"The debate over free speech, hate speech, online harms, algorithms and social media is tangling us up in knots. Let’s get back to first principles, because our ability to survive the 21st century depends on it." So wrote Josh in Australia's top newspapers on the weekend, linked below. He had gotten into a stoush on the national TV panel show Q+A with Australia's eSafety Commissioner, whom Elon Musk calls a “censorship commissar”, over free speech on social media. Thanks to you, the listener who...
Aug 29, 2024•49 min•Ep 259•Transcript available on Metacast Andy is the producer The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling and previously of the New York Times' groundbreaking podcast The Daily. During the riots and racial reckoning after the killing of George Floyd, newsrooms were roiled by existential questions: Should journalists be activists? Do white male journalists hide behind "objectivity" to impose their bias? Do they get coddled by media companies who hide their misdeeds, or do they suffer extra scrutiny as targets for the social-justice mob? Andy was i...
Aug 26, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Ep 258•Transcript available on Metacast Can great TV & movies help us overcome political polarisation? Is being creative the same as being open-minded? Why are artists sometimes blinkered? Emile Sherman is the Academy Award-winning producer of Heartstopper, Slow Horses, The King’s Speech, Top of the Lake, The Power of the Dog, Anthony Hopkins' latest film, One Life, and much more. His new podcast, The Sandbox , interviews the key creatives behind his biggest shows and films about their creative process. His other podcast is Princi...
Aug 22, 2024•30 min•Ep 257•Transcript available on Metacast What should you make of comparisons between the present day and the 1930s? Is the greatest risk that we're sliding towards Nazi-style fascism? Or that we're being drawn into a civil war where half the country are villains? Dennis Glover has a PhD in History from King’s College Cambridge and works as a professional speechwriter and author. He has written policy and speeches for many of Australia's most influential left-wing politicians including Julia Gillard and Kim Beazley. He's the author of T...
Aug 19, 2024•53 min•Ep 256•Transcript available on Metacast Two of the internet’s most intellectual contrarians sit down in a park with Josh. Magic ensues. Jesse is among the world's most astute analysts of internet nonsense. He became a lightning rod when his 2018 Atlantic cover story was the first deeply reported mainstream article to question child transgender medicine. His punishment was swift and severe, driving him into the netherworld of Podcastistan where his hit show with Katie Herzog, Blocked and Reported , analyses the pieties and group think ...
Aug 15, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep 255•Transcript available on Metacast Why do some people have strong moral opinions but don't act on them, while other people effect real change? It's a question Josh wanted to ask Australia's most influential athlete-turned-politican. David Pocock was a rugby champion who played for Australia's national team, one of the world's most iconic rugby sides. He then became the first senator not aligned with any major political party to represent the Australian Capital Territory. He was one of the most prominent faces in a tsunami of inde...
Aug 12, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep 254•Transcript available on Metacast Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, has chosen her running mate… and it isn’t one of the swing-state governors her pollsters were recommending. Josh is surprised, impressed, and uncharacteristically chipper about what this means for Harris, for the election and for the future of the American left. Cheer up and dive in to everything you need to understand about the possible fiftieth vice president of the United States, Tim Walz. To get more content like this...
Aug 07, 2024•26 min•Ep 253•Transcript available on Metacast DON'T MISS COLEMAN HUGHES AND JOSH LIVE IN MELBOURNE! GET TICKETS NOW AT https://bit.ly/Coleman-Szeps-Melb Vaccine mandates. Wokeness in Hollywood. The female pay gap. Race protests. Diversity programs. Covid lockdowns. #metoo. The so-called intellectual dark web tackled it all. A loose grouping of dissenting intellectuals and commentators, they sought to buck taboos and open minds. What happened? Who went down the rabbit hole to crazy town, and who maintained thier heads? And where is the space...
Aug 05, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep 252•Transcript available on Metacast Have you ever wondered what’s up with Earth? Seriously. What the actual heck. Of all those trillions of space rocks, this one is all leafy and watery and lifey. What is it, this spaceship we’re on, this pale blue dot? Might it be a kind of living thing itself? This old hippy idea has been wrestled into a more fascinating, harder-headed thesis by the scientist and journalist Ferris Jabr. He's written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, National Geographic, Wired and The Los Angeles Revi...
Aug 02, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Ep 251•Transcript available on Metacast Project 2025, technically the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, is a set of sweeping policy changes to be enacted on Day One of the next conservative administration. If Trump wins, that’s January 20th, 2025. Skye Perryman is one of the project’s leading opponents. She’s the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a non-profit that promotes democracy through court cases, lobbying and education. Washingtonian magazine named her one of this year’s Most Influential People Shaping Policy and her ...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep 250•Transcript available on Metacast How do you escape the shaming of the mob when you're a public figure with original ideas? Tim Minchin is one of the most successful creatives Australia has ever produced. He wrote the music and lyrics for Matilda the Musical, which won more Olivier Awards than any other show in history at the time. Now in its 13th year, the show continues to sell out on the West End. The Broadway production was nominated for a stash of Tonys. The 2022 movie version is a riot. Minchin went on to write the Broadwa...
