If You're Listening
Kanalinformation
If You're Listening
The world is on fire. There's a coup. Inflation is through the roof, and AI is taking our jobs. What does it all mean? Each week, Matt Bevan explains the biggest story in world news while hiding in his basement from assassins and authoritarian regimes. Recent episodes include an exploration of the...
Seneste episoder
253 episoder
Who is Trump really fighting in Iran?
There’s a persistent fantasy in Washington that regimes are like light bulbs: smash the fixture, screw in a new one, problem solved. The reality in Ir...
Kylie Moore-Gilbert says Trump might be stuck in Iran
Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert spent over 800 days in an Iranian prison interrogated by the Revolutionary Guard, and got into plenty of argum...
Trump thinks he can switch off the Iran War
Donald Trump once warned against endless wars. Now, he’s launched a strike killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many Iranian leadership figures, so what...
Making sense of Trump’s attack on Iran
Matt and Kara answer your questions about the the unfolding situation in the Middle East.
Who are the contenders for new leadership, how will th...
Where did Epstein’s money come from?
Where did Jeffrey Epstein get his vast fortune from? Of all the questions surrounding this labyrinthine saga, the source of Epstein’s millions has bee...
The Epstein Q&A our lawyers approved
Matt and Kara try to answer your questions about the Epstein files without being sued... with only limited redactions.
They get into the consequ...
Epstein’s ghost is haunting the UK
A dark Epstein storm cloud is settling in over Europe — and it’s drifting straight across Westminster. As the newly released Epstein files reach Londo...
The time an astronaut said they weren't coming back
Space travel is a serious physical and mental challenge by all accounts. But what happens when an astronaut goes rogue mid-flight?
Matt is joine...
How Epstein and QAnon blew up the justice system
When news first broke of a billionaire sex offender with a private island… the story didn’t erupt through traditional media — instead it circulated th...
There Will Be Mud (again)
That's right, we're talking soil again. Is there a field of Ukranian chernozem soil sitting in rural New South Wales? Producer Pat joins Matt to final...
Stephen Miller: Edgelord in Chief
For a long time, no matter which party was in power - the US government has operated within pretty defined guardrails… that is, until Donald Trump ret...
Pod Save America on the endless escalation of Trump
Jon Lovett has been following the daily minutia of U.S. politics for a decade on his podcast Pod Save America. Ahead of their Australian tour, Jon joi...
Steven Pinker thinks we’re worried about the wrong things
Matt is joined by psychologist and science writer Steven Pinker to discuss doomsday predictions, climate anxiety, and how best to split the balance be...
Steven Pinker thinks we're too worried about the future
Matt is joined by psychologist and science writer Steven Pinker to discuss doomsday predictions, climate anxiety, and how best to split the balance be...
04 Black Swans | Countdown to Doomsday
In the midst of the Cold War, it was a very real fear that a nuclear winter would obliterate life as we know it. Now, fortunately, that never happened...
Did a 1981 book correctly predict the future?
Matt and Kara discuss the book that inspired the Black Swan series… but didn’t make it into the final cut! Can experts, soothsayers, and psychics real...
Did a 1981 book correctly predict the future?
Matt and Kara discuss the book that inspired the Black Swan series… but didn’t make it into the final cut! Can experts, soothsayers, and psychics real...
03 Black Swans | Burning Hill
In 1959 a flight to London took days and cost half a year’s average salary. But things were changing rapidly. The invention of the Concorde meant tha...
The city that ten beers built
Matt and Kara delve deeper into the story of town planner Alex Ramsay, and the bizarre deal he struck to purchase the land that would become Elizabeth...
02 Black Swans | The Australian Dream
In the 1950s three quarters of Australians were homeowners, most lived on a quarter-acre block, with a mortgage that could be covered with one income...
01 Black Swans | The Population Bomb
Until recently people were scared our planet would be outstripped by the weight of a colossal population. Experts feared that by 2026, there would be...
Matt got lost on his way to the costume department
Kara and Matt take you behind the scenes of putting the series together, and how hard it is to find an iron when you need one.
The Black Swans s...
Trump’s playbook for Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela
In a post on Truth Social, US President Trump announced that he had captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and that the pair...
NEOM: The world's dumbest megaproject
The massive infrastructure project NEOM sits in the Saudi Arabian desert, and the jewel in its crown is The Line, a futuristic city which looks insane...
What's the deal with fluoride?
Putting fluoride in drinking water has often been called one of the most successful public health measures in human history. But since the very beginn...
How good are Australia’s gun laws really?
Australians are very proud of our gun laws, and we have good reason to be. The laws are world famous and frequently referenced in the wake of almost e...
24 hours after the Bondi shooting
On Sunday the 14th of December, two men; a father and son, used a range of firearms to attack a large Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach playground....
Why is Venezuela falling apart?
During a 15 minute phone call, US President Donald Trump offered the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro safe passage for him and his family to the co...
This robot will shoot you and steal your wife
We have always been obsessed with stories about killer robots. But where do stories about malevolent machines with a mind of their own originate? Matt...
Where’s my robot butler?
Tech bros are racing to develop the first mass-produced humanoid. But despite billions of dollars in investment, these robots require a great deal of...
Is internet piracy making a comeback, me hearties?
You wouldn't steal a podcast!
After meeting the founder of Sweden's Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge, we decided to take a closer look at the world...
Is China’s plan to invade Taiwan inevitable?
Currently, as many as 5000 Chinese spies are operating in Taiwan. Many of Taiwan’s allies are concerned that these spies, along with the increasing fr...
The time Andrew Denton tried to hire a bounty hunter
In the early 90s, Australia’s most wanted fugitive was Christopher Skase. He was hiding on the Spanish island of Mallorca, to avoid the corporate crim...
The truth about China’s social credit scores
For the last decade or so, there’s been a lot of talk about how the Chinese government uses technology to issue social credit scores to its citizens....
maTt and kaRa address yoUr conspiracy THeory
Get ready as Matt and Kara address a whole lot more listener questions. All things from Elon Musk’s impending trillionaire status to the mystery of th...
So you’ve robbed the Louvre… now what?
On the 19th of October at 9:30am, two thieves parked a truck at the Louvre. They carved a hole in the window, climbed into the gallery, smashed two di...
Was the CIA involved in Whitlam's dismissal?
On 11 November 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was sacked by Governor-General Sir John Kerr. For the past 50 years, people have speculated about th...
Can we afford to power AI?
In the last decade, the number of data centres worldwide has doubled. As the tech bros spend big to render AI an irreplaceable part of our everyday li...
This town ain't big enough for two dog puppets
This episode is about a lawsuit between two puppet dogs. What more do you need?
This past week we’ve been waist-deep in the dot com boom of the...
Is the AI bubble too big to burst?
There are no salary caps when it comes to securing the future brains of AI researchers. Mark Zuckerberg recently paid a 24 year old $250 million to co...