsible for what your fans say and do, you’ve lost. You can immediately be held accountable for the speech of the worst of them, and good luck regulating that.
Just because he has the power to censor people you don’t like doesn’t mean he should, or that it’s a reasonable ask. Instead of passively alienating you by not acting, censoring those people would actively alienate them. He’s much better off letting individuals take responsibility for their own comments, rather than joining any given side’s thought-police.
this is the kind of thing you say if you are a person who benefits from not being moderated and, unsurprisingly, your comment history has shit like “Parents should have a say what is being taught to their kids. LGBT values are an invasive culture change that is being pushed on kids without the interests of the parents in mind.” go away.
Glad they’re gone. Gross beliefs fr.
You ever moderate a YouTube comments section? It’s nearly a full-time job. And it would be one thing if he were just a YouTuber, but the guy does a ton of good in the real world, for real people.
You ever moderate a YouTube comments section? It’s nearly a full-time job.
i literally co-administrate this site seven days a week, often for hours a day. yes, i do know that. if you don’t want to do it, turn off comments. otherwise, assume the responsibility and cultivate a good community, or make peace with the assumptions people will make of you for not removing Respectable_Centrist’s comments about how Wokeness is destroying tech and how much they want queer people to shut up and not exist.
What can I say; I don’t read what random strangers say when my purpose of watching his videos is his videos. And I don’t hold him accountable for what those strangers say. I’m just focused like that. To each their own.
So you’re saying commenters are jerks - which is out of his control - then you speculate that you “wouldn’t be surprised if he has changed for the worst”
Not who you’re responding to, but despite it being “out of his control”, it still greatly diminishes my desire to watch the videos, to chat in live streams, or otherwise engage.
To each their own.
The slate star codex effect is real.
Besides the mentioned hating on NY, during last two elections he supported trump and republicans, bashed democrats and just leaned into that that whole saying something conspiracy related by saying “I dunno” which has been an almost dog whistle of support while trying to act open minded. I don’t believe he’s republican but his move to Texas and being anti government kinda points him in a certain direction.
Obviously that’s all fine of him to have those views. I just don’t like hearing it during a board repair or right to repair video.
Do you have a citation on Rossman supporting Trump?
I can’t say I’ve heard him express any political opinions outside of the fairly narrow lanes of right-to-repair and regulatory abuse.
https://youtu.be/JH8izpJknq0?t=5619
Now I know someone is going to say oh thats just one comment out of hours and he said he doesn’t like blah blah… his 2016 videos had lots of joking about trump, anti hillary, pepe etc.
I regularly view Rossman content, but I guess I don’t really know anything about him politically.
From a quick search, it looks like he’s willing to talk about tech issues with just about anyone of whatever leaning (like Sam Seider), but I could just be ignorant on this subject.
Is there a place where he typically shares his political opnions? Might even be his own channel, but perhaps the YouTube algorithm has me only watching his “neutral” stuff.
I’ve followed Louis Rossmann for more than 5 years and despite his channel has gone completely into opposing politics in wide themes, I haven’t got anything else out of his political views than that he is a democrat despite he opposes Biden and deBlasio in general.
For me, as a very anti-political follower and hater of every politician and party, I really admire how Louis has ability to oppose and point out the problematic themes in omnious way and always unrelated to party, which I find very rare in the US.
(English is my 3rd language)
It leaks out a bit if you watch enough of his videos. I don’t get the sense that he’s right-wing in a MAGA ultra-bigot way, he’s just very very libertarian. Loose gun laws, low-taxes, government stay outta my life kinda guy.
Not the kind of politics I subscribe to, but I don’t consider him to be a bad person for it.
ERROR. ABORT MESSAGE? Y/N > Y~~Do you have a citation on Rossman supporting Trump?
I can’t say I’ve heard him express any political opinions outside of the fairly narrow lanes of right-to-repair and regulatory abuse. ~~
I think you misread my post.
But if you watch some of his videos on NYC and moving to Texas he’ll opine on some of his other views.
Ah, sorry, I meant that reply to go to someone else. Apologies.
TrashFuture
Tech Won’t Save Us
^^^ both of these are what you’re looking for OP
Links for the lazy:
FOSS Pod is also great
Came here to post Tech Won’t Save Us.
Oooo thank you !
Trashfuture is the best tech podcast
Alice on there is also on “Well there’s your problem” a podcast about engineering disasters.
A podcast on engineering disasters that is also itself an engineering disaster.
Really the whole Trashfuture extended universe is fantastic
Some favorites of mine are The WAN Show, Command Line Heroes, Darknet Diaries, Linux Unplugged, Destination Linux and Surveillance Report All of these cover a lot of cool areas in tech, and I have never heard any right-wing views (or really any political views) voiced in any of these.
I used to listen to Linux Unplugged but it feels like the crypto crap took over creative control.
It’s all let’s read some crypto paid messages. Then a taking point. More crypto messages. Here is a part where we say the names of things wrong because the crypto messages told us to.
It is creeping into the self hosted show too.
FWIW, the boosts are typically in their own section that you can skip if you like. I put chapter markers in every episode to make it easy for you.
Those boosts are helping to keep the network solvent by diversifying income. As advertisers are getting more skittish, income needs to come from somewhere. None of us can afford to work for free, and there’s already one show that would be completely dead without boosts.
They also function similarly to feedback. Yes, there’s plenty of shenanigans, but Linux Unplugged has always been about creating an entertaining talk show kind of vibe. Linux Action News is more the serious one. Unfortunately, that’s on hiatus because of lack of sponsors.