Jul 26, 2024•2 hr 4 min•Ep 249•Transcript available on Metacast First things first: The Uncomfortable Conversations LIVE touring empire is expanding, with live shows in Sydney and Melbourne in August with the inimitable Coleman Hughes. Tickets are selling fast. Get yours now. Don’t miss out: Sydney https://bit.ly/Coleman-Szeps-Syd Melbourne https://bit.ly/Coleman-Szeps-Melb Meanwhile, the new YouTube page is going gangbusters. The episode you're listening to was shot as an outdoor TV interview on an early spring day in a Manhattan park. Check it out and subs...
Jul 23, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep 248•Transcript available on Metacast When Sydney's biggest broadsheet newspaper published an opinion piece by Josh on the occasion of the Mardi Gras Gay Pride Parade, it triggered a backlash from some in the LGBT+ community. One of Josh's attackers was a prominent activist, Alastair Lawrie, the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Justice and Equity Centre. Instead of arguing with Alastair on Twitter, Josh invited him on the show to hash out their differences and discuss what challenges the LGBTQ+ community still faces. To get mo...
Jul 17, 2024•44 min•Ep 247•Transcript available on Metacast Well, what happens now? Does Donald Trump win? Does he lose? To whom? What are we all in for? On the eve of Trump’s coronation as the Republican presidential candidate at the party’s National Convention this week, he was narrowly shot in an apparent assassination attempt at a rally. Is this the most dramatic election of our lives? David Frum is one of the most influential anti-Trumpers to come out of a Republican White House. As President George W Bush’s speechwriter, he's credited with the famo...
Jul 15, 2024•2 hr 42 min•Ep 246•Transcript available on Metacast "Transsexual" sounds like an old-fashioned term. But it describes a real medical condition in which your brain has the opposite sex from your body. Are transsexuals threatened by newer gender-queer, non-binary theories of sex? Dr Dana Beyer says so. She's one of the most influential and effective trans activists in history. A medical doctor and self-described transsexual, she's been striding the hallways of power since the 1970s meeting with the likes of Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Hillary Cli...
Jul 12, 2024•2 hr 7 min•Ep 245•Transcript available on Metacast Boomers. Millennials. Gen X. Gen Z. Are you actually in control of your feelings about gender fluidity, social media, streaming television, laptops, jumbo jets and the pill, or have you absorbed the norms of your generation? Dr Jean Twenge is a psychology professor who's been studying large, national surveys of young people for decades, teasing out how the generations differ. Her books include an analysis of millennials ("Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, ...
Jul 08, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep 244•Transcript available on Metacast Europe is holding its breath ahead of France’s parliamentary elections, in which a “far right” party could win power for the first time since WWII. The hero of 21st-century right-wing European triumphalism is Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Many European far-right candidtaes are his devoted fan boys, as are farther-flung admirers like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson. This week, Hungary assumed the rotating leadership of the European Union presidency. Orbán’s first move was to swoop into ...
Jul 04, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep 243•Transcript available on Metacast President Biden’s catastrophic debate performance has left many people worried about his electoral chances against Donald Trump. At this late stage, is there any way out? Here, you get a double feature. In the first half-hour, Josh shares his reaction to the debate and his advice on Democratic messaging. Then the iconic political scientist Yascha Mounk -- an expert in how democracies thrive or fail – joins us to explain the pathway to Democratic victory. But is Joe Biden part of the plan? Finall...
Jul 01, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Ep 242•Transcript available on Metacast Why does the death of some people punch us in the gut, and others slide by? Does your way of grieving indicate what you value in life? Judith Whelan died last night. She was 62. She was Josh’s mentor, his champion, his arch-defender, playmate, and confidante, despite being his boss’s boss’s boss. She is, in many ways, the person who made Josh’s current career possible. Another mentor and friend, Howard Fineman, died two weeks ago. And Josh’s father is in the death spiral of Alzheimer’s. Here, Jo...
Jun 27, 2024•33 min•Ep 241•Transcript available on Metacast What's up with kids these days? ADHD. Autism. Bullying. Toxic boys. Self-harming girls. Social media addiction. Coddled teens. Anxious parents. A lot of folks are wringing their hands about the young-un's mental health. Josh thought he'd pick the brain of one of the world's leading experts who actually works at the coalface with troubled kids. Dr Billy Garvey is a senior specialist in child mental health at one of the largest tertiary paediatric hospitals in the world. Billy challenges many of J...
