Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Behind the Scenes: A Year of Uncomfortable Conversations

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Behind the Scenes: A Year of Uncomfortable Conversations · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Get a humans welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. This is an end of 2025 beginning
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  of 2026 retrospective on some of our highlights and lowlights of the year with the one and
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  only Evan Povanka. You know him, you love him. Community manager of uncomfortable conversations
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  works tirelessly around the clock. And the work mostly entails taking kids to little
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  league. Yes, swim swim season now actually, but swim season. Isn't it cold? Isn't it cold?
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  Is there winter swimmers indoor? Okay. Swim meets. Don't get your kids into swim. Whatever
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  you do. It's a meat on Australian. We are getting our kids into swimming. And today is
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  about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, well, then yeah, I mean swim for fun, but don't competitively
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  swim. The meats are a grind. They're like six hours. And then you swim for you watch
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  your kids swim for 45 seconds. And then you wait. It's just a fiasco swim parents are
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  way too passionate about it. And it's it's not my favorite, but I love my kids more than
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  anything. And I will do whatever they're into, you know, I like. So you felt the need
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  to add that caveat. In case they have a listen to this in 20 years time. Why did daddy
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  not like us? Yeah, no, he didn't like swimming. No. Okay. So we were just saying that you
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  vote, you're wearing your hat backwards, which is fabulous to see. Thanks. So you don't
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  cover your eyes, but you still get to hide your terrible handcuffs. Yeah. I don't think
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  it's I haven't had my hair cut for years. So it's just I was at the gym earlier. So it's
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  just a little flat on the top. You don't have to flex. You don't have to flex with me.
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  Yeah. So I know you went. I know you go to the gym. I mean, you didn't get a body like
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  that without you. Is there a gym that way? Maybe you're speaking of aesthetics. I was
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  sad. Your beard has gone. I thought you looked so even. Thank you very much. Well, I did
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  grow a beard to I mean, I didn't grow a beard. What I did was I was just lazy. And I went
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  to the United Kingdom. And then there was lots of travel. And then I went out to to
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  the outback in Australia. I took the kids to a big zoo out there. And then by the time
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  I got back, I realized, oh, I look like a wolf man. I look like an unkempt wolf man.
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  I look almost as deranged as Evan. Yeah. And I thought to myself, I got to bring it up
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  a little. So I got a haircut and I trimmed my facial hair. Well, now we're we're properly
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  yin and yanging, you know, for the sub stack community. It'd be weird if we both were
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  rugged handsome. That's right. One of us has to look. One of us has to look civilized.
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  So Evan, when you gaze back on this this year, what stands out to you as some of the
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  episodes or the trajectory of the show that is worth noting. Yeah. Well, you know,
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  I think there were a few blockbuster episodes, obviously, that I relistened to the Sam Harris
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  episode again. And, you know, I'm assuming many of the people here now are kind of your
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  diehard regulars and have heard everything anyway. But, you know, I thought that conversation,
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  first of all, I loved the length. And I think I know you're a busy guy. And I would love
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  to hear from the community what they think. But I often am feeling, you know, hungry for more
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  when the shorter episodes end. And the way that you guys were able, I think it went like two
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  and a half hours maybe with Sam. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's always time for Sam. I'll
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  always, you know, I love she does four hours with Sam. For sure. So that was, you know, I think
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  if I had to come up with like a top top episode, I think that was my favorite. And Sam's obviously
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  a big, I'm a big fan of of his work anyway. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that was cool. It was very
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  cool. But I think what I like anyway, and I don't want to speak for the, for everybody,
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  you know, the episodes where you get personal, I think are always better. You know,
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  the one that stands out on that front was, I'm forgetting the woman's name, but the sort of like
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  natural parenting male, female families are better conversations. Yeah. The end. Yeah.
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  Saragasy. Yeah. I think as intelligent and well spoken and well read as you are,
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  I think many of our listeners, you know, love you as a person as well or want to get to know
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  you more and hearing you talk about your family and anytime you sort of the conversation navigates
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  into more personal space, I always get a lot out of that. I mean, I know you well-ish and
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  you know, like you outside of your big brain, but I think giving that to the readers and the listeners
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  is always good. You want me to do an only fans. Basically, you want me to do an only fans and have
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  an additional paid tier where I've furiously masturbate in front of the audience. That's fine.
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  Now I can definitely show this to my kids. Yeah. They'll appreciate it. So that's good.
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  Well, that's very kind of you to say. I also think the county, the Katie Fast episode,
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  which you people haven't heard was called Josh versus the anti-gay parenting act.
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  Yes. It was maybe certainly one of my favorites. I didn't think because it was personal. I just
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  thought because it was a good example of trying to model how to people who would ordinarily
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  in the conventional wider culture be expected to demonize each other and accuse each other of
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  wanting to erase one's identity and being a fascist or whatever. Exactly.
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  Actually try to unpick what the source of the disagreement and if there's any common ground
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  on values might do. So I thought it was, I thought she was really smart and a good sport
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  to do it as well because it's not like I don't want to do more episodes where a very thoughtful
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  person who I massively disagree with comes and argues with me. But there are not a lot of them.
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  Like there are a lot of people who are very, very conservative or very, very social justicy
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  are either ideologues or cowards and not that. So they're either not going to be up to that,
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  like they're not going to be an interesting conversation because they're just going to
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  parrot talking points or they're not going to be willing to have the conversation.
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  It's a cute us to Katie to daughter. Big time. And I think that, again, as we talk about
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  where you want this sub stack to go, if you could wave your magic wand and turn it into whatever
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  you want, I continue to come back to what you uniquely bring to your audience, I think, is
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  is more style than substance. I mean, again, I appreciate all of your opinions and takes. And I
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  think you're just an incredible articulator of, you know, the kinds of social ideas that are
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  floating around. You do a fantastic job, but it's the method itself, the way that you talk,
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  the way that you engage with your guests, that I think that's why people keep coming back to you.
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  I mean, I can go to BBC or whatever and read the news, but hearing you engage and modeling for
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  us how to have a civil discourse with somebody you disagree with, that's your bread and butter,
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  and that's what makes you so special. One of the many things that makes you so special.
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  So, okay, well, we can, we can draw a line under the flattery now. And I think we've had enough.
