Shows / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
The world has never been more connected. Yet never more divided. We yell at each other from inside our echo chambers. But change doesn’t happen inside an echo chamber. It’s time to get out, to stretch our legs, to step on some land mines. It's time to have an uncomfortable conversation with Josh Szeps.
A DM Podcast
Episodes
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Comedy Kingmaker on Speaking Fearlessly & Living Well
Noam Dworman is the owner of comedy’s most revered venue, the Comedy Cellar, sometimes referred to as the "Harvard” of comedy clubs. He transformed it from a…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
What Israeli Election?
As we hold our breath to find out whether Israelis will finally spurn Netanyahuism, Yael Bar Tur joins Josh to definitely NOT discuss the Israeli election…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Stephen Fry on Love, Trump and Learning Not to Care
This episode is part of The Best Of series and was originally posted in 2024. Few Britons are as iconic as Stephen Fry. On TV, he’s an Emmy-winning comedy…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Midterms! France! Josh is in DC! Yayyy
Is the exhausted majority stuck choosing between two extremes that can’t be satisfied, and what happens when the far left and far right go head to head? Josh…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
BREAKING: A Note on Political Violence
Is it more ethical to prosecute your moral beliefs, or to understand people who disagree? Who, exactly, is fomenting polarisation? Who is capable, potentially…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
"Why are you here?" with Tim Urban
This episode is part of The Best Of series and was originally posted in 2021. Tim Urban’s first appearance on this show remains one of my all-time favourites…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
How my upbringing shaped my world view with Josh Szeps
This episode is from the You’re A Good Kid podcast, featuring your humble host, Josh Szeps. This is a candid look into the life and mind of a boy who grew up…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
How A.I. is "Demolishing" Mathematics
A.I. is unleashing a “judgment day” on everything from algebra and geometry to probability and logic. What happens to human knowledge when it's dropped in our…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Consent and the "Cornell 7"
A female university student visits a male frat house at night. She is drugged and raped, for seven hours, by seven male students. She reports it but the…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
JUST JOSH: Conspiracies & FlyDubai, Oh My
When does healthy scepticism become unhinged suspicion? How do you know if you’re being gullible or sensible? What are the cognitive traps that social media…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Why do smart people believe stupid things?
Every human mind is a propaganda machine. It manufactures certainty, reinforces old narratives, and keeps us loyal to beliefs that no longer serve us. In an…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Free speech, hate speech, and the limits of Liberal tolerance with Sami Shah
What do we actually owe each other in a society trying to hold pluralism, free speech, and real religious and ethnic tension together at the same time? Josh…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Who's hacking you right now? with ethical hacker Assadi Youssef
When you read news about a data breach which might have exposed your information, do you even care? Who’s behind all this hacking: China, Russia, or a nerd in…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
William Shatner Doesn’t Want to Die, from The Moynihan Report
Today we’re sharing a bonus episode from The Moynihan Report. William Shatner sits down with Michael Moynihan in Los Angeles for a conversation about life…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Social media broke our ability to agree, with Jonathan Haidt
Jonathan Haidt is considered one of the world's most influential living psychologists. He joins Josh on this new instalment of Permission To Think - a…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
“So… *Does* God Hate F*gs?” with Megan Phelps-Roper
What do our modern-day culture wars have to teach us about cult-like thinking, moral puritanism, judgment and compassion? And if you lose religious faith, how…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Is there any Room left for moderates? With Jeff Maurer
Is there any room left for the political centre, or has it been swallowed by two competing extremes with nothing but contempt for the middle? Josh chats with…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
JUST JOSH: The Unlearned Lesson of 9/11
It's a quarter-century since 9/11. What do we need to understand about its legacy, so as to handle the next quarter-century better? Josh was a college student…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Jewish Comedy at the Bondi Attack
Has a secret in your ancestry ever changed who you are? Imagine being a non-Jewish comedian who suddenly finds out he's Jewish. What do you do? You put on a…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Are Men Toxic?
