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PODCAST

The Minefield

In a world marked by wicked social problems, The Minefield helps you negotiate the ethical dilemmas, contradictory claims and unacknowledged complicities of modern life.

society & culture philosophy

All Episodes

53:45

If chatbots are polluting the commons of human...

The Minefield ·

2024/05/22

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 to the habits of thought and consideration that produce distinctly human expression?

en

53:42

What are the ethical, and legal, limits of protests...

The Minefield ·

2024/05/15

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 particular vocation of universities place ethical limits on the forms of expression available to protestors?

en

54:07

The decency of everyday life — are unwritten rules...

The Minefield ·

2024/05/08

Reciprocity, cooperation, kindness, turn-taking, forbearance, empathy, experimentation — can these counter the decidedly illiberal, impatient, anti-pluralistic, well-nigh apocalyptic energies that now seem resurgent in parts of the West?

en

53:54

Ramadan — the rediscovery of society

The Minefield ·

2024/04/03

It 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 discover a different way of living together.

en

53:25

Ramadan — the importance of friendship

The Minefield ·

2024/03/27

If 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 make of one another.

en

54:01

Ramadan — the necessity of withdrawing

The Minefield ·

2024/03/13

Are 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 moral life?

en

53:19

Q+A on “the wisdom of crowds”

The Minefield ·

2024/03/06

Waleed Aly, Scott Stephens and philosopher Stephanie Collins field questions from a live studio audience on crowd-behaviour, conformity and the importance of dissent.

en

53:34

When is it right to call some act – or someone – “evil”?

The Minefield ·

2024/02/21

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?

en

54:21

From Beyoncé to Taylor Swift — what’s behind the mass...

The Minefield ·

2024/02/14

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 it is about live music events that now draw millions of people to them.

en

53:31

What is the harm in “deepfakes” — and what are they...

The Minefield ·

2024/02/07

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 have been inundated with wholly or partially synthetic content.

en

53:48

How can trust be cultivated in a time of pervasive...

The Minefield ·

2024/01/31

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 effects of distrust; Jedediah Purdy joins Waleed and Scott to discuss the necessary conditions for democratic life.

en

53:28

What do we lose by succumbing to conspiracy-mindedness?

The Minefield ·

2024/01/24

Ours is a time when institutional distrust, digital disinformation and mutual suspicion have become pervasive — but can democracy withstand epistemic and social fragmentation of this kind?

en

53:30

In a screen saturated age, is literacy under threat?

The Minefield ·

2024/01/17

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 make up the habit of deep reading.

en

53:54

What do we lose when we lose the capacity for boredom?

The Minefield ·

2024/01/10

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?

en

53:32

Goya’s “Saturn” and its moral challenge

The Minefield ·

2024/01/03

Spanish painter Francisco de Goya’s depiction of Saturn eating his son is a haunting portrait of lust and the fear of one’s own finitude. Christos Tsiolkas joins Waleed and Scott to look into that darkness, and discover what looks back.

en

53:25

Politics, farce ... and Fawlty Towers

The Minefield ·

2023/12/27

Now that John Cleese has announced that the iconic series will return, it’s worth examining what made Fawlty Towers a masterpiece — and whether its interaction with the political climate of the 1970s had anything to do with it.

en

53:20

What are playlists doing to our ability to listen to...

The Minefield ·

2023/12/20

Platforms like Spotify have transformed the way people listen to music through their use of recommendation algorithms and customised playlists designed to cater to either a particular activity or a particular mood.

en

53:54

Dickens’s philosophy of generosity: Revisiting “A...

The Minefield ·

2023/12/13

Australian novelist Briohny Doyle joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to examine Charles Dickens’s unforgettable tale of misanthropy and remorse, and discover how its aesthetic techniques and ethical vision continue to speak to us today.

en

53:30

How much should we expect from the state?

The Minefield ·

2023/12/06

What is a state for? How does its nature, actions, and limits differ from other corporate bodies? Is the relationship of a state to its citizens fundamentally that of a service provider to its clients?

en

53:41

Should drivers of electric vehicles be taxed more to...

The Minefield ·

2023/11/29

If we are not careful, the use of incentives to encourage people to purchase electric vehicles could backfire by offending our sense of fairness.

en

345 results

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