Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps (private feed for ccravensands@gmail.com)

Josh Visits the South Pacific: Climate Chaos, Chinese Bribes & Mosquitoes

What can a stunningly beautiful, dirt-poor, corrupt, tropical-island nation teach us about the battle between China and the West... and about how climate chaos will affect you?A lot, it turns out. In this bonus episode, Josh is on the ground in Solomon Islands, where leaders from across the Pacific are currently attending the 54th Pacific Islands Forum Meeting. Beneath all the happy-talk about foreign aid is a deeper subtext. The big rich players (i.e. Australia) are trying to bribe their tiny South Pacific neighbours into siding with the West instead of China.Josh visits a freshwater spring in the jungle with one of Australia's leading hydro-geologists, Sam Buchanan, who's stationed in Solomon Islands to manage its long-term water projects. Sam works for the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, The Pacific Community, and is a world-leading expert on water security and climate resilience in small island developing states. He's also one of Josh's oldest friends, who brought to Josh's attention this amazing story in a forgotten tropical battleground.Josh and Sam drive around Guadalcanal, the country's main island (and the site of the famous WWII battle in which a young naval officer named John F Kennedy made his name), discussing how the country gets its water, how it gets energy, how foreign aid is distributed, how geophysicists are using MRI technology to scan for underground water, and what this all has to do with DOGE, Trump, and subsidence in the Central Valley of California. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

Just Josh: Eulogy for Josh's Dad

Josh reflects on the death of his dad after years with Alzheimer’s - the strange in-between of losing someone before they’re gone, and the lessons he wishes he’d acted on earlier. Then, a live recording of Josh delivering the official eulogy at the funeral. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

"Has Home Ownership Become Hereditary?" with Peter Tulip

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit uncomfortableconversations.substack.comWhy is housing in Australia so unaffordable, and what can be done about it? Peter Tulip, former economist at the US Federal Reserve and the Reserve Bank of Australia, now chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies joins Josh to unpack the roots of the housing crisis. They discuss supply and demand, heritage rules, immigration, infrastructure,…

PREMIUM: "Anti-Immigration, the Far Right & the Christchurch Shooter" with Investigative Journalist Joey Watson

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit uncomfortableconversations.substack.comHow does an adventurous, open-minded, well-travelled young bloke get interested in nationalism... and then in Western supremacy... and then white pride... Until he becomes so obsessed with protecting Western Civilization from Islam, that he shoots nearly a hundred innocent Muslims and livestreams the massacre to cheering racists around the world?The off…

SZEPS WORLD TOUR - NICK CAVE on Faith, Melancholy, & Stardom

Nick Cave is one of Australia’s biggest musical exports. But after forty years as a rockstar - and the death of two sons - he's become something else: A unofficial poet laureate and philosopher king through his online letters project, The Red Hand files. Nick sat down with Josh in London on the Szeps Live World Tour to discuss songwriting, grief, faith... and, as a bonus, to critique some of Josh's recent episodes. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe