Clancy Martin (professor of philosophy, multiple suicide survivor) has tried – unsuccessfully, obviously – to depart this mortal coil a dozen-plus times and has just published a book, How Not to Kill Yourself, that explores the complexity of one the most fundamental question we can ever ask – why live? Clancy teaches philosophy at the University of Missouri, is a Guggenheim Fellow, bestselling novelist, a father and… “suicide addict”. In the wake of having lost one of my closest...
Aug 08, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep 105•Transcript available on Metacast Susan Neiman (world-leading moral philosopher, socialist, Einstein Forum director) joins me to clear up a wholly frustrating and destructive dialogue stopper – wokeism. Susan is the Director of the Einstein Forum, in Potsdam, Germany. She has a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard and has written big, influential tomes on German guilt, the value of evil and how we all need to grow up, all through a philosophical lens. Her latest book is titled Left is Not Woke and in this episode, she explains w...
Aug 01, 2023•47 min•Ep 104•Transcript available on Metacast Frances Haugen (globally renowned whistleblower, author of The Power of One) singlehandedly created social media’s Big Tobacco moment. In 2021, the algorithms specialist exposed 20,000 internal documents to media and lawmakers that showed Facebook consistently and knowingly prioritised profits over public safety. A few months later, and at great personal risk, she “outed” herself on 60 Minutes and has worked tirelessly since to change laws on social media transparency around the world. Wha...
Jun 27, 2023•58 min•Ep 103•Transcript available on Metacast Pico Iyer (bestselling travel writer; author of The Art of Stillness; Leonard Cohen’s close mate) studies the paradox of our desire to go out and explore foreign lands…and our need for stillness, the delicate dance between our outer and inner lives. Pico has spent 50 years writing about travel for more than 250 publications, but he also spent three decades living in monasteries and 48 years as a friend and travel companion of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And he concludes a bunch of things we cov...
Jun 20, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep 102•Transcript available on Metacast Tyson Yunkaporta (Indigenous knowledge expert and renegade) is an Aboriginal scholar and founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Melbourne’s Deakin University. His prize-winning book Sand Talk explains how Indigenous methods are best calibrated for resolving the complex global crises we face today and it’s attracted fawning attention in sensemaking, complexity and integral circles globally. Tyson’s wild approach tips a stack of Western thinking on its head. He challenges…not just with...
Jun 13, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep 101•Transcript available on Metacast Will Storr (award-winning UK journalist and author) writes about humans in fun ways, and goes to lengths to do this, including joining holocaust denier David Irving (undercover) on holiday. His books The Heretics, and Selfie, are about how self-obsession changed the culture. Will's latest book is The Status Game and it argues that “Everyone alive is playing a game whose hidden rules are built into us and that silently directs our thoughts, beliefs and actions. This game is inside us. It is us.” ...
Jun 06, 2023•46 min•Ep 100•Transcript available on Metacast Tim Winton (author + climate activist) is a four-time winner of Australia’s most prominent literary award, the Miles Franklin, several of his books (Cloudstreet, Breath, Blueback) have been turned into movies, he has an Australian fish named after him(!), and he has been declared a “living treasure” by the National Trust. Notoriously private, Tim now only emerges to do press to speak out on big issues – toxic masculinity, fossil fuel sponsorship of the arts (and the “nippers”) and saving Western...
May 30, 2023•49 min•Ep 99•Transcript available on Metacast Ingrid Newkirk (founder of PETA, radical stuntwoman) is one of the most controversial – and wild - humans on the planet. After founding People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 1980 she campaigned to change animal cruelty laws, halted cosmetic and crash testing on animals and has largely rid the world of fur fashion. She didn’t take the mild, collaborative route, though. Ingrid has hung naked among pigs’ carcasses in London’s Smithfield market, famously raided Vogue HQ to protest th...
May 23, 2023•1 hr•Ep 98•Transcript available on Metacast Genevieve Bell (“superstar” Silicon Valley futurist, cybernetician) is possibly the world’s best-placed human to tell us what the future of AI holds for us. She is a Stanford cultural anthropologist, the Vice President of Intel, has been dubbed “technology’s foremost fortune teller” and has been inducted into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame . Oh, and she has been South Australia’s thinker in residence. And holds a lazy 13 patents! Genevieve is now based at Australia’s ANU where she’s ...
May 16, 2023•55 min•Ep 97•Transcript available on Metacast Roy Baumeister (infamous willpower psychologist + NYT bestseller) is one of the world’s most prolific and influential psychologists. He has published 700-plus scientific works, including more than 40 books, and has received the highest award given by the Association for Psychological Science for his lifetime achievements. He is the guy who coined the term “negativity bias” and “decision fatigue”, and writes about why we do stupid things, the psychology of heartbreak and S&M. Roy ...
