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Welcome to the Forbidden Conversations podcasts, which provides a nuanced and civil approach to difficult subjects.My guest today is Mo Ghaoui, a Palestinian-Lebanese refugee turned American who has spent 25 years in the tech sector, including some involvement with the more shadowy aspects of the political world. Despite his professional background, he remains committed to resolving the right of return dilemma and actively opposes the communication ban with Israelis, advocating for open dialogue to foster better relationships and understanding.Mo's voice is one that is often omitted from the spotlight when it comes to navigating the conflict in the Middle East, but is critical to include in the discourse. Not only do we tackle the Gaza/Israel conflict, but we unexpectedly get into the weeds of Islam and the interpretation of the Quran.
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This isn't a debate, but rather a civil conversation that presents two different perspectives on the trans conversation—particularly around children. There's areas of agreement and disagreement, all in good faith.----Brianna Wu is an American video game developer and computer programmer. She co-founded Giant Spacekat, an independent video game development studio, with Amanda Warner in Boston, Massachusetts. She is also a blogger and podcaster on matters relating to the video game industry. Christina Buttons is a liberal, science-oriented, independent journalist who primarily reports on news and research related to "gender medicine."
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Warren Smith is a teacher whose video of a conversation with a student went viral back as he challenged the student to think critically about his claim relating to author J.K. Rowling.He has since been laid off from his position and runs Secret Scholars on YouTube.
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It's striking how many people believe things that are demonstrably false, even though we live in an era where information is more accessible than ever before.This phenomenon affects everything from personal medical decisions to global policies.In an age brimming with data and facts at our fingertips, do so many of us cling to untruths? And more importantly, how can we counteract this and foster a more accurate understanding of reality?To unravel these questions, we need to delve into the psychological and social mechanisms that shape our beliefs.This video explores 7 key consideration about how we think and perceive information, along with practical antidotes to combat our tendency to succumb to false narratives and beliefs.
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This conversation was streamed live on X on February 19, 2024.
This episode features and interview between Katherine Brodsky & Elon Musk and a Q&A to follow.Warning: There were significant sound issues due to glitches and Elon doing this interview from an airplane.
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Robert Scoble is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft.You can find him on X: @ScobleizerHis podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/robert-scoble4
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My guest, Emmanuel Maggiori (PhD), is a 10-year AI industry insider and author of the book Smart Until It's Dumb: Why artificial intelligence keeps making epic mistakes (and why the AI bubble will burst). He has developed AI for a wide variety of applications, from extracting objects from satellite images to packaging holiday deals for millions of travelers every day, working as a data scientist and software engineer for various clients. After studying software engineering in Argentina, he completed his PhD at Inria, the French national IT research lab.He joins me to discuss the dangers of AI and where it can excel. Is AI delivering on its promises? Is AI as good as we think it is? What can humans do better than AI? Do we need AI tools everywhere or are we putting it to use where it is not needed? Is there too much pressure to implement it everywhere? Is it overhyped? Should we be worried?
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These days, wars aren’t merely fought on battlefields. The battle is also for public sentiment and perception. Whether we’re talking about government propaganda, or the massive spread of lies on an unprecedented scale due to speed of transmission—it is not something to be dismissed lightly. On this episode of Forbidden Conversations, I talk to combat veteran and national security/military analyst, John Spencer about the state of modern warfare, Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, the situation in Israel, what “disproportionate response” really means, and the difficulty of fighting both mis and disinformation.I also encourage you to read his insightful article for CNN about whether Israel is actually committing war crimes in Gaza.John Spencer is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, combat veteran, national security and military analyst, and internationally recognized expert and advisor on urban warfare, military strategy, tactics, and other related topics. Considered one of the world’s leading expert on urban warfare, he served as an advisor to the top four-star general and other senior leaders in the U.S. Army as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy.He is the author of three books: Understanding Urban Warfare, (Howgate Publishing, 2022), Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War (Potomac Books, 2022), The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender (John Spencer, 2022).Spencer currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast. He serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Madison Policy Forum, a New York based think-tank. He also serves as a Colonel in the California State Guard with assignment to the 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard as the Director of Urban Warfare Training. He is a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.You can find him on X at @SpencerGuard.
