Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Do Not Miss This Message!

Transcript

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Do Not Miss This Message! · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Get a humans, welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas.
• 0:06
  How are you feeling?
• 0:08
  Well, come on into the final stretch, I don't know whether this is almost the end or
• 0:12
  almost the beginning of something, but it is Trump 2.0, the rematch, and it's understandable
• 0:19
  if you feel a little bit discombobulated, a little bit on edge.
• 0:25
  I'm here to help.
• 0:26
  This week we are going to release a brand new episode that relates not directly to the
• 0:33
  horse race or the polling or who's doing well here or whatever Michigan this or that.
• 0:39
  A series of conversations that are going to help you feel more sane and more informed
• 0:44
  and more inspired and more enlightened about the election itself, what's at stake, what's
• 0:50
  likely to happen immediately afterwards.
• 0:53
  And this is a message about exactly how to get those, that content, because I don't
• 0:58
  want to make it, I don't want to put all behind a paywall, like the bottom line is that
• 1:02
  I want to produce more content than I know exactly how to distribute.
• 1:07
  This is a nascent industry still and we don't know exactly what the optimal model is.
• 1:13
  I know that I want to give you a post-election chaos survival guide, which will drop tomorrow
• 1:19
  if you're listening to this in the first day that this drops to arm yourself against
• 1:23
  a well-documented scheme to sow confusion and for met chaos and challenge the vote.
• 1:29
  So we will tell you tomorrow exactly what to look out for an election night and in the
• 1:33
  subsequent days and weeks because the plot is well established and we're not talking
• 1:39
  enough about the details of it.
• 1:42
  You will then receive a live rumble between Michael Moynihan of the fifth column and the
• 1:48
  free press and me about America's role in the world and how we should think about the
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  fact that the right wing which used to be the sort of party of, you know, anti-Russia
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  and a strong military and Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush is now much more flirtatious
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  with isolationism.
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  So the two of us, basically because Michael has some history with Sweden, which is this
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  sort of lock us of anti-immigrant rhetoric and also relevant to NATO.
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  And because I know this to say, if you haven't noticed by my accent, come from Australia,
• 2:26
  a nation with a brutally strict policy against illegal immigration and a paradoxically,
• 2:33
  maybe not paradoxically, maybe actually consequently generous policy towards legal immigration.
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  I thought the two of us could have an interesting conversation and this is all part of the
• 2:45
  sub-stack dialogues, which is something that sub-stack has coordinated as a fruitful bunch
• 2:49
  of kind of bilateral conversations between their sub-stack stars.
• 2:54
  So that'll be called America in the world and it'll be about the pivot to Asia and the
• 2:58
  Israel lobby and building the wall and cat-eating Haitians and shithole countries and what America's
• 3:05
  role in the world should be.
• 3:06
  And then also this week, there's a heart-enriching and mind-expanding conversation with Stephanie
• 3:15
  Lepp, who is helping us to bust out of political and cultural echo chambers.
• 3:22
  She's walking the walk with a new project that you will want to hear from her about.
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  And then also coming up is a bit more light stuff with some really big names.
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  I recorded an amazing interview with one of Britain's most outrageous and provocative
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  comedians, David Williams, who I was doing a big tour with for six weeks, the star of
• 3:39
  Little Britain and a judge on Britain's Got Talent for 10 years.
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  It's a very reeling interview.
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  It's a very funny interview and he dropped something of a bombshell, which I won't give
• 3:49
  away.
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  Plus, I'm going to London next week and then I'm going back to Sydney for a week and then
• 3:54
  I'm going back to New York and LA and London with a side trip to Israel to shoot and record
• 3:59
  some pods for you.
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  So there's a lot going on.
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  And there's a lot of other stuff we're planning for 2025.
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  This is all a long-winded way of saying how do I get this content to you, right?
• 4:12
  So there are sort of three ways to provide you with content.