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  You did so, you did so, so that's, I'll tell you that as a given, that's my judge. And let's unpack why
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  every time I look because it's boring for listeners. I mean, I don't think it is. I think anyway,
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  I think the, the, so the Sam Harris one for people who don't know, that was part of a Zepp's
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  live world tour where we went around the world literally around the world in one continuous
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  direction, stopping in a bunch of different exotic localals and interviewing, doing live-stream
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  podcasts with Sam and Tyler Cowan and Rich Roll and Sarah Hayer and Nick Cave.
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  Jimmy Kav also was one of my, yes, and Jimmy, I mean, Jimmy is always fascinating and Nick was
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  fascinating in an unusual or unexpected way. I thought, like, Nick was really
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  contemplative and very philosophical philosophical. Well, I didn't realize his work on grief and all
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  of that. I mean, I knew him from his music, obviously, but you know, those kind of multi-dimensional
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  people, I think, are so fascinating. And when you're able to, well, sorry, I was about to compliment
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  you. Thank you very much. I appreciate you nipping that in the bud. I'm going to have to rewrite
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  my whole script. I'll also Andrew Sullivan, we had on the show earlier in the year. And that was
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  excellent also because I was going to do a live stream with Andrew Sullivan from Provincetown
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  while I was on the world tour. But my dad had just died. So when I got to Provincetown, Andrew was
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  like, oh, fuck that. Let's not do it. Let's just get Stone and watch South Park. And so we did that
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  and yeah, then drove the road his bike up to the sand dunes and that was spectacular. Just hung
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  out, which was heaps better than doing a podcast. So apologies to the fans, but that was that was
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  one of that was my favorite non-episode of the or the episode that could have been that didn't
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  come to be. But you can go back and listen to the original Andrew Sullivan chat if you wish to.
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  Also honorable mentions Will Anderson, the Australian comic, as well as Jimmy Carr as
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  Weller's Nick Cave. And I thought that Tim mentioned was this year as well, but apparently it was
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  last year. That was 2024. But those guys also I think who just I love having conversations with
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  creatives who wrestle with massive questions about what it means to be alive and what the
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  purpose of the cosmos is and what human communication is all about. Sometimes they're the wisest
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  people. I think so. And again, the meta layer of why comedy right now is so necessary to kind of
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  keep us all sane and remember that it's good to laugh with other people in a room. You know,
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  those kinds of themes I think are we're refreshing always to hear you talk about.
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  And then was the Candace Owens this year? Oh yeah, was Candace this year? Yeah.
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  Apparently, no, just just just at the end. No, it's not yes, not into last year.
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  Nonetheless, we can we can talk about her. Well, I just again, I think that,
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  you know, your ability to sit down trying to like say this with other
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  it up your ass. First of all, you looked terrible in that episode. We'll say.
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  They just look like garbage. But no, I like the idea of like platforming and all of that stuff.
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  I think you've done a really nice job of navigating those waters and bringing on guests,
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  treating them fairly, but also, you know, being willing to expose some ideas you don't agree with.
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  And I thought that was a good example. Yeah, I do think it's important when you're, I mean,
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  platforming is such a silly idea because you're talking about one of the most popular
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  podcasts in the world in Candace Owens coming on my show. It's not like, I mean, yeah,
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  some people said, yeah, exactly. There's some people said, well, you know, there would be a straight,
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  there would be plenty of Australians who listen to you who don't really, who aren't really
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  aware of her. They might have heard her name, but now you're allowing her to present her case
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  to them and they might subscribe to her podcast. But I do think that as long as you do the job of
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  actually sort of trying to reveal them to be what they are and giving them just enough
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  rope that they can hang themselves with it, then it's not a bad thing to talk to anyone.
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  It is a shame that there's still this sort of cultural meme that it's that you're defined by
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  the people you talk to. Like you can imagine someone trying to dismiss me by saying like,
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  also says the guy who has, who platforms Candace Owens and Evan Pavanca. Exactly. Look at his hair.
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  Untrustworthy. And it wouldn't, it wouldn't matter what you said on the podcast that, you know,
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  you would get lumped into the same category as Tucker Carlson nodding along to Nick Fuentes.
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  Yeah. Well, speaking speaking of Tucker, I think you're just Josh's continued to be pretty
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  universally great. These are the solo editorials that I do, which we call just Josh. Yeah.
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  And your take on Tucker was solid. You know, I think one of the most common sort of
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  not complaints, but some of the feedback we get in the sub stack comments is often about the
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  back and forth. And you like some people want to hear more of you and less of the guests. Some
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  people want to hear less of the guest or more of the get, you know what I meant.
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  And I think that just Josh is nice to sprinkle in there because I think there's a good part of
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  your audience that just loves to hear you think through, you know, think through things and
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  read what you've written. I think I've always told you, damn it. I'm just going to leave. I can't
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  do it without complimenting you. People don't, if you're not familiar, Josh is an excellent writer.
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  And that's one of my goals is to keep pushing you to write more for the sub stack because I think
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  people still do enjoy reading kind of long-ish form stuff. I know it takes a lot more time and
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  you're so good at just winging it when you get on and stuff. But you're an excellent writer.
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  Well, writing is just time consuming and comparison to producing content. I mean video content.
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  And I'm also just better at wrestling with thoughts and articulating myself and going on
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  parenthetical loops for that in writing would seem unfocused. So it's purely a time thing.
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  How do you feel, I mean, looking back on the year, you're what, two years now from when you left,
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  a little over two years from when you struck right on your own? Yeah, right on two years.
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  I remember being in Copenhagen listening to your talk with Barry Weiss.
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  So I guess that was two, a little over two years ago when you kind of talked about
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  striking out. And I mean, how do you feel the year went? Are you happy with? Yeah, great.
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  I mean, it's been a challenging year in a bunch of ways. My dad died.
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  We moved house. There's all these like personal kind of logistical things.
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  But it's been great. I've got a great new producer who came out at the beginning of the year,
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  John. Oh, the beast now got a kind of a supervising producer working one day a week,
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  Jonah, who's also great. We've got a new business manager, Ben. So I feel like at the beginning of
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  the year, I was a little bit like a lost darkling who didn't quite know how to hold the whole
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  thing together. But I feel like we've got the support now. And of course, your tireless around
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  the work, around the clock commitment, it's a heaven, you know, it's a invaluable, invaluable.
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  I mean, what, how can we make the sub stack better for you?
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  I mean, I think that one of the things that we've been experimenting with is leaning more
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  into live stuff as well as the bread and butter uncomfortable conversations episodes.
