Episodes

  • Our Spectacular Future of Solar-Generated "Fossil Fuels"

    Our Spectacular Future of Solar-Generated "Fossil Fuels"
    Feb 19 2026
    Imagine a world where vast solar arrays produced cheap, abundant energy for everybody... while also powering hyper-scaled superintelligent A.I. data centres, as well as factories that suck carbon from the atmosphere to make cheap natural gas from nothing but sunlight and air. It's within our grasp. Solar is the cheapest form of energy. The only impediments are regulations that were written in the 1970s and our own ideological hang-ups and squabbles about energy. In fact, Europe could already be energy-independent from Russia if they'd decided to invest a fraction of their gigantic gas expenditures on solar arrays when Ukraine was invaded. Casey Handmer is an Aussie in California who got his PhD in Theoretical AstroPhysics at Caltech. He's worked at Elon Musk's Hyperloop One and at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Now he's the founder of Terraform Industries, which plans to bring cheap, carbon-neutral hydrocarbons to everyone on Earth, while displacing drilling as the cheapest energy source. He joins Josh for an inspiring, freewheeling conversation about solar, nuclear, coal, Russia, China, defense, artificial intelligence... and why a truly extraordinary future of abundance is just around the corner, if we choose to take it.
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    59 mins
  • The Ultimate A.I Survival Guide (for Humans)

    The Ultimate A.I Survival Guide (for Humans)
    Feb 16 2026
    How much will A.I. change your life in the next few years? In what ways? How will you navigate the upheavals? How will the society around you do so? "Normies" are finally waking up, it seems, to the scale of what's happening. The dam broke this week in part thanks to an essay which went viral by the A.I. founder and investor Matt Shumer, titled ‘Something Big is Happening.’ It's a clarion call for everyone to pay attention after two A.I. giants released their latest models this month. The new tech leaves no doubt that things are going to get very weird, for all of us, fast. The neuroscientist Professor Joel Pearson works at the coalface of how humans can be psychologically and practically resilient for the social, economic and political impact of A.I. He runs the Future Minds Lab at UNSW and is Deputy Director of Human Readiness at the UNSW A.I. Institute. Joel joins Josh live on Substack to explain the recent developments, paint a picture of what the near-term looks like, and guide us on how us humans can adapt to, and survive, the coming A.I tsunami. Read Matt Shumer’s essay here: https://x.com/mattshumer_/status/2021256989876109403
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    1 hr and 29 mins
  • Violent Clashes at Israeli President's Bondi Visit

    Violent Clashes at Israeli President's Bondi Visit
    Feb 12 2026
    Violence erupted this week as police in downtown Sydney clashed with thousands of activists protesting a visit to Australia by the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog. He was invited to Australia in the wake of the anti-Semitic Bondi terrorist attack. In his weekly livestream, ‘Josh vs the News’, Josh sits down to sift through the media reporting and how we might best think about protest, free speech and Palestine.
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    53 mins
  • Fmr John Oliver Writer on Bias, Blackface & Making Sense of the News

    Fmr John Oliver Writer on Bias, Blackface & Making Sense of the News
    Feb 9 2026
    Has our culture had a grown-up conversation yet about race and gender? Or did the media flip from the casual bigotry of the 20th century to the censorious hysteria of the 2010s in a way that empowered the rise of the New Right? And what was it like to work as a comedy writer on a hit progressive comedy show as the culture underwent The Great Awokening? Jeff Maurer was a writer on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver for its first six seasons. He left in 2020 after feeling its editorial angle had become too ideologically captured. Now, Jeff has a wildly popular political-satire Substack, “I Might Be Wrong”. Josh intended to chat with Jeff to help make sense of Minneapolis, Epstein, ICE, the 2020 election ballots, Don Lemon’s arrest and, of course, the Melania documentary. There’s been a lot, lately. But this conversation evolved into a far more fascinating and funny discussion about what the controversies over blackface and transgenderism can teach us about how the media lost its way; about whether we’ve lost the ability to cover the news - and to satirise it - without preaching to the choir. Follow Jeff’s comedy writing below at www.imightbewrong.org
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    1 hr and 56 mins
  • Just Josh: America on the Brink

    Just Josh: America on the Brink
    Feb 5 2026
    Minneapolis. ICE. The arrest of journalists. The indictment of political opponents. The pursuit of election officials. The killing of protestors. Is the U.S. government openly pursuing authoritarian rule? What is the risk of a low-grade, neighbour-against-neighbour spate of Balkan-style violence? How do we stitch American democracy back together? How does the Trump Administration end? Take this opportunity to step back from the fire-hose of news and join Josh, as he puts America's current crisis in context, homes in on the real threat, and identifies a path to national sanity.
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    1 hr and 33 mins
  • Don Lemon Arrested: Trump, ICE & the Prosecution of the Press

    Don Lemon Arrested: Trump, ICE & the Prosecution of the Press
    Feb 2 2026
    With the arrest of the high-profile journalist Don Lemon, the protests in Minnesota have become the new frontline of press freedom. Is the Trump Administration openly hunting down journalists now? Or, in the aftermath of Snowden, Manning & Assange, is Trump just more shameless in cracking down on voices he disapproves of? What happens to a democracy when reporters and commentators are targeted in politically-motivated, trumped-up prosecutions? Seth Stern is a civil liberties lawyer and the chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. He joins Josh to discuss the case against Don Lemon, the weaponisation of espionage laws, the difference between ethical journalism and genuine national-security threats, how the Trump Administration - using Minneapolis as a pretext - is criminalising the freedom of the press, and how we might fix it.
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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • An Anti-Zionist & a Pro-Zionist on “Apartheid Violence” in the West Bank

    An Anti-Zionist & a Pro-Zionist on “Apartheid Violence” in the West Bank
    Jan 29 2026
    Does Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank call into question its legitimacy as a state? Or is the occupation a necessary evil to defuse the threat of an intractably hostile Palestinian population? While everyone's been focused on Gaza, the larger, more populous chunk of Palestine - the West Bank - has seen a dramatic escalation of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians. Why? Without answering that question, no solution in Gaza will amount to a hill of beans. In this double-feature episode, Josh speaks with two people who have each lived and worked in the occupied West Bank and emerged with very different opinions. Andrey X is an anti-Zionist Russian-Israeli journalist and activist who documents Israeli violence in the West Bank for his nearly 400,000 Instagram followers. Charlotte Korchack is an American-Israeli educator of Jewish & Israeli history. Both have lived in the occupied territories and reported on Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents alike. Josh speaks with Andrey and then Charlotte about the reality on the ground and the history & future of all the territory between the river and the sea.
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    2 hrs and 46 mins
  • “Genes & Free Will: Pedophiles, Ozempic & Self-Control” with Prof. Kathryn Paige Harden

    “Genes & Free Will: Pedophiles, Ozempic & Self-Control” with Prof. Kathryn Paige Harden
    Jan 26 2026
    How much are you a product of your genes, and how much are you a product of your experiences? Or are you a free agent, acting in spite of your biology and environment? Kathryn Paige Harden is a world-renowned psychology professor who specialises in how genes affect our behaviour. She was nearly cancelled during the era of Peak Woke for her book 'The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality'. Her research, while egalitarian in intent, was demonised as paving the way for eugenics. Now, Professor Harden reveals even more fascinating links between genes and addiction, appetite, sex and violence in her amazing new book ‘Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness.’ She joins Josh to discuss nature, nurture, free will, dysfunction, genetic predispositions, and what taking acid taught her about being human.
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    1 hr and 48 mins