• 4:17
  Some podcasts make everything free and I could do that, but then you'd spend every
• 4:23
  episode trying to skip through me pretending to love some crypto investing app or men's
• 4:28
  razor company or job recruitment website.
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  And that would undermine your belief in my authenticity.
• 4:35
  It would make me probably less uncorruptible, even if I didn't think it was doing so.
• 4:40
  And it would destroy a little bit of my soul.
• 4:42
  So that's option A, option B, some podcasts just put every episode behind a paywall with
• 4:48
  just like a 20 minute free tease, unless it's a, you know, an episode of deep urgency
• 4:56
  to release to everyone.
• 4:57
  But then you wouldn't get anything at all if you didn't pay for it and the show's message
• 5:02
  wouldn't be as influential as it is because it would reach fewer people and it would disadvantage
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  people who can't figure out how to subscribe to a private feed in substack.
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  So I don't really want to do that either.
• 5:14
  The compromise is a hybrid model where about every other episode is paywalled after the
• 5:22
  first 20 minutes or so.
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  And I like that model and I think that's working and you seem to like it as well.
• 5:29
  But in a week like this, we have a bit of a problem.
• 5:34
  I have loads of content that you need to hear that I don't want to profit from.
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  I want you to have.
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  But if you like this show and you only listen to the free feed in your podcast app and
• 5:49
  you've never once bothered to navigate to substack even to subscribe to the free substack,
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  I also don't think it works in the long run for my company for everyone to get all the
• 6:04
  amazing additional bonus content that the people who bother to subscribe are financing
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  for you.
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  The fact is I could not arm you with the conversations that you're going to receive this week, which
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  I hope will in some tiny way help bolster American democracy and provide you with some sanity
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  during and after a very trying election.
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  If it wasn't for the paid substack subscribers, they keep this ship afloat, they keep
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  this business rolling.
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  If you pay for the uncomfortable conversation substack, you are more than 80% of this show's
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  revenue.
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  That's how this business functions.
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  My business.
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  Not for everyone.
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  I mean, for some people, they don't get very good conversion rates and people don't want
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  to pay them for it.
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  And it's just something that people want to listen to in the background and most of the
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  revenue comes from ads.
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  Not my show.
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  If you are a fan of this show, then you thank God seem to be a raving fan.
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  And the conversion rates on this show are beyond any other show in its space.
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  So thank you.
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  I mean, you really are voting for a different kind of media here and a different kind of
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  way, having conversations, different way of having conversations.
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  But the fact remains that if you don't, then the ads that you put up with, even from
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  tens of millions of free downloads, don't even cover one fifth of this show's production
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  budget.
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  This show costs money.
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  I employ people and less than a fifth of that is covered by the free ads on, sorry,
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  with the ads on tens of millions of free downloads.
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  So what I want to do is release this content for free, but on substack.
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  So on substack, you can select a free option or you can select a paid option or you can
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  select various tiers of paid options.
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  The stuff that is coming down this week where we're going to be releasing an episode on
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  Tuesday and episode on Wednesday and episode on Thursday and episode on Friday.
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  This is Australian Times.
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  It'll be a day behind in the United States.
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  Then next week during the election, I will release as much as I possibly can, depending
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  on what's going on in the world, depending on how chaotic it is, depending on how tight
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  the race is.
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  And I don't want to constantly be making adjudications about like, well, is this important?
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  How important is it?
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  Is it so important that it has to go out to everybody or is it only a little bit important?
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  So it can go out to the premium people who actually pay for this content to work and
• 8:43
  who pay for my family to stay alive.
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  I don't want to make those adjudications, but I also don't want to pay all everything.
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  So here's the compromise, here's the deal.
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  If you've never gone to the sub-stack, download the sub-stack app and just become a free
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  subscriber.
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  Okay?
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  I'm not asking you to pay anything yet, I'm not asking you to join up.