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  So, you know, towards the end of the year, we started experimenting with this idea called
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  Josh versus the news where once a week, I would just sort of do a live stream, which we would
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  release on the podcast as well where I would analyze some of the stories that maybe the news either
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  wasn't covering or was covering sub optimally and take questions and comments from the sub stack
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  community as well. And so there will continue to be more bonus episodes and more benefits for
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  especially the paid subscriber tier throughout 2026 as we everyone always notify the
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  the free subscribers or the podcast listeners about those. But I think people will just see more live
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  video content popping up if they want to consume it because I do want it to start feeling more
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  interactive. I think it's a strength of mine to be able to, I mean, just from my training of
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  hosting a public radio show with a lot of talk back for three hours a day for years,
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  means that I'm not bad at speaking extemporaneously and juggling incoming comments and questions
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  and things like that. So I think creating this space as a forum where people can feel like they're
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  drinking from a cool stream in a, you know, maddening fiery cacophony of the rest of the media where
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  they can come for a place, a space of sanity and some of the more important stories from an angle
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  that they know will be free of bullshit is my goal. And I'm looking forward to 2026 because I
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  think all of the dominoes are in place to keep expanding that mission. Yeah. And I would just
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  for the subscribers and listeners, you know, just really encourage people to get comfortable
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  commenting and posting their thoughts in the sub stack thread below the episodes. I mean,
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  there have been some great conversations a few times. It's gone a little off the rails,
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  depending on the topic. But I think compared to other message, I mean, go on Sam Harris' comments.
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  I think our audience is incredibly intelligent and thoughtful with their comments and it can
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  really become an excellent space to, you know, expand on the things that you've covered and
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  bring different perspectives. I think the very cool thing about your sub stack is, you know,
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  you have the Australian perspective, you have kind of Australian specific topics and guests every
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  once in a while. And I think a big part of your audience is Australian. But then also the international
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  perspective, it's a very cool place. And I really enjoy hearing from, I would love to hear from
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  more people. Yeah. So I think if anyone is ever tempted to dip their toe in, then please do because
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  I love seeing occasionally actual conversations take place, you know, not just about the episode,
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  but between members of the audience as well, because it makes me feel like we're all pulling
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  in the same direction and we're all part of a community. We have tried just on a content question
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  when you mention Australia to do less Australian stuff. The audience in Australia grew quite a lot
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  when I left the ABC. And since then, with stuff like the World Tour in the States, the American
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  audience has grown even more strongly. So we still have, the United States is still our number one
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  market followed by Australia and the two of them are maybe 80% of listeners and then the rest is
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  the UK and other places. So strategically, we've tried to do less, like when we do Australian stuff,
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  I then I want it to be Australian stuff that resonates with people everywhere because it's about
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  global issues. I don't want to ever do something that's about like a local horse race. Very, very,
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  very, very rarely, you know. Right. Well, having the former Prime Minister on, I thought that episode
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  was great. And for somebody who had no idea who he was or what he was talking about, I mean, it
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  was very accessible. And I thought really an interesting conversation, especially about immigration.
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  I mean, there are certain themes that kind of keep popping up. Obviously, part of that's just
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  because that's what's in the zeitgeist right now. But yeah, I would encourage listeners to check
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  that out. Yes, Tony Abbott, he was on a few weeks ago and he was the one of the architects of
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  Australia's very harsh policy towards asylum seekers, which is now being looked at closely and
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  potentially replicated by other Western countries who are dealing with dysfunction at their own
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  borders. But yeah, I thought that was interesting. And I mean, yes, it's a conscious choice that I
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  make to focus on issues like that that I know are relevant everywhere rather than talking to Australian
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  leaders about saving koalas, which is not going to have the same applicability for an American
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  audience. I mean, the other creative content choice that people may not have consciously
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  noticed that we've made this year is to not focus on Trump very much at all. We haven't spent
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  a lot of time following the ins and outs of the Trump administration. I think other outlets do
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  that enough that you don't really need my predictable banging away about, you know, unless we're
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  talking in big broad brush strokes about autocracy or how authoritarianism functions or challenges
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  to democracy or something, yeah, we've tried explicitly not to be jumping at every
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  news cycle from the American administration, which I think would have risked becoming tiresome.
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  Very. And as a listener, I appreciate not being hit over the head with the same bed, you know,
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  takes over and over again. So thank you for that. Kudos. What do you see on the horizon?
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  Topic wise, like, what do you think we're going to be talking about for the next year?
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  AI continues to be kind of a top of mind.
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  And I mean, I think AI, I think what keeps you up tonight these days.
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  Well, I mean, in recent weeks, obviously, the tragedy in Bondi Beach is front of mind. And so
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  the capacity of liberal democracies to pull off the multicultural experiment without
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  resorting to either far right xenophobic politics or just sort of finding themselves consumed by
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  intonisan tribal warfare between jihadists and other extremists is front of mind for me.
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  But I hope that that doesn't become anything more than just a background issue throughout
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  2026. I mean, it's hard to make predictions. Obviously, the second half of 2026 will be
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  heavily focused in the United States on the midterm elections. Yeah. It can be a lot of political
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  chatter. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a stock market crash at some point in the next 12
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  months. Everyone who knows anything about economics seems to think everything is massively overvalued.
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  So that'll probably take up some kind of oxygen. But it's probably unlikely to hopefully be too bad or
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  too, like, the ripple effects shouldn't be like what they were during the financial crisis because
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  it doesn't seem like banks are over leverage the same way that they were. So it'll just be a bunch of
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  people losing money and maybe a recession. What else? It'll just be interesting. I think to watch
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  the decline of the Trump administration, I think he's on the precipice of the beginning of the end
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  of his influence and popularity. So the Republican Party will be shuffling around and trying to
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  think what's next and who is next, which is kind of crazy since we're only a year into the
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  administration. And then you're already in American politics thinking about what's going to happen
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  in three years time. But as always, what we'll probably be talking about is the things that we
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  don't know that we don't know. It's always the unknown unknowns that get us. The known unknowns and the
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  known. Was that Rumsfeld? It was Rumsfeld. There were known unknowns and there are known unknowns.
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  It's not wrong. He's totally right. I thought it was, I mean, we learned that in, like, first year logic
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  and philosophy at university. So he's, and everyone was ridiculing him as if he was an idiot, but
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  it is a good point to make that there are things that you know that you don't know. Like, I know
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  that I don't know how to speak Russian, but there are all kinds of things that I'm not even aware
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  that I don't know, which I can't articulate because I don't know that I don't know them.
