Q+A on “the wisdom of crowds”
Waleed Aly, Scott Stephens and philosopher Stephanie Collins field questions from a live studio audience on crowd-behaviour, conformity and the importance of dissent.
Mar 06, 2024•53 min
The Minefield
In a world marked by wicked social problems, The Minefield helps you negotiate the ethical dilemmas, contradictory claims and unacknowledged complicities of modern life.
Episodes
How much credence should we give to “the wisdom of crowds”?
Ever since Plato, “crowds” have been associated with irrationality, emotivism, conformism, short-term thinking, and herd-like behaviour. But what if it turns out that crowds are collectively more intelligent than their individual members?
Feb 28, 2024•53 min
When is it right to call some act – or someone – “evil”?
What are we trying to convey when we reach for a word like “evil”? Is it something about a person’s actions or character? Is it what they do or the manner in which they do it?
Feb 21, 2024•54 min
From Beyoncé to Taylor Swift — what’s behind the mass appeal of live music events?
It is worth reflecting, not just on what is singular about Taylor Swift at this particular cultural moment — why she attracts both the loyalty and the animus that she does — but on what it is about live music events that now draw millions of people to them.
Feb 14, 2024•54 min
What is the harm in “deepfakes” — and what are they doing to democracy?
Over the last 18 months, enormously powerful generative AI tools have been placed in the hands of anyone who wants them; as a consequence, the internet and our social media feeds have been inundated with wholly or partially synthetic content.
Feb 07, 2024•54 min
How can trust be cultivated in a time of pervasive suspicion?
Because it is sustained by nothing more substantial than a weave of trusted institutions, shared habits and moral commitments, democracies are highly susceptible to the corrosive effects of distrust; Jedediah Purdy joins Waleed and Scott to discuss the necessary conditions for democratic life.
Jan 31, 2024•54 min
What do we lose by succumbing to conspiracy-mindedness?
Ours is a time when institutional distrust, digital disinformation and mutual suspicion have become pervasive — but can democracy withstand epistemic and social fragmentation of this kind?
Jan 24, 2024•53 min
In a screen saturated age, is literacy under threat?
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.
Jan 17, 2024•54 min
What do we lose when we lose the capacity for boredom?
It is fair to say that boredom is a distinctly modern terror. But, as Stan Grant discusses with Waleed and Scott, what if existential boredom points us to our deeper need?
Jan 10, 2024•54 min
Goya’s “Saturn” and its moral challenge
Spanish painter Francisco de Goya’s depiction of Saturn eating his son is a haunting portrait of lust and the fear of one’s own finitude. Christos Tsiolkas joins Waleed and Scott to look into that darkness, and discover what looks back.
Jan 03, 2024•54 min
Politics, farce ... and Fawlty Towers
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.
Dec 27, 2023•53 min
What are playlists doing to our ability to listen to music?
Platforms like Spotify have transformed the way people listen to music through their use of recommendation algorithms and customised playlists designed to cater to either a particular activity or a particular mood.
Dec 20, 2023•53 min
Dickens’s philosophy of generosity: Revisiting “A Christmas Carol”, 180 years on
Australian novelist Briohny Doyle joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to examine Charles Dickens’s unforgettable tale of misanthropy and remorse, and discover how its aesthetic techniques and ethical vision continue to speak to us today.
Dec 13, 2023•54 min
How much should we expect from the state?
What is a state for? How does its nature, actions, and limits differ from other corporate bodies? Is the relationship of a state to its citizens fundamentally that of a service provider to its clients?
Dec 06, 2023•54 min
Should drivers of electric vehicles be taxed more to use the roads?
If we are not careful, the use of incentives to encourage people to purchase electric vehicles could backfire by offending our sense of fairness.
Nov 29, 2023•54 min
What is social cohesion, what cultivates it, and what undermines it?
The latest Mapping Social Cohesion report from the Scanlon Foundation paints a complex picture that helps us understand the conditions within which social cohesion is able to strengthen, and those factors which cause it to become brittle and even break down.
Nov 22, 2023•54 min
What is the moral case for a ceasefire in Gaza?
Calls for an end to the devastation of Gaza, and the death and displacement of its residents, reached a crescendo on Remembrance Day. While the moral case is compelling, it raises questions that are complex and consequential.
Nov 15, 2023•52 min
What’s behind the anger? On Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”
Nearly a century after its publication, Australian novelist Charlotte Wood joins Waleed and Scott to discuss what Virginia Woolf’s essay tell us about egotism, contempt, creative freedom and the possibility of moral transformation.
Nov 08, 2023•54 min
Do we know what the result of the Voice referendum means?
Because referenda are zero-sum contests, the message they convey is paradoxically both obscure and unambiguous — which is to say, their meaning is open to interpretation and unintentionally harsh.
Nov 01, 2023•54 min
Is it time to reconsider Australia’s bipartisan commitment to “stopping the boats”?
Australia recently marked ten years since the introduction of Operation Sovereign Borders — a policy whereby refugees entering Australian waters by boat were met with unwavering, military-led deterrence.
Oct 25, 2023•54 min
Some deaths matter more to us than others — but should they?
The civilian massacres in Israel on 7 October and the devastation inflicted on residents of Gaza both make claims on our humanity, on our capacity to recognise and respond to the deaths of others — but some find these claims mutually exclusive.
Oct 18, 2023•54 min
Can young people stay politically engaged without becoming disillusioned with democracy?
One of the great paradoxes of democracy is that those who will have to bear the consequences of the political decisions we make now have little-to-no say in the decision-making process itself.
Oct 11, 2023•54 min
Travel is bad for the climate — but what if it’s also bad for us?
Most of us are aware of the environmental costs associated with international tourism. But have we considered whether travel enhances or diminishes our moral lives?
Oct 04, 2023•54 min
What’s the point of blame? When is it right to forgive?
Blame and forgiveness are two of the most natural responses to wrongdoing — and yet, increasingly, these responses are viewed with a degree of suspicion, if not outright hostility, due to the myriad ways they can go wrong.
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Can democracy withstand the strategic use of online confusion?
Is there any way of retrieving the deliberative conditions under which democratic life is possible, when the social media cacophony makes hearing one another so hard?
Sep 20, 2023•54 min
In a critical age, are we losing the ability to say why we love what we love?
We’ve reached the point in mass culture, to say nothing of the “higher culture” of academia, when criticism is the norm. To the point that we increasingly define ourselves by what we hate.
Sep 13, 2023•53 min
Facing the darkness: The moral challenge of Goya’s “Saturn devouring his son” (1823)
Spanish painter Francisco de Goya’s depiction of Saturn eating his son is a haunting portrait of lust and the fear of one’s own finitude. Christos Tsiolkas joins Waleed and Scott to look into that darkness, and discover what looks back.
Sep 06, 2023•53 min
When is a referendum an unethical way of resolving a political question?
Now that the PM has announced the date of the referendum, it’s worth remembering that the zero-sum nature of referenda can unleash the kind of bruising rhetoric that does lasting damage to a political community, no matter the outcome.
Aug 30, 2023•53 min
Should climate change make us rethink the ethics of nuclear energy?
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has recently reintroduced the prospect of nuclear power as part of Australia’s commitment to decarbonisation. But what is behind the push for nuclear, and does it make sense in a nation like this?
Aug 23, 2023•54 min
1 May 1956: Was Elizabeth Anscombe right to charge Harry Truman with murder?
When Oxford University proposed to confer an honorary degree on the man who ordered an atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe condemned the decision as “shar[ing] in the guilt of a bad action by praise and flattery”.
Aug 16, 2023•54 min