Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Technical and general information from the podcast's RSS feed.

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Josh Szeps

Society & Culture

Comedy

Education

Frequency: 1 episode/5d. Total Eps: 367

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

Read moreCollapse

Site

RSS

Recent rankings

Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.

Apple Podcasts

No recent rankings available

Spotify

No recent rankings available

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Links found in episode descriptions and other podcasts that share them.

See all

RSS feed quality and score

Technical evaluation of the podcast's RSS feed quality and structure.

See all

RSS feed quality

To improve

Score global : 63%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

Year

Latest published episodes

Recent episodes with titles, durations, and descriptions.

See all

SZEPS WORLD TOUR - KMELE FOSTER on Race, Spirituality & 'Wokeness'

Season 1 · Episode 369

Friday, August 8, 2025 • Duration 01:24:14

What is your race? What is your identity? How should your kids think about how they fit in at school, or don't, on the basis of their racial or economic group? What is it really about, this game of being human?

Kmele Foster is one of the most original and humane thinkers Josh has the privilege of knowing. Funny, fearless and wise, the two young dads sat down in Brooklyn during the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon to wrestle with Blackness, whiteness, racism, parenting, guilt-ridden woke white leftists in San Francisco (where Kmele lives) and the meaning of the cosmos.

After having a falling-out with Silicon Valley, Kmele was recently appointed the editor-at-large of Tangle, an independent news website that summarises arguments from the right, left, and center. Kmele's first column was this absolute barnstormer. He also serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and co-hosts the smash hit podcast The Fifth Column.

Don't miss this uplifting, provocative, moving, mind-expanding chat.

Read moreCollapse

SZEPS WORLD TOUR - SAM HARRIS on Making Sense of Life

Season 1 · Episode 368

Tuesday, August 5, 2025 • Duration 01:08:16

How much responsibility do podcasters have not to "platform" crazy voices? Is there a countervailing duty to explore unusual ideas, spurned by elites? Why did Sam Harris fearlessly take on Islam, Black Lives Matter and Gaza, but not transgender ideology? Are psychedelics a portal to another realm, will A.I. become conscious, and is Sam a hypocrite for eating meat?

Sam Harris is one of the world's most influential podcasters and commentators. He burst onto the scene as a prominent atheist but has since become an elder statesman of reason and logic, advocating mindfulness and rationality through his meditation app, Waking Up, and his podcast, Making Sense.

Sam has always been a generous supporter of Josh's work and was kind enough to invite us to his private studio during the Szeps Live Around-the-World Podcast Marathon for a two-and-a-half-hour livestream. Enjoy this sparkling meeting of minds.

Read moreCollapse

“Josh vs the Anti-Gay-Parenting Activist” Katy Faust

Season 1 · Episode 359

Monday, July 7, 2025 • Duration 02:03:35

Katy Faust is a family-values activist who campaigns against all families that don't contain a biological mother and father. A rockstar among American conservatives, she's the founder of the children's rights organization, Them Before Us. On shows like Jordan Peterson's - and in her lobbying of lawmakers - she argues for prioritising every baby's right to its biological parents over the right of adults to start a family.

At a time when Republican support for same-sex marriage is dropping fast thanks to discomfort with parts of the LGBTQIA+ agenda (especially relating to kids and transgenderism), Katy's ideas are gaining traction. Her policies would revolutionise - and in some case, criminalise - IVF, surrogacy, adoption, sperm donation, egg donation, and even divorce.

The group most targeted by biological-parenting laws would, of course, be gay parents - who, by definition, subvert the nuclear biological family.

While Katy was touring Australia, she was kind enough to stop by the Uncomfortable Conversations studios to make her case against gay parenting to one of Australia's most prominent gay dads, the host of this show.

Watch this conversation on YouTube. And you’re missing out on our best ad-free content if you haven’t popped over to the Uncomfy Convos Substack page.

http://twitter.com/joshzepps

http://instagram.com/joshszeps/

PREMIUM: "Free Speech" On Twitter with Andrew Lowenthal

Season 1 · Episode 265

Thursday, September 19, 2024 • Duration 27:58

Can governments regulate “misinformation”? Or is that just a pretext for controlling what you can say? Were “the Twitter Files” a bombshell revelation of censorship, or a paranoid beat-up? How should Big Tech have grappled with issues like Russia, Covid, and the FBI?

Andrew Lowenthal worked with Matt Taibbi for months on the Twitter Files. He helped to create the Westminster Declaration to oppose any restrictions on online speech.

He used to work with leftie NGOs fighting for the digital rights of dissenters across the Asia-Pacific, until he saw his activist colleagues drift away from free speech towards the opposite – what he calls "anti-disinformation".

He now runs a digital civil liberties initiative called liber-net which argues that, under the cloak of countering misinformation, the powers-that-be suppress information, ideas, and opinions expressed by everyday people. Andrew is an Australian based in Europe and he was kind enough to stop by the Uncomfy Studios on a recent trip to Sydney.

Watch the in-the-flesh video on the YouTube page (subscribe while you’re there) and if you’re not a paid Substack subscriber, enjoy this preview of a much longer, gripping convo.

