Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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.

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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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What's the purpose of school? Why do we run schools the way we do? How might we reinvent education in an era of artificial intelligence and ADHD?

Professor Pasi Sahlberg is one of the world's leading education experts. He ran Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture, moved to Washington DC to advise the World Bank on education, and was a visiting professor at Harvard University. His award-winning book is "Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland?"

Pasi is now a professor at the University of Melbourne. He sat down with Josh to discuss radical ideas in teaching, learning, play, discipline, devices, and how to view school from the perspective of a child.

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The Democratic Party is paralysed. It can't merely offer resistance to Trump. It also needs to offer an alternative to him. But how? Should they oppose his every move, as the likes of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Cory Booker believe? Or should they shut up and wait for the president to doom himself, as Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and former Clinton consultant James Carville prefer? How have Democrats fallen... and what can they do now?

David Pakman is the guy Josh goes to for a vibe-check of the American left. He hosts one of the most-watched progressive YouTube shows in the world, The David Pakman Show, with over three million subscribers. His book is "The Echo Machine: How Right-Wing Extremism Created a Post-Truth America".

This week, David appeared on Szeps Live, which airs on Substack every Tuesday night at 9pm ET. They discuss their criticisms of the president, the curious spinelessness of congressional Republicans, how the Democrats can recover, and to what extent the left's woes are caused by purity tests and social-justice dogmas.

You can follow David's YouTube show here and watch Josh's Substack show, for free, every week, by signing up here.

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When are independent shows like Uncomfortable Conversations serving a useful purpose... and when are they just preaching to the choir?

"Decoding the Gurus" is a podcast that dissects how new-media personalities gain guru status. Frequently, such podcasters claim to be bravely challenging the status quo... while comfortably pandering to their team. Is Josh such a hack?

Josh is in Tokyo visiting one of the Decoding hosts, Chris, who lives there. The three of them caught up to record this crossover episode -- reflecting on Josh's run-ins with the likes of Candace Owens and Joe Rogan, debating the role of the new media vs the legacy media, and establishing, once and for, why Lex Fridman is a robot.

You can find the Decoding the Gurus podcast here.

You’re missing out on tons of exceptional content if you haven’t hit up the Uncomfy Convos Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

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