Jun 24, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep 240•Transcript available on Metacast Josh was at Jerry Seinfeld's Sydney show last night, which was disrupted by Palestinian protesters in the audience. Josh shares his initial reaction and reflects on Gaza activism and anti-Zionism. To get more content like this and to join in the fun of the Uncomfy Convos multiverse, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_ http://twitter.com/joshzepps http://instagram.com/joshszeps/ tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations...
Jun 19, 2024•51 min•Ep 239•Transcript available on Metacast On September 11th, 2001, the Australian prime minister, John Howard, was scheduled to meet with President George W Bush at the White House. While he was hunkered down in Washington during the terrorist attacks, Australia was being run by his deputy, the Acting Prime Minister, John Anderson. John was the equivalent of Australia’s Vice President during some of the most significant events in recent history. Anderson is a Christian conservative who opposed same-sex marriage and the 2023 indigenous r...
Jun 17, 2024•59 min•Ep 238•Transcript available on Metacast Is it useful or debilitating to frame Indigenous people merely as victims of history? Anthony Dillon is an Indigenous Australian, an academic and commentator who rejects today’s popular ideologies about White Australia, invasion and racism. He and Josh wrestle with how to make progress on First Nations issues in an innovative way. This episode is part of Permission to Think, a collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney, thanks to Professor Alan Davison. It’s a taste of a longer episo...
Jun 13, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep 237•Transcript available on Metacast Peter Helliar is one of Australia's biggest stand-up comedians. He was on TV every night for eight years as a panellist on The Project. He had his own network sitcom, How to Stay Married. He's a rockstar of the Melbourne Comedy Festival. He was nominated for Australia's biggest TV award, a Gold Logie. Last year, he was a contestant on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! When we sat down with him recently, he was playing the narrator in a live production of The Rocky Horror Show. This intervie...
Jun 11, 2024•57 min•Ep 236•Transcript available on Metacast Andrew Tate. Jordan Peterson. Joe Rogan. From where are young males getting their models of masculinity? What does it even mean to Be A Man in the 21st century? Osher Günsberg is the biggest TV host Down Under. For the past 21 years, he has been a mainstay of the country’s biggest shows as the host of Australian Idol, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and The Masked Singer, which were recently cancelled. He’s the narrator of Bondi Rescue, and his podcast, Better Than Yesterday, is one of the countr...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep 235•Transcript available on Metacast As the U.K. prepares for a sudden national election in four weeks, Helen Lewis and Josh wrestle with the issues that dominate all around the English-speaking world. Anger about rising prices – check. Anxiety about immigration – check. Dislocation due to globalisation – check. A culture war about wokeness – check. Helen is arguably Britain's most insightful and entertaining journalist. Her interview with Jordan Peterson for GQ has nearly 70 million views on YouTube. She's done several terrific ra...
Jun 03, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep 234•Transcript available on Metacast Josh had a rough week. He shares his advice about how to live a resilient, productive life -- to himself as much as to you. This is a preview of a longer monologue for paid subscribers. We hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening. To get more content like this and to join in the fun of the Uncomfy Convos multiverse, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_ http://twitter.com/joshzepps http://instagram.com/joshszeps/ http://t...
May 30, 2024•22 min•Ep 233•Transcript available on Metacast Does being "left-wing" mean giving everyone equal opportunities? Or does it mean elevating historically excluded groups like gays, trans folks and people of colour? Professor Clive Hamilton is a professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University. He was active in the civil rights movements of the 1970s and he founded the country's most important left-wing think tank, the Australia Institute, thirty years ago. In additon to his many books about the threat from China and from climate change, h...
May 27, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep 232•Transcript available on Metacast We opened up the webcams for a live Zoom talkback episode. We discuss fascinating news stories, Josh shares a private essay he wrote to his friends who are having a dispute over Joe Rogan, and you’ll learn how he keeps his cool during testy conversations. Keep an eye out for more live talkback sessions in the future, and make sure you’re signed up to http://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com to be part of the team. http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_ http://twitter.com/joshzepps http://instagram...
May 24, 2024•36 min•Ep 231•Transcript available on Metacast Wendy Harmer is the most groundbreaking female comedian in Australia. She shattered the glass ceiling in the 1980s as a stand-up comic and TV host, before ruling the radio airwaves for decades. Her book is “Lies My Mirror Told Me: A frank, funny, fearless memoir”. Josh picks her brain about when she bombed hosting television’s night of nights. This is a taste of a longer episode for premium subscribers. If you'd like to hear the whole thing, pop over to the Substack page at https://uncomfortable...
May 22, 2024•41 min•Ep 230•Transcript available on Metacast 
