Counterpoint

A sceptic is someone who has not decided, or is not in a position to decide, what is true, right or good. Why then are sceptics now called deniers? As the impeachment trial of the former president begins, is there any precedent for impeaching people no longer in office? Yes there is and it's a gruesome tale. How much have captives' or slaves influenced those who took them? It turns out, quite a lot! We're told to just follow the science, but sometimes there are competing theories so who do you believe and why is that choice sometimes not easy?

Over the last couple of decades infrastructure spending, with the exception of China, has been decreasing. Why and how can it be lifted. Do urban ethnographers do more harm than good in speaking for Black communities? Do you have a fight or flight reaction when people stand too close to you? Why is that? Will The Peace Park in Myanmar be able to survive the troubles in Myanmar?

Can we move beyond the labels progressive and conservative? Why is Coon cheese getting a new name and how difficult will it be choosing a new one? Does science really have to be about hard facts? The fascinating history of dogs and are you feeling a bit peckish? Need a bit of a pick-me-up? How about some rhubarb sprinkled with some ground mummy?

How did Venice cope with the plague of 1575? By using a new practise called quarantine. An interesting tale about how carbolic acid has made surgery easier for everyone and the fascinating libertarian history of science fiction. How good are utopian fictions? Not at all. If you don't fit in, you're out.

Why are international borders causing so much anxiety over recent years? Did you hear the one about Stalin? Life under Russian dictator Joseph Stalin wasn't funny and yet there were jokes. What can the history of the Chinese tea trade tells us about the history of capitalism? Are they linked?

In recent times there has been much talk about the imminent collapse of the liberal rules based order with Russia and China citied as the main culprits for this destabilisation. Is it true? How did people in Ancient Greece cope with sickness? Can you hear any birds singing right now? Do you think that people in the ancient world heard the same kinds of birds in the same kind of numbers that we do today? When Siri or Alexa speak to you do you speak back? Might we be a little in love with your technology?

In 2018 Dr Frances Arnold was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Then she gave it back. Why At the turn of the 20th Century Australia went through a bit of a fortune telling craze. The practise was illegal and the police tried to prosecute where they could but the women survived and in some cases thrived. Alphabets are disappearing. There are between 6,000 to 7,000 languages in the world. Yet 96% are spoken by just 3% of the global population and 85% are endangered. What do barcodes and trains have in common? Without one we wouldn't have the other.

Why do regime changes rarely work? Would you buy something from a company if they didn't agree with the same causes that you do? Rules are everywhere. Some make perfect sense but others seem to be there simply to annoy us, so how do we know which ones to ignore or break and which ones to follow? Superman has saved the world countless times, he did other things too, but why are he and his superhero cohorts so popular today?

Is China the all powerful, all conquering nation that some believe it to be or is it 'in “decay” and beset by internal and regional challenges that will frustrate the nation’s grand ambitions'? Wokeness, cancel culture, and calling out have become almost a way of life in recent times. But instead of calling people out should we be calling them in? How safe are consumer goods in Australia and how can we make them safer? Just over 75 years ago the Nuremberg Trials began. How successful were they and how are they now remembered?

Australia has embraced the concept of a rules-based order but what does that actually mean? Instead of breaking up Big Tech can we create new technologies and new ways of living either with or without them? Can science measure free will? How? Alternate maps from alternate histories can teach us a lot, they're also fun. What would be your alternate map of Australia, would you change any State borders?

Can a pandemic be a source of wisdom? Yes it can! After the devasting effects of the last bush fire season do we need to learn how to live with fire? The fascinating history of the pall point pen and autopsies may be on the decline but they have taught us a lot about how COVID-19 affects the body and shown us more effective ways to treat it

Can COVID-19 change the way African cities are planned in the future? Can science measure wisdom and what is wisdom anyway? Can Darwinism and religion happily co-exist and now that we're not doing a lot of right now, how important is touch?

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month we mark the end of the first World War and remember...what exactly and why? The United States, like Australia, is settled country and a migration nation, but has this meant that there isn't a shared sense of history? One of the biggest issues over the last few years has been identity politics. But not all identity categories are interchangeable, and some identities are much more powerful, and dangerous than others. have we reached a tipping point? What does that actually mean and if we have, what comes after?

