PREMIUM: "In-Groups & Out-Groups" with social psychologist Jolanda Jetten
Are you defined by your identities? Where do you rank in the hierarchy of your social group, either online or in real life? How are the boundaries of your communities policed? By whom? In an era of social-media mobs, splintering communities and anti-immigrant ideas, the way we sort ourselves into in-groups and out-groups is a fascinating field of social psycology. Professor Jetten is an expert in the psychology of inclusion and exclusion, radicalisation, social dynamics, and the ways in which “who you are” is shaped by “who you are with.” Professor Jetten is from the Netherlands, but currently works at the University of Queensland in Australia. 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
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“Josh vs the Anti-Gay-Parenting Activist” Katy Faust
Katy Faust is a family-values activist who campaigns against all families that don't contain a biological mother and father. A rockstar among American conservatives, she's the founder of the children's rights organization, Them Before Us. On shows like Jordan Peterson's - and in her lobbying of lawmakers - she argues for prioritising every baby's right to its biological parents over the right of adults to start a family. At a time when Republican support for same-sex marriage is dropping fast thanks to discomfort with parts of the LGBTQIA+ agenda (especially relating to kids and transgenderism), Katy's ideas are gaining traction. Her policies would revolutionise - and in some case, criminalise - IVF, surrogacy, adoption, sperm donation, egg donation, and even divorce. The group most targeted by biological-parenting laws would, of course, be gay parents - who, by definition, subvert the nuclear biological family. While Katy was touring Australia, she was kind enough to stop by the Uncomfortable Conversations studios to make her case against gay parenting to one of Australia's most prominent gay dads, the host of this show. 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
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"Artificial Intelligence in a Human World" with Prof. Toby Walsh
Is it legit for tech companies to vacuum up everything humans create, to spin off A.I. content, and not to compensate humans? Will this world of creative artificial creatures promote or corrode human creativity? In America, two tech giants just won landmark court cases over their use of copyrighted works to train A.I. models. The court found that Meta and Anthropic didn't violate copyright when they trained their large language models on books without the authors' permission. This raises big questions. Who gets to create? What is A.I. actually doing, under the hood? How is it impacting human work? Is the famous "Turing Test" even relevant any more? And by what measure would we even know if machines are "intelligent"? Might we already have achieved Artificial General Intelligence and will only know it with hindsight? Professor Toby Walsh is one of the most respected - and most measured - A.I. academics in the world. He studied theoretical physics and mathematics at Cambridge, and got his PhD in artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh. He's currently a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, where he runs the A.I. Institute, and the former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence. At this tipping point in the evolution of A.I., Toby and Josh wrestle with the development of artificial intelligence, its future... and where that leaves the rest of us. Toby's new book is "The Shortest History of A.I." 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
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"Should We Ban Extreme Wealth?” with Prof. Carl Rhodes
Is there something broken about a world where some people are absurdly, insanely rich? Or is inequality the price we pay for innovation? What do Bezos, Gates, Musk & Zuck tell us about what's malfunctioning in our societies? Would be better with no billionaires, or is the anti-rich movement an impoverished politics of envy? Professor Carl Rhodes was the dean of the business school at the University of Technology, Sydney. His new book is "Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire". Carl and Josh debate fairness, democratic socialism, Bernie Sanders, Steve Jobs, diversity, whiteness, wokeness and wealth. 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
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PREMIUM: “The Palestinian Delusion: the 'Right of Return' & the Mirage of Peace” with fmr Labor Knesset parliamentarian Einat Wilf
What if the problem for the Palestinian people was not Israel, but the encouragement by the international community of a fantasy that, one day, Palestinians will return to Israel proper? That’s the thesis of 'The War of Return’ by former Labor parliamentarian and foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Einat Wilf. She opposes settlement-building but is otherwise a left-wing hawk. Wilf argues that the main reason why the conflict endures - and why Palestinians remain stateless - is the ongoing refusal by every Palestinian leader to accept that Israel is here to stay and there's no coming back. To discuss her views and how the conflict has unfolded since October 7th, Einat joined Josh in our Sydney studios. This conversation took place at almost exactly the moment Israel began striking Iran, before the Iran news broke. 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
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
New Zealand