To get the whole shebang, get your own personalised premium podcast feed at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_

http://twitter.com/joshzepps

Pop Superstar Missy Higgins on Sexuality, Fame and Failure

Season 1 · Episode 264

Monday, September 16, 2024 • Duration 57:56

Missy Higgins is one of Australia's most successful musicians. She exploded onto the scene in 2004. Her debut single launched at No. 1, her first album debuted at No. 1, and, barely out of her teens, she won the ARIA, Australia's Grammy, for Best Pop Release.

Tabloid speculation swirled about her sexuality. Josh wants to know how she now thinks about gayness, love, fame and failure. Her new album, released exactly on the 20th anniversary of her first, is The Second Act.

To get more content like this and to join in the fun of the Uncomfy Convos multiverse, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_

http://twitter.com/joshzepps

http://instagram.com/joshszeps/

tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations

Read moreCollapse

Kamala vs Trump with Chas Licciardello

Season 1 · Episode 263

Wednesday, September 11, 2024 • Duration 01:06:27

In the lead-up to every U.S. election of the past 12 years, Chas Licciardello has hosted a national primetime television comedy show called Planet America, covering the ins and outs of American politics.

He is a member of Australia's most famous comedy group, The Chaser, and starred in their satirical TV shows for nearly a quarter of a century: The Chaser Decides, CNNNN, The Chaser's War on Everything, Yes We Canberra! and The Hamster Wheel.

Chas and Josh sat down after the landmark presidential debate to share their thoughts.

To get more content like this and to join in the fun of the Uncomfy Convos multiverse, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_

http://twitter.com/joshzepps

http://instagram.com/joshszeps/

http://tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations

Read moreCollapse

“Multiculturalism in the UK” with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer

Season 1 · Episode 262

Monday, September 9, 2024 • Duration 01:01:26

Outside Australia, Alexander Downer is best known as the diplomat who kicked off the Mueller Investigation by alerting the FBI that one of Trump’s advisors, George Papadopoulos, said the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton over drinks in London. Downer was Australia’s ambassador to the UK at the time.

Inside Australia, Downer is a household name. He is the most consequential Foreign Minister in decades (what Americans call the Secretary of State), serving for over a decade during 9/11 and the Iraq War. As a senior government minister in the Five Eyes alliance, he was influential in formulating Western countries' response to ISIS and jihadism. Most recently, he was Australia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom (a position which, between Commonwealth countries, is called the High Commissioner).

Downer recently wrote about the UK race riots and the strains of multiculturalism. As someone deeply familiar with immigration, multiculturalism, Islamism and foreign policy, Josh wanted to pick his brain.

Don’t miss a moment of the intellectual action. Get email updates from the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_

http://twitter.com/joshzepps

http://instagram.com/joshszeps/

http://tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations

“Why We’re Divided” with Jon Yates

Season 1 · Episode 261

Thursday, September 5, 2024 • Duration 01:00:54

Our societies are more diverse than ever, yet we spend more of our time with people just like us. Are we losing a sense of common life? Maybe the far left and the far right aren't the cause of our division, but a consequence of it?

Jon Yates is an entertaining, whip smart writer and activist who studies how to build a more united society. He says the problem is not that we're different from each other, but that we're distant from the other. We are not fractured because of Trump or Fox News or MSNBC - those are consequences, not the cause, of our fracturing. Our divisions create the space for demagogues, he argues, not the other way around.

Is he right? If so, what can we do? Jon has a few ideas. Many of them you won't like, especially the "Hitler-y" ones (we hope). But you definitely want to hear them.

Jon's book is called "Fractured". To hear more from clever bunnies like him, get our newsletter at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_

http://twitter.com/joshzepps

http://instagram.com/joshszeps/

http://tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations

Read moreCollapse

PREMIUM: Coleman Hughes Live in Melbourne

Season 1 · Episode 260

Monday, September 2, 2024 • Duration 26:30

Are we too focused on race? Have recent anti-racist movements like The Voice to Parliament and Black Lives Matter abandoned the colour-blind spirit of the civil rights pioneers?

Josh took to the stage for a special one-night-only Uncomfortable Conversations live event with Coleman Hughes, one of America’s most prominent authors and thinkers on the topic of race.

This is a 25 minute preview of the exclusive live show. If you want to hear the full 1 hour + event, as well as lots more similarly provocative conversations, head to https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_

http://twitter.com/joshzepps

http://instagram.com/joshszeps/

http://tiktok.com/@uncomfyconversations

Read moreCollapse

JUST JOSH: Free Speech, Incitement & Elon Musk

Season 1 · Episode 259

Thursday, August 29, 2024 • Duration 48:39

"The debate over free speech, hate speech, online harms, algorithms and social media is tangling us up in knots. Let’s get back to first principles, because our ability to survive the 21st century depends on it."

So wrote Josh in Australia's top newspapers on the weekend, linked below. He had gotten into a stoush on the national TV panel show Q+A with Australia's eSafety Commissioner, whom Elon Musk calls a “censorship commissar”, over free speech on social media.

Thanks to you, the listener whose attention makes this show possible, we needn't restrict ourselves to thinking inside the limitations of the television sound bite, or the newspaper column inch. Here, in a freewheeling, unfettered way, let’s wrestle with free speech, algorithms, incitement... and whether it's sexist to tweet that #NotAllMen are dicks.

Josh's article

Josh's episode of Q+A

The Australian's profile

To get more content like this and support the free-speech mission of Uncomfy Convos, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

http://youtube.com/@JoshSzeps_

http://twitter.com/joshzepps