Curious Worldview

I've anticipated this interview for 6 years. 

Robyn Davidson has lived one of the most mythologised lives in Australian memory.

She famously and unintentionally burst onto the scene with Tracks in 1988, which was a 2,700km camel trek across the Simpson desert. She'd never intended to write a book or document anything of it's kind from the journey, but was desperate for some money to gather supplies for the impending trip. She figured $1000 would do, and serendipitously met the National Geographic photographer who put her on the map whilst cleaning windows as a part time gig in Alice Springs. 

He said that if she wrote to National Geographic telling them about the journey, then she might get what she needed.

They paid her $4,000 which Robyn comments 'was a fortune', and from there, the rest is history.

Robyn has since lived between India, London and Australia but travelled most elsewhere on the map. She was with Salman Rushdie while he wrote the 'Satanic Verses', has published a series of books and articles documenting the lives of nomads, lived an 'aristocratic life' with her partner Narendra Singh Bhati in the high Himalayas and most recently published an autobiography titled 'Unfinished Woman'. Robyn say's to me that 'memoir is the slipperiest genre'.

I have waited 6 years to do this interview with Robyn. She has a dream guest of mine since before the podcast began. We recorded earlier this year in rural Victoria. 

The interview is Robyn's life. What led up to tracks, and what happened after. 

Robyn reflects on her lifelong resistance to labels. Not a “writer,” not a “traveller,” not a “feminist icon,” but simply, as she says, “a person.” We speak about memoir, the slipperiness of memory “in retrospect, memory is imagination”.

She speaks candidly about solitude, beauty, and depression, her family, fame, about the distortion of the famous photographs “Rick made me look like a Vogue model, that wasn’t me”, and her uneasy relationship with literary celebrity in London alongside Doris Lessing, Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis and more.

In this podcast you can expect the following discussion. 

The Performed Self & Identity

• “Whenever you use the first-person pronoun, you are necessarily creating a character.”

The Narrative Fallacy

• “We invent neat, linear, emotionally satisfying stories to explain what happened… but the world is messy, chaotic and driven by chance.”

Freedom, Nomadism & Refusal to Be Fixed

• Freedom and movement — literal and intellectual — define her resistance to labels like “travel writer” or “author.”

Chance, Fate & Serendipity

• “On the tiniest turning point you can head off in a billion directions.”

Depression, Nihilism & Meaning

• “It’s a terrible pain that hovers somewhere between the physical body and the mental body.”
• “To learn how to deal with a profoundly nihilistic view and to counter that view — that’s been the most formative moment of my life.”

Beauty, Objectification & Subjecthood

• “If that journey was about anything, it was about being the subject of my own life, not an object.”

Feminism, Rebellion & the 1968 Generation

• The spirit of the late-’60s counterculture — radical freedom, equality, and experimentation — shaped her worldview.

Authenticity vs. Fame

• “What I was interested in was knowledge and whether people were genuine or

“I deserved whatever the opposite of a Pulitzer is.”

Phil Elwood is the author of All the Worst Humans, a confessional memoir from the dubious world of public relations.

As a PR operative. He helped Qatar win the 2022 World Cup. He spun the release of the Lockerbie bomber into a “positive headline.” Had the Gaddafi family, the Assad regime and plenty more among his clients. 

Phil speaks with humility and incredible clarity about what he learned from that world. The moral grey zones, the craft behind the spin, and how media manipulation really works in practice.

It’s a rare, honest window into an industry that prefers the shadows.

• How propaganda and PR actually get executed behind closed doors
• The mechanics of “first ink,” astroturfing, and reputation laundering
• The moral compromises behind Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid
• Sportswashing, Liv Golf, and the new global game of influence
• Whether the media is more easily manipulated than ever?
• Whether AI and independent creators can break the old PR machinery

00:00 — Who is Phil Elwood?
04:57 — Lockerbie bomber: how he manufactured “positive press” for Libya.
11:14 — “Opposite of a Pulitzer” treating the news like a solvable game.
12:30 — What a PR operative really does; “infect a newsroom.”
18:28 — First Ink masterclass: Antigua vs USA
27:44 — Qatar 2022: going negative on the US bid
40:15 — Is Sportswashing PR? Is it all bad?
49:57 — “Buy the printing press”: oligarch media ownership.
55:01 — News collapse, AI replacing reporters, and why that’s dangerous.
57:21 — Andrew Callaghan. Do gatekeepers still matter?
01:05:53 — “Digital fentanyl”; treat content as a public-health issue.
01:10:27 — Rebranding Zuckerberg; persona as PR product.
01:22:44 — Bots: PR firms pitching bot farms
01:34:30 — Practical playbook & media-literacy plus a nice close.

