"It's your safe space for dangerous ideas. A refuge from groupthink and tiptoeing around sensitive issues. Lively and unexpected, it's the podcast where the world's most interesting minds come to make sense."
Josh Szeps was a public radio broadcaster until he was cancelled from his own talk show for being "too spicy". Now he wrestles freely with taboos. Direct, curious, and without political allegiance.
This is a good one to have in your feed if you care about ideas that haven't been pre-approved.
Episodes to get your brain going
Truth in an age of AI
What will reality feel like when we receive most of it via all-knowing machines? Steve Rosenbaum, former television news producer and boss of the NYC Media Lab, joins Josh to explore the death of traditional news, why TikTok is so addictive, and how facts hold up in a world drowning in AI-generated content.
How big tech destroys learning
We're alert to the problem of smartphones and screen time. But what if the problem is bigger? What if our brains are being rewired in ways that go well beyond kids on social media?
The secret economic history of the world
Harvard historian Sven Beckert on how violence, coercion and empire were foundational to capitalism's rise, and why capitalism remains the most productive engine ever built, even as its moral foundations crack.
Have we got morality backwards?
Social psychologist Bo Winegard makes an audacious case against utilitarianism, the moral framework quietly running most of Western culture. If "the greatest good" isn't the ultimate goal, what is?
AI, the economy and the future of humanity
Economist Noah Smith argues the story of AI is less about replacement and more about adaptation. Why are radiologists, lawyers and economists still in work? The answer is more interesting than the question.
Can liberalism survive?
Waleed Aly and Josh Szeps on extremism, free speech, and whether our civic fabric can withstand the pressures of technology and ideology. Two very different intellects, one frank conversation.
Should we ban extreme wealth?
Is there something broken about a world where some people are absurdly, insanely rich? Professor Carl Rhodes debates fairness, democratic socialism, and the four myths of the good billionaire.
Conspiracies, echo chambers and culture wars
Sacha Judd on bringing back the good internet. A former lawyer turned tech investor, she wrestles with online conspiracy theories, content moderation, and whether platforms like Substack have a problem they won't name.
Artificial intelligence in a human world
Is it legitimate for tech companies to vacuum up everything humans create to train AI models, without compensating the humans who made it? A question that's already in the courts and nowhere near settled.
The fallacy of productivity
None of it will free you from the sense that there's more to do than you possibly can. That's because you're finite. Oliver Burkeman on why the productivity industrial complex is selling you something it can't deliver.
Where to find it
You can subscribe to Uncomfortable Conversations on Substack and Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.