Big Ideas
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Big Ideas
Your front row seat to big thinkers at the best live events, forums, and festivals. Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. We love hearing from you about the show or events you are planning. Get in touch! Email: Bigideas@abc.net.au SMS line for ABC Rad...
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456 episodi
Angertainment — is it too late to escape the rage bait machine, and why are its roots ancient and evolutionary? With Ed Coper
Is it too late to escape the rage bait machine? And why are its roots ancient and evolutionary? Leading strategist Ed Coper has used all the tricks of...
Globalisation and geopolitics – the forces that will make or break Asia
Globalisation has powered the extraordinary economic rise of Asia. But the same components that built this success — open trade, deep supply chains, i...
Calling out wrongdoing can come at a cost — here's how Australia can strengthen its whistleblowing laws
From Robodebt to the banks, KPMG to the NDIS, whistleblowers have exposed egregious cases of corruption and misconduct. But it's often come at great p...
Ex-chief scientist Alan Finkel's three laws of Artificial Intelligence
The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants AI in Australia's interests, and has announced steps to regulate the technology. So can Australia get the ba...
Could you be a hope punk? Jack Toohey on rebellious hope and why better things are possible
Jack Toohey was flying high. Then he crashed. But from despair came renewal, and a rebellious hope. In 2023, when his social media post about housing...
Fear, healing and finding calm – how the ocean can change you
The ocean calms us. It terrifies us. It heals us. Sometimes all at once. We explore the sea's complex hold on your mental health — from the fear of sh...
Is education policy damaging our democracy?
We are seeing seismic shifts in our politics, as more people than ever turn away from the major parties. Could public policy failures be to blame? For...
These Palestinians and Israelis are talking to each other − determined to make peace real in Gaza
Palestinians and Israelis are building common ground for peace where most say there is none. Since October 7 and the war in Gaza, the idea of cross-co...
8 Million Ways to Happiness with Hiroko Yoda — what we can all learn about life, love, and loss from Japan’s flexible spirituality
When writer Hiroko Yoda's mother died, she found herself unmoored. They'd argued a fair bit over the years — as daughters and their mothers can — some...
What is the role of the writer in troubled times? Tony Birch with Michael Williams on the ethical imagination
Writers have access to endless worlds, perspectives and experiences — both real and imagined. So what should they do with that privilege? Do they have...
If a river is declared a legal “person” — can it talk, remember, feel?
What if the way we think about rivers as resources to be allocated, infrastructure to be managed, problems to be solved, is just fundamentally wrong....
Is the cosmos unravelling? With theoretical physicist Tony Padilla
Forget climate change, forget nuclear Armageddon, did you know that the universe is unravelling? It's probably aeons away, but according to physics, d...
A song for every feeling? Pub Choir founder Astrid Jorgensen has a big story to tell (REPEAT)
Need a mid-Winter pick me up? Well this is the conversation for you! You could call Astrid Jorgensen a choir conductor, but that really doesn’t captu...
The gambling industry is targeting your children - how, why and what can be done?
The gambling industry is targeting young people through digital platforms, personalised algorithms and the blurring line between gaming and betting. B...
David Marr on preaching to the converted
The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice, but not without a whole lot of committed individuals doggedly banging on about it. Even when no...
The God we made — safeguarding humanity in the age of AI
It is replacing our work, our relationships, even our capacity to think. It's the combined sum of all human knowledge — so how long until artificial i...
The art of forgiveness and why it's not what you think it is — with Rachael Coopes and Natasha Mitchell
Is there an art to forgiveness? Join Natasha Mitchell with popular Play School presenter, writer, actor, yoga and meditation teacher Rachael Coopes to...
Whose recipe is it anyway? A nourishing conversation about food and culture
They say we are what we eat, and in this big, migrant nation, every dish tells a story, about culture, about connection, about identity. But when trad...
Errol Flynn — discover the dark secrets of the Australian Hollywood star
He is considered the first Hollywood action hero and had a rapid rise to stardom. But Errol Flynn also was on trial for rape and had relationships wit...