“In the next 25 years, the world will need more copper than in all of human history.”

Amendment - I said 3.2 billion kg of copper in opening question, I should have said 320 million kg. 

In this episode, journalist and author Vince Beiser returns to the podcast to discuss his book Power Metal, a sobering look at the metals that make modern civilization possible — and the extraordinary cost of extracting them.

We cover the story of copper — the wire of empire. Beiser reveals why humanity will need more copper in the next 25 years than we’ve used in all of history, and how that quest is reshaping geopolitics, the environment, and our very ideas of progress. From Chile’s drought-stricken Atacama mines to the e-waste yards of Lagos, Nigeria, we follow the real people and places behind our “clean-energy” future — and the dirty truths that power it.

We also unpack the rise of deep-sea mining, the billionaires behind it, and the tensions between state power, corporate ambition, and the planet’s limits. Along the way we meet Robert Friedland, Gerard Barron, Dan Gertler, and a cast of characters who prove that the world still runs on digging — and that the future will too.

If you liked The World in a Grain or stories about how our material world shapes our moral one, this conversation will hit home.

Topics: Resource wars, clean-tech paradox, deep-sea mining, copper shortage, China’s industrial strategy, EV economics, and how to reduce demand without going backwards.
Guest: Vince Beiser - author of Power Metal and The World in a Grain
Subscribe to his newsletter Power Metal Substack

The World In A Grain (Vince's First Appearance on The Curious Worldview in 2021) - https://open.spotify.com/episode/7rf8QskOPtzvp2g8tm3lMk?si=zxA1ycpKRViBFt5S3XTCLg

Timestamps.

00:00 – Intro: Vince Beiser & Power Metal
02:00 – Chile’s Copper Boom & the Atacama Water Crisis
07:00 – Congo’s Cobalt, U.S. Retreat, and Copper Geography
10:00 – The No-Free-Lunch of the Green Transition
12:30 – Lagos E-Waste Recyclers & the Hidden Cost of Recycling
19:10 – Deep-Sea Mining and the Billionaires Behind It
23:00 – The UN vs Trump: Who Owns the Ocean Floor?
33:00 – Robert Friedland, Steve Jobs & Congo’s Mining Empire
41:00 – Corruption, Crony Capitalism & Dan Gertler
47:00 – Commodity Volatility and State Intervention
52:00 – China’s Industrial Patience vs Western Myopia
55:00 – Rethinking Cars, Cities & Demand Reduction
58:00 – The Future of Resources — and Civilization Itself

Theoretical physicist and bestselling author Lawrence Krauss (A Universe from Nothing, The Known Unknowns) explores the biggest questions we can ask:
How did the universe begin? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is consciousness? And what will remain when every star has burned out?

Krauss moves seamlessly from the hard science of the Big Bang and dark energy to existential philosophy, arguing that our cosmic insignificance is precisely what makes life meaningful.

 Along the way he shares personal stories—mentorship from Nobel laureates, serendipitous discoveries, his friendship with Christopher Hitchens—and explains how curiosity and rigorous science drive human progress.