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  It's, I mean, yeah, it's good. Let's, shall we just go through? I just want to remind ourselves and
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  the listener, unless you wanted to jump in there with a, well, I just, I hope we do get to
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  chat for us, or we don't have to chat, but just to recognize the episode, and I don't have the
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  name in front of me, but where he just, like, didn't respond to anything you said for an hour.
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  Remind me who that was. What was that? It was a fellow Sampstaka.
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  Yeah. And, and kind of a popular one who I had read and he just, I can see him. I can see his face.
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  John, John are the producers coming. Oh, yeah. No, it's myth from no opinion. Yeah. Is that
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  who you think of? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely guy. That was lovely guy. And we also just,
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  it would have just like talking in parallel for quite some time. That was a surreal experience.
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  And made me feel great about myself. I was like, well, I can't be the worst guest he has on now.
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  No, I may have a backwards hat and long, lanky hair, but I at least can put a couple of words
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  together that are relevant to what Josh is saying. I think so. Yeah. I hope so. He's speaking of
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  the difference between writing and speaking. I mean, he's so good. He is an incredible writer,
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  a fantastic thinker. And I think, I think sometimes guests just come in and are not quite sure
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  what this show is or who I am or why they've been invited on. So they try to follow my lead.
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  And sometimes I do a good job of modeling that lead. And sometimes I do a less good job because I
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  kind of actually just like the awkwardness of occasionally enjoy bombing as well.
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  Hoking. It started something came up about like pet rabbits or something, right? And then he was
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  like, no, I have that rabbit. And you were like, oh, okay, interesting. Yeah. And he was like
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  offended by that, I think. And I think I'm going to talk about Mixamatosus in Australia or,
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  you know, Ferrell Pests. And yeah, those was way off the reservation. Yeah, those AI images of
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  like rabbits fighting on tanks and stuff. I mean, it was and kangaroos and things. It was
• 27:19
  all over the place. Yeah. So I was just going to go over and review some of the month by month
• 27:25
  of this year. It's a whole people's hand and take them through what was going on this year.
• 27:30
  The year opened with the LA fires. Can you believe that's a year ago?
• 27:37
  Wow. So I did a monologue on the 10th of January about the about LA being on fire.
• 27:44
  And we were talking about Gaza and Trump and, you know, Israel and Palestine in at that period as
• 27:53
  well. In February, we talked about, oh, there was a good one, which was actually PayWorld,
• 28:00
  which was about fentanyl. I don't know if you ever heard that one, but it was with a journalist who
• 28:04
  was writing a book about the Chinese trade in fentanyl and how fentanyl is produced. And he
• 28:10
  actually went undercover in China as a reporter and sort of risked his life, like, you know,
• 28:17
  liaising with the Chinese mafia and going to fentanyl labs and stuff. I thought that was really
• 28:22
  interesting as well. The science month. Yeah. Sorry. No, I was just going to say the, you know,
• 28:27
  that all the Venezuelan stuff and the crackdown on cocaine, you know, not a cocaine user myself,
• 28:36
  but I understand that some people do enjoy it. And, you know, when it, I forget, I heard a statistic,
• 28:45
  the number of man hours it takes to process like a gram of cocaine versus fentanyl.
• 28:50
  You know, it's, it's like a tenth of a thousandth. I mean, it's, it's nothing. And so one
• 28:57
  unfortunate thing is when you limit the supply of cocaine, you're going to open the door for more
• 29:02
  and more fentanyl users. I heard that too. It was amazing. Wasn't it? I think it was the
• 29:06
  historian who was on Sam's show who was too open about. I think that's where I heard it. And I think
• 29:12
  he was saying that a dose of, or it might be a baggy or whatever, but I think he was saying like
• 29:19
  one dose of cocaine takes something like four months worth of manpower to produce in terms of
• 29:26
  the growing and everything. And one dose of fentanyl is four hours of manpower. So it's like, you know,
• 29:33
  an order of magnitude more convenient. Yeah. So yes, that was fentanyl. That was in February.
• 29:41
  There was also an interesting one in January about how religious Americans might be able to defeat
• 29:48
  Trumpism by redefining a more apolitical vision of conservative Christianity that is more about
• 29:56
  personal conduct and less about national, you know, fighting for national hegemony. I thought
• 30:02
  that was interesting. That was called how the church can defeat Trumpism. And then in February,
• 30:07
  we also interviewed a survivor of October 7th, Natalie Senandarji.
• 30:13
  Power March. We were talking about, oh, there was the Canadian election as well in March.
• 30:20
  So we had Jen Gerson on whose excellent Canadian journalist who was incredibly depressed and sort
• 30:26
  of traumatized about the Trump trade war with Canada and Canada's need to essentially
• 30:33
  resituate itself strategically, completely and reorient its priorities because so much had
• 30:39
  changed in its relationship with the US. Then what did we have?
• 30:49
  Oh, that's right. We had one of John O. my producer's favorites was with the Nobel Peace Prize winner
• 30:56
  Dave Sweeney about nuclear, he's an anti-nuclear campaigner. That was amazing. And I think was
• 31:04
  I don't really remember. Yeah, I don't remember that being. It was so especially much of it.
• 31:11
  Layered on to the AI conversation, you know, and the whole abundance thing.
• 31:18
  Oh, yeah. You know, the role of nuclear power and, you know, by extension nuclear arms and
• 31:25
  whether those two are related. Because he's very anti. He's anti-nuclear power. He's anti-nuclear
• 31:32
  everything, obviously. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for being anti-nuclear. But I guess maybe
• 31:37
  I'm biased because I'm in favor of nuclear power as a climate-fighting thing. So I just found
• 31:43
  to see some of those arguments unpersuasive, but maybe that's just me. One of my favorite episodes
• 31:50
  happened in April, which was with this Finnish education expert, Pazzy Stahlberg, who I sat
• 31:57
  down within Melbourne. And if people haven't heard that, that's definitely one I would go back to.
• 32:02
  Because like he was one of the architects of what became the world's best education system
• 32:08
  in Finland and has all of these ideas about what it means to be a kid, about thinking about the
• 32:14
  way that schools are designed and built and run from the perspective of a kid, things that Finland did
• 32:20
  that we could do here. Yeah, just really clever person to wrestle with about like, you know,
• 32:27
  what is too much love? What is too much discipline? Like how do you raise clever kids?
