1984 Today!
Episodes
The World Turned Upside Down: England's Puritan Dystopia
04 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Hide your mince pies! Our first-ever Christmas Special is about when Christmas was outlawed in England.I’m joined by historian Dr. Fiona McCall to e...
Episode 154: Michael W. Green on Why $140k Is The Real Poverty Line
21 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Michael W. Green is the Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager for Simplify Asset Management. Previously in his nearly thirty-year career in finance, ...
Episode 153: Robert Joseph Greene on Censorship and the Hidden History of Gay Romance
07 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Joseph Greene is a Canadian author of gay romance fiction, including The Gay Icon Classics of the World, a globe-trotting collection of love st...
Episode 152: John R. Carlos on Globalism, Technology, and Humanity's Future
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John R. Carlos wants you to think about what it means to be human. In 2020, after forty-two years as a Royal Australian Air Force Wing Commander, he r...
Episode 151: Daniele Bolelli on How A Society Eats Itself
09 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Daniele Bolelli is an Italian historian, professor, and author who also hosts the podcasts History On Fire and The Drunken Taoist. He grew up during t...
Episode 150: Graham Linehan on Comedy, Cancellation, and Being Gender-Critical
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Graham Linehan is a five-time BAFTA-winning comedian and writer who created Father Ted, Black Books, and The IT Crowd. He also wrote for The Fast Show...
Episode 149: Kara Dansky on The Abolition of Sex
12 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Feminists have a saying—we can’t fight sexism if we can’t say what sex is. And that is precisely where we are as a society today—we can’t sa...
Episode 148: Dr Leslie Gruis on Privacy and Surveillance
28 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In her book The Privacy Pirates: How Your Privacy Is Being Stolen and What You Can Do About It, Dr Leslie Gruis describes the current situation in sta...
Episode 147: A Tale of Two Protests
14 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On September 13, central London was taken over by competing gatherings. One, organised by Tommy Robinson, was billed as a free speech festival and nat...
Episode 146: Michael Box and Patrick Hague on Punk Rock Dystopia
31 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Box and Patrick Hague are creative partners in EchoEterna Productions and have worked together for almost 20 years as musicians, writers, and ...
Episode 145: Joe Raiola on Satire, Censorship, and MAD Magazine
17 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Free speech dies, comedy dies. It’s that simple.From 1952 to 2018, MAD Magazine published over five hundred regular editions as well as specials and...
Episode 144: Frank Sanazi on Being A Comedy Dictator
03 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Sanazi is a unique comedy character, a tongue-in-cheek mashup of Adolf Hitler and Frank Sinatra described by his creator, the British singer and...
Episode 143: Shady El Damaty on Reclaiming Digital Privacy
20 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s trite to point out that the internet is an increasingly weird and difficult space to explore. AI-generated ‘slop’ muddies search results an...
Episode 142: BeLikeWater on Forecasting and Understanding Probability
06 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
BeLikeWater (a.k.a. Lisa) is a Superforecaster® with Good Judgment Inc., the forecasting project co-created by Professor Philip Tetlock (the co-autho...
Episode 141: Matthew Feeney on Big Brother in Britain
22 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There is sadly a lot to worry about when it comes to the rights to privacy and free speech.Digital ID, central bank digital currency, facial recogniti...
Episode 140: Blasphemy in the UK
08 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hamit Coskun (pronounced Josh-kun) is a fifty year-old asylum seeker from Turkey living in the city of Derby in northern England on a support allowanc...
Episode 139: Professor Garret Merriam on Ethics and AI in Higher Education
25 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2023, Professor Garret Merriam ran an experiment that caught 40 out of 96 of his students cheating on the final exam in his ethics class at CSU Sac...
Episode 138: Julia Boyd on Travellers in the Third Reich
11 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since I read Travellers in the Third Reich, a Sunday Times best-seller by Julia Boyd, I’ve been recommending it to anyone who will listen. Her ...
Episode 137: Leni von Mayn on Voicing Sex Dolls and Sexploration
27 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Berlin’s CyBrothel is “the world’s first AI brothel”, according to its founder and Episode 130 guest Philipp Fussenegger, offering visitors an...
Episode 136: Dr Chris Day on His Decade-Long Legal Battle With The NHS
13 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2014, an NHS junior doctor named Chris Day made “protected disclosures” to the hospital trust he worked for in south east London. He raised iss...
Episode 135: Velina Tchakarova on Cold War 2.0 and the DragonBear
30 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are the nations of ‘the West’, especially the United States, in a new Cold War with Russia and China?What does the world look like now that nation...