Chris does try to tailor the boost segments per-show so they fit with the theme. Self Hosted, for example, keeps boosts more topical on average. It’s also worth mentioning that we haven’t removed email feedback - this isn’t pay-to-play.
Source: I edit Linux Unplugged, Self Hosted, Office Hours, and Coder Radio.
I’ve been listening to them forever and was also pretty apprehensive about the crypto stuff but in the end he’s really just using it as a way to get donations. I personally don’t feel like the podcast talks about crypto much, if at all, and the boosts sections actually add to the show imo.
I listen to Linux Unplugged and I also am not a fan of the crypto stuff. I remember they actually addressed the whole crypto thing in an office hours episode, which I found incredibly disappointing as Chris essentially said crypto is a scam and we hate it, except for bitcoin. He talks about how long he’s been using bitcoin and how you should trust him because he knows what he’s talking about. It was very patronizing, and I took a break from unplugged for a while because of it.
I still listen to it because it’s the only free Linux podcast I’m aware of, and I understand the need to make money so I can deal with the boosts for now.
Do you listen to risky.biz?
I haven’t, but I’ve seen it in my Spotify recommendations. I also subscribed to the newsletter, though I haven’t had much time to read it much.
Will Smith and Brad Shoemaker made a tech podcast: https://techpod.content.town/
Will Smith was a co-founder of tested.com and has gone on to do things within the games industry specifically in VR. He currently works at Stray Bombay in communications.
Brad Shoemaker was a part of Gamespot, GiantBomb, and is now a part of Nextlander. He was a games journalist but now I would say Nextlander is less games journalism and more just personalities playing video games.
Ive been listening to these two for years. I highly recommend anything Brad Shoemaker-related.
Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod - https://techpod.content.town/
Brad Shoemaker of Gamespot/GiantBomb/Nextlander and Will Smith of Tested.com and several other things (but not THAT Will Smith) both dive into tech issues and are more to the left. They also have a separate FOSS Pod.
Came here to recommend this
Seconded, one of my favorite podcasts.
It’s been a bit since I got an episode up but you could check my podcast - https://shellsharks.com/podcast. It’s tech / infosec-themed. I’m pretty sure I take a lot of jabs in the other direction haha.
It might be too much fluff for you, but the Vergecast is hosted by a trio of flaming liberals. I avoid the website these days, but I honestly think they do a better a job with the podcast.
I really like Vergecast.
I have listened since the time it was the Engadget podcast, then This Is My Next, then the Vergecast. Yes, it’s fluff and not deep technical info, but it’s really useful for keeping up with the overall zeitgeist of the tech industry. Also it’s often funny. It’s a nice, refreshing thing to listen to while making coffee on a Friday.
I agree. They go from technical to policy and all points in between, and they have senses of humour… I miss hearing Deiter Bohn, but such is life.
Welcome to the vergecast, the flagship podcast of left wing propaganda
In all seriousness though, this is one of the podcasts I tune in to religiously. It’s just too fun and serves as a great high level of “what’s up in big tech” even when my brain is mush.
I was just reading an article on The Verge, and let me tell you, it was not pleasant. Bad site to go to on a mobile browser without adblock.
The Homelab show. Hosted by the owner of Lawrence Systems Canadian managed services firm along with another guy who I can’t remember. Very cool podcast for people who like to tinker with servers at home, or in the cloud.
Maybe not what you’re looking for, but Security Now! seems to fit that bill. TWiT has a bunch of other shows as well, covering a range of topics. I can honestly say I’ve never encountered any bigoted hosts or guests on the shows I’ve listened to.
Agree completely about Security Now - I’ve been listening since the beginning (like 15+ years now?) and I honestly don’t remember Steve Gibson saying much political stuff. Leo is obviously pretty liberal, but he normally keeps a lid on anything political as well, unless it is tech industry specific. (Full disclosure - I am fairly liberal so maybe I’m oblivious)
They do sometimes get on the weirdest not-security-related rants. Like a number of shows a few years back talking about melatonin.
Not a deal breaker IMO, just consider not taking medical advice from a computer security podcast. :)
Yes, they do go on some tangents occasionally. I used to think it a bit strange but have grown to like it. A number of years ago Steve went on this Vitamin D research kick and he compared taking supplements versus sunbathing nude (imagining him doing that is hilarious in its own right) and getting his levels checked after each trial. The discussion on this made me decide to start taking Vitamin D supplements and I feel like that has been a benefit.
The Melatonin thing comes from a different research project Steve did to find the “perfect sleep supplement formula” and he experimented for months with different ingredients to come up with what he contends will help him sleep and help him go back to sleep after nighttime bathroom visits. I tried some of the weird ingredients and it did help, but I didn’t stick with that. Even got my wife to try it. I’ve also discovered some great Sci-if authors from their book reviews.
I think they go on these tangents to keep the show fresh after 15 years. I believe that Security Now is TWIT’s most successful show but I wonder how they are doing overall.
It is quite good but anyone new to the show should know Steve plans to retire from the show after I think he said 999 or 1000. That’s a little over a year from now. Hopefully they’ll get someone capable to fill in.
Ha. I haven’t been a regular listener for probably a couple years now. He’s been saying that for a while, but I always assumed/guessed he was mostly joking. Has he stated officially that’s when he’ll be retiring?
No official announcement that I know of, he’s been pretty consistent about it and it seems Leo has given up trying to convince him to stay.
The Mozilla Foundation did a tech podcast called IRL. It hasn’t updated in nearly a year, and I don’t know if it’s ever coming back, but some of their back episodes are worth listening to.