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My guest, Gurwinder Bhogal, is a writer examining the intersection of psychology and technology. On this episode of Forbidden Conversations, we explore some of the ideas central to his work—namely—ways in which we tend to get fooled in the digital age. Why have we seemingly abandoned reason? Is the Internet really rotting our brain, or do we share that responsibility? We have more data available to us than ever before, but it isn’t necessarily making us more knowledgeable. And there’s few of us that have been able to avoid the Kruger-Dunning effect. Why is it that smart people believe false things? And why is it so difficult for many of us to change our minds?
Most importantly, what is the antidote?
After working in web development on projects like Microsoft Bing, Gurwinder left the tech industry to pursue a career as a freelance writer. His work has featured in UnHerd, Quillette, Areo, The Humanist, The Sunday Express, and on the blog of the counter-terrorism think-tank Quilliam. He also writes at
Gurwinder gurwinder.substack.com and you can find him on Twitter.
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Is freedom of speech really under attack? Are things getting worse? What is causing many people to be worried about too much free speech? Why are these issues of particular concern on campuses? Is cancel culture literally claiming lives?There’s probably no better guest to tackle these questions (and many more) than Greg Lukianoff, attorney, New York Times best-selling author co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind with Jonathan Haidt, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Lukianoff is also the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He is the Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.He has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He’s also appeared on shows like CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. In 2008, he became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and he has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.His upcoming book (co-authored with Rikki Schlott), The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution, is due to be released on October 17.Follow him on Twitter at: @JonHaidt---The FORBIDDEN CONVERSATIONS Podcast is a series that takes on topics that don't always get attention or are more challenging to tackle and seeks to address them through civil discourse and nuanced exploration. To view all episodes so far, visit here.Want to listen only? Find us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.---Find more essays and podcasts at: http://www.katherinewrites.com
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My guest is on this episode of Forbidden Conversations is Adam B. Coleman. We speak about the increased radicalization in the world, hypocrisy, the state of journalism, how "culture wars" affect regular people, boycotts, the laptop class vs the working class, and more. Join us for a random conversation.
Adam is the author of Black Victim To Black Victor, op-ed writer, public speaker, and the founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. He is a columnist for Human Events, a frequent contributor for The New York Post & The Publica, and has articles published in Newsweek, The Federalist, The Epoch Times, Daily Mail, The Post Millennial, Unherd, ScoonTV, Free Black Thought, Life News HQ & Human Defense Initiative.
You can find him on Twitter & Instagram: @wrong_speak or on Facebook. You can read his musings on his own Substack.
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Carol Roth explains how much control the WEF might actually have on society or whether it’s a conspiracy. Are we really on the precipice of a ‘new financial world order’? Is the social credit system just something that’s restricted to China? What’s the role of ‘Big Tech’? Will we all “own nothing” and “be happy”? Why are companies really adapting ESG? What’s happened to the American Dream, is it dead? And what can we do to empower ourselves? Or is it too late?Carol Roth is a “recovering” investment banker; entrepreneur; TV pundit and host; speaker; economic, business, and financial commentator; content developer; and New York Times bestselling author. Her books include The Entrepreneur Equation, The War on Small Business and now, You Will Own Nothing (out 7/18/23).
Carol has worked in a variety of capacities across industries, including currently as an outsourced chief customer officer (CCO), as a director on public and private company boards, and as a strategic advisor and C-level consigliere. Carol connects the dots on financial, business, and economic issues for novice and pro audiences alike. She is also the creator of the Future File legacy planning system and software (FutureFile.com). Carol advocates for small business, small government, and big hair. Coming from a blue-collar family, Carol has worked hard to seize the American Dream, and is fighting to preserve that opportunity for all Americans. For more information or to connect with Carol, visit CarolRoth.com.