🪐 What We Cover

• 0:00 Intro & Lawrence Krauss’s background
• 1:40 Why cosmic insignificance makes life precious
• 5:45 Serendipity, creativity & the joy of discovery
• 13:00 Australia stories & reflections on public science
• 16:20 Science as culture & the power of the scientific method
• 24:30 Evidence for the Big Bang and the age of the universe (~13.8B years)
• 29:15 How astronomers measure cosmic acceleration & dark energy
• 36:00 The universe’s fate: heat death, black holes & ultimate nothingness
• 40:45 Consciousness and the mystery of self-aware stardust
• 44:40 Memories of Christopher Hitchens and Hitch’s final quip

💡 Key Ideas & Quotes

• “We make our own meaning. The universe doesn’t care—and that’s liberating.”
• “Science is not just results; it’s the process of questioning and testing.”
• “Rare things happen all the time in a big, old universe.”
• Christopher Hitchens on existence: “Why is there something rather than nothing? Just wait... it won’t be for long.”

📚 A Selection Of Books by Lawrence Krauss

• A Universe from Nothing
• The Known Unknowns
• The Physics of Star Trek
  
  

Subscribe to Chris Arnade's Substack - https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/

Who is Chris Arnade!

He started as a physicist, earning a PHD from Johns Hopkins and then took to Wall St spending two decades on an elite trading desk at CitiGroup before disillusioning his well dressed allies to engage in the photography, walking and writing of the great and forgotten cities of this world. 

He is a best selling author, but as well… a best subscribed substacker!

'Chris Arnade Walks The World' is the publications name…

And in it, Chris lives up to the title. 

Japan, Europe, China, Australia, The Faroe Islands, Canada, the expansive US of A, Turkey, Korea, Indonesia even Uzbekistan (which gets a special mention in this podcast). Cities within all of these great nations and many more, Chris has trod and documented. 

His format is slow and empathetic. Chris will embark on several 20-30km journeys at his location, take photos and then report on his walk. 

I can’t remember how long I’ve been subscribed, although it feels like years, but the other day I woke up to an email which detailed Chris’s initial impressions of Sydney! I replied to the email right away, and just a few hours later was guiding him along the Malabar to Bondi trail. Steve and I - guiding Chris from the area I grew up to the most iconic beach in Australia. 

That was a special serendipity which came out of no-where and furthermore, led to this podcast today...

• 00:00 Introduction to Chris Arnade — physicist, Wall Street trader, turned global walker/writer.
• 02:00 First impressions of Sydney — “child of LA and London,” with beaches, pubs, suburbs, and good living.

Sydney Observations

• 03:40 Sydney’s trains: efficient, sprawling, but designed to avoid beaches.
• 06:00 Sydney friendliness vs. UK cynicism — “Australians are like puppy dogs, eager to please.”
• 09:30 Suburbs as “democratized manors,” good life for the average person, housing affordability issues.
• 13:00 Housing supply constraints, coastline beauty, and why Sydney isn’t as bad as people think.

Walking & Method

• 16:30 From physics & Wall Street to walking: walks as stress relief, learning, meditation.
• 20:30 Spreadsheet brain → toy models → refining worldview through walking.
• 22:30 Cities that defied expectations: Tashkent & Jakarta.

Global Perspectives

• 25:30 Africa’s challenges: Nigeria & Dakar as examples of dysfunction despite resources.
• 29:00 Australia’s weak ties with Indonesia, lack of Indonesians in Sydney, food culture, overlapping economic models.
• 33:30 Chinese-Indonesian business dominance — parallels to Jews, Lebanese, minorities elsewhere.
• 36:00 High-trust vs. low-trust societies: Japan as the archetype.

Culture & Writing

• 41:30 Why he avoids fame, prefers anonymity, but respects subscribers deeply.
• 44:00 Pressure to deliver as a Substack writer — treating it like a job.
• 47:00 Writing inspiration, uninspired cities (Bangkok), and the challenges of always producing.
• 53:00 Strong opinions drive traffic

Dignity & Underclass

• 55:00 “Dignity” project in the US — underclass and addiction.

Personal Life

• 56:20 Family and frugality
• 58:50 Why he doesn’t read other travel writers

Philosophy & Serendipity

• 01:04:50 Serendipity? “I don’t believe in coincidence.” 
• 01:07:00  Country he’s most bullish on
• 01:09:00 Next destinations

Subscribe to Nicholas Gruen's Substack - https://nicholasgruen.substack.com/

I joined the Australian economist Nicholas Gruen recently in his Melbourne home to host his first 'long-form' podcast (although I'm not sure at what hour it goes from short to long)

At the core of Gruen's worldview is the “un-seriousness” he levels at Australian politics, the media landscape, institutions and in a word... bureaucracies.