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  I'm asking for you to have enough faith in me that I basically, my company has your
• 9:07
  email address and we can deliver content to you.
• 9:10
  That's the deal.
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  If you like me enough to have clicked on listening to this episode, then you like me enough
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  to go to the app store or go to the Google Play store, depending on what your device is
• 9:21
  right now.
• 9:22
  Download the sub-stack app and if you remember, then log in and if you've never signed
• 9:26
  up for sub-stack, it's a very simple process.
• 9:29
  You don't have to put in your credit card information and you're inside leg measurement
• 9:32
  and do some kind of what was the first musical instrument that you liked or what was the
• 9:42
  second name of your third grade teacher or of your great-grandmother's third grade teachers.
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  No, that's pretty simple, but you're going to have to get this content through sub-stack
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  because there's the only way that I can actually build a community in which we can talk
• 9:53
  to each other and in which I can feel like I'm doing something other than sort of throwing
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  ideas, very expensive ideas out into the wind.
• 10:04
  When I say very expensive, let me just articulate what I mean.
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  There's an opportunity cost to everything that you do when you're a creative professional,
• 10:13
  right?
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  I've had a busy year, I've spent six weeks doing 13 shows in 15 cities with David Williams
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  to thousands and thousands of people.
• 10:23
  I have brought out Coleman Hughes to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas and to uncomfortable conversations
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  event at the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne.
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  I've hosted Douglas Murray on a national tour.
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  I've been on Q&A, Australia's flagship television panel show.
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  I've been published numerous times in both of the two biggest Broadsheet newspapers in Australia,
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  the Australian and the City Morning Herald.
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  I've been approached by a half dozen different book publishers by a corporate events company
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  that wants me to do a keynote for after dinner speeches by a masterclass type company that
• 10:55
  wants me to produce an online course.
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  I'm also writing the pilot of a TV show because I just really, really want to and pitching
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  a documentary.
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  This is not to brag, it's not even to humble brag, it's to say that where I direct my efforts
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  is partly motivated by my creative interest and partly by where I can do the most good
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  in the world, but let's face it, you know, kids need shoes as well and I have kids who both
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  have feet and so when I run a business, I do look at the bottom line as a way of guiding
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  where I should be directing my efforts, a dollar that gets handed to my production company
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  to do a thing is a vote for me to do more of that thing for me to direct my production
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  company of which I am the director and CEO in the direction of that thing and less of
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  other things.
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  I have certain assets in front of me like any businessman and where I allocate those
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  assets among which are my attention and my time as well as, you know, the people who
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  I pay is determined by what the market kind of hints that I should be doing.
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  And if this show is a thing that you like me doing and you want to vote for my production
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  company to lean into more and bigger and better examples of this show of uncomfortable
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  conversations and if you want to vote for this show not to be crowded out by other more
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  lucrative pursuits that are popping up and being offered to my production company, you
• 12:35
  need to vote, you know, at the risk of stretching an analogy in election season, you really
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  have two votes to make in these coming weeks.
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  If you're in America, you have the presidential election vote and you also have a vote about
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  what you consume.
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  You have a vote about what media you support.
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  You have a vote about what you put in your ears and what you allow your eyes to see.
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  You have a vote about whether or not you spend time consuming information by mindlessly
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  scrolling social media feeds with algorithms that have their thumbs on the scale in ways
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  that you are unaware of, whether you vote for the legacy media and you should certainly
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  continue to get a lot of your, you know, fact-based information from the most reputable
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  sources of legacy media and where you vote in terms of the sorts of conversations and
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  the kinds of models of the way that we have conversations and the way that we choose
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  to disagree as well.
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  I said I wasn't going to ask you to pay anything and I've just sort of blended into ad
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  living my way into a pitch for you to pay for this show, which of course you should.
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  You really should.
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  The world will be a better place and your life will be a better place and my company will
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  be better if you pay for this content.
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  But that's really not the point here.
