“Being a Satirist in Censorious Times” with cartoonist Jason Chatfield
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 most successful cartoonists. Jason was implausibly young when he was tapped to run Australia’s longest-running and most iconic comic strip, Ginger Meggs. After moving to the States, he won acclaim for iconic cartoons in The New Yorker, Esquire, Variety and Mad Magazine, and he served as the president of the National Cartoonists Society. Now, he's independent, on Substack. In an age of algorithms, outrage and censorship, how far can creative people go? Politically, financially, and personal fulfillmentilly, it's a conundrum for anyone pursuing an independent creative life. Jason joined Josh from his home in Manhattan to talk Mamdani, Trump, satire, authenticity, perfectionism... and the future of free expression.
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42:42
“The Climate Change Solution So Crazy it Just Might Work” with Quico Toro
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 The Atlantic, and a Venezuelan-born thinker shaped by his homeland's slide into authoritarianism. He is deeply worried about climate chaos but believes the comfortable consensus about carbon must be shattered. There has always been a fringe of geo-engineers and techno-tinkerers with wild schemes to hack the sky or scrub the atmosphere. While most of those ideas deserve the scepticism they get, Toro's plan could, he hopes, literally save the world.
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1:28:21
"Public Shaming" with Clare Stephens
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 spent years at the coalface of cancel culture. She spent years at Australia’s biggest independent women’s media outlet, Mamamia, copping heat from all sides and watching digital mobs turn ordinary mistakes into existential crises. Now she’s written a novel about it, The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done, and created a podcast, The Pile-On. Clare and Josh unpack how cancel culture evolved, why it hit women differently from men, how shame works, and whether we’re beginning to find a healthier way of disagreeing online.
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"Trans Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, Oh My!” with Professor Robert Wintemute
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 now a cultural lightning rod, shaping debates over prisons, sport, health care, and child rearing. Professor Robert Wintemute is one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers. A lifelong gay rights advocate and an early contributor to international transgender rights frameworks, he has since revised his view, arguing for a balance between trans inclusion and sex-based protections for women. He joins Josh to explore how we got here, what has changed, and what co-existence might look like.
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"Mindfulness, Science, Buddhism & Bullsh*t"? with Mo Edjlali
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 he heard that the founder of one of the world's leading centres for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction has written a book criticising how meditation is marketed and packaged and practised, Josh's ears pricked up. Have meditation apps, Buddhist mantras, and “good vibes” influencers turned mindfulness into a self-help circus? Mo Edjlali is a former tech entrepreneur and the founder of Mindful Leader. His new book, Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness, takes aim at elitism, pseudo-spirituality, and quick fixes. Mo joins Josh to troubleshoot what isn't working about modern meditation... and to help you grasp the secular, scientific basis for mastering your attention.
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
Österreich