What happens when the public's understanding of a global event is hijacked by online psuedo-experts? How should scientists express uncertainty when everyone's suspicious? Was Anthony Fauci the victim of a crazed conspiracy, or is there something fishy in the official origins of Covid-19? The inside story of how the Covid lab leak hypothesis went mainstream is just one of the tales which the science journalist Elizabeth Finkel investigates in her new book. Josh is still suspicious of the Wuhan lab so the two of them debate the wet market, gain of function research, China's secrecy, RFK's disinformation, Occam's razor, and how to do good science in a post-truth era. Finkel is the co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of COSMOS magazine and a regular contributor to Science magazine. Her new book is Prove It: A Scientific Guide for the Post-Truth Era.
What holds liberal democracy together in an age of social media, tribal politics and rising violence? Josh has been trying to get Waleed Aly to submit to doing this show for years, and finally nailed him down. Do not miss this powerful episode. Waleed is a controversial superstar Down Under. He's the recipient of Australia's highest journalism award, a Walkley, and its highest television prize, a Gold Logie, for hosting The Project, a nightly network news panel show, for more than ten years. He's also a professor of politics working in the Monash University Global Terrorism Research Centre. A practising Muslim, he has a deep understanding of extremism on the left and right. Don't miss Waleed and Josh, two very different intellects, in this frank, far-reaching conversation about extremism, free speech, and whether our civic fabric can withstand the pressures of technology and ideology.
What does "Zionism" mean after the destruction of Gaza? As Josh wrestles with this question himself, Charlotte Korchak is his Zionist guide today. She's a young, vibrant, American-born educator about Israel who joined Josh on her whirlwind trip to Sydney. The pair of them wrestle with justice, Jewishness, antisemitism and how Zionism should coexist with a Palestinian state.
America's pre-eminent conservative youth activist, Charlie Kirk, has been assassinated while speaking at a Utah college. Josh shares his thoughts... and reintroduces a classic monologue about America, violence and guns.
What can a stunningly beautiful, dirt-poor, corrupt, tropical-island nation teach us about the battle between China and the West... and about how climate chaos will affect you?A lot, it turns out. In this bonus episode, Josh is on the ground in Solomon Islands, where leaders from across the Pacific are currently attending the 54th Pacific Islands Forum Meeting. Beneath all the happy-talk about foreign aid is a deeper subtext. The big rich players (i.e. Australia) are trying to bribe their tiny South Pacific neighbours into siding with the West instead of China.Josh visits a freshwater spring in the jungle with one of Australia's leading hydro-geologists, Sam Buchanan, who's stationed in Solomon Islands to manage its long-term water projects. Sam works for the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, The Pacific Community, and is a world-leading expert on water security and climate resilience in small island developing states. He's also one of Josh's oldest friends, who brought to Josh's attention this amazing story in a forgotten tropical battleground.Josh and Sam drive around Guadalcanal, the country's main island (and the site of the famous WWII battle in which a young naval officer named John F Kennedy made his name), discussing how the country gets its water, how it gets energy, how foreign aid is distributed, how geophysicists are using MRI technology to scan for underground water, and what this all has to do with DOGE, Trump, and subsidence in the Central Valley of California.
Josh reflects on the death of his dad after years with Alzheimer’s - the strange in-between of losing someone before they’re gone, and the lessons he wishes he’d acted on earlier. Then, a live recording of Josh delivering the official eulogy at the funeral.
Why is housing in Australia so unaffordable, and what can be done about it? Peter Tulip, former economist at the US Federal Reserve and the Reserve Bank of Australia, now chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies joins Josh to unpack the roots of the housing crisis. They discuss supply and demand, heritage rules, immigration, infrastructure, and why the dream of home ownership is slipping out of reach for younger generations.
What is the future of the media? Are we doomed to inhabit our own social-media news bubbles, tailored by algorithms to keep us “engaged”? Will readers return to old-school news outlets? Or is there a third way? That’s Substack’s bet. The platform is transforming the media landscape by enabling journalists and creators to speak directly to users. Just as Josh was embarking on Substack’s first-ever around-the-world livestream marathon, the company announced a new round of funding, vaulting it past a billion-dollar valuation and making it one of Silicon Valley’s “unicorns”. Substack’s co-founders are Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie, who were kind enough to sit down with Josh to discuss the conflict between free speech and hate speech, the decline of legacy media, the role of video, the challenges of living in a social-media world… and the future of their little company that’s becoming very, very big.