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Freely Ashley is a former leftist turned independent conservative that shares political and cultural commentary on YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter. With a refreshingly healthy dose of common sense.
I’ve always found it rather interesting to learn about what it is that causes people to change their beliefs—whatever they might be. How does someone become entrenched in one belief and what allows them to challenge their own point of view? As you’ll hear in our conversation, Ashley’s beliefs were rather entrenched.
We also get into some topics that were more “unscheduled,” like abortion. A contentious subject, and yet, despite our differing views, we are able to hold a civil discourse around it—unlike so many of our peers. Which brings us to another subject: Why is it so difficult to have conversations with those around us who disagree? What happens when people resort to personal attacks? And what happens when people on each “side” take extreme positions?
Sure, our views might not exactly align on a number of topics, but what Ashley and me share is a willingness to not view our ideological opposites as “enemies” or “evil” and to try and understand how other people’s views are shaped, as well as to try and find some common ground.
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There’s unfortunately a level of concern that comes from having a conversation about vaccine injury in the current climate. On the one hand, one worries that a group would use such a case to spread radical claims and conspiracy theories to fully discredit vaccines in the service of sensationalized narratives. On the other, there is always those perfectly willing to dismiss and gaslight someone’s personal experience as something that’s just made up or exaggerated. Something that often happens with those dealing with the consequences of long COVID as well.
But we must be able to have these conversations openly and with nuance, or else we’d never be able to confront the reality of things.
And the reality is that with any medical intervention there is always a risk—something that has always been the case with any vaccine/treatment. Why should pharma’s answer to COVID—the mRNA technology—be any different? In fact, in this case, it has had much less time to be tested, studied, and examined. The question is, what’s the extent of this impact?
There are more qualified people to answer that particular question than me, so I’ll leave it to them.
My discourse on this episode of the Forbidden Conversations podcast focuses on just one case and the personal experience of one person. That someone happens to be one of Australia’s most revered music photographers, Michelle Grace Hunder. She's photographed the likes of Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Shawn Mendes, Drake, Lauryn Hill, Mark Ronson, Kendrick Lamar, and Ruel.
What makes her case particularly noteworthy is that it’s more than a mere claim based on conjecture—it is documented and her unfortunate injury has been officially diagnosed as caused by the vaccine.
In our far-ranging conversation, we discuss Australia’s strict lockdown laws, the mandates, her dealings with the medical system, her injury, how her experiences ultimately profoundly changed her views, and whether she’d be able to trust institutions again.
As photographer Michelle has two separate portrait series in the National Sound and Film Archive of Australia, has published “RISE,” a photographic book detailing her personal journey into the world of Australian Hip-Hop after shooting with literally every major player in the Australian Hip-Hip scene. She also spent four years on a major personal project called "Her Sound, Her Story" celebrating Women in Australian Music, across all genres, with her project partner, Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore.
Her unique style captures the raw energy and emotion of live performances, and her photographs have been featured in numerous publications and exhibitions.
Find her on her official website, Instagram and Twitter.
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Many of us only hear about opioids from one perspective—generally that of doctors over-prescribing them and patients getting addicted. Or worse, some of them ending up on the black market. I’ve heard many such stories myself, including directly from those who were affected by these addictions and struggled to get out from under them.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in the United States alone, an estimated 2.1 million people had an opioid use disorder in 2019 and opioid overdoses accounted for over 47,000 deaths in 2018. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in 2020, 1.7 million people in the US had a substance use disorder involving prescription pain relievers.
Such statistics have led to what my guest on this episode of the Forbidden Conversations podcast refers to as the “opioid prohibition” and it affects him personally.
Peter Pischke has been disabled since age 18, starting with chronic pancreatitis, further developing diabetes, severe eyesight problems with photophobia (extreme light sensitivity) and autoimmune issues. His health condition is very painful, but the current state of medicine and regulations around opioids have made him unable to get effective pain treatment.