From his creation of the HALE Index to his decades inside Australia’s public institutions, Nicholas continuously challenges orthodox thinking.

The podcast covers the (in my opinion) radical yet (Nicholas's opinion) ancient idea of citizens’ juries as a second pillar of representation, the reasons bold policy rarely survives bureaucratic reality, and how lessons from the Toyota production system could help governments actually listen to people at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Along the way, Gruen takes us from Australia’s superannuation system to pokies, from the mental health crisis to the subtle erosion of public-spiritedness inside organisations. 

To be specific, these are all the topics covered in this chat.

• The HALE Index of Well-being – Why GDP misses the mark, how HALE works, and what it reveals about Australia’s progress.
• Measuring What Matters – The limits of subjective well-being metrics, correlations between indicators, and why faux indexes mislead policymakers.
• Indigenous Policy Contradictions – The tension between material “gap closing” and self-determination, and why policy rarely confronts it.
• Citizens’ Juries & Political Reform – Introducing random selection into governance and how it could act as a check on elected officials.
• Goodhart’s Law in Action – How turning measures into targets corrupts them, and the problem of gaming metrics in education and beyond.
• Internal vs External Goods – Alasdair MacIntyre’s framework and its relevance to public service, corporate culture, and motivation.
• Institutional Stagnation – Why promising initiatives stall, and how bottom-up programs could scale without being crushed by bureaucracy.
• Toyota Production System Lessons – Building respect for frontline workers into systems and how it transforms performance.
• Australia’s Superannuation System – Strengths, inefficiencies, unfair taxation, and misaligned regulation of self-managed super funds.
• Compulsory Voting & Preferential Systems – How they shape Australia’s political centre and guard against extreme populism.
• Universities Today – The shift from idea-driven discourse to metric-chasing careerism, especially in economics.
• Trade-offs vs Synergies – Why economics often overemphasises trade-offs, and examples of where quality and cost improve together.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to Nicholas Gruen
05:41 The Limitations of GDP as a Measure
11:08 Inequality and Its Impact on Well-being
16:45 The Role of Metrics in Policy Making
22:10 The Importance of Community Engagement
41:48 Connecting Education to the Real World
47:24 Learning from Toyota's Success
56:52 The Flaws in Superannuation System
01:02:55 Reforming Auditing Practices
01:11:39 The Shift in University Education
01:20:59 Divergent Perspectives in Economics
01:32:49 Rethinking Representation in Democracy
01:48:25 The Role of Elite Consensus in Political Change
02:07:58 Understanding Domestic Violence in Indigenous Communities
02:21:55 The Role of New Media in Political Discourse
02:26:38 The Impact of Gambling on Australian Society
02:36:08 The Nature of Optimism and Serendipity in Life

Geothermal Energy Starter Pack (Geothermal Interviews On A Curious Worldview Podcast)

Curious Worldview Newsletter - https://curiousworldview.beehiiv.com/subscribe

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Quaise are on the other side of the most exciting week in their companies short history. They use millimeter wave energy from a gyrotron to vaporise rock and create boreholes for accessing deep geothermal energy, offering an alternative to costly traditional drilling methods for accessing those critically hot depths. 

It is an extremely ambitious, exciting and unique ambition - and Quaise have now proven their technology is applicable outside of theoretical and controlled lab conditions. They have successfully dug to a depth of 100m with their technology at a sight just outside of Austin, Texas - and therefore, move one step closer to realising their goal for adding electrons at scale to the grid.

Matt Houde is the Co-Founder of Quaise. This is the second time he's joined me on the podcast. In this interview today we discussed the success of Texas, the business model of Quaise, serendipity in innovation, politics and finance for Quaise and plenty more in between… 

Sam Roggeveen - The Echidna Strategy

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Sam Roggeveen coined The 'Echidna Strategy' -  which is an on the nose metaphor for thinking about Australian Defence policy. 

