Contagious Realities (2024) - Alice Dawkins, Natasha Mitchell, Sandersan Onie, Jean Twenge & Sonny Jane Wise

Contagious Realities (2024) - Alice Dawkins, Natasha Mitchell, Sandersan Onie, Jean Twenge & Sonny Jane Wise

Author: Festival of Dangerous Ideas November 6, 2024 Duration: 1:00:34

The increase in mental health and neurodivergent diagnoses in recent years indicates that we're more aware of our brains than ever before 

Does improved social awareness, self-identification, representation and access mean we've reached a turning point in the way we acknowledge and treat mental health and neurodivergence in society? Or are we at risk of over-pathologising ourselves and the world around us?

Alice Dawkins is the Executive Director of Reset.Tech Australia, a policy organisation with a focus on regulating digital risks and online harms. 

Sandersan Onie is an award-winning researcher at the Black Dog Institute and Harvard Medical School and is passionate about a mentally healthier world, especially how culture, AI, and tech can contribute to this vision. 

Jean M. Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, is the author of more than 180 scientific publications and seven books, including Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future and iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious.

Sonny Jane Wise is an Autistic Bipolar ADHDer, who offers a powerful and relatable voice in the neurodiversity space. Their books resources, workshops and talks have led to organisations and services adopting a neurodiversity affirming framework and embedding inclusion within their policies. 

Chaired by journalist, radio presenter, and podcaster Natasha Mitchell.


For more than a decade, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas has curated a space where provocative thinking isn't just welcomed, it's the entire point. This podcast is a direct line to that stage, offering an archive of talks that deliberately unsettle comfortable opinions and interrogate the stubborn problems we often agree to ignore. Each episode captures a live conversation from Australia's original disruptive ideas festival, presenting arguments that can be exhilarating, uncomfortable, and vitally important. You’ll hear from a compelling roster of festival alumni-including leading experts, intellectual troublemakers, and visionary authors-who share perspectives that conventional discourse frequently sidelines. The discussions here aren't theoretical exercises; they grapple with the pressing and difficult issues shaping our society and culture right now. Tuning in means granting yourself access to a decade-long tradition of intellectual courage, where the core assumption is that some truths are only reached by first entertaining a dangerous idea. It’s a chance to listen as boundaries are pushed, not for shock value, but for clarity. The result is a consistently challenging and refreshing audio experience that complicates simple narratives and expands what feels possible to talk about.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Festival of Dangerous Ideas
Podcast Episodes
Salman Rushdie (2014) - Freedom to Write [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:55
We're living in increasingly brittle times. Ideas that once provoked argument, now provoke outrage – and the art of debate has now shattered. What does it mean to think freely about our world when speech itself is treate…
A message from Stephen Fry [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:48
Heading into its 13th festival, FODI exists thanks to supporters who don't flinch at difficult topics. Brave minds. Bold hearts. Dangerous conversations. We've built a reputation for dragging the world's sharpest provoca…
Roxane Gay (2024) - How to Have Dangerous Ideas [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:53
Drawing from her experience as an author and cultural critic who consistently challenges predictable opinions, Roxane Gay urges us to embrace the danger and discomfort of dissent. But in an age of polarised opinion warfa…
The Anatomy of Evil (2024) - Stan Grant & Simon Longstaff [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:24
Humanity has demonstrated, time and again, a horrific tendency to destroy its own kind – often to eliminate difference and impose uniformity of identity. At its worst, this tendency has led to the destruction of whole pe…
John N. Friedman (2024) - The Fading Dream [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:30
Economist John N. Friedman has made a career researching the causes of inequality and its long-term consequences for children in the US. His findings are grim. Social mobility is in sharp decline. Where you live and go t…
Todd Fernando (2024) - The Next Frontier [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:47
The concept of success and excellence is fraught with tension between communities within Australia. For non-Indigenous Australians, excellence is almost exclusively an economic concept, founded on stolen and inherited re…
Saree Makdisi (2024) - Tolerance is a Wasteland [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:09
For some, the image of Israel, as a shining example of liberal democratic ideals has been broken by the Netanyahu Government's actions in Gaza since 7 October, 2023. Yet, for others, the positive image projected by Israe…
David Baddiel (2024) - The God Desire [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:27
Is God a story we've just told ourselves to satisfy our own desires? Comedian and author David Baddiel knows God doesn't exist, but wishes he did. As Baddiel wrestles with his understanding of God and spirituality as a J…
Coleman Hughes & Josh Szeps (2024) - A Colourblind Society [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:14
Are we too focused on race? Have recent anti-racist movements like Black Lives Matter abandoned the 'colourblind' spirit of the original civil rights movement? In this live FODI edition of Uncomfortable Conversations wit…
Jen Gunter (2024) - Lifting the Curse [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:34
Being open about the female body has always been taboo, risky and dangerous. So, by smashing ancient menstrual taboos, and demolishing dangerous pseudoscience, the Internet's OB-GYN Jen Gunter has long been on a mission…