What make his alternative perspective valuable is that not only does he have personal experience dealing with the lack of access to opioids for his pain management, but also because he is a disabled journalist who investigates health and disability issues, especially the opioid crisis and its devastating impact.
He challenges the myths and stigma of opioid prohibition while promoting evidence-based policies. His work has appeared in publications such as Reason, Newsweek, NY Daily News, and USA Today. He is a member of Young Voices. You can find him on Twitter @happywarriorp or tune in to his podcast with Baen Books, CultureScape, where he interviews the geek creators who shaped nerd culture.
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When Peter Santenello was 24 years old, he took his $20,000 in saving, left the U.S. for the first time and spent the next two years travelling around 50 countries, debunking for himself the fear-based narratives that he was taught in his youth and learning about the world around him.
Today, he does much of the same for his 1.6M YouTube subscribers who tune in to his videos to help them discover cultures, places and stories that the media so often fails to capture. Whether it’s the Hasidic Jewish community in New York, Chicano culture in East LA, the Amish, Skid Row, Compton, a Native American reservation, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or the U.S./Mexico border—what distinguishes Santenello from most is his tremendous openness and curiosity when it comes to capturing these stories and unique communities. And he’s often willing to go places where much of the mainstream has more often tended to ignore.
In this episode, we discuss why some cultures tend to be more widely misunderstood, why his work has resonated so much with audiences, how he keeps his own views and biases from tainting his coverage, how he decides what topics and cultures to cover, how he’s able to gain the trust of the people featured in his stories, the increasing polarization in our media coverage, and whether he’s found any universal truths throughout his many adventures and conversations.
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As of late, I’ve become increasingly aware of how specific words have been infecting our consciousness. How the oversimplification of language and, hence, concepts has been doing harm to our society and discourse. I call that: Word misappropriation.
This phenomenon occurs when groups of people pillage a particular word or term, declare their own definition of it and then insist that the rest of us accept that very definition and all the beliefs systems that follow it.
These are often the beliefs, and definitions, of very specific and aggressively vocal groups of people and often have little in common with objective reality. In this way, at worst, words become weaponized. At best: Objects of mass confusion. If we can’t even agree on the definitions of words and discuss them openly, how could we possibly begin to approach discussing what it is that they really mean for us? What happens when words are robbed of their true meaning?
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What happens when filmmakers and creative people begin to self-censor?
This episode of the Forbidden Conversations Podcast has me going back to my cinematic roots as I get to speak with, Chris Gore, the founder and publisher of one of the top independent film review websites FilmThreat—which he started as a zine in 1985.
In addition to to FilmThreat, Chris also hosts the FilmThreat Livecast on YouTube and is the author of several books, most notably The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide. Chris is also a filmmaker, having written and produced My Big Fat Independent Movie and directed Attack of the Doc. Chris has hosted shows on FX, Starz, IFC and appeared as a regular on G4TV’s Attack of the Show. His documentary about Attack of the Show and G4TV is coming to VOD on April 24th. For all the details, visit here. You can find him on Twitter at @thatchrisgore & @FilmThreat.
Like Chris, I used to run a popular online magazine that was dedicated to covering film—as well as other topics. Mine shut down circa 2003 or so. But I had continued working in film and television interviewing hundreds of actors and filmmakers, producing creative content on sets, and as a unit publicist—sometimes even getting to travel with productions to exotic locations like Morocco and, well, Paris.
Throughout our time working and playing within the entertainment industry, both of us have observed the industry around us change. Artists in particular became affected by the self-silencing plague, unable to freely express their artistic impulses for fear of offending the wrong colleague or executive and see their career ended. Audiences suffered as result, too, exposed to sanitized content. Or worse, narratives that overtly push agendas over telling compelling stories. “Today’s writers can’t write subtext,” says Chris.” And while we saw more representation on the screen and off, there were many important voices who got unfairly pushed out because they didn’t check off the right boxes—or if those particular boxes were already checked off by ‘too many people.’
