In this episode, I chat with David Josef Volodzko about good faith discourse, how to deal with those who don’t want to engage honestly, and the nature of debate. How do we have good conversations? What's at the heart of bad faith?

Steven Hassan, PhD is a mental health professional and expert in undue influence tactics used by authoritarian leaders and destructive cults. His expertise includes harmful influence in cases of destructive religious and political cults, human trafficking, extremist and terrorist groups, one-on-one relationships, families, parental alienation, mini-cults, therapy and self-improvement groups, professional and institutional abuse, corporate and multi-level marketing programs, and harmful belief systems. He is the author of four books including Combating Cult Mind Control, Freedom of Mind, and The Cult of Trump. He is a translated author with books in 10 languages.

Welcome to the Forbidden Conversations podcasts, which provides a nuanced and civil approach to difficult subjects.

This isn't a debate, but rather a civil conversation that presents two different perspectives on the trans conversation—particularly around children. There's areas of agreement and disagreement, all in good faith.

Warren Smith is a teacher whose video of a conversation with a student went viral back as he challenged the student to think critically about his claim relating to author J.K. Rowling.

It's striking how many people believe things that are demonstrably false, even though we live in an era where information is more accessible than ever before.

This conversation was streamed live on X on February 19, 2024.

Robert Scoble is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft.

My guest, Emmanuel Maggiori (PhD), is a 10-year AI industry insider and author of the book Smart Until It's Dumb: Why artificial intelligence keeps making epic mistakes (and why the AI bubble will burst). He has developed AI for a wide variety of applications, from extracting objects from satellite images to packaging holiday deals for millions of travelers every day, working as a data scientist and software engineer for various clients.  After studying software engineering in Argentina, he completed his PhD at Inria, the French national IT research lab.

These days, wars aren’t merely fought on battlefields. The battle is also for public sentiment and perception. Whether we’re talking about government propaganda, or the massive spread of lies on an unprecedented scale due to speed of transmission—it is not something to be dismissed lightly.