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  The point here is we imminently have some very good content coming up and the only way
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  for us to saintly distribute it is for free through the sub-stack app.
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  It's not some mystical, complicated, difficult thing to master.
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  The sub-stack app is like fairly user-friendly once you get into it.
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  It's not, this is not a chore, this is not a task, this is not something that you should
• 14:25
  feel overwhelmed by, this is not an invoice or a bill, I'm inviting you to play.
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  I'm inviting you to play this game.
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  You already waste time gazing at your phone for all kinds of other reasons.
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  In the app store or the Google Play Store, download the sub-stack app and enjoy the free
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  for subscribers episodes that will be landing every day for the rest of this week and
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  as many post-election episodes as the circumstances demand.
• 14:53
  The last thing I'll say is this conversation with Michael Moynihan that's happening on
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  Tuesday morning, Australian time, Monday, evening, US and UK time about America's role
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  in the world, but it'll really be an opportunity for Michael and I who are old mates to shoot
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  the breeze about the election.
• 15:12
  That will also be taking place live in the sub-stack app.
• 15:15
  So you want to have the sub-stack app only for that and the sub-stack post that accompanies
• 15:19
  this audio will have all the links.
• 15:21
  If that's kind of gibberish to you because you don't subscribe to sub-stack, trust me.
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  Once you get on the train, it's an easy thing to do.
• 15:27
  Again, this is not like registering for online banking for a retirement fund or something.
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  This is when I'm going to ask you to scan something and sign documents and triplicate
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  and send it in.
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  Just download the bloody app and then follow at the zero unpaid free level this show and
• 15:45
  then each day for the rest of the week, you will receive one email, check that it doesn't
• 15:50
  go into spam, with a link from which you can play the full episode of the show and there
• 15:55
  will still be the free preview episodes going into the podcast feed.
• 16:01
  If you're listening to this on a different podcast feed and if you're a paid subscriber
• 16:05
  and you've set up your own premium feed, then those will all arrive as per usual in
• 16:11
  your normal feed.
• 16:12
  You don't have to listen through the sub-stack app if you don't want to because if you're
• 16:15
  not used to sub-stack, then what happens is once you enter the paid feed, sub-stack will
• 16:20
  generate your own private podcast RSS feed that you then just either with one click or
• 16:27
  you copy it across to whatever podcast app you happen to be using, might be Apple
• 16:31
  podcast, might be Spotify or whatever, and you can listen to the premium version of
• 16:35
  that.
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  Actually, I'm not sure if you can do it on Spotify.
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  I may be wrong about that.
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  Anyway, whatever other random podcast app you prefer to listen to, you can have your
• 16:43
  own dedicated premium feed so you don't have to listen to it inside the sub-stack app.
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  But for the purposes of the free loaders who want to get all the content this week, and
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  I say that with love, I say that with great love, who want to get all the content this
• 16:55
  week, that will come through the sub-stack app itself.
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  So will this Michael Moynihan event, so if you just open up, if you can't figure out
• 17:03
  the Moynihan Zeps dialog and you want to be with us live and you want to comment and
• 17:07
  you want to like and you want to chime in, just open up your app shortly before 5 p.m.
• 17:13
  Eastern on Monday, October 28th, or which is 5 to 8 a.m. Tuesday, the 29th or 5 to 9 p.m.
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  in London on Monday night.
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  I hope that all makes sense.
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  I hope it's understandable.
• 17:29
  I love you.
• 17:31
  Be strong over this coming week.
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  I'm doing absolutely everything I can to help you stay cheerful and sane and well informed.
• 17:38
  Do the least that you can and just get the sub-stack app and consume the additional bonus content
• 17:45
  throughout the course of this election through that.
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  And hopefully I'll see you tomorrow at 5 p.m. Eastern Time, US Time, 8 a.m. Sydney Time
• 17:56
  and hopefully the next time we speak, we'll be in the sub-stack app.