May 09, 2023•52 min•Ep 96•Transcript available on Metacast Thomas Mayo (maritime union worker, author, official advocate for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament) joins me to answer your questions regarding the upcoming referendum to amend the constitution to recognise a Voice. It’s a big, historic and profoundly important moment for every Australian voter. We talk through the basics and drill down into the counterarguments – is there a need for more detail (short answer = no, it’s constitutionally inappropriate to provide more), does it veto laws (no, it...
May 02, 2023•47 min•Ep 95•Transcript available on Metacast Angela Saini (One of the “World’s Top 50 Thinkers”, a leading UK Science Journalist + Author) is a misinformation expert whose intellectual range is truly wild. Angela has a masters from The Department of War Studies at Kings College London; she’s made documentaries on the climate crisis, birdsong (!) and eugenics; her previous books have tackled race science and gender inequality; she founded “Challenging Pseudoscience” as part of London’s Royal Institution and sits on a bunch of other esteemed...
Apr 25, 2023•40 min•Ep 94•Transcript available on Metacast Ethan Kross (University of Michigan neuroscientist, author of bestseller Chatter) is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the mind. I came across his work while researching anxiety and found his perspectives on when and how to tame our relentless head chatter (or monkey mind) refreshing. And wild. Ethan is all about appreciating the “beast” that is the fretty voice in our head, while modulating it artfully. We chat through some seriously effective tools such as talking to ourselves ...
Apr 18, 2023•42 min•Ep 93•Transcript available on Metacast Bo Seo (world champion debater, author of Good Arguments) knows how to argue really very well. The Australian immigrant, now based out of Harvard, is the two-time world debating champion and his new book applies his secret debating sauce to the meatloaf that is this polarised, bifurcated, relentlessly bickering world we now live in. Bo’s wild point is that the problem of polarization isn’t that we disagree, it’s that we need to disagree more . But I need to learn how to do it way better and kind...
Apr 11, 2023•53 min•Ep 92•Transcript available on Metacast Marcus Buckingham (British pop trend researcher, New York Times bestselling author of Standout Strengths) has researched the paradox of female unhappiness - which sees women get more miserable the more freedoms and choices they have - for several decades now (and used to contribute to Cosmopolitan magazine back when I was editor). Specifically – and inversely - Marcus has worked to determine the thing that the happiest women are doing right. The results are jolting. Far from trying t...
Apr 04, 2023•50 min•Ep 91•Transcript available on Metacast Stephen Jenkinson (Harvard-trained theologian, activist and elder) is an expert in dying. During his 20 years working in “the death trade” he counselled more than 1500 people to their death. He is also the founder of The Orphan Wisdom School, a teaching house for the skills of deep living, he's the subject of the documentary Griefwalker and author of Die Wise: A Manifesto For Sanity and Soul. Stephen's wild idea is that we must learn to die well…so that we can live well. This is a challenging an...
Mar 28, 2023•45 min•Ep 90•Transcript available on Metacast Douglas Rushkoff (author, cyberpunk OG (!) and documentarian) is named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, and studies humans struggling to live in an increasingly unhuman world. Which is to say most of us in 2023. I tracked down this big, excitable mind to continue an earlier WILD chat about billionaire apocalypse preppers (August 2022, with Mark O’Connell). Rushkoff has a wild theory – which he spells out in his latest book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies...
Mar 21, 2023•56 min•Ep 89•Transcript available on Metacast Dr Michael E. Mann (super notorious climate scientist; El Niño expert) is a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (and more such academic titles). But he is best known for bringing the world the “hockey-stick graph” back in 1999, which showed a sharp “uptick” in global temperatures since the industrial age...
Mar 14, 2023•48 min•Ep 88•Transcript available on Metacast Margaret Atwood is best known for her mega-bestselling dystopian fiction, including the Booker Prize-winning novels “The Blind Assassin” and “The Testaments”, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and, most recently, the essay collection “Burning Questions”. The Canadian firebrand imagines future societies, specifically the worst scenarios in these future societies, worlds of genetic modification, pharmaceutical and corporate control, human-made disasters and theocracies where women’s bodies are controlled by ...
Mar 07, 2023•45 min•Ep 87•Transcript available on Metacast Helen Lewis (internet famous for her GQ interview with Jordan Peterson, pop culture expert) is a British journalist, BBC broadcaster and currently a staff writer for Atlantic magazine. Her work covers the rise of TikTok tics in teenagers, Harry-and-Meghan, Andrew Tate, the absurdities of US and UK politics…you know, all the chunky bits of life in 2023. She also wrote the best bestseller Difficult Women, A History of Feminism in 11 Fights and just released the BBC podcast series The New Gurus. Ho...