A sex scandal involving star players for the Sydney Swans has rocked Australia. Coinciding with a spate of violence against women, the country is revisiting…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
What is Elon Up To?: An Idiot’s Guide to Space and Why You Need to Pay Attention
You may not realise it, but humankind is on the cusp of an extraordinary space race. Are we about to become a multi-planetary civilisation? Do we really need a…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Glenn Loury: Are we censoring ourselves to death?
In this recording of a live event at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Josh hosts a one-on-one conversation with the legendary American intellectual, Glenn…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJason Arday, Suey Park & the Identity Hunger Games
Josh has been reflecting on what the tragedy of Cambridge University's youngest-ever Black professor reveals about the high-stakes identity game we've all been…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsHow the Public Shaming Machine was Built with Jon Ronson
What should we make of the public shaming machine we have built? Following the death of the Cambridge academic Jason Arday, Josh checks in with the godfather…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsThe Case Against Israel with Peter Beinart
Peter Beinart is arguably the world’s most influential Jewish anti-Zionist. He’s a journalist and a professor of journalism and political science. But in…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsHow Branding Replaced Facts in Politics
What unites Trump and Obama, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, the far right and the far left? They’re all brilliant at defining their brands. They have a clear narrative…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsHow to be a Dissident
What does it mean to be a dissident? If you join a protest march, are you dissenting… or conforming? How should you push back against leaders who wield fear…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Are Jews Okay? (with baklava)
Is Israel making Jews safer, or less safe? Does pro-Palestinian activism feed antisemitism, or is that a Zionist lie? And why are Greek men so hunky? Two of…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJosh vs the News: Why Everyone is Wrong About A.I.
Fable this. Deepseek that. As fascinating as each new A.I. model breakthrough (or breakout) is, are we missing the forest for the trees? The Reverend Josh…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsWhy is Trump Building a Secret Ballroom Bunker?
Exploding pagers! Enigma codes! Sexy Israeli spies! J Edgar Hoover's boyfriend's remote-controlled window opener! And, yes, Trump's top-secret ballroom bunker…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsBuckle Up for “the Manosphere 2.0” - Helen Lewis
What’s up with boys? Or, more importantly, what’s up with the men who use “what’s up with boys?” to crush women? It’s not just a rag-tag fringe of young male…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJosh vs the News: How The Odyssey Broke the Internet
The way culture-war ideologues have hijacked The Odyssey reveals how social media ruins everything. As go the arguments about the film, so go our conversations…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsIs this Child Psychiatrist "Anti-Trans"?
Dr Jillian Spencer is a senior child and adolescent psychiatrist who was fired three years ago after publicly criticising how puberty blockers and cross-sex…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsHow Evolution Shaped Men vs Women
Are men innately more violent? Are women innately more people-focused? What explains gay people, campness, transgenderism? How much of the sex differences are…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsDo Not Speak Ill of Lindsey Graham's Butthole (and other advice for America)
Journalist and ne’er-do-well Michael C. Moynihan joins Josh for a Substack livestream about the state of American politics, far-left candidates, far-right ICE…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsHave Kids Become Little Shits?
Screen time. Free range parenting. Attention deficit disorder. Social media bans. And that little bastard on the plane kicking the back of your seat the whole…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsRace, ICE & the "Woke Right"
How do you stay enthusiastic about defending your opponents’ right to say things you hate? That’s the pickle of the free-speech defender in these crazy times…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsIs Morality Made Up?
