For a long time, no matter which party was in power - the US government has operated within pretty defined guardrails… that is, until Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term. The bold new direction is largely due to people like Stephen Miller: Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff and the key driver behind his immigration policy. 

Stephen Miller has spent his entire political career working hard to systematically dismantle and destroy the guardrails that keep the US government in check. So who is this dude? How did he rise to such a position of power? And is there anything that can get in his way?

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Jon Lovett has been following the daily minutia of U.S. politics for a decade on his podcast Pod Save America. Ahead of their Australian tour, Jon joined Matt for a wide-ranging chat on how to deal with Trump, and whether the U.S. has a few lessons to learn from the Australian political system. 

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Matt is joined by psychologist and science writer Steven Pinker to discuss doomsday predictions, climate anxiety, and how best to split the balance between pessimistic fatalism and naïve optimism when considering the future.

Listen to the full 1959 'Letters to the Unborn' 

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In the midst of the Cold War, it was a very real fear that a nuclear winter would obliterate life as we know it. Now, fortunately, that never happened. 

But ironically fast forward to 2026 and the sense of dread of a nuclear war has been replaced by the impending threat of climate change, or being overrun by our AI overlords. So are we destined to feel doomed? 

This is the final episode of Black Swans a four-part series by If You're Listening. 

67 years ago, the ABC recorded a collection of predictions about the future—the one we’re living in now, in 2026. Their forecasts are truly extraordinary - Intergalactic super speed travel, future pod houses, Nuclear fallout, but strangely all of them are wrong. In Black Swans, host Matt Bevan gets to the bottom of why we’ve always been so bad at predicting the future.

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Matt and Kara discuss the book that inspired the Black Swan series… but didn’t make it into the final cut! Can experts, soothsayers, and psychics really predict what’s going to happen?

This episode is connected to Black Swans, a four-part series by If You’re Listening

67 years ago, the ABC recorded a collection of predictions about the future—the one we’re living in now, in 2026. Their forecasts are truly extraordinary - Intergalactic super speed travel, future pod houses, Nuclear fallout, but strangely all of them are wrong. In Black Swans, host Matt Bevan gets to the bottom of why we’ve always been so bad at predicting the future.

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

In 1959 a flight to London took days and cost half a year’s average salary.  But things were changing rapidly. The invention of the Concorde meant that you could fly from Adelaide to London in just under seven hours.  Travel was getting faster and many expected we’d be routinely zipping around the world and travelling to other planets in no time. But now, aside from planes, most of our transport is not much faster than it was back then, so why are we still so slow? 

Matt and Kara delve deeper into the story of town planner Alex Ramsay, and the bizarre deal he struck to purchase the land that would become Elizabeth, SA. 

This episode is connected to episode two of the Black Swans series, all concerning predictions of Australia's future, and how we got it so wrong.

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In the 1950s three quarters of Australians were homeowners,  most lived on a quarter-acre block, with a mortgage that could be covered with one income while someone stayed at home to look after the children.  Nowadays, house prices have sky rocketed and younger generations largely feel locked out. So where did it all go wrong?

Until recently people were scared our planet would be outstripped by the weight of a colossal population. Experts feared that by 2026, there would be so many people that we would be starved of resources, and eat ourselves to death. Ironically we now find ourselves in a world where we’re not scared about having too many babies, but rather too few. So what happened?

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Kara and Matt take you behind the scenes of putting the series together, and how hard it is to find an iron when you need one.

The Black Swans series kicks off this Thursday 8th January on podcast, and hits television on Saturday 10th January.

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