Stay ConnectedThe world has never been more connected. Yet never more divided. We yell at each other from inside our echo chambers. But change doesn’t happen inside an echo chamber. It’s time to get out, to stretch our legs, to step on some land mines. It’s time to have an uncomfortable conversation with Josh Szeps.
A DM Podcast
Copyright: © 2024 Josh Szeps 224787
Outside Australia, Alexander Downer is best known as the diplomat who kicked off the Mueller Investigation by alerting the FBI that one of Trump’s advisors, George Papadopoulos, said the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton over drinks in London. Downer was Australia’s ambassador to the UK at the time.
Inside Australia, Downer is a household name. He is the most consequential Foreign Minister in decades (what Americans call the Secretary of State), serving for over a decade during 9/11 and the Iraq War. As a senior government minister in the Five Eyes alliance, he was influential in formulating Western countries' response to ISIS and jihadism. Most recently, he was Australia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom (a position which, between Commonwealth countries, is called the High Commissioner).
Downer recently wrote about the UK race riots and the strains of multiculturalism. As someone deeply familiar with immigration, multiculturalism, Islamism and foreign policy, Josh wanted to pick his brain.
Don’t miss a moment of the intellectual action. Get email updates from the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
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Our societies are more diverse than ever, yet we spend more of our time with people just like us. Are we losing a sense of common life? Maybe the far left and the far right aren't the cause of our division, but a consequence of it?
Jon Yates is an entertaining, whip smart writer and activist who studies how to build a more united society. He says the problem is not that we're different from each other, but that we're distant from the other. We are not fractured because of Trump or Fox News or MSNBC - those are consequences, not the cause, of our fracturing. Our divisions create the space for demagogues, he argues, not the other way around.
Is he right? If so, what can we do? Jon has a few ideas. Many of them you won't like, especially the "Hitler-y" ones (we hope). But you definitely want to hear them.
Jon's book is called "Fractured". To hear more from clever bunnies like him, get our newsletter at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
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Are we too focused on race? Have recent anti-racist movements like The Voice to Parliament and Black Lives Matter abandoned the colour-blind spirit of the civil rights pioneers?
Josh took to the stage for a special one-night-only Uncomfortable Conversations live event with Coleman Hughes, one of America’s most prominent authors and thinkers on the topic of race.
This is a 25 minute preview of the exclusive live show. If you want to hear the full 1 hour + event, as well as lots more similarly provocative conversations, head to https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_
"The debate over free speech, hate speech, online harms, algorithms and social media is tangling us up in knots. Let’s get back to first principles, because our ability to survive the 21st century depends on it."
So wrote Josh in Australia's top newspapers on the weekend, linked below. He had gotten into a stoush on the national TV panel show Q+A with Australia's eSafety Commissioner, whom Elon Musk calls a “censorship commissar”, over free speech on social media.
Thanks to you, the listener whose attention makes this show possible, we needn't restrict ourselves to thinking inside the limitations of the television sound bite, or the newspaper column inch. Here, in a freewheeling, unfettered way, let’s wrestle with free speech, algorithms, incitement... and whether it's sexist to tweet that #NotAllMen are dicks.
To get more content like this and support the free-speech mission of Uncomfy Convos, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
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Andy is the producer The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling and previously of the New York Times' groundbreaking podcast The Daily.
During the riots and racial reckoning after the killing of George Floyd, newsrooms were roiled by existential questions: Should journalists be activists? Do white male journalists hide behind "objectivity" to impose their bias? Do they get coddled by media companies who hide their misdeeds, or do they suffer extra scrutiny as targets for the social-justice mob?
Andy was in the eye of the storm. He'd been snapped up by the world's most powerful newspaper to grow its audio division, co-creating The Daily and other celebrated podcasts like Caliphate and Rabbit Hole.
Then, in a life-altering cancel-culture frenzy, he lost it all.
Andy is in Sydney for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, where he and Josh spoke together on a panel, "Speaking Bluntly: Identity politics in journalism". He stopped by the Uncomfortable Conversations studios to share his incredible tale, warts and all.
Andy's new podcast is Reflector.
