How do you reconcile Trump's passion for American Greatness with his disengagement from international systems which America set up? What are the consequences so far of Trump's tariff flip-flops? Can Ukraine be resolved by the Great Powers alone? Do volatile bond markets predict the end of the U.S. dollar? Where does this all leave America in relation to the rest of the world? And what's the deal with Qatar's gift of a blingy Air Force One?

David Smith is an expert in American and international politics with the U.S. Studies Centre in Sydney. He's an Aussie who got his PhD in political science from the University of Michigan.

Here, he helps us understand the real theory underpinning Trump's foreign policy, and how it's likely to shake out.

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We've got a special treat for you today. Josh sat down with the hosts of the "Changed My Mind" podcast, who interrogated him about whether it's really possible, in our divided times, to change someone's mind.

Josh shares his thoughts about the art of persuasion; reveals topics on which his position has changed; and wrestles with conundrums like factory farming, freedom of speech and abortion.

How persuadable are people, really? Josh is more hopeful than many.

"Changed My Mind" is hosted by Aidan Alexander and Thom Norman. 

You can check out the tool we discussed that Thom and Aidan's non-profit created to offset your diet's impact on animals at compassioncalculator.org, and if you use the code uncomfortable conversations you'll get your donation matched 100%.

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Gurwinder rose to fame writing elaborately insightful Twitter threads about how to be human in the twenty-first century. He now publishes The Prism, on Substack, a guide to navigating the digital age.

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Are people too disagreeable these days? Or, in fact, are we losing the knack for disagreement? Are we self-silencing? Or getting more rude?

Jenara Nerenberg is the founder and host of The Neurodiversity Project. She's a Harvard graduate who lectures widely on neuroscience and diversity, and who runs workshops at institutions like the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Her new book, "Trust Your Mind: Embracing Nuance in a World of Self-Silencing", investigates the psychology of “self-silencing” and the toxic impact of groupthink.

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Are we alone? If alien life exists, why can't we find it? What's "the great filter"? Why is the universe set up the way it is? What are the chances there 's some purpose to it all? And is BBC News correct in reporting that "Scientists find 'strongest evidence yet' of life on distant planet"? What have we actually found? What might it mean? 

Whenever the news turns to alien life, Josh turns to his favourite astrophysicist, Dr. Sara Webb, at the Swinburne Institute of Technology in Melbourne. Light up a reefer, lie on your back, gaze at the stars, and pop this one in your ear holes, humans.

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The internet is a dumpster fire. Are you a firefighter? Or an arsonist?

This episode is a cracker. Sacha Judd is an expert on internet subcultures. A former lawyer, she has become something like “the Mark Cuban of New Zealand” - a smart, left-wing investor in high-growth startups; advisor to businesses; and fierce commentator on Big Tech.

Sacha wants to bring back the “good internet”: a place fueled by genuine community, creativity, and connection.

She and Josh wrestle with online conspiracy theories, artificial intelligence, social-media content moderation, whether platforms like Substack have a “Nazi problem”, and whether Mark Zuckerberg just wants to say the R-word.

They get into a few fascinating arguments about free speech, transphobia, A.I., and whether Twitter’s content moderation was ever ‘woke’. Don’t miss this terrific chat.

Follow Sacha here and, if you enjoy this conversation, do bother to throw the price of a Venti Mocha Frappuccino into a monthly subscription. If you, our audience, don’t devote sixty seconds to subscribing, then this show dies. You’ll score more episodes, longer chats, no ads, and video livestreams that you don’t even know exist. Go for it right now. Right here.

For more on the Australian election, check out Josh’s Livestream with Peter van Onselen here.

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Do nuclear weapons protect Western civilisation? Or are they an insane error that humanity should undo? Is nuclear power worth the cost and risk?

Dave Sweeney co-founded the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

Dave and Josh debate the risks and rewards of nuclear weapons and nuclear power in an unstable world, and discuss whether environmentalism is antithetical to progress. 

To hear every bit of this fascinating, two-hour-plus conversation with no ads, subscribe here. And follow Dave's work at the Australian Conservation Foundation here.

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Have indigenous Welcomes-to-Country gone too far?

On Friday, far-right hecklers disrupted the Welcome to Country (i.e. the land acknowledgment, in North American parlance) of a profound Australian national event, the Anzac Day Dawn Service.

The protest has sparked a national firestorm about race, racism and remembrance.

Josh shares his thoughts about the coverage of the controversy, and then debates its deeper implications with the Indigenous scholar Tyson Yunkaporta.

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What’s social media doing to us, and how would you fix it?

Mark Zuckerberg has been a busy boy on the witness stand in Washington DC lately. In one of the most consequential antitrust cases in tech history, Meta is being sued by the U.S. government for allegedly maintaining a monopoly. It could reshape the future of social media, privacy regulation, and Big Tech.

But in an ideal world, how would you reform social media? How might we prevent it from deranging us?

Frances Haugen worked at Google and Facebook as a product manager and data engineer. She helped build algorithms that tweaked the ranking of search results. Then she made global news as a whistleblower, collaborating with the Wall Street Journal on bombshell stories about Facebook's misdeeds. She appeared on 60 Minutes and testified before Congress.

Frances and Josh discuss the problems with social media and what practical steps she recommends to reform the industry... and save civilisation.

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What do you make of a U.S. government that snatches people off the street and disappears them into Central American prisons, forever, with no trial, and no way to appeal?

Matt Welch is a libertarian journalist. He's no wild-eyed, Trump-loathing leftie. Fresh off the back of his appearance on Bill Maher, Matt joined Josh on Josh's streaming TV show, Szeps Live, to riff about Elon, DOGE, government effectiveness, abundance liberalism, high-speed rail, Orbán, Erdoğan, el Salvador, the Supreme Court, and, ultimately, whether America is sliding towards an illiberal, MAGA-tinged, Hungary-style democratic authoritarianism.

Follow Matt over at The Fifth Column, and catch Szeps Live every Tuesday at 9pm ET on Substack.

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