How did individualism create our postmodern culture? What is conservatism and who is a conservative and does that depend on where you are? Why did thousands of people, including around 80 Australians, join the International Brigades and fight in the Spanish Civil War? How did we learn to breathe for each other, the moving history of the ventilator.

Is it possible to get back to the prosperity of the postwar years? Right now we're all being told to plant trees but is it really the right thing to do? Should we let mother nature just be? Rules, when should we obey them and when should we break them? Why is the Jet age important and how much did jets themselves define the era?

China is the world's biggest seafood exporter and the population consumes around a third of world's catch. How do they do it and at what consequence? Might facts be overrated and what can we learn about vaccinations from the 1976 swine-flu fiasco. What has 43 quintillion potential variations, has sold more than 350 million, and began as a spatial tool for people with science, math, or engineering backgrounds?

Imagined in 2001 and meeting since 2009, in 2020 just how successful has the BRICS grouping been and should it continue? Is Asia turning inwards? The Economist Intelligence Unit believes so. Was Milton Freidman right, or maybe half right. Is greed good? We all know that Australian lyrebirds are great mimics and that the male tail, when fanned out, is beautiful but did you also know that they are also ecosystem engineers?

Belarus is a country in turmoil, two months after the presidential election protests are still going on and the calls for a new election are getting louder. Can we compare what's happening here with the Ukranian protests of 2005 and 2013-2014? Why are conspiracies and conspiracy theorists' like QAnon, so popular in the United States right now? Did you know that there are about 200 contact languages in the world right now. Where are they and who is speaking them? Are you in the habit of dropping your apostrophes or using too many commas? The history and future of punctuation.

Is the silver lining of working from home an increase in productivity? How has this happened? The relationship between China and Taiwan is fraught with tension and right now that tension is being played out in a dispute over a bird conservation group. There's new documentary called Juice. It's abut electricity and those who have it and those who don't and an interesting tale about how carbolic acid has made surgery easier for everyone.

Recently there have been calls for Australia to decouple from China but is this really a good idea? Identity politics is all the rage right now and as such we appear to be living in an era in which people are more often rewarded for their identities, especially if it’s a victim identity, rather than for their achievements. Why is that? Why do cities get built where they do, what are they hoping to achieve and what happened to tact?

The ammonium nitrate blast in the Port of Beirut on 4th August was devastating. What effect did it have on internal politics in Lebanon? What does the UAE's agreement with Israel mean for the rest of the Middle East. Does Big tech need to be regulated? Perhaps the comic book industry can show the way to do it effectively and with consumer support. How good are utopian fictions? Not at all. If you don't fit in, you're out.

As his party votes for a new leader how will Shinzo Abe be remembered? What were some of the successes and failures of the longest serving prime Minister in Japanese history? Should some Australian universities consider merging? Consolidation may offer a better long-term path to sustainability. Can we compare this US election campaign, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden, with the 1948 campaign of Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey? Can you hear any birds singing right now? Do you think that people in the ancient world heard the same kinds of birds in the same kind of numbers that we do today?

Around the world countries have 'radical and previously unthinkable policies to counter the spread of the coronavirus pandemic'. What does this mean, if anything, for democracy? Have you noticed a change in how some products and companies are advertised? Many have gone from aspirational to woke. Why? Feeling a bit peckish? Need a bit of a pick-me-up? How about some rhubarb sprinkled with some ground mummy? What is the Indigenous concept of deep time and how can it help with bushfire and other environmental issues?

75 years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki what is the nuclear future of the world? Do the woke left and the alt-right have more in common than they might think? Yes they do. Who should you believe? An expert or someone on twitter? The person who says they have all of the answers or the person who doesn't have the answer right now? How can we hear what's happening deep in a forest or in the middle of a wasteland? Bioacoustics.

What is American conservatism and is it the same, or similar to, nationalism? What is the history of philanthropy and how has it changed in recent times from small micro loans to million dollar projects that may or may not be completed? Who will run the post-COVID world and how can we make sure it won't be Russia, China or the United States? The internet and social media promised so much. What happened?