Episode 134: Raja Miah MBE on Britain's Grooming Gangs
16 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In January 2025, Elon Musk started posting on X about a long-festering blot on the copybook of British justice, the decades-long organised mass rape o...
Episode 133: Helen Freeman on Britain's Farmer Protests
02 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In recent months, Britain, like Europe, has seen farmers take to the streets in their thousands to protest against changes in the law that they say wi...
Episode 132: Marika Mikiashvili on Resisting Georgia's Burgeoning Authoritarianism
16 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“This is something that you don’t fully comprehend until you face it.”The small, historically important and culturally rich country of Georgia, ...
Episode 131: Jeremy Duffy on Working For The National Security Agency
02 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The existence of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States was highly classified for over twenty years until the Senate’s Church Commi...
Episode 130: Philipp Fussenegger on Creating The World's First AI Brothel
19 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI has come for the world’s oldest profession!Cybrothel in Berlin offers customers a range of human-free sexual experiences involving sex dolls, AI,...
Episode 129: Richard Sanderson on Getting Cancelled
05 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Sanderson was a director of the London Musicians Collective for ten years, helped set up the UK radio station Resonance FM, and founded the ex...
Episode 128: Dr Christopher Ferguson on Why Social Media Isn't Bad For Your Kids
22 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I’m suspicious of social media, and the effect a smartphone has on my attention in general. Books like The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, abo...
Episode 127: Falak Enayat on Escaping the Taliban
08 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Falak Enayat worked for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Afghanistan until Kabul was seized by the Taliban in 2021. Overnight, Falak became ...
Episode 126: Nikhil Suresh on the AI Lie and Humanising The Machine
24 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nikhil Suresh made me laugh, think, and reconsider my thoughts on technology.When I read his essay I Will F***ing Piledrive You If You Mention AI Agai...
Episode 125: Victor Miller on Letting AI Take Over The US Government
10 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“It’s time to embrace the future. It’s time to get drunk on intelligence.”Victor Miller ran for mayor of Cheyenne, the capital city of the sta...
US Election Special: Temperature Check
04 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Tuesday 5 November, the United States will end the ‘begging for votes’ phase of the election cycle and enter the ‘haggling over results’ ph...
Episode 124: Tim Schwab on Bill Gates, Dark Money, and Toxic Philanthropy
27 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
William Henry Gates III, better known as Bill Gates, has been a major figure in technology, business, and politics for forty years. In that time he cr...
Episode 123: Hatun Tash on Free Speech, Two-Tier Policing, and Getting Stabbed For Jesus
13 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hatun Tash is a Turkish ex-Muslim turned Christian evangelist who, in September 2024, “won £10,000 in damages and costs from the Metropolitan Polic...
Episode 122: CJ Hopkins and Friedemann Däblitz on Justice, Thought Crime, and State Power
29 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com to receive weekly dystopian news! CJ Hopkins, author, satirist, and playwright, will be re-tried for thou...
Episode 121: Sanne Van Oosten on the Surprising Lack of Racist and Sexist Voters
15 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com!I found out about Sanne Van Oosten’s work on X when she shared her experience of being shunned by media...
Summer Special: Exotic Thoughts at Parliament Square
01 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com!In this Summer Special, I take the show on the road to meet people at the London incarnation of a global ...
Episode 120: Emmanuel Goldstein on Surviving Communism, A Gnostic Cult, and A War On His Mind
18 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!This episode was a surprise. After releasing Episode 119, I received t...
Episode 119: Jerry Barnett on Moral Panic, Loss of Reason, and Baiting the Majority
04 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!Jerry Barnett is a technologist, campaigner, and the author of Porn Pa...
Episode 118: Christina Dalcher on Writing Dystopian Fiction and Imagining the Worst
21 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!Christina Dalcher is a professor, linguist, and the best-selling autho...
Episode 117: Kashmir Hill on Why Your Face Belongs To Them
07 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!Kashmir Hill is a tech reporter at the New York Times and the author o...
Episode 116: The 'Real' Steve Endacott on Running As The UK's First AI Parliamentary Candidate
23 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!Steve Endacott is the human behind AI Steve, the UK’s first AI parli...
Episode 115: Bjørn Karmann on The Moment That Never Was
09 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for our weekly dystopian round-up!Bjørn Karmann is a Danish inventor based in Amsterdam who created Para...
Episode 114: Dr Ashley Frawley on 'Constant Crisis' and Why You're Probably Fine
26 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!Crisis! Anxiety! Liberty!Dr Ashley Frawley joins me for a conversation