Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Richard Dawkins is one of the world’s most influential intellectuals.

An icon of science, reason and atheism, he shook the field of biology half a century ago with his groundbreaking book The Selfish Gene. The Royal Institution shortlisted it as one of the best science books of all time.

Dawkins has too many honorary doctorates and awards to list. In 2021, the American Humanist Association withdrew its highest honour - which they’d awarded him a quarter-century earlier - because of his scientific approach to biological sex and transgenderism. In 2004, he was voted #1 in Prospect magazine's list of the top 100 public British intellectuals.

He invented the word “meme” to describe the cultural equivalent of a gene, and founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

At the age of 85, Dawkins has a new book, 42 Tales From Life, featuring essays exploring animal behavior and evolution. He was kind enough to visit the Uncomfortable Conversations studio on a tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Tickets to see Richard live are available here https://thinkable.events/tours/an-evening-with-richard-dawkins

Are women's rights helped or hindered by hitching them to an intersectional alliance of climate justice, Gaza activism and transgender rights?

Professor Catharine Lumby founded the media departments at both of Sydney's big ivy-league universities, UNSW and Sydney University, where she remains the department chair.

An icon of the Australian left, Lumby started out as a fiery third-wave feminist writing extensively about the media, sex and social justice. She became a journalist, columnist and feature writer at Australia's biggest newspapers, and spent the 1990s in New York before doing her PhD about tabloid journalism.

Now a Professor in Media & Communications, Lumby joins Josh to reflect on university activism over the course of her career, changes to feminism, social justice, anti-Zionism and trans rights.

She respectfully requests that you not cancel her for this conversation.

Here she is!

Reem Ibrahim started out as a run-of-the-mill British pro-Corybn social democrat. Then she went to the London School of Economics and Political Science, passed through a phase of anarcho-capitalism, and has become a rising star of libertarian activism and consumer choice advocacy.

She joins Josh to debate the French protests, the UK’s National Health Service, A.I. regulation, welfare payments, public services, data centres, and why there’s no air-conditioning in Europe.

Trumpism is over. The Republican coalition is in tatters.

What’s next?

Democrats have a massive new congressional majority, including in deeply Republican areas. The last time they got this large a share of the popular vote for House candidates (in any election, midterm or otherwise) was after Watergate, half a century ago. Kansas has elected a Democratic senator for the first time since 1932.

But what, exactly, are voters demanding? Can Democrats provide it? And what do such large swings tell us about the responsiveness of the political system... and the stability of society as a whole?

Josh wasn’t going to opine on the midterms but the size of the swing, and the triumphalist coverage from the legacy media, nudged him into this thought-provoking editorial. It was delivered live on Substack on Wednesday evening, U.S.-time. Grab a brandy and a cigar, and enjoy.

As the US midterms unfold, take a moment to reflect on the bigger picture. While voters protest data centres and politicians quibble about A.I. regulations, you and I are left with a few questions.
What rules can constrain A.I.? What are the real risks? What's wrong with the black-&-white thinking of A.I. doomerism vs A.I. utopianism? Could a face-eating-zombie analogy help?
This editorial was delivered as a Substack Livestream at 7pm ET on election day, to help you focus a little less on the horse race and a little more on what matters. Let Josh take your hand for an enlivening stroll through the lush gardens of A.I. risk.

Is independent thinking sustainable for humans? Or will people always collapse into tribes, mandating beliefs and excommunicating heretics?

Is Josh a delusional optimist for believing in humanism, liberalism, pluralism and reason? Is it inevitable that people will sort themselves into comforting groups that increase polarization and cultural warfare? Is MAGA a cult? Is gender ideology? Is Zionism? Is multiculturalism?
Andrew Gold is one of Britain's most popular podcasters and YouTubers. A former mainstream journalist whose documentaries aired on HBO and the BBC, his work dried up in the late 2010s and early 2020s. He blames that era's insistence on diversity (another cult?), when it became almost impossible for a straight white male to successfully pitch a new show.

He now hosts Heretics, a wildly popular online TV show that's proudly heterodox and frequently anti-woke. Andrew was kind enough to invite Josh to his studios in North London to discuss groupthink, the culture wars, whether Britain is unravelling, and whether liberalism itself is contradictory.

Noam Dworman is the owner of comedy’s most revered venue, the Comedy Cellar, sometimes referred to as the "Harvard” of comedy clubs. He transformed it from a single 1980s room in Greenwich Village into a five-venue behemoth.
The stars who made their name on Dworman’s stage are a who’s who: Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Chris Rock, Jon Stewart, Amy Schumer, Ray Romano, Sarah Silverman, Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K.
Why does Noam still do it? What has he learned about how to lead a good life? Is it harder to get ahead as a small business owner these days? And why is he getting fined for other people’s sidewalk trash?
Josh visits Noam at his studio above the Cellar to discuss how to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are wrong—from border-town voters, to Trump officials. They wrestle with free speech, ICE, bureaucracy, and why cancel culture’s “consequences” might be harsher than we think.

As we hold our breath to find out whether Israelis will finally spurn Netanyahuism, Yael Bar Tur joins Josh to definitely NOT discuss the Israeli election.

Yael majored in counterterrorism in Israel and has a master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. As the NYPD’s head of digital, she was on the front lines of the official response to the defund-the-police movement of the 2010s.

Josh and Yael dug into the Israeli electoral system, the American banking system, policing, and, randomly but inevitably, the new documentary about Elizabeth Holmes.

This episode is part of The Best Of series and was originally posted in 2024.

Few Britons are as iconic as Stephen Fry.

On TV, he’s an Emmy-winning comedy legend immortalised in shows like A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Jeeves & Wooster, and Blackadder. He has hosted the British Academy Film Awards twelve times and won six BAFTAs as the host of the smash-hit BBC television quiz show Q.I.

On stage, Stephen’s adaptation of Me and My Girl won two Olivier Awards. He was nominated for a Tony for his performance in The Globe’s production of Twelfth Night on Broadway.

On the big screen, he’s starred in Wilde (as Oscar Wilde, a performance nominated for a Golden Globe), Gosford Park, Chariots of Fire, A Fish Called Wanda, V for Vendetta and The Hobbit.

Stephen is the voice of all the Harry Potter audiobooks. His eloquence infuses his countless essays, comedy sketches, articles, novels, and books about Greek mythology.

His autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, with its raw honesty about his screwed-up teenage years, was transformational for a young Josh Szeps.

On a trip to Sydney, Stephen swung by the Uncomfortable Conversations studios to visit with Josh. Enjoy this sparkling conversation about the cycle of life, the richness of being human, finding creative authenticity, and ignoring Donald Trump.

Is the exhausted majority stuck choosing between two extremes that can’t be satisfied, and what happens when the far left and far right go head to head?

Josh chats with comedy writer and author of I Might Be Wrong, Jeff Maurer, live from a Washington, DC, hotel room, about why centrists keep losing the argument on both sides. They dig into the chaos in France, where a nation that riots over a modest rise in the retirement age may now face a runoff between an old-school communist and Marine Le Pen, and why Jeff thinks the far right wins that contest almost every time. They also cover the motte-and-bailey fallacy, Australia’s superannuation fix versus America’s looming Social Security cliff, why the left needs its own “Nixon goes to China” moment, the illiberal turn in progressive race politics, and the case for a really basic version of Medicare for All.