Those are just some of the topics that we cover in our far-ranging conversation.
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My guest on this episode of Forbidden Conversations is Buck Angel, a motivational speaker, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and human rights activist. He is also someone who identifies as a transexual—a female who lives as a man. Born female in 1962, he never felt female and struggled with his identity until he had the opportunity to transition later in life at age 28 when it was still a very new phenomenon.
A major component of Buck’s message is about self-acceptance and he has sparked many conversations, making appearances on HBO, National Geographic, Netflix, The Tyra Banks Show, Dan Savage, Howard Stern, Much Music, and many others. He’s also been written about in Forbes, Esquire, VICE, BuzzFeed, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, New York Times, and others.
And now, on this podcast.
Regardless on where you sit on the trans debate, I hope that you can watch this episode with an open mind and I suspect that it may challenge some of your views. One of the things that I really respect about Buck is how open he is and how important it was for him to ensure that I wasn’t tip-toeing around anything during our conversation. In fact, that’s what tends to keep us apart rather than bringing us together.
My intention with this episode was to provide a nuanced perspective and representation. Too often, we are exposed to the most extreme examples within the “community,” whereas the truth is that there is no such thing. Trans people are individuals and have a diversity of opinions/views.
I hope you listen to our conversation with an open mind. If nothing else, I made a new friend. Please follow Buck on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
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Masking. Standing 6 feet apart. Showing vaccine passports whenever you enter a public space. Whether you agree or disagree with such measures, those are just some of the ways we were asked to comply during the pandemic. Pupils of history will recognize that this situation is not unique and that compliance has been used both for good and evil throughout centuries. The psychology of why we agree to go along with things—sometimes ones that don’t logically make sense, or go against our moral reasoning—is fascinating and complex.
The Milgram Obedience Experiment had participants deliver what they believed to be electrical shock to another person on the orders of an authority figure. The Stanford Prison Experiment in the 1970s had participants take on the roles of guards and prisoners and showed how people would mold into whatever expectations came with their social roles. The experiment had to be terminated after only six days after the "guards" had started displaying abusive behavior towards the "prisoners." Group affiliation, size, and power dynamics all play important roles when it comes to compliance and these experiments also revealed how easily people’s behavior can be manipulated—even when they are aware that they are part of a study.
My guest on this episode of FORBIDDEN CONVERSATIONS is Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a physician specializing in psychiatry and author of three books, including most recently, The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State (2022). He is a Fellow & Director of the Program in Bioethics and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a Senior Scholar & Fellow at the Brownstone Institute.
Dr. Kheriaty also serves as Senior Fellow and Director of the Health and Human Flourishing Program at the Zephyr Institute, and Chief of Medical Ethics at The Unity Project. Dr. Kheriaty holds the positions of Scholar at the Paul Ramsey Institute, Fellow at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, and serves on the advisory board at the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
Dr. Kheriaty graduated from the University of Notre Dame in philosophy and pre-medical sciences, earned his MD degree from Georgetown University, and completed residency training in psychiatry at the University of California Irvine. For many years he was Professor of Psychiatry at UCI School of Medicine and Director of the Medical Ethics Program at UCI Health, where he chaired the ethics committee. He also chaired the ethics committee at the California Department of State Hospitals for several years.
Dr. Kheriaty has authored books and articles for professional and lay audiences on bioethics, public health, political theory, social science, psychiatry, philosophy, religion, and culture. His work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsweek, The Federalist, Compact, The New Atlantis, Arc Digital, Public Discourse, City Journal, and First Things. He has conducted print, radio, and television interviews on bioethics topics with The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, Fox, NPR, EWTN, and Epoch TV.
On matters of public policy and healthcare he has addressed the United States Senate, the California Medical Association, and has testified before the California Senate Health Committee. Dr. Kheriaty has consulted on Covid related ethical issues during the pandemic for the UC Office of the President, the County of Orange Healthcare Agency, and the California Department of Public Health.
Find him on Twitter and Instagram.
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