The future of democracy? With Jon Sopel, Nick Bryant and Rosalind Dixon
It may be the least worst form of government, but faith in its leaders and its institutions is waning. From the US to the UK to Australia, democracy h...
The future of TRUTH — Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, philosopher A.C Grayling, journalist Barbara Demick, AI scientist Toby Walsh
A power panel on the future of truth. In a world of AI hallucinations and corporate algorithms, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, and misinfor...
Can Art, artists and activists save Australia’s famous multicultural experiment?
The fabric of multicultural Australia is under a kind of pressure it hasn't faced in a long time. Can it be renewed? And what role do artists, activis...
Pride or shame? Searching for the story of Australia — with Tony Abbott, Mark McKenna and Sally Warhaft
Two authors. Two books. Two very different histories of Australia. Tony Abbott's Australia: A history and Mark McKenna's The Shortest History of Austr...
Zoe Daniel with Thom Woodroofe on winning middle Australia in the climate wars
Has the Iran War got you thinking about changing to an electric vehicle? Did government subsidies help you go solar or install a home battery? When re...
Duty to warn — when challenging power becomes personal, and why journalists Cheng Lei and Charlotte Grieve didn't give up
What's the toll when your story becomes the story? What these journalists endured for their work beggars belief, but it hasn't stopped them believing...
Trump, Xi, Putin and what's next for the world? Former White House insider Thomas Wright with the Lowy Institute's Sam Roggeveen
Three leaders of three different countries, who decided they would no longer accept the limits placed upon them by the international rules based order...
Sperm shortages, shady Facebook groups, and other intimate stories of modern donor conception
Donor-sperm conception has become even more difficult in Australia. Would-be parents are now facing a shortage of sperm. That's on top of an already c...
How can we design our way out of Australia's housing crisis? With Anthony Burke and Tim Ross
From embracing the future of new technologies, materials and innovations, to returning to past times of multigenerational and communal living, archite...
Dark Emu's Bruce Pascoe and astrophysicist Ray Norris — can Aboriginal astronomy unite humanity under one big sky?
Join Bruce Pascoe and Professor Ray Norris with Natasha Mitchell to discuss their eye-opening new book Big Sky: When the Emu Left the Earth. Then go o...
Hard-won progress in women's rights is dismantled — and it threatens global security
Rising authoritarianism, splintering alliances and an organised backlash against women's rights, gender equality and international development are thr...
Medical misogyny — how the health system overlooks women's pain and how it's finally adapting
From GP appointments and hospital procedures, to medical research and clinical trials, for centuries, women's health has historically been dismissed,...
When Turnbull met Trump — and what it means for today’s changing world order
Australia's 29th Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull joins former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland to deliver a candid appraisal of the sh...
The untold Titanic story of Evelyn with Lisa Wilkinson
The untold story of Evelyn Marsden and the woman who rowed against the tide. You've heard of the Titanic disaster. Luxury ship. Largest ever. Impossib...
What can Plato teach us about democracy today?
Democracy is on the decline, so could Plato help? Irish scholar Dr David Horan spent 16 years translating Plato's complete works, including his dialog...
Could self-driving cars & other innovations end the tyranny of distance in regional Australia?
Communities that once built their future around coal and agriculture are asking: what do we become next? Regional Australia usually gets left behind w...
Regional Australia at the crossroad
Communities that once built their future around coal and agriculture are asking: what do we become next? Regional Australia usually gets left behind w...
Love for your neighbour: how to cultivate radical empathy in a disenchanted world
From running a massage clinic for homeless men to running the largest independent human rights organisation in the country, Kon Karapanagiortidis has...
What makes Putin tick — and how will his iron-fist rule of Russia end? Natasha Mitchell with guests
Some say Russian president Vladimir Putin is growing increasingly paranoid, as his war with Ukraine wages on. It's hard to know from the outside looki...
When the safety net frays − nuclear weapon risks in a new era
The global treaty for preventing nuclear proliferation is under serious strain. The last review conferences for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty h...
How to date from a position of power, with Bad Dates of Melbourne creator Alita Brydon and Nelly Thomas
Have you ever heard of something called Chatfishing? From to AI profiles to cat-face filters, finding true love has never felt more difficult. And yet...