How does an adventurous, open-minded, well-travelled young bloke get interested in nationalism... and then in Western supremacy... and then white pride... Until he becomes so obsessed with protecting Western Civilization from Islam, that he shoots nearly a hundred innocent Muslims and livestreams the massacre to cheering racists around the world? The official government line is that the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooter was a lone wolf. The killer himself cultivated this image. But the movement that radicalised him is a complex network of persuasion. It starts with goofy alt-right memes. It moves on to far-right forums like 4Chan & 8Chan. And it expresses itself in real-world groups like the white supremacist "migrant hunters" with whom the Christchurch shooter embedded in central and eastern Europe. Joey Watson is a young investigative journalist who's been painstakingly exploring the far-right internet swamp - and travelling to Serbia, Austria and Bulgaria - to retrace the Christchurch terrorist's radicalisation. Joey and Josh discuss how immigration, nationalism, Islam, bigotry and the internet are being built into an ideological powder keg... and how we might defuse it.
Nick Cave is one of Australia’s biggest musical exports. But after forty years as a rockstar - and the death of two sons - he's become something else: A unofficial poet laureate and philosopher king through his online letters project, The Red Hand files. Nick sat down with Josh in London on the Szeps Live World Tour to discuss songwriting, grief, faith... and, as a bonus, to critique some of Josh's recent episodes.
Jimmy Carr is one of the most successful stand-up comics on earth. His hilarious, brutal crowd work is a viral sensation. His Netflix specials are smash hits. He hosts huge UK television panel shows and is currently touring the US, UK & Europe (and Australia and New Zealand early next year) with his latest live show, JIMMY CARR: LAUGHS FUNNY. Jimmy and Josh caught up in-the-flesh in London on the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon to discuss crowd work, Elon Musk, immigration, COVID, and Kanye. All info and tickets for Jimmy’s tour are available at www.jimmycarr.com
He’s been grilled before Congress, clashed with Bill Maher, and built a reputation as one of the most interesting young intellectuals in America. Coleman Hughes doesn’t just write and broadcast, he also plays a mean jazz trombone, bringing the same contrarian rhythm to politics as he does to music. During the Szeps Live World Tour’s jaunt through New York, Josh and Coleman sat down to dive into race, identity, Trumpism, and whether the Left can find its groove again.
As the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon barrels along, Josh and his long-suffering producer, Jono, cruise their rented convertible into the hills of Northeast Los Angeles. There, they track down the ultimate iconoclast, Meghan Daum - former Los Angeles Times columnist, humorist, defender of sanity and all-round cultural firebrand. Meghan's independent media empire is The Unspeakeasy - a podcast, Substack publication and a community for freethinking women. Enjoy this sparkling ramble through the culture wars.
Rich Roll is one of the biggest podcasters in America, thanks to his irresistible blend of ultra-athleticism, Stoic philosophy, sobriety, personal improvement (don't call it "self-help"), and an infectious curiosity about what makes life worth living. In this live-streamed conversation on the Szeps Live World Tour, Rich welcomed Josh to his new digs in a glorious mountaintop lair behind Malibu - to to talk discipline, midlife pivots, the seductions of modern distraction, and whether resilience today demands a new kind of grit.
What is your race? What is your identity? How should your kids think about how they fit in at school, or don't, on the basis of their racial or economic group? What is it really about, this game of being human? Kmele Foster is one of the most original and humane thinkers Josh has the privilege of knowing. Funny, fearless and wise, the two young dads sat down in Brooklyn during the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon to wrestle with Blackness, whiteness, racism, parenting, guilt-ridden woke white leftists in San Francisco (where Kmele lives) and the meaning of the cosmos. After having a falling-out with Silicon Valley, Kmele was recently appointed the editor-at-large of Tangle, an independent news website that summarises arguments from the right, left, and center. Kmele's first column was this absolute barnstormer. He also serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and co-hosts the smash hit podcast The Fifth Column. Don't miss this uplifting, provocative, moving, mind-expanding chat.
How much responsibility do podcasters have not to "platform" crazy voices? Is there a countervailing duty to explore unusual ideas, spurned by elites? Why did Sam Harris fearlessly take on Islam, Black Lives Matter and Gaza, but not transgender ideology? Are psychedelics a portal to another realm, will A.I. become conscious, and is Sam a hypocrite for eating meat? Sam Harris is one of the world's most influential podcasters and commentators. He burst onto the scene as a prominent atheist but has since become an elder statesman of reason and logic, advocating mindfulness and rationality through his meditation app, Waking Up, and his podcast, Making Sense. Sam has always been a generous supporter of Josh's work and was kind enough to invite us to his private studio during the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon for a two-and-a-half-hour livestream. Enjoy this sparkling meeting of minds.