• 32:34
  Well, adjusted kids. Well, and as we, you know, we've learned so much in the last 50 years about child
• 32:40
  psychology and kind of how things work and yet our education, early education system really hasn't
• 32:47
  changed all that much in many ways. And I think it's just one of the unfortunate consequences of
• 32:55
  of status quo, you know, comfort is that people get very nervous when you start talking about
• 33:00
  educational reforms and rocking the boat in that department. And yet hearing that conversation,
• 33:07
  it was like so obvious. You hear that stuff. And it's like, of course.
• 33:12
  Yes. And we still like, we teach kids in the same way that we did when, you know,
• 33:18
  like during the industrial revolution, when we were training them all, you know, to become factory
• 33:23
  workers in many ways, sit in a line, you know, shut up, listen to the teacher, you know, is that
• 33:30
  the best way to make them creative in an era of AI? Well, and I know you, we've talked about
• 33:35
  this before too, but the role of technology and education, you know, we struggle with with our own
• 33:41
  kids, like, you know, I'm making Henry work on his handwriting. And then it's like, this kid's
• 33:46
  never going to hold a pencil in his life, you know, like, why are we banging on? I feel like an
• 33:52
  old guy saying, go out in the yard and roll a hoop down the hill with a stick, you know, it's like,
• 33:58
  he's got to learn how to navigate technology because that's going to be his future. And
• 34:04
  yet, there's still a hoop down a hill with a stick is probably more beneficial in more scenarios
• 34:09
  than writing a handwritten note. You're not wrong. You may sound like this coordination.
• 34:17
  It's harder than you think. I do make them, you know, for an hour a day with a big hill outside
• 34:23
  our house. And I do have them roll a hoop down to it. And it's, have you seen the viral videos of
• 34:29
  the car tires bouncing down the side of mountains? Amazing. There are a lot of them. But the best one
• 34:36
  is, it was recommended to me on the slate, political gab fest by David Plott's, who has found
• 34:43
  like the supreme YouTuber who all of it, all he does is just take these high quality drone videos.
• 34:53
  And the drone chases the tire down. It what looks like the Swiss Alps or something like it was
• 34:58
  just amazing. It's just this beautiful scenery and it goes on and on and on and on bouncing down
• 35:04
  the side of a mountain that's like thousands of kilometers high. You so when you like can't sleep
• 35:10
  at night, do you, what's your go to? Do you like watch dumb YouTube videos or do you read a book
• 35:16
  like a human being? I rarely can't sleep. If I, but if I can't sleep, then I think about
• 35:24
  airplanes and what which first class cabins I like the best. Here we go. Here we go. It's been,
• 35:32
  we've been on for 35 minutes and that's got to be a record. I've held out that long. I've held
• 35:38
  that best off. But if I, if I'm trying to just, if I'm just trying to fill time in the evening,
• 35:46
  I mean, the good version of me will read a book. The bad version of me will watch something
• 35:51
  on streaming. I really don't use YouTube. I'm like the only person in the world who doesn't just
• 35:55
  bounce around YouTube. I just don't want to be nudged by algorithms. I'd rather watch
• 35:59
  Pluribus on Apple TV than, you know, I've tied down a hill. That's only when I'm like
• 36:05
  eating sushi, you know, you know, and whiteen in line at the pharmacy or something that I'm watching.
• 36:11
  You try. I, I got into these, I promise I will go on too long about this, but these ancient
• 36:16
  Chinese craft craftsmanship that you already, or they make, you know, like spectacular
• 36:26
  vases and their vases, I guess, or whatever or like jewelry and stuff. But it shows the whole
• 36:32
  process and it's all artisanal. And I thought, oh gosh, this is great. Then I dug into it.
• 36:37
  They're all created by the Chinese Communist Party. They're all like propaganda videos to push
• 36:43
  Chinese culture, like old stuff. I still love them. But I thought it was this incredible artisanal
• 36:51
  farm out in the Chinese islands that were producing these, but it's not.
• 36:55
  Okay. To be honest, most stuff that comes out of the People's Republic probably has the
• 36:59
  impromata of the Communist Party on it. Certainly it's approval. Yeah, exactly. They're not doing
• 37:05
  something that they disapprove of. So we've gone through much April. Then, oh, it was actually
• 37:11
  May that was Dave Swini, the nuclear activist. There was also an interesting one in May with
• 37:18
  Amos Goldberg, the Israeli genocide historian who wrote the piece Why Garza is genocide. This
• 37:27
  was in May. And that got a lot of criticism, obviously. The following month I sat down with
• 37:32
  Ainut Welfusa, an Israeli parliamentarian to sort of give the opposite case. And I think those
• 37:37
  two episodes, the Amos Goldberg, which is called Why Garza is genocide. And then a month later,
• 37:44
  it was actually a month to the day, Ainut Welfth called the Palestinian delusion.
• 37:49
  And around good time you wrote, when did you wrote your own time? Yeah, around that time.
• 37:54
  That's right. I wrote it between those two. It was because I did the Goldberg interview.
• 38:00
  And then people freaked out that I was not exposing myself to enough pro-Israel ideas. And so
• 38:08
  then we booked Ainut. And I wrote this piece that subsequently was probably phrased in the
• 38:16
  slightly too, Josh, Joshi Manor in terms of being just like Piffy and provocative.
• 38:22
  Just, but I think the sprinkled that by sentiment. Exactly. I know. So that, yeah, that was an
• 38:28
  interesting time of year because that was also when we were preparing for the for the World Tour.
• 38:33
  In fact, when we went on the World Tour in, what was that, July? We go on the World Tour, yeah,
• 38:38
  in July. And some funny anecdotes about that that you and the audience may not know about,
• 38:47
  you know, New York City in July, it's warm. But having lived there for a dozen years,
• 38:55
  I should have known that mid-July in New York can be incredibly unpleasant. Also,
• 39:03
  Washington, DC, which is literally built on a swamp is very, very humid. So we had like,
• 39:10
  one of our first interviews in New York was with Jesse Single from Blockton reported.
• 39:15
  Was that up on the balcony or whatever it was up on the balcony? We decided it would look great
• 39:21
  if we had the New York skyline behind us, instead of always looking like we're in this kind of
• 39:26
  generic set. So we set it up on the outside on the balcony in Brooklyn with the New York skyline
• 39:34
  behind us. And it's like 105 degrees in the shade. And Jesse is just a sweatin' like a madman.