This full conversation is 2h14m long. To hear it in all its glory, and to get more thought-provoking, ad-free episodes, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
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Can great TV & movies help us overcome political polarisation? Is being creative the same as being open-minded? Why are artists sometimes blinkered?
Emile Sherman is the Academy Award-winning producer of Heartstopper, Slow Horses, The King’s Speech, Top of the Lake, The Power of the Dog, Anthony Hopkins' latest film, One Life, and much more.
His new podcast, The Sandbox, interviews the key creatives behind his biggest shows and films about their creative process. His other podcast is Principle of Charity
If you’re on the free Uncomfortable Conversations podcast then this is a delightful twenty-odd-minute preview of the full conversation. Or enjoy the ninety-minute-plus intellectual adventure in all its Oscar-worthy glory by scoring your own primo podcast feed at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_
What should you make of comparisons between the present day and the 1930s? Is the greatest risk that we're sliding towards Nazi-style fascism? Or that we're being drawn into a civil war where half the country are villains?
Dennis Glover has a PhD in History from King’s College Cambridge and works as a professional speechwriter and author. He has written policy and speeches for many of Australia's most influential left-wing politicians including Julia Gillard and Kim Beazley.
He's the author of The Art of Great Speeches, Orwell’s Australia, An Economy is Not a Society, and The Last Man in Europe, a novel about George Orwell.
His new book is "Repeat: A Warning from History".
To get more content like this and to join in the fun of the Uncomfy Convos multiverse, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
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Two of the internet’s most intellectual contrarians sit down in a park with Josh. Magic ensues.
Jesse is among the world's most astute analysts of internet nonsense. He became a lightning rod when his 2018 Atlantic cover story was the first deeply reported mainstream article to question child transgender medicine.
His punishment was swift and severe, driving him into the netherworld of Podcastistan where his hit show with Katie Herzog, Blocked and Reported, analyses the pieties and group think of internet tribes. His own Substack is here.
Today's other guest is the most articulate, clear-headed contemporary thinker on race and social justice, tribalism and civil rights. He's been on The View, Real Time with Bill Maher and Joe Rogan. He's triggered a backlash from social justice warriors at the Ted conference with a Ted speech that transgressed racial taboos by calling for colourblind equality. His podcast is Conversations with Coleman and his Substack is here.
This episode is the audio of a YouTube video shot in New York City in early spring. Check it out here. It’s cool. (Oh, and subscribe to the YouTube channel, silly.)
Get tickets to see me and Coleman live in Melbourne here or at the festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney here.
For more, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_
Why do some people have strong moral opinions but don't act on them, while other people effect real change?
It's a question Josh wanted to ask Australia's most influential athlete-turned-politican. David Pocock was a rugby champion who played for Australia's national team, one of the world's most iconic rugby sides.
He then became the first senator not aligned with any major political party to represent the Australian Capital Territory. He was one of the most prominent faces in a tsunami of independents who annihilated the ruling conservative government. The billionaire backer of that political revolution, Simon Holmes à Court, had a fascinating conversation on this show which you should listen to here
You don't neeeeed to hear Holmes à Court before listening to this episode, but it's a bloody great chat so you might as well.
Josh's conversation with The MeatEater, Steven Rinella, which Senator Pocock refers to at the start, can be heard here
Senator Pocock grew up in a white family in Zimbabwe in the 1990s before moving to Australia in his teens. He and Josh discuss his anti-racism, his activism, why Aussies gamble so much, what the purpose of sport is, and whether it's time to do away with the two-party system.
If you're new to this show and you're a fan of Dave Pocock's, here are a few other episodes you might want to check out:
Sam Harris
Megan Phelps Roper
Douglas Murray Live
Tim Minchin
Needless to say, subscribe to the show in your podcast app and on YouTube if you dig it.
To get more content like this and to join in the fun of the Uncomfy Convos multiverse, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
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Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, has chosen her running mate… and it isn’t one of the swing-state governors her pollsters were recommending.
Josh is surprised, impressed, and uncharacteristically chipper about what this means for Harris, for the election and for the future of the American left. Cheer up and dive in to everything you need to understand about the possible fiftieth vice president of the United States, Tim Walz.
To get more content like this and to join in the fun of the Uncomfy Convos multiverse, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe
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