Is everything you believe about right and wrong just an accident of where you were born? Or is morality a universal truth waiting to be discovered? And if you…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsWhy We Don’t Believe Boys: Female Grooming & the Male Teen
When Harry was thirteen, his stepmother initiated a sexual relationship with him that lasted for three years and made him a father at fifteen. The horror and…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJosh vs the News: The TODAY Show, Cancel Culture, and Karl's Free Speech
Australia's most famous TV host has just been cancelled… but has he really? The "Matt Lauer of Down Under", Karl Stefanovic, hosted the TODAY Show for more…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsWhy don't Palestinians have a state? Haviv Rettig Gur on the True Tale of Palestinian Resistance
Why don't Palestinians have a state? To answer "because Israel" is to treat Palestinians as props in a Western morality play, rather than as a people in a…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJust Josh: a New UK PM, the New Left, New Right, & Brexit 10 Years On
It’s 10 years since Britain voted to leave the EU, and their revolving door of Prime Ministers just keeps spinning. Josh goes live to share his thoughts on the…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsAngertainment: How Online Outrage Ruined Everything
Can we blame polarisation on right-wing internet crazies? Or is the whole online system shot? The most valuable thing we produce online is anger. Not our data…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJust Josh: Iran's Billions & Elon's Trillion
The Reverend Josh breaks down Trump's surrender to (sorry, “memorandum of understanding with”) Iran; what Elon's trillion-dollar payday revealed about the far…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
The Gays Who Reject "LGBTQ+"
What's the "queer community"? Who's "LGBTQIA+"? When did sexuality get hitched to a queer cultural movement aimed at deconstructing gender, colonialism and…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsWTF? Gladiator Battles on the White House Lawn: How MMA & the Manosphere Took Over America (& the White House)
On Sunday, mixed martial arts fighters will beat the crap out of each other in a 90-foot-tall Ultimate Fighting Championship cage on the South Lawn of the…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps"Smile! Civilisation is Collapsing" with Sarah Wilson
In a world of catastrophic fires, record floods, collapsing democracies and rising unrest, our lives have rarely felt more precarious. So how do we keep living…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsMatt Taibbi, America's Top Gonzo Journalist, on How the Media Lost Its Mind
Get 30% OFF an Annual Uncomfortable Conversations Subscription at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe/sanity What happened to the news…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
“What the Hell Happened to L.A.?” with Meghan Daum
Los Angeles was once the city where people went to reinvent themselves. Space, sunshine, stardom. How did it become the city where people go to disappear into…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsWhere Does Anti-Zionism End and Anti-Semitism Begin?
Is it possible to criticise Israel without being anti-Semitic? How do we even know if you cross that line? It’s a question that has divided dinner tables…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsWhat Australia's Covid Frontman Regrets
As the Hantavirus and Ebola pop up in the news, what did we get wrong during Covid? Dr Nick Coatsworth was the Australian government’s deputy chief medical…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJosh vs the News: Think Bigly! with Reverend Szeps
The world is seemingly on fire. Iran, Ukraine, China, Trump, AI, climate, antisemitism, the Australian budget. It’s an avalanche of bad news, until Reverend…
- Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Just Josh: Why Can't Politicians Answer A Question?
Hey! Politicians! Stop talking like cardboard cutouts (if you're mainstream) or lunatics (if you're not). If politicians can't figure out how to have…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsWhat Trump & Xi are Really Up To! with fmr White House Official Tom Wright
Trump is in China, and you need to know what he and Xi are up to. What new world order are they creating? Today, Josh sits down with a senior US former…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJosh vs the News: BUDGET BONANZA!
It’s the biggest day in a generation for Australian economic reform (and for those of you abroad observing our friendly foreign land). From house prices to…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsNazi Salutes = Free Speech? with John Safran
Is anything too offensive for our post-cancel-culture world? When Trump & Elon wield "freedom of speech" as a way to silence their enemies, who's defending…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsShould You Be A Nationalist?
Does nationalism have to be xenophobic or racist? What would it mean to be a nationalist who isn’t a blood-&-soil bigot but a pluralistic liberal? How can…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJosh vs the News: Trump Cancels "Project Freedom!"
The latest chaotic development under “Operation Epic Fury” has continued to show the catastrophic strategic position the United States has found itself in. But…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsJimmy Carr: "The World is Being Rebuilt from Scratch"
Jimmy Carr is one of the most successful stand-up comics on earth (and one of our most recurring guests). His hilarious, brutal crowd work is a viral…
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh SzepsWhy Smart People Make Dumb Choices
Life’s biggest decisions are always the most Uncomfortable. Should you have a baby? Should you quit your job? Should you move to a new country? Should you drop…