• 39:42
  And he's got a sunscreen spray of like a sun lotion that he just keeps leaning over and spraying
• 39:50
  at me into my eyes and all over my body during the, during the live stream. So it was worried
• 39:57
  about you. Yeah, it was concerned. Yeah. It was concerned. And then we also did a live show
• 40:02
  at the company seller. Yeah, given what? I was going to say given the record of Australian sunscreen.
• 40:10
  You know, it's what is there something I don't know about? I think, right? Wasn't there a big
• 40:16
  scandal that measured the SPF, John O'Knoes. They measured the SPF of all these sunscreens and
• 40:24
  they were like, I remember that. What they were supposed to be. And I think that that was just
• 40:29
  because SPF is sort of bullshit beyond about 15 anyway. I think like, because it's supposed to be,
• 40:37
  I think, I think this is true. I was once told by a chemist that like the SPF is supposed to denote
• 40:43
  the number of times, the number of, it's supposed to be an X on the amount of time that it's
• 40:51
  going to take you to get the same amount of damaging UV. So SPF five means that five hours will
• 40:57
  give you the same as one hour without it. Fifth garden, you'd have to save 15 hours for one hour.
• 41:03
  Once you get past 15 up to like 50 hours or something, well, in that time, it's all going to
• 41:08
  have wiped off and like you will have, you'll be, you'll be dead. You've got to reapply. So it's,
• 41:12
  you need a juicy single there to be, I'm a baby spreading me personally for bananas,
• 41:18
  the dark oil kind of guy. So oh, wow, really? Not in Australia, bro. You're going to be
• 41:23
  asked off with that anymore. That was before as a father. And I have, I've, you know,
• 41:28
  things to live for now. Yeah, but you live in a cold climate anyway. So you're not getting any,
• 41:33
  you're probably not going to enough UV at this time of year. It gets pretty hot and we just
• 41:36
  came back from the Bahamas, which was lovely. That's true. Who did you meet in the Bahamas that
• 41:40
  you sent me a text message? Jason Isaacs, the white lotus guy. He was amazing. Yeah. So he was
• 41:46
  season three of white lotus, the, you know, the main, but also a vicious male.
• 41:50
  It's a falling apart. Yeah. And he was the star of this great show that only lasted one season.
• 41:57
  And I don't remember what it was. I was called a wake or a wake. I think it was something like that.
• 42:01
  No one knows about it. Nobody watched it. I think it was on NBC. I loved it. And it just ended
• 42:06
  after one season in May. So like 2010 or something. My wife and I talked to him about a movie called
• 42:12
  Sweet November that he did with Keanu Reeves and Charlie's there. And he played like a drag queen.
• 42:18
  And he was spectacular in it. And he remembered he gave us so many great stories about it. He was
• 42:25
  the nicest guy ever. So he was playing a drag queen, but he is not himself a drag queen. So
• 42:31
  cultural appropriation. Did you? I told him that. Oh, yeah. I told him that you're disgusting,
• 42:37
  man. But it's fabulous. Now back then you could do anything, I think. Sure. Why not?
• 42:42
  20 years. So also in July, we did this live show at the Comedy Cellar, which was heaps of fun.
• 42:48
  Yeah, you got to do your stand-up to know. Well, I just said it. I just said one bad taste,
• 42:54
  funny thing about the fact that they'd just been a shooting in New York. I would call it stand-up
• 42:58
  exactly. It was a good introduction. Yeah, an introduction. So thanks to Noam Doran as
• 43:05
  well for giving us that space. And he's a great guy. He's a man. He had me on his show,
• 43:10
  live from the table at the Comedy Cellar to try to grill me about my anti-Israel. They're not
• 43:16
  anti-Israel views. What people call anti-Israel. My criticism of the conduct of the Netanyahu
• 43:23
  government. And also, yeah, so Washington, DC, incredibly hot. We sat outside with Tyler Cowan again.
• 43:32
  And Tyler was great. Lots of great stuff there. August, we released all of the tour.
• 43:40
  My dad had just died, so I released the urology of his funeral in August as well.
• 43:49
  And I had the founders of Substack on the show that month as well to talk about because they
• 43:54
  just had this, you know, they're pushing the live valuation or something. Yeah. Yeah, he
• 44:00
  missioned. Is it he-mish? I can't. Yes. Yes. Yeah, Chris. I thought that was great.
• 44:08
  They didn't support him. Talk about my community managing, though, which I was. No,
• 44:12
  they did. They talked about that off the air. Off the air. They were talking about how amazing
• 44:16
  Evan Pavankar is. I told them, you know, they keep offering me all this money and prestige
• 44:23
  should become an official Substack thing. But I got, you know, I got a little league to drive.
• 44:29
  Exactly. You got things to do. Ain't nobody got time for that. That's right. Then in September,
• 44:36
  I really liked the conversation with Waleed Ali as well. The Muslim Australian journalist
• 44:41
  and academic and television host, who was, which was about liberalism. And I think it's even more
• 44:48
  relevant this week, well, over the past few weeks, because as everyone in Australia is kind of
• 44:56
  picking up the pieces and thinking about social cohesion, Waleed as a practicing, serious Muslim,
• 45:04
  but also a really smart, thoughtful guy is less optimistic about liberalism than I was. And I
• 45:13
  was sort of the polyanna in the conversation saying, like, you know, liberalism can work. And he
• 45:17
  was like, I'm not sure that I'm not sure that it can. And it's so now for my community to be the
• 45:24
  one that has been assassinated and executed by a deranged member. I mean, I don't want to say of
• 45:31
  his community, because he would absolutely, I mean, he's been texting me his, obviously,
• 45:35
  would have nothing to do with it. But from the perspective of group identitarianism,
• 45:43
  his concerns have proven more right than I had wanted them to be.
• 45:50
  Yeah. And I'm fast forwarding chronologically, but the woman who's like an ex-pat living in
• 45:55
  France, who writes all the collapse literature. Yeah. Sarah. Sarah. I thought that was great too.