It was a sweltering evening in Greenwich Village as a packed crowd showed up at the legendary Comedy Cellar - the stomping ground of Seinfeld, Chappelle, and Robin Williams - for a no-holds-barred, live-streamed panel extravaganza. Is South Park doing more to resist Trump than the press, or is it part of the circus? What happens when podcasting becomes the default news source? Is "platforming" bad ideas dangerous or essential? Are we nostalgic for a media era that never was? And how do you choose between marrying Donald Trump or f**king Tucker Carlson? Josh welcomed Matt Welch and Kmele Foster, co-hosts of The Fifth Column, along with the owner of the Cellar, Noam Dworman, who has his own fiery podcast, Live From the Table. Blocked and Reported's Jesse Singal even swung by for a round of "Jew In The Hot Seat". The room was packed. The drinks were flowing. Enjoy the fun.
Tyler Cowen is one of the world's Top 100 Global Thinkers according to Foreign Policy magazine. The Wall Street Journal calls his blog, Marginal Revolution, the world's best economics blog. His day job is as an economics professor at George Mason University, where he also runs the classical liberal Mercatus Center. But his influence is immense... on policymakers, tech titans and thought leaders who hang on his ideas as a visionary sage. Tyler hosts what Josh regards as one of the world's best intellectual interview podcasts, Conversations with Tyler. He's written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, but he's now a contributor at The Free Press. We're grateful to the FP for helping us to boost this mind-expanding conversation, which streamed live from Tyler's bucolic porch in northern Virginia. Watch this conversation on YouTube. And you’re missing out on our best ad-free content if you haven’t popped over to the Uncomfy Convos Substack page. http://twitter.com/joshzepps http://instagram.com/joshszeps/ http://tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations
Born in Pakistan, Sarah Haider founded the Ex-Muslims of North America to help Muslims escape Islamist coercion. She was an outspoken atheist. Then... she lost her faith in atheism.First, she noticed progressive peers preaching critical race and gender ideologies, while punishing blasphemers of their social-justice dogmas in ways that felt uncomfortably... religious. Second, she tripped out on Ayahuasca. Third, she walked away from her podcast, A Special Place in Hell. What happened? Sarah sat down with Josh in her home in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C. for a livestream about belief, justice, gender, and tolerance, on the Szeps Live Round-the-World Podcast Marathon. Watch this conversation on YouTube. And you’re missing out on our best ad-free content if you haven’t popped over to the Uncomfy Convos Substack page. http://twitter.com/joshzepps http://instagram.com/joshszeps/ http://tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations
G'day from New York City. We've been sitting on this Easter egg for some time, warming it up under our feathery little tooshes. It's now time to let the warm yolk of intellectual invigoration ooze over your grateful noggins. It's time for the SZEPS LIVE WORLD TOUR. Yes, global mega-giant publishing behemoth Substack has tapped this li'l ole show for Substack's first-ever Live-Streamed Around-the-World Podcast Marathon. That's a LOT of hyphens. Six cities. Twelve days. Twenty-four time zones. No filter. For the next two weeks, Josh will go head to head, live, with some of the world’s most fascinating minds before a global audience in back-to-back foreign locales. From London to Los Angeles, New York to Malibu, Josh and his long-suffering producer, Jono, are hopscotching the planet to visit a parade of iconoclasts and intellectual troublemakers, broadcasting raw, unfiltered conversations sometimes multiple times a day. To enjoy every morsel, subscribe for free to get notified whenever we go live. You'll be able to watch every episode as it streams in real time. To catch up afterwards, about half the shows will be exclusive for paid subscribers. For the price of a cup of coffee a month, you'll get the whole enchilada. All will be available on your podcast app too. The tour's centrepiece will be a high-voltage live event at New York’s iconic Comedy Cellar – the stomping ground of Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle and Robin Williams – on Tuesday July 29th at 6pm ET (11pm in London, 3pm in LA, 8am Wed in Sydney). Put it in your calendar. It'll be a no-holds-barred panel discussion with some of the biggest names in New York journalism. Your normal podcast release schedule may be a little wonky while we fly blind around the planet, streaming live with no safety net, chasing the most fascinating minds… while jet lag fries ours. But you're a big kid. You can handle it. Today's episode is the first cab off the rank - a livestream from a Brooklyn rooftop with panoramic views of Manhattan and the one-&-only Jesse Singal, co-host of the smash hit podcast Blocked and Reported, and one of America's most courageous reporters on youth gender medicine. Buckle up, humans, for the most audacious live-streaming event in Substack's history.
Kristin Sulap
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MoonDog
Start of interview 20:06
J Coker
hardly an uncomfortable conversation. more like a monolog. no wonder yes lost
Chris ryan
Wow. I sure wouldn't want to try negotiating anything with that guy! If that is what Palestinians had to deal with for the last 3 decades, then my sympathies for the Palestinian plight was grossly insufficient.
M
KC's story is heartbreaking. it's awful what happened to you KC. I almost didn't listen to this story because the host is maybe a bit too approving of the transgender movement, but I'm glad I listened anyway. KC is brave to speak up