Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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 acid?

Anytime you’re faced with a decision that is likely to change who you are, you’re faced with a unique conundrum: The person you’ll be - who’ll judge whether you made the right call or the wrong one - is future you.

They’re a different person than Future You would be if present-day You had made the opposite decision. Still with me?

How are we supposed to decide how to lead a good life, if we can only ever know what we know right now (but we need to make decisions now that will affect who we become in the future)?

Laurie Paul is a professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Yale University who’s a leading expert on the counterfactual analysis of causation and the concept of transformative experience.

She joins Josh to discuss how we judge whether to become a parent, how your preferences get scrambled by addiction, why atheists and religious people are secretly terrified of each other’s epiphanies, what cochlear implants tell us about identity, A.I., psychedelics, and what it means to make a choice in a state of radical ignorance… about who you’ll be once you’ve made it.

What will reality feel like when we receive most of it via all-knowing machines?

Our shared understanding of the world has been fractured by social media’s echo chambers of news, entertainment, misinformation, and distraction. Could A.I. help re-establish common facts? Or will it only make the truth even slippier?

Steve Rosenbaum is an Emmy-winning former television news producer, TED Resident and boss of the NYC Media Lab. He joins Josh to explore the death of traditional news, why TikTok is so addictive, how young people think about trustworthiness... and how to fortify facts in a world of slop.

Steve's new book is "The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality".

Today, a delightful and scintillating and inspiring and disconcerting and thought-provoking and discombobulating and many-other-multi-syllabic words-ing romp with one of the most celebrated philosophers in the English-speaking world.

A.C. Grayling is a British philosopher who has written more than thirty books on everything from the nature of consciousness to the history of freedom to what it means to live well. Now, he is warning about the fragility of liberal democracy and on a speaking tour to Australia he joined Josh to discuss the crisis of meaning in the West, the rise of authoritarianism, and what remains of the self when the machines get smart too.

For an issue we don’t normally know how to talk constructively about, can Josh and one of the most outspoken anti-abortion activists model what a genuine, but respectful, disagreement can actually look like?

Joanna Howe is best-known for her viral videos on YouTube and social media debating people in the street about abortion, confronting politicians outside their offices, and smacking down pro-life politicians for not being pro-life enough. She's a law professor and a Catholic whose hundreds of thousands of followers cheer her on as she owns the libs and argues for abortion to be illegal because it is murder from the moment of fertilisation.

She joins Josh to have a rational debate about an emotional topic, and try in some small way, to help you have less toxic and more constructive conversations of your own.

You can find Josh’s previous conversation with the American family-values anti-surrogacy activist Katie Faust, here.

What is the end game in Iran? What is the blockade achieving? What cards does Iran still hold?

Last week, the end was in sight with a two-week ceasefire. Then talks in Pakistan between the US vice president and the Iranians went nowhere, and Trump suddenly imposed a blockade.

Since Monday, U.S. forces say they’ve now completely halted all economic trade leaving Iran’s ports. Iran say they’ll retaliate if the blockade continues. Where does the escalation lead? Does Trump have anything left up his sleeve? What exit ramps are there for either side?

Steven Simon served in the US State Department, where he specialised in the Middle East and counter-terrorism on President Clinton’s National Security Council. President Obama brought him back into the White House to serve as the NSC’s Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa. He’s a leading world expert on Iran and co-wrote a book in 2011 called “The sixth crisis: Iran, Israel, America and the rumors of war.” His most recent book is “Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East.”

Steven joined Josh to explain the logic (or illogic) of Trump’s blockade... and what thirty years of shaping US policy in the Middle East has taught him about how this conflict is likely to end.