• 46:02
  I mean, that's that that topic. I was preparing a class that I'm going to teach called the end
• 46:09
  of democracy in America, focused on Tocqueville's analysis of American democracy. And I want to
• 46:15
  take that catchy title too, right? That'll get them in that door. I joked that we would just read
• 46:22
  the last chapter of democracy in America every day for the entire semester. Deep textual analysis
• 46:29
  of just the end of democracy in America. But yeah, I think that's going to be, unfortunately,
• 46:36
  a very relevant topic in the near future. And I unfortunately, if you believe Tocqueville,
• 46:44
  his sort of warnings about American democracy 200 years ago are all coming true. And
• 46:52
  not that America represents all of liberalism and democracy, but it's certainly
• 47:01
  you know, is kind of the canary in the coal mine, I think. And I think it's a real
• 47:06
  case for concern. If it's any consolation, I'm more optimistic about America than I think a
• 47:10
  lot of Americans are at the moment because the problems of holding together societies in Europe,
• 47:19
  which I thought Australia was immune from, but maybe not. We'll see. If the problems in Europe are
• 47:24
  really demographic ones and ones that run into deep questions of social cohesion and cultural
• 47:33
  unity. And when you couple that with sluggish economic growth in Europe, and the kind of migration
• 47:43
  pressures, it is hard to know how to back out of that. Whereas in the case of the United States,
• 47:48
  you've got an underlying economy that's strong, that's innovative. You've got populations who
• 47:55
  at least along ethnic lines are living together very well, even if politically there's a lot of
• 48:01
  partisanship. And so the solution does seem somewhat more simple, like just don't become authoritarian.
• 48:08
  Well, it's like elects people who aren't dictatorial shitheads and things might be okay.
• 48:15
  I think I'm kind of approaching it from a different angle with the relationship to capitalism
• 48:22
  that, you know, Toteville, well, I won't. You'll have to take the class, Josh. But
• 48:29
  the idea that, you know, we have, we're obsessed with money and making money and
• 48:34
  innovating all the things that you said. But what balanced that out for Toteville was civic
• 48:40
  associations, you know, our ability to interact, like we can fight it out in the boardroom,
• 48:45
  but we still all go over to our neighbor's house for Sunday dinner or whatever, you know, and
• 48:50
  that that, like a chemical reaction when you start pulling a few carbon atoms away and whatever
• 48:59
  things can get pretty reactive. And I just, I'm worried about the lack of just, you know,
• 49:07
  social interaction that we don't hang out with neighbors, we don't congregate and talk and
• 49:14
  democracy needs some level of understanding what other people are going through. And I think
• 49:21
  we're losing a lot of the institutional framework for exploring common problems and
• 49:29
  fundamental things like that. I'm more worried about that than I am the authoritarian,
• 49:34
  because you're right. That's just an election can switch that whole thing, hopefully. But
• 49:40
  but I think a deeper problem is just our inability to talk to each other, you know,
• 49:45
  which is why, frankly, so passionate about, you know, what you do. I think when you've
• 49:52
  made me, but I went, I mean, you went, but that was okay. That was fine. And it was a modest
• 49:58
  compliment as well. The, yeah, no, I mean, I think there are big questions around
• 50:06
  artificial intelligence, social media algorithms, the thought bubbles and echo chambers and like
• 50:11
  demographic self-sorting of people just into, you know, their own bubbles that are massively
• 50:18
  problematic and complicated, but they exist everywhere. And we're all going to have to figure
• 50:24
  those out. Maybe they're more pronounced in America. Then so September, Charlie Kirk also happened
• 50:34
  in September. So there was that whole thing. The news happens fast, huh? It does, doesn't it, right?
• 50:41
  Holy cow. And then October, there was some, yeah, interesting, interesting conversations. I've
• 50:47
  got a lot of, a lot of interesting feedback about the conversation with Robert Wintermute, who's the
• 50:54
  the gay lawyer who is speaking out about the conflict between transgender rights and women's rights
• 51:02
  and gay rights. He was originally one of the founders of the transgender rights sort of charter
• 51:09
  and has since turned around and feels like the movement has lost its way. Yeah, Andrew Sullivan,
• 51:15
  obviously, is that's a very prominent theme in his writing and conversations lately too. Yeah,
• 51:23
  that's right. That's right. And there was another good chat about Israel in October, which was with
• 51:27
  the Israeli journalist Yarkov Katz from who was in Jerusalem. And he and I sort of argued,
• 51:33
  I was called Gaza 3.0, if people want to go back and listen to that. And we'll have a good one.
• 51:38
  Also in October, which was, which was great. And then in November, there were a couple of good
• 51:42
  ones. There was the Tucker Carlson editorial that you mentioned. There was this climate change
• 51:48
  solution with this scientist, the, the, the, the, the, the, oh my gosh. Wasn't that so cool? So cool.
• 51:56
  Top, we was in my top five. Yeah, absolutely fascinating. I think as, as the community manager,
• 52:04
  your homework, everyone's homework is to go back. And I think it's up now on the, on the page,
• 52:10
  to go back and listen to that because it was alive that you did. And I think a few people
• 52:16
  called it on the pod as on the third of November. And it's called the climate change solution.
• 52:22
  So crazy. It just might work with Kiko Toro. And he's got this nonprofit that's looking into,
• 52:29
  well, I won't spill, I won't spoil it, but basically a, a way that we could reduce, the way
• 52:35
  that we could absorb carbon naturally and head off the worst consequences of climate change,
• 52:40
  potentially by enlisting the assistance of some South Pacific countries. Yeah. And in
• 52:46
  doing thermal vents, let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. And November was also a Prime Minister Tony
• 52:53
  Abbott talking about refugees and the fate of Western civilization. And then in December,
• 53:00
  another one that Jono, the producer, really liked was this one about veganism and animal cruelty
• 53:05
  with Aiden Alexander, who has this nonprofit. Yeah. That was great. Why are you laughing? I just, I
• 53:14
  love to, I just love, for people who haven't sat down with Josh to talk, it's not the easiest
• 53:22
  thing to do. I mean, you got to come, you got to come ready, like, and strong. And you kept bringing up
• 53:29
  like animal cruelty stuff. And he was all right. I don't want to talk about that. Yeah. I just
• 53:36
  wanted to remind people, you know, what the practice is are in factory farms. Yeah. The people might
• 53:42
  object to, but that we persist in doing nonetheless. He's like, he's like, he's like, I don't want to talk
• 53:46
  about positive, I'm talking about positive solutions. And like, we'll get to the solutions,
• 53:52
  talk about the bloodshed first. We have to feel terrible about it first. But his argument,
• 53:56
  yeah, his argument is that, you know, you should not, that it's a mistake for animal rights activists
• 54:02
  to frame this as being like, you should go vegan or vegetarian. Otherwise, you're an immoral
• 54:08
  person. Right. That actually, there are very simple things that you can do and clear charities
• 54:15
  that you can donate to who are doing real lobbying and real making real efforts to what it would,
• 54:23
  have you just had a stroke? No, sorry. I was looking for Joel. I have Joel Salaton's book.