Echidna’s are a tiny, cute little animals native to Australia. They are essentially harmless, they only eat ants and termites but despite their size and vulnerability, they have evolved this incredible defensive system. Their bodies are covered in long, spiky thorns thereby making them immune to pretty much all types of attacks that might come from animals higher in the food chain. 

So in a nutshell, Sam wants Australia to be more like echidna’s, a threat to nobody, but disastrous to anybody that should attack them. 

In the podcast we discussed Australian defense policy in a changing global landscape. How Australia can become a self-reliant power, the implications of China's military rise, and the evolving role of the United States in the region. 

Sam shares his thoughts on the importance of ambition in leadership, the potential for an Australian-Indonesian alliance, and the strategic mistakes of AUKUS.

Sam worked as an intelligence analyst at Australia's Office of National Assessments before he joined the Lowy institute where he now serves as the Director of the International Security Program, where he leads Australia's defence strategy, US foreign policy and Chinas military development. 

The opening few minutes of this are not the best audio, but after that it kicks into studio quality. This was recorded in person in Canberra, it is my pleasure to welcome Sam Roggeveen to the podcast…

Pat McGee - Apple in China

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Each year, Apple sells more than 100 million unit's of it's various products, with some factories capable of producing up to 500,000 iPhones (alone) per day. 

This scale of quality and quantity is not replicated anywhere else in history. And it's all down to the special and unique relationship between one of the world's largest hardware companies, Apple and the worlds largest manufacturer, China. 

Pat McGee wrote the book on this... 'Apple in China', and joins me for a discussion which explores the intricate relationship between Apple and China's manufacturing landscape. Tim Cook's pivotal role, the challenges of relying on China for production, and the unique conditions that have allowed China to dominate the manufacturing sector. Pat reflects on the geopolitical implications of Apple's strategy and the serendipitous nature of his writing process, culminating in a discussion about the future of industrial statecraft and the lessons learned from Apple's experience.

00:00: Pat McGee
02:52: Tim Cook's Role in Apple's Success in China
06:00: Apple's Reliance on China and Its Vulnerabilities
12:12: The Scale of Apple's Manufacturing and Its Implications
18:12: Foxcon & Terry Gou
24:03: China's Manufacturing Strategy and Apple's Role
29:59: China's Ambitions and Apple's Unintentional Consequences
39:50: The Journey of Writing The Book
44:05: Leaning Into Serendipity
51:31: The Impact of Apple's Industrial Strategy
58:59: Geopolitical Implications of China's Manufacturing
01:08:02: Doing Jon Stewart!

Uncomfortable Conversations Podcast

Uncomfortable Conversations Substack

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Josh Szeps is a broadcaster, political commentator, and in my opinion, Australia's best interviewer. 

He has, afterall, conducted thousands of them… and from many different pulpits. Whether it’s podcasting, Huffpost live, or radio, Josh has interviewed everyone from the biggest celebrities in the world, to academics, to geopolitics, to culture wars, comedy, economics and all the rest in between - it’s incredible how flexible Josh is and how well he can extemporaneously talk about or ask the right questions of, seemingly any topic. 

He’s also someone who has been doing this for decades, and seen from the front row the two most significant disruptions to media over that time. I wanted to get something evergreen on Josh’s worldview and evolving timeline of a career…
Josh Szeps is the creator and host of one of my favourite podcasts, ‘Uncomfortable conversations’, and author of a substack by the same name. 

00:00 - Who Is Josh Szeps
05:16 - Navigating Career Paths: Serendipity and Ambition
18:08 - Finding Aliveness: Reflections on Career and Life
22:34 - The Journey to New York: Opportunities and Challenges
33:19 - The Journey to HuffPost Live
37:39 - Memorable Interviews and Guests
39:20 - Preparation for Interviews
42:21 - The Importance of Collaboration
49:12 - Norm MacDonald & Joe Rogan 
58:41 - The Joy of Media Engagement
01:00:02 - Navigating Life Changes and Career Transitions
01:10:50 - Alan Jones
01:11:52 - The Influence of Podcasting
01:12:35 - Living in Australia vs. the US
01:15:09 - The Future of Independent Media
01:21:40 - Innovating in Media Formats