UNSW Centre for Ideas

Richard Holden | Alan Kohler Australia, a land of sweeping plains, has one of the lowest population densities on the planet. So, how did we end up with a housing shortage?  In conversation with economist and author Richard Holden, veteran finance journalist Alan Kohler’s new Quarterly Essay, The Great Divide: Australia

Machines lead the charge on today’s battlefields, but what does this mean for the people caught in the crossfire?  Learn from journalist Antony Loewenstein, whose Walkley Award-winning investigation, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, uncovered the widespread com

How did sex begin? How did it evolve to become so varied and complex in humans? And what could sex look like for future generations?  Hosted by evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks, this blush-worthy panel discussion features sex historian Esmé Louise James and historian David Baker. Esmé adapted her wildly popular TikTok

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 to school increasingly determines your success and future. Joining fellow economist, Richard Holden,

Brigitte Gerstl | Luara Ferracioli | Mianna Lotz | Chaired by Kathryn MacKay Is the emergence of artificial wombs and womb transplants a ‘boon’ or a ‘bane’ for women? Listen now to explore the transformative possibilities for reproductive autonomy that could redefine the very essence of motherhood.  This session is pre

The late philosopher and scientist, Daniel Dennett talked about ‘counterfeit people’ as one of the great dangers of AI – but are we now willing to court the same dangers through our adoption of multiple identities across the metaverse. Moving from the confinement of physical reality to the landscape of the metaverse, w