Feb 28, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Ep 86•Transcript available on Metacast Rebecca Giblin (author Chokepoint Capitalism, media academic) joins me to explain how the Big Tech squillionaires are choking creatives – musicians, authors, screenwriters etc – and their customers. And in so doing, killing culture. Hmmm…. Rebecca is a Melbourne Law School professor specialising in creators’ rights and the director of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia. Her new book Chokepoint Capitalism (co-written with LA-based bestselling science fiction writer and Boin...
Feb 21, 2023•49 min•Ep 85•Transcript available on Metacast Nick Riggle (Ex-pro skater, philosophy professor at the University of California, YOLO expert) has become known for dissecting contemporary phenomena in a distinctly Socratic manner. In this chat, we delve into the philosophical significance of awesomeness (and its antonym, suckiness), the existential imperative of YOLO (!) and the aetiology of the high five. Nick’s theses on these cliched expressions ultimately lead to a wonderfully wild answer to the quandary of what makes life worth living in...
Feb 14, 2023•45 min•Ep 84•Transcript available on Metacast Dr Simon Longstaff (Philosopher, Festival of Dangerous Ideas, The Ethics Centre) is one of Australia’s most ethical thinkers. He mindfully stokes the national debate on cancel culture, corporate conduct, mask-wearing and psychedelic drugs (via his role as chair of Mind Medicine Australia). Simon guides contemporary moral thinking as the ethics commissioner for Cricket Australia, the executive director of The Ethics Centre, which advises corporates on how to make better decisions, and as a fellow...
Feb 08, 2023•44 min•Ep 83•Transcript available on Metacast Yael Stone (Star of Orange is the New Black, Founder of Hi Neighbour, Climate Activist) and I have been IG friends, supporting each other’s climate work, for some years. In 2021 Yael Stone gave up her Green Card to combat climate change and committed to offsetting future overseas gigs by donating 50% of earnings to climate charities. Now she runs Hi Neighbour, a community platform that assists in the “just transition” for fossil fuel workers into low-carbon jobs. I have admired Yael's wild...
Feb 01, 2023•43 min•Ep 82•Transcript available on Metacast It’s the time of year when we all need some inspiring, expansive perspectives and I reckon this chat with Tim, which I recorded a little while back, might be a great listen as you go about your summer road trips and making 2023 commitments. Tim trained with the Vedic tradition and has taught meditation to elite athletes, jail inmates, billionaires and kids for more than 20 years. The guy’s been part of my spiritual journey for 12 years and has guided me with my career, love life and various cala...
Jan 24, 2023•46 min•Ep 81•Transcript available on Metacast This interview got a lot of (shocked!) feedback, so I figured I’d run it again as we start thinking about heading back to work. Again. And contemplating “what it’s all about”. British writer Oliver Burkeman has investigated pretty much every productivity hack, mindfulness trick, list-making system and happiness boost we've ever been fed. He concludes, almost none work. Ha! I followed Oliver's column in The Guardian, which he wrote from his home in Brooklyn, New York, for about 10 years and he is...
Jan 17, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep 80•Transcript available on Metacast I discovered Jill's story in her viral TED Talk from 2008 (it became the most-watched TED talk ever!) in which the brain scientist describes watching the left side of her brain deteriorate over the course of four hours on the morning of her stroke and how she used her right brain to stay present and get help. I was transfixed. Ever since I've wondered, whatever happened to Jill Bolte Taylor? Did she go back to normal? Is she still living in her right brain and able to experience the “onene...
Jan 10, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep 79•Transcript available on Metacast He was the captain of the Wallabies, the only Australian player to be included in World Rugby's team of the decade, but - wildly – retired at the height of his career to devote his life to climate activist projects here in Australia and in Africa. I recorded this interview shortly after David quit rugby and several months before he decided to run as an independent Senator in the Australian Parliament. He won the ticket and has gone on to become an extremely powerful and highly regarded pol...
Jan 03, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep 78•Transcript available on Metacast Sia is one of the most gifted and wild creatives on the planet, best known for the hundreds of hit pop songs she's written for herself, Beyonce, Rihanna and Kanye West, and for being notoriously private, rarely doing interviews. This is why I remain so damn chuffed that she agreed to be my FIRST guest here on Wild. I recall being soooo nervous and out of my depth. But also thoroughly enjoying this incredible human’s quirky company. In this chat, Sia gets intimate with me about fostering, why she...
Dec 27, 2022•33 min•Ep 77•Transcript available on Metacast I share a glorious, wild, life-affirming story in this special episode. Some of you might have read my book This One Wild and Precious Life and remember the bit where I wind up in Mammoth in the Sierra Nevada and rant at a young guy sitting in a vegan smoothie café about his single-use plastic cups (he was drinking several vegan beverages). He takes it well and asks to read a few pages of the book (I was working on the draft of the climate chapter as we spoke). "Wow! Can you put that mind-blasti...
Dec 20, 2022•39 min•Ep 76•Transcript available on Metacast 
