If You're Listening

Matt and Kara delve deeper into the story of town planner Alex Ramsay, and the bizarre deal he struck to purchase the land that would become Elizabeth, SA.  This episode is connected to episode two of the Black Swans series, all concerning predictions of Australia's future, and how we got it so wrong. Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www...

In the 1950s three quarters of Australians were homeowners,  most lived on a quarter-acre block, with a mortgage that could be covered with one income while someone stayed at home to look after the children.  Nowadays, house prices have sky rocketed and younger generations largely feel locked out. So where did it all go wrong?

Until recently people were scared our planet would be outstripped by the weight of a colossal population. Experts feared that by 2026, there would be so many people that we would be starved of resources, and eat ourselves to death. Ironically we now find ourselves in a world where we’re not scared about having too many babies, but rather too few. So what happened? Follow If You're Listening on the...

Kara and Matt take you behind the scenes of putting the series together, and how hard it is to find an iron when you need one. The Black Swans series kicks off this Thursday 8th January on podcast, and hits television on Saturday 10th January. Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_...

In a post on Truth Social, US President Trump announced that he had captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and that the pair would face drug charges in New York. The legality of this seizure is certainly questionable, but surprisingly, an operation like this is not entirely unprecedented.  Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:...

The massive infrastructure project NEOM sits in the Saudi Arabian desert, and the jewel in its crown is The Line, a futuristic city which looks insane. The AI-generated ads depict a car-free city, for 9 million people housed between two mirrors, stretching along the desert. Despite promises of millions of residents by 2030, the project has been scaled back by 98 per cent. The Line will be more lik...

Putting fluoride in drinking water has often been called one of the most successful public health measures in human history. But since the very beginning of fluoridation programs in the 1940s, it’s been plagued by misinformation and furious opposition. Now with Robert F Kennedy Jr at the helm of the US Department of Health, the Trump Administration is leading the charge to get states to ban the us...

Australians are very proud of our gun laws, and we have good reason to be. The laws are world famous and frequently referenced in the wake of almost every mass shooting in the United States. And yet, we have now seen two men terrorise Australia’s Jewish community at a Hanukkah event at Bondi beach with legally-owned high-powered guns.  Despite almost universal support for stricter gun control, the...

On Sunday the 14th of December, two men; a father and son, used a range of firearms to attack a large Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach playground. At least 16 people were killed, including one of the two gunmen, and a ten year old girl.  It was Australia’s worst ever terrorist attack, and its second-deadliest mass shooting. The local and global Jewish community are horrified and frightened, by...

During a 15 minute phone call, US President Donald Trump offered the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro safe passage for him and his family to the country of their choice, if they left Venezuela immediately. The deal seems to have fallen through and now Maduro is in hiding, and for the last few weeks, Maduro has reportedly slept in a different house every night. So why is the country with the mos...

We have always been obsessed with stories about killer robots. But where do stories about malevolent machines with a mind of their own originate? Matt and Kara dig into the archives and discover an English robot called Alpha who; according to newspapers at the time, “became more man than machine” and “fired a gun at its inventor” in front of a packed room of terrified onlookers in Brighton, Englan...

Tech bros are racing to develop the first mass-produced humanoid. But despite billions of dollars in investment, these robots require a great deal of human intervention. So, why has creating a humanoid proven so difficult?  Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

You wouldn't steal a podcast! After meeting the founder of Sweden's Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge, we decided to take a closer look at the world of piracy (on the internet, not the high seas). Matt chats with If You're Listening producer Adair Sheppard about the rise and fall of The Pirate Bay, the kinds of angry letters you'll get for stealing fonts, and whether piracy is making a comeback. Follow...

Currently, as many as 5000 Chinese spies are operating in Taiwan. Many of Taiwan’s allies are concerned that these spies, along with the increasing frequency of military demonstrations in the South China Sea, indicate Beijing may invade and force the "reunification" of China. Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that while he won’t rule out force, he would prefer a peaceful unification of the two...

In the early 90s, Australia’s most wanted fugitive was Christopher Skase. He was hiding on the Spanish island of Mallorca, to avoid the corporate crime charges that had been piling up against him back in Australia.  In today's episode, Mark Humphries tells Matt about the bizarre attempts to bring Skase back to Australia, including one involving bounty hunters and TV personality Andrew Denton. Mark...

For the last decade or so, there’s been a lot of talk about how the Chinese government uses technology to issue social credit scores to its citizens. There was even that episode of Black Mirror that everyone still talks about.  Every time a Western government tries to increase its control over the internet, we hear that this is the beginning of a slippery slope that leads to jaywalkers being preve...

Get ready as Matt and Kara address a whole lot more listener questions. All things from Elon Musk’s impending trillionaire status to the mystery of the missing If You’re Listening episode. Soil also once again gets a mention of course. Follow If You're Listening on the  ABC Listen app . Check out our series on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDTPrMoGHssAfgMMS3L5LpLNFMNp1U_Nq

On the 19th of October at 9:30am, two thieves parked a truck at the Louvre. They carved a hole in the window, climbed into the gallery, smashed two display cases, and made off with 88 million euros worth of crown jewels. It was all over in eight minutes.  It turns out robbing the Louvre isn’t as hard as you might think. Many of the security cameras are outdated, and 249 rooms in the gallery have n...

On 11 November 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was sacked by Governor-General Sir John Kerr. For the past 50 years, people have speculated about the motives behind Kerr’s unprecedented decision — could there have been interference from outside Australia? Today, we’re getting to the bottom of the CIA conspiracy theory that’s dogged Whitlam’s dismissal for decades. Matt talks to The Eleventh prod...

In the last decade, the number of data centres worldwide has doubled. As the tech bros spend big to render AI an irreplaceable part of our everyday lives, the energy and water required is truly eye-watering.  Nvidia, Google, Microsoft and Meta have already seen their cumulative emissions rise by 72% in the last five years, and given the direction AI is headed, it’s likely that our AI footprint tod...

This episode is about a lawsuit between two puppet dogs. What more do you need? This past week we’ve been waist-deep in the dot com boom of the 90s, in particular the meteoric rise and fall of one company called  pets.com . It was during this time that supervising producer Kara Jensen-Mackinnon came across a very strange court case between two fictional dogs - the case of the Pets.com sock puppet...

There are no salary caps when it comes to securing the future brains of AI researchers. Mark Zuckerberg recently paid a 24 year old $250 million to come work at Meta. OpenAI gave thousands of employees bonus cheques for millions of dollars. AI developer salaries are rising 32% annually, but just how high can these pay packets go?  The AI bubble is now four times the size of the dot com bubble at i...

Today Matt and Kara are answering your questions, mostly about Trump and mud. They talk about whether Trump could serve a third term, if the rest of the world could just ignore the US, and ask for your help solving a mystery about the soil in the rural NSW town of Nimmitabel. Plus, Matt has a very exciting announcement. Got a question you want us to answer next time? Email ifyourelistening@abc.net...

On October 8, US President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had reached an agreement and signed the first phase of the deal. The ceasefire covered the return of all living Israeli hostages as well as the liberation of 2000 Palestinians who had been detained in prisons.  What isn’t mentioned in the ceasefire agreement is what happens to Gaza when the fighting is over. Is it possible to...

So, Matt has found a shiny new rabbit hole to get lost in and this time it's balloons. More specifically spy balloons. This is a story about a man with a fabulous moustache who called himself Professor, who was accused of being the devil in the American Civil War and ended up becoming a spy in a big balloon, triggering the creation of the US Air Force.  Matt joins Marc Fennell on his podcast, No O...