• 54:29
  Oh, okay. People watching the video, Evan just looked over. Sorry. Right hand side.
• 54:35
  But yes, the same kind of look on your face that Joe Biden did during the, the debate
• 54:41
  or the entire presidency for the past 20 years. And so the argument is that there are things
• 54:48
  that we can do that would make factory farming much less cruel whilst we continue to wait and meet
• 54:53
  if we so wish. Yeah. And piecemeal stuff like it, we don't all need to go to the extreme to
• 54:59
  make real change. That's the, the, you know, there's such so much low hanging fruit that's protected
• 55:05
  by corporate interests that with a few pen strokes could be, could be fixed. You know, the
• 55:11
  extra bills and things like that. Yeah. It would make a world of difference. I mean, you caught a lot
• 55:16
  the conversation with Sam when you guys talked about, whether it's, you know, it's one drop in the
• 55:23
  bucket. If I don't eat meat or whatever, got a lot of traction in the comments and, you know,
• 55:30
  that idea that, that some small institutional changes could make a big, big difference. And we
• 55:36
  don't need moon shots. We don't need everybody to be vegan to fix, fix this problem. It's a good
• 55:42
  reminder. Yeah, exactly. So people's homework, homework is, you can listen to that one. The Tony
• 55:51
  Abbott, the climate change solution, so crazy, it might just might work pretty much the whole
• 55:56
  world to Sam Harris, Tyler Conn, Nick Cave, Richard Ron. Oh, you know, who I didn't mention,
• 56:02
  who is one of my favorites of the year, was Camille Foster. Oh, well, Camille, I mean, all the
• 56:07
  sifth, sifth column, force column. Yeah, the fifth column. Yeah. I mean, yes, that was, and that
• 56:14
  watch was also on the show and fabulous Michael Moynihan's always great, but he hasn't been on the
• 56:19
  show this year. But Camille was just in a very, I think because my dad had just died and we had
• 56:24
  just gotten the lunch and I was sort of getting a bit teary about that. And then we went into the
• 56:28
  recording. He was like, very gentle and almost spiritual and kind of, I agree.
• 56:37
  Such a humane. He's an extremely humane and mature person, Camille. That was a real, because I'm
• 56:43
  a fan of theirs and I try to listen when I can, but hearing that one on one, that was really
• 56:50
  rewarding for me. Yeah. So, so people should listen to that. Then there's Josh versus the
• 56:55
  anti-gay parenting activist, Katie Faust. There's the Palestinian delusion with I not, and from the
• 57:01
  other perspective, why Gaza is genocide. There's also Gaza 3.0. Those would be your triumvirate of
• 57:06
  Israel, Gaza conversations. Well, that's the imagining, sorry. That's after you go back and listen
• 57:12
  all the lives that I've done with you. Of course. Evan's episodes are the most important.
• 57:18
  And there's the reimagining schooling with Pazi Salberg. And I'll, John, I also really like to
• 57:25
  the former Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, which is a good one for Australians, but maybe not
• 57:32
  for foreigners. And I'll, John McWater as well. I didn't mention John. He's so good.
• 57:39
  So good. Talk to John once a month, once a week, once a day. Yeah.
• 57:46
  On language and linguistics, I mean, he is, you know, I think you guys covered some interesting
• 57:52
  terrain in that conversation. Yeah. I don't remember. Including a lot of, yeah, potentially hot
• 58:00
  button stuff. So it was good. And also just funny language stuff as well. Yeah. We've got Stephen
• 58:08
  Pinker coming up. I'm not sure if he will have dropped already by the time this goes out on
• 58:12
  the podcast. Oh, I thought you meant dropped out because he's watching there. No, he's like,
• 58:17
  I'm not doing a show where McWater has done. But yes, that'll be one to look out for in
• 58:27
  either coming weeks or previous weeks. If you're listening to this after the fact of not watching
• 58:32
  it live. Awesome. Evan, thank you for your tireless work this year. I can't believe you put in,
• 58:38
  I mean, I was looking at your time log and it seems like you've worked 365 days in 2025.
• 58:45
  I wouldn't do it for anyone other than you, Josh, you know, that amazing. I will, I'll be better.
• 58:53
  I'll be better. I need, I need to hear from our community. You want the people, you want
• 59:02
  the people to decide. Yeah. So if people have suggestions, if there are things that you like,
• 59:06
  there are types of episodes that you really enjoy or ones that you didn't like so much,
• 59:10
  then you can chat in the, is that either comment on a note on substack or you can comment under
• 59:16
  the actual video itself or you can send an email to uncomfyconvoseatgmail.com and Evan at some point
• 59:23
  in 2027 will then review them. No, 2026. I will, I will be better. Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to
• 59:32
  step up. I'm not a New Year's resolution to go guy, but we're, we're renovating our house,
• 59:39
  we're moving out to our mountain. I'm going to be really even more mountain man for the next
• 59:44
  year. Not possible. Oh, possible, Josh challenge, except you have them. Where's your mountain?
• 59:49
  It's about 20 minutes outside of town. We have 80 acres. We'll, we'll, I'll shoot the next
• 59:54
  live one. I'll give you the view of the Blue Ridge. It's spectacular. Yeah, that's really a
• 59:59
  special place. Remind people what state this is. Oh, I live, I live in Charlottesville, Virginia.
• 1:00:05
  So, okay. Nestled up against the Blue Ridge. I mean, I'll continue to send invitations. We
• 1:00:16
  have been doing and you can continue to know of them. But someday my content I will be strolling,
• 1:00:24
  we'll be hiking the Blue Ridge mountains. Yeah, we can sit on the Adirondack chairs out back
• 1:00:29
  just a single style and spray fabulous screen into each other's eyes. It'll be romantic.
• 1:00:35
  It's a date. Thank you, Evan. Thank you to all of the listeners and viewers and thank you to all
• 1:00:40
  of the people who've been on the show this year. Here's to a fabulous 2026. I'll see you on the other
• 1:00:44
  side, buddy. Let's go. All right. See you, bugs.