Podcast
The Minefield
Episodes — page 7
If chatbots are polluting the commons of human communication, what are the moral consequences?It’s 18 months since the technology company OpenAI made its wildly popular interface with an advanced large language model — GPT-4 — available to the public. What has ChatGPT done…
- What are the ethical, and legal, limits of protests at Australian universities?
Protests are, by their nature, unequivocal and univocal. They tend to avoid nuance or fine distinctions, and most often do not invite dialogue. They make demands. Does the particul…
The decency of everyday life — are unwritten rules enough to sustain a good society?Reciprocity, cooperation, kindness, turn-taking, forbearance, empathy, experimentation — can these counter the decidedly illiberal, impatient, anti-pluralistic, well-nigh apocalypt…
What will endure? The ethics of “Groundhog Day”During the pandemic, there was a sudden renewal of interest in Harold Ramis’s 1993 film “Groundhog Day” — especially its bleaker aspects. But this missed its sophistication and hum…
After the stabbings in Sydney — Grief? Anger? Revenge?Residents of Sydney have found themselves understandably overwhelmed by the compound traumas of two stabbing attacks in three days. How are we to make sense of the cycling-through…
What’s fueling the tension between the courts and the media?There has been an odd confluence of events over the past couple weeks that has managed to intensify the sense of a conflict between two of our most important democratic institution…
What would the moral obligation to avoid civilian deaths look like in Gaza?Does the failure on the part of Israel to enable the provision of humanitarian aid or to do everything in its power to prevent civilian casualties suggest “a blameworthy indifferen…
Ramadan — the rediscovery of societyIt is important to remember that Thoreau’s motivation for withdrawing was neither escapism nor apolitical quietism. The fact that he departed on 4 July signals an invitation to dis…
Ramadan — the importance of friendshipIf Thoreau regards withdrawal and solitude as means by which we learn to escape self-deception, then they may well be little more than preparation for the moral demands friends mak…
Ramadan — the discipline of solitudeSolitude is neither alone-ness nor idleness. It is strenuous and takes practice. Solitude does not simply happen in the way that isolation or loneliness does — it must be inhabited…
Ramadan — the necessity of withdrawingAre periodic bouts of withdrawal from life’s urgent demands and heated debates necessary to regain a sense of our shared humanity, and to renew the commitments that sustain the mor…
Q+A on “the wisdom of crowds”Waleed Aly, Scott Stephens and philosopher Stephanie Collins field questions from a live studio audience on crowd-behaviour, conformity and the importance of dissent.
How much credence should we give to “the wisdom of crowds”?Ever since Plato, “crowds” have been associated with irrationality, emotivism, conformism, short-term thinking, and herd-like behaviour. But what if it turns out that crowds are co…
When is it right to call some act – or someone – “evil”?What are we trying to convey when we reach for a word like “evil”? Is it something about a person’s actions or character? Is it what they do or the manner in which they do it?
From Beyoncé to Taylor Swift — what’s behind the mass appeal of live music events?It is worth reflecting, not just on what is singular about Taylor Swift at this particular cultural moment — why she attracts both the loyalty and the animus that she does — but on…
What is the harm in “deepfakes” — and what are they doing to democracy?Over the last 18 months, enormously powerful generative AI tools have been placed in the hands of anyone who wants them; as a consequence, the internet and our social media feeds h…
How can trust be cultivated in a time of pervasive suspicion?Because it is sustained by nothing more substantial than a weave of trusted institutions, shared habits and moral commitments, democracies are highly susceptible to the corrosive e…
What do we lose by succumbing to conspiracy-mindedness?Ours is a time when institutional distrust, digital disinformation and mutual suspicion have become pervasive — but can democracy withstand epistemic and social fragmentation of th…
- In a screen saturated age, is literacy under threat?
Professor Maryanne Wolf joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss whether we are entering an age of widespread moral illiteracy — an incapacity to engage in the processes that…
- What do we lose when we lose the capacity for boredom?
It is fair to say that boredom is a distinctly modern terror. But, as Stan Grant discusses with Waleed and Scott, what if existential boredom points us to our deeper need?
