President Trump has nominated a billionaire to be the new head of NASA as the United States gears up for its most ambitious mission in decades: a return to the Moon. This time, the adversary to beat isn’t the Soviets, but China. And the players at the heart of the new space race are no longer just nation-states but private companies. Who are these …

American conservatives are in a tizzy of in-fighting after one of their leading voices, Tucker Carlson, hosted a genial chat with a Holocaust-denying, Hitler-admiring, 27-year-old white-nationalist influencer, Nick Fuentes. Should your local upstanding conservative disavow King Tuck? Or is Tucker's aww-shucks, just-askin'-questions schtick too valu…

What happens when you put politicians in a room and ask them to talk honestly about who really influences their decisions? This bonus episode is a live recording from a one-of-a-kind gala in Canberra dreamed up by social-media firebrand (and friend of the show) Punters Politics. Instead of corporations buying access to ministers, everyday Australia…

Zohran Mamdani has just been elected mayor of New York, parachuting onto a political terrain more polarised and energised than it's been since the 1960s. How do you maintain an independent satirical voice in such vitriolic times? Joining Josh from NYC on a Substack Livestream the day after the mayoral election is Jason Chatfield, one of the world’s…

The conversation around climate change is so predictable. It's either depressing doom, science denialism, or ambitious summits that don't achieve much. Can't anyone think outside the box? Quico Toro does. He's the Director of Climate Repair at the Anthropocene Institute, a former journalist who's written for the New York Times, Washington Post and …

Pile-ons, performative outrage, apology rituals, and public humiliation have become a blood sport over the past decade. What happened? Was it a moral panic? A byproduct of new communications technologies? Or a storm in a teacup - a well-intentioned overreach, exaggerated by anti-woke right-wingers? Clare Stephens is a feminist journalist who has sp…

What happens when the fight for women's equality collides with transgender rights? Is the anti-trans nastiness of the Elon MAGA-verse now winning? Or is it mere chaff in a new legal regime that privileges gender identity over feminism and gay rights? Where are we, exactly, in the gender wars? The question of who counts as a woman, once banal, is no…

You know you should meditate. But you don't have the time. Or you're no good at it. So you occasionally subscribe to a meditation app, you listen to podcast episodes about mindfulness, you nod along sagely about the importance of living in the Now, and you get back to your busy life. It doesn't stick. That's been Josh's story for decades. So when h…

The Saudi stand-up controversy, the Jimmy Kimmel brouhaha, the clickification of live shows into viral video clips, the clash of podcasters like Marc Maron vs Joe Rogan over Trumpism... What is comedy for in this algorithmic era of culture wars? Wil Anderson is perhaps Australia's most successful stand-up comic. As well as his countless sold-out li…

What if the fight for America’s soul wasn’t just political, but theological? A powerful movement inside Christian America believes it is on a divine mission to rescue the nation’s institutions; from education and media to business and government. Their chief cheerleader was Charlie Kirk, whose organisation, Turning Point USA, is now better position…

Insane house prices are destroying the middle-class dream of home ownership. Or... are they? Is there actually a housing crisis? Or are most people, in fact, comfortably paying historically-unremarkable mortgage repayments for a desirable product? Economist Cameron Murray argues for this unpopular (you might even say “uncomfortable”) heterodox view…

He’s been called the most successful environmentalist in Australian history, and one of the most influential in the world. Former Senator Bob Brown co-founded the world’s first Green Party, in Tasmania in 1972. He led the Australian Greens in Parliament for decades and spearheaded a pivotal moment in global environmentalism, when he helped save the…

Door Josh Szeps

Is it racist to worry that there are more immigrants in London than white English? Has the UK reached a tipping point in its conversation about Britain’s national identity? What’s going on? Race riots; migrant detention hotels ablaze; the prime minister condemning Elon Musk for using “dangerous and inflammatory” language at a nationalist protest wi…

It’s a fact. The way our governments raise and spend money benefits older, richer people, and disadvantages younger people who are trying to build wealth. If we’re going to hold society together - and keep liberal democracy robust - we need massive economic reform. But what does that mean? Allegra Spender is one of Australia’s most popular members …

Trump. Gaza. Artificial Intelligence. Authoritarianism. Assassinations. Climate Chaos. Russia. Social media. The far right. Terrorism. Political division. How bad are things? More importantly: How would we know? Every generation believes things are falling apart. And at some point, they’ll be right. But the social psychologist Adam Mastroianni argu…

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 ma…