What's wrong with empathy? Is effective altruism better? How did you develop your sense of right and wrong? Is suffering necessary for pleasure? These are the questions the psychologist Paul Bloom wrestles with. Enjoy the ride. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yippee-ki-yay, Josh has quit his ABC Radio show to double down on Uncomfortable Conversations. Starting in the new year, you'll get additional free episodes, a YouTube channel, a live tour and more. Before embarking on his adventure, Josh wanted to speak with the most successful person who has recently pulled it off. Bari Weiss was an opinion writer and editor at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She walked away to do her own thing at The Free Press. Now more than ever, we need you to subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed. Hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brian Dunning is an expert on critical thinking, science and skepticism. His weekly podcast, Skeptoid, debunks conspiracy theories, and his new film is “The UFO Movie THEY Don't Want You to See”. Here, Josh tries to get to the bottom of what’s really going on with UFOs. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can you work at a corporation or university and openly contradict elite opinion? Can you freel y suggest that gender is binary, land acknowledgments are silly, that there are biological reasons why more men become CEOs, or that racial diversity quotas are patronising? Not without being punished, according to a tsunami of cases being catalogued by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Its CEO, Greg Lukianoff, who co-wrote the bestseller “The Coddling of the American Mind” , has a new book, “The Cancelling of the American Mind”, with the Gen-Z journalist Rikki Schlott to explain what’s going on. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it take to sustain a career in the performing arts? Julia Zemiro is one of Australia’s most beloved perfomers. An actor, improv comic and TV host, she has hosted the official New Year's Eve telecast from Sydney Harbour, the music quiz show “RocKwiz”, and her own beloved television interview show “Julia Zemiro's Home Delivery”, I sit down with her to muse on what it takes to make it in a tough biz. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Josh shares fresh thoughts on Gaza, Palestine and Israel in this special bonus episode. To subscribe to the premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eli Lake is the former senior national security correspondent for The Daily Beast and Newsweek. He’s a contributing editor to Commentary Magazine and the host of the Re-Education Podcast. He was a syndicated columnist for Bloomberg between 2014 and 2022 and a former reporter at the New York Sun, the Daily Beast and the Washington Times. He and Josh debate Israel’s responsibility for the current crisis in Gaza. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How are you feeling about the war in Ukraine? We may be at a fork in the road and about to blow it. The Wall Street Journal's Marcus Walker recently returned from Ukraine. He shares with you everything from the fascinating little details to the bracing geopolitics. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’ve been asked many times about my thoughts on situation in Israel and Gaza…. So here they are. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On October 14th, Australians will vote about whether to recognise the country’s First Peoples in the Constitution by establishing a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Jack Latimore is a Birpai man and the Indigenous affairs journalist for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He joins the show to explain it all. You can read Jack’s work at the link below. https://www.theage.com.au/by/jack-latimore-p4ywbz To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Josh is in New York, where he just stopped by the studios of one of America’s greatest podcasts, The Fifth Column, to record this special crossover pod. Find Michael Moynihan, Kmele Foster and Matt Welch at https://wethefifth.com and https://wethefifth.substack.com. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe Grab your Exclusive NordVPN Deal by going to nordvpn.com/Conversations to get a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 extra months for free. It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A long, long time ago, The Gays couldn’t marry. What was it like in that mediaeval nightmare? The world’s most popular sex advice columnist, Dan Savage, joined Josh in New York on the set of his television talk show in 2013. Enjoy this fascinating time portal, unavailable anywhere else on earth, except on the premium podcast feed at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are there biological differences between male and female brains? How much of what you do is dictated by evolution? As a part of our Permission To Think collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, evolutionary psychologist Professor Steve Stewart-Williams describes how you came to be an ape who understands the universe. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australians are about to vote on whether to change the constitution to create a special advisory body for Indigenous Australians. Is it an overdue forum for justice? Or a risky, undemocratic game of identity politics? It’s the listener question Josh gets the most. Here, he tries to inject some sanity into an increasingly toxic debate. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yascha Mounk is one of the world’s most interesting thinkers about diversity, liberalism and democracy. His new book, The Identity Trap, is an ambitious account of the origins, consequences, and limitations of “wokeness”. How did a relatively marginal set of ideas – postmodernism, postcolonialism, critical race theory – come to rule the world? To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe Grab your Exclusive NordVPN Deal by going to nordvpn.com/Conversations to get a Huge Discount off your NordVPN Plan + 4 extra months for free. It’s completely risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Has Louis CK reeeeeeally been “cancelled” if he still has a face? I mean, he wasn’t beheaded, ergo, “cancel culture” doesn’t exist. Amna Khalid is an equal-opportunity defender of free speech—a professor who slams wokesters… at the same time as legally opposing Florida’s war on woke universities. Anna’s blog and podcast, “Banished”, are about the history of censorship. This episode is part of Permission to Think, a collaboration with the University of Technology, Sydney, where Josh is a visiting fellow. A fabulous chat about the fate of education and the limits of free speech. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is Zionism a noble goal, or a form of colonial apartheid? Is a two-state solution possible? Desirable? Antony Loewenstein is a fierce critic of Israel and of the whole Zionist project. His new book is The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. He and Josh debate the rights and wrongs of a Jewish homeland. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is Barbie the triumphant feminist critique of modern society it claims to be? The dust has settled on the mega-hit, so Josh finds some time to weigh-in. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ed Kavalee is a legend of Aussie radio, and a bloody funny bloke. Josh and Ed sit down to compare the best and worst of Australia vs America. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s being compared to the discovery of fire or of electricity. Either way, artificial intelligence will revolutionise human civilisation. How? Toby Walsh runs the AI Lab at UNSW and is a world-leading expert in AI. His most recent book is “Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI.” Join him and Josh all the way down the rabbit hole. To subscribe to Josh’s premium podcast feed, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.