The Minefield

What does it mean to be intellectually humble? How might such humility be cultivated? What are its benefits — both to ourselves and to those around us?

Now that John Cleese has announced that the iconic series will return, it’s worth examining what made Fawlty Towers a masterpiece — and whether its interaction with the political climate of the 1970s had anything to do with it.

What made the Online Compliance Initiative — better known as the Robodebt scheme — so egregious is the way it was designed to treat those purported to be “welfare cheats” with utter contempt.

Even though we rarely frame it in these terms, it is hardly inappropriate to refer to the relationship between a parent and a child as a moral relationship. Professor Luara Ferracioli joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to explore the nature, and limits, of that relationship.

There are good political and philosophical reasons for seeing free and equal access to early childhood education as an expression of our shared commitment to justice.

Dr Lauren Gurrieri joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss the sophisticated ways sports gambling operators are targeting new clientele — through targeted ads and by parasitising existing social media technologies.

Professor Naomi Baron joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss whether ChatGPT and its soon-to-be-released competitors, with their lure of efficiency and ease, are threatening the human ability to write.

Professor Maryanne Wolf joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss whether we are entering an age of widespread moral illiteracy — an incapacity to engage in the processes that make up the habit of deep reading.

Professor Mark McKenna discusses with Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens why any proposal to change the Australian Constitution must navigate Australians’ conservative disposition and underlying sense of national pride.

While political comedy has long been a distinguishing feature of truly democratic cultures, one of the more notable shifts over the past two decades has been the merger of comedy into political commentary. What has this done to the conditions of our common life?