At 26, Hannah Ferguson is one of the most influential young women in Australia. Her media company, Cheek Media, boasts an army of politically-engaged, progressive female fans. Ferguson co-hosts the smash hit podcast Big Small Talk, which breaks down politics and pop culture.

An unapologetic progressive, she recently interviewed the prime minister and earned the honour of speaking at one of Australia's most prestigious forums, the National Press Club address. Ferguson intends to run for the senate and to someday be prime minister.

She and Josh wrestle with new media and old, feminism, schisms in the online mediaverse, Rupert Murdoch, and holding guests - and themselves - to account.

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Andrew Sullivan is one of the most influential political writers of his generation.

He became the face of the gay marriage fight, after writing the first major American article arguing for it in 1989. His 1995 book, Virtually Normal, became a bible of the marriage equality movement.

Andrew had moved to America to get his PhD in politics from Harvard in the '80s, after studying at Oxford.

As a gay, British, Catholic conservative in America, he dominated debates - on television as well as in writing - on everything from AIDS to Iraq to Obama.

Andrew pioneered online journalism as one of the first superstar "bloggers". He wrote for the likes of London's Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, the Atlantic, Time magazine, the New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He now publishes The Weekly Dish on Substack.

Josh and Andrew discuss his gay marriage fight, the opposition from gays, the transgender culture wars, HIV/AIDS, the "LGBTQ+ community", Andrew's college life in Reagan's America, and how he won over a conservative country to a radical agenda (and how liberals might do it again).

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Terms like "genocide" and "apartheid" are thrown around a lot by anti-Israel activists. But when a leading Israeli Holocaust historian declares his own country to be a genocidal apartheid state, we ought to listen.

Born and raised in Israel, Dr Goldberg is a professor in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was the head of the university's Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry until last year.

Goldberg is a world-renowned expert on the cultural history of Jews during the Holocaust, in particular in the Warsaw Ghetto. He's been a visiting scholar at many of the top institutes for the study of genocide all over Europe and America, including at Cornell University and at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

These bona fides give Goldberg the authority to level devastating accusations against his homeland. He recently went viral after co-authoring an opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, entitled "There's No Auschwitz in Gaza. But It's Still Genocide".

Professor Goldberg made time for Josh from his office in Jerusalem.

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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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