Podcast
Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps
Hosted by Josh Szeps · EN
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
57episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
How Branding Replaced Facts in Politics
4d ago00:16:58Tap to summarizeWhat unites Trump and Obama, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, the far right and the far left? They’re all brilliant at defining their brands. They have a clear narrative. They can tell a compelling story about the world and their place in it.So much of life, of business, of social media, of political parties and social movements is shaped, these days, not by facts but by “alternative facts”, by feelings, by storylines. You, yourself, may even have a personal brand: the disrupter, the carer, the loyalist, the contrarian, the lover.Matt Jones was a political strategist and speechwriter for the British Conservative party in the early 2000s. He went on to deploy his brand expertise in the private sector, where he co-created a small gin company which was sold for a fortune less than a decade later on the strength of its brand reputation.Matt joins Josh to explore how storytelling is shaping your life more than you realise, from the supermarket to the ballot box, and how we might bring sanity back to public life. Matt’s new podcast is StoryWork.
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How to be a Dissident
1w ago01:14:47Tap to summarizeWhat does it mean to be a dissident? If you join a protest march, are you dissenting… or conforming? How should you push back against leaders who wield fear and intimidation; against digital technology that dehumanises you and flattens us all?Gal Beckerman is a staff writer at The Atlantic who worked for six years at the New York Times Book Review. His first book was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and The Washington Post, and his latest is How to Be a Dissident, a guide to living with integrity in an age of conformity and authoritarian drift.Gal joins Josh to discuss ICE agents, Jimmy Kimmel, Putin’s dissidents, Jews defending Gaza, communist Czechoslovakia, the quiet, task-by-task incursion of algorithmic media into your life… and what the most courageous dissidents reveal about how to find your moral compass in a dizzying age.
Transcribe →Are Jews Okay? (with baklava)
2w ago00:17:07Tap to summarizeIs Israel making Jews safer, or less safe? Does pro-Palestinian activism feed antisemitism, or is that a Zionist lie? And why are Greek men so hunky?Two of Josh’s favourite gals, ChayaLeah and Yael from the “Ask a Jew” podcast, join Josh from California and Greece for a funny but forthright catch-up about freedom, terrorism, Palestine and felafel. Enjoy.
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Josh vs the News: Why Everyone is Wrong About A.I.
2w ago00:48:16Tap to summarizeFable this. Deepseek that. As fascinating as each new A.I. model breakthrough (or breakout) is, are we missing the forest for the trees? The Reverend Josh believes so. In this scintillating Substack Livestream, he leads us to the Promised Land the way all great Messiahs do: with a four-point bureaucratic plan. Along the way, he’ll answer your questions about Israel, sun protection, and how much he can bench.
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Why is Trump Building a Secret Ballroom Bunker?
2w ago01:32:18Tap to summarizeExploding pagers! Enigma codes! Sexy Israeli spies! J Edgar Hoover's boyfriend's remote-controlled window opener! And, yes, Trump's top-secret ballroom bunker.It's all told with impeccable style by Matt Bevan, the host of If You're Listening, which is one of Josh’s favourite shows about international intrigue.The show's companion book, If You're Listening: Declassified, explores how history is a patchwork of conflicting accounts, misremembered details and outright myths. Matt regales Josh with the most amazing anecdotes of espionage... and to explain what Hezbollah's exploding pagers have in common with the bunker which Dick Cheney hid in on 9/11.Help us improve the show! Share your thoughts and have your say, take the Uncomfortable Conversations Audience Survey: https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/p/have-your-say-to-shape-the-show
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Buckle Up for “the Manosphere 2.0” - Helen Lewis
3w ago00:18:34Tap to summarizeWhat’s up with boys? Or, more importantly, what’s up with the men who use “what’s up with boys?” to crush women?It’s not just a rag-tag fringe of young male influencers who are reviving sexism. There’s a professional movement of influential Christian nationalists whose long-term agenda is to return women to their rightful place, as homebound subjects of their husbands.Helen Lewis’ reporting on gender, politics, and internet culture has made her one of the sharpest voices on the culture wars. She became a viral sensation when she bested Jordan Peterson in a 2018 debate about gender roles for British GQ. She’s now a staff writer at The Atlantic, where her recent cover feature was “The New Gender War”.Helen and Josh unpack the evolving backlash to feminism and liberalism, the furore around surrogacy and transgender rights, Andrew Tate… and what the World Cup had to do with all of it.
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Josh vs the News: How The Odyssey Broke the Internet
3w ago00:32:43Summary readyThe way culture-war ideologues have hijacked The Odyssey reveals how social media ruins everything. As go the arguments about the film, so go our conversations about fairness, gender, race and immigration. And so go our elections.Josh recounts the online sh**storm, and draws a long bow from Homer to Christopher Nolan to how civilisations like ours collapse.Read Josh’s column in the Australian Financial Review here:https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/culture-war-ideologues-have-hijacked-christopher-nolan-s-odyssey-20260720-p60gprand David French’s NYT column here:https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/26/opinion/odyssey-christopher-nolan-greek-gods.htmlOh, and go back and watch “Just Josh: The Woke Catastrophe of Snow White” here:https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/p/just-josh-the-woke-catastrophe-of?utm_source=publication-search
Summary
Is this Child Psychiatrist "Anti-Trans"?
4w ago00:47:56Tap to summarizeDr Jillian Spencer is a senior child and adolescent psychiatrist who was fired three years ago after publicly criticising how puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones were being prescribed to kids.Now, her employer, one of the biggest health care providers in the country, has issued a bombshell statement. Children's Health Queensland has announced that it is withdrawing its misconduct allegations against her, and effectively admits that her concerns were legitimate all along. It’s a potential turning point in the transgender debate.Dr Spencer flew from Brisbane to Sydney to join Josh in the Uncomfortable Conversations studio and tell an extraordinary story of groupthink, institutional pressure and medical integrity.
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How Evolution Shaped Men vs Women
4w ago01:49:14Tap to summarizeAre men innately more violent? Are women innately more people-focused? What explains gay people, campness, transgenderism? How much of the sex differences are cultural, and how much is hardwired by our evolutionary psychology?The science of the sexes has come a long way. Steve Stewart Williams is a psychology professor who wrote the groundbreaking book The Ape That Understood the Universe and whose new book is A Billion Years of Sex Differences: How Evolution Shaped the Minds of Men and Women.Steve joins Josh to explore the science of the sexes, from aggression to promiscuity to parenting, and what recent research reveals about how, and why, men and women behave the way we do.
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Do Not Speak Ill of Lindsey Graham's Butthole (and other advice for America)
Jul 1600:13:02Tap to summarizeJournalist and ne’er-do-well Michael C. Moynihan joins Josh for a Substack livestream about the state of American politics, far-left candidates, far-right ICE agents, and the importance of being respectful, in this time of mourning, towards the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s butthole.
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