In many ways it seems as if the response to the coronavirus, especially in the United States, has been chaotic and irrational but is this really the case? Game theory can explain everything. In recent times Russia has begun to shift its thinking to Asia. However, infrastructure, especially in the Russian far east, is holding it back. Have you ever heard the saying 'go woke or go broke' or even 'get woke, go broke'? Which one is right? Is woke capitalism profitable? There's a new way to test for coronavirus. Sniffer dogs. How does that work?

In recent times there has been much talk about the imminent collapse of the liberal rules based order with Russia and China citied as the main culprits for this destabilisation. Is it true? Should nations be telling other nations what to do and how to act or should they be minding their own business? Statues are being torn down across the United States right now, including statues of Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. Why? How do you see into a black hole or into the depths of the oceans? Is it all skill or all imagination?

We've all heard about China's Belt and Road Initiative, which has been making news since it was launched at the end of 2013, but when and how did China start its push westward and how did they do it? They built roads. Cybersecurity is about preparing the nation from a cyber attack from a hostile government or organisation. How are doing with that, not so well. The world's poorest countries are often troubled by huge amounts of foreign debt but for some of these countries the COVID-19 pandemic has made their debt situation even worse. Can anything be done? Yes, SDR's. Fish pirates may be a great title for a movie but in the real world just how much of a problem are they? We follow the pursuit and capture of one boat, the Andrey Dogov

What is the difference between a riot and a protest and does that depend on who you ask? What would happen if the liberal order, set up in the aftermath of the second World War as a set of international institutions agreed upon by nation states, collapsed? The Australian Space Agency was established in July 2018. Two years later, how do we compare to the rest of the world? Plus the fascinating libertarian history of science fiction.

Are we seeing a new kind of iconoclasm? That is, are statues being torn down, most notably in the UK and US, to erase the history of almost anyone without any kind of consent? Targeted cyberattacks are growing in frequency, most recently with medical research centres and hospitals being attacked by 'hostile state actors'. The country that is doing the most about this is Estonia. How? How did the Kim dynasty come to power and stay there in North Korea? By telling a powerful fiction and keep telling it and telling it and growing it. It's often thought that the Catholic Church and science are diametrically opposed, with Galileo being offered as the perfect example of this incompatibility. Is this really the case or might the Catholic Church have given birth to science?

Who is responsible for the crisis in American cities right now? Is it the rich, or corporations, or the system or might it be the city leaders themselves? Who do you think the most influential person in modern history is? Might it be the man who was responsible for the beginning of the start of the first World War? How might Europe have a credible and autonomous defence policy and why does it involve the UK? Is nostalgia a guilty pleasure or a launch pad for your future? Pass me my cabbage patch doll and we'll find out.

Is racism just about black and white or something more? Where has our sense of grandeur gone and can we get it back? Washing our hands is really important right now but germs and viruses are also important, so how can we make sure we aren't killing any good germs or bacteria or haver the times overtaken us? Termites produce methane gas the same way we all do but their mounds filter about half of it out. How and why is that potentially very important?

How does China maintain its influence over other countries, and within those countries, the Chinese community? Australia is a middle power, as is New Zealand and a host of other countries including South Korea, but why is it known as a middle power like no other? How did Venice cope with the plague of 1575? By using a new practise called quarantine. The kauri trees of New Zealand are in trouble. Can they be saved? How?

Is phrenology making a comeback in the form of facial recognition technology? The history of gibberish shows that saying coochy coo to a baby is a good thing. Why is still so difficult to find flour to feed your mother and why aren't the fields of animal health and human health closer?

What is behind some of the most fanciful conspiracy theories of the COVID-19 pandemic? How do you know what science to believe and when to believe it? What can the history of the Chinese tea trade tells us about the history of capitalism? Are they linked? What is the ancient world's best kept secret and what does it have to do with whiteness?

What will Angela Merkel's European legacy be? What will war look like in the future? The RAND Corporation have published a report assessing the future of warfare. What does it say? Is being angry a waste of energy or can it be constructively used for your greater good? Right now the world is relying on epidemiologists to get us through the COVID-10 pandemic, but who modelled diseases before this branch of medicine was founded? Astrologists.

Are we more connected than we thought we were? Why is the kind of language that is used during war time being used now? If there is a lighter side to COVID-19 it is in some of the new sayings and terms being used? For example, would you like a quarantini at your is isodesk while we're living through this Miley? Kangaroos have not always been an Australian icon, a new book looks at how they were hunted and killed and portrayed during colonial times.

Is Libya headed for partition? As China and the US increasingly view each other with suspicion, what challenges will Australia face? Why do you believe what you do? Is it because of where you lived and how you were raised? Did you know that cattle produce more methane gas than many large countries, and that most of it is a result of burping?

What might post COVID-19 China look like? Will they lead the global economic revival or will it struggle? Why are international borders causing so much anxiety over recent years? Are we at the Kindleberger moment and what is it anyway and was the collapse of Virgin Australia inevitable?

What will happen to agriculture after COVID-19, will it be business as usual? Italy may have just eased some restrictions after a complete lockdown but their troubles are far from over. We hear a lot about the scientific modelling that is guiding our response to COVID-19 but what actually is scientific modelling? What is a hero?

While we've been paying attention to COVID-19 another killer has been on the loose. That killer is ISIS and they bombing Sikhs in Afghanistan. Last year roughly 155, 732 people died around the world every day. Death, just like tax, is normal, that is, until now. Are you working from home right now? Are you enjoying it? The benefits of working from home have been talked about for the last 50 years. If you are lucky enough to have a garden, or live close to a park, now is the time to go out and explore and watch.

Can we trust China? How? The internet has changed the world but has it also created 'unprecedented concentrations of power, which are making society not only less transparent, but more brittle as well'? Can we compare COVID -19 to the Black Death? Are we nearly at the point, with social media, of needing to legislate and police friendship?

Will globalisation survive the COVID-19 pandemic? What are some examples of successful public health polices? In the immediate aftermath of BREXIT many British academics and commentators claimed that people voted Leave because they were racist or were yearning for Empire and the good old days. Is this true? How good is your nose? It's all kinds of brilliant!

President Xi Jinping's rule of China is seemingly absolute, but is all as it seems? Outbreaks of animal-borne and other infectious diseases like Ebola, SARS, bird-flu and CVID-19, are on the rise around the world. Why? How did people in Ancient Greece cope with sickness and disease and how clean is the International Space Station?

Is Narendra Modi's India a democracy in peril? Might COVID-19 be a disaster without precedent? Civilization has brought millions of people out of poverty, out of hunger, and saved millions of lives, so why does it seem that some academics want to destroy it? Emotions can be tricky and unpredictable but should we be using them more to help us face some of our most pressing problems?

Would you buy something from a company if they didn't agree with the same causes that you do? We know, or have heard about, Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution but did you know that he also went to the Middle East? We know the best way of avoiding the spread of COVID-19 is to isolate citizens and adopt stringent hygiene standards. How is this interpreted around the world? When Siri or Alexa speak to you do you speak back? Might we be a little in love with your technology?

How stable are the autocratic regimes in the Middle East? After the Arab Spring it seemed like possibly the end of authoritarian rule in the region, but was it? Why are there different reactions to COVID-19? Who is getting on with their lives and who is not? Rules are everywhere. Some make perfect sense but others seem to be there simply to annoy us, so how do we know which ones to ignore or break and which ones to follow? Superman has saved the world countless times, he did other things too, but why are he and his superhero cohorts so popular today?

The United States now has to share the globe with other great powers. What has happened to their sphere of influence? Who is in the middle class and is it the same now as it used to be? In the aftermath of the Arab Spring what has decentralisation meant for Tunisia? How are diseases named and why is that important?

It's easy for politicians to deflect the blame for their own policy errors by blaming someone or something else. Right now, especially in countries with nationalistic tendencies such as China, the Philippines and the United States, the favourite scapegoat is globalism. As China embraces its facial recognition technology for its Social Credit System, is it also changing the Confucius concept of face? Can proportionality save us from the wackiest of the woke? The beloved Aussie icon Holden cars will be no more by the end of the year...except they're not Australian.

Two years after Robert Mugabe was swept from power, how is his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa faring as President of Zimbabwe? The 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper reinforced Australia's commitment to the Indo- Pacific region. Might this have been a mistake? Did you hear the one about Stalin? Life under Russian dictator Joseph Stalin wasn't funny and yet there were jokes. Is there a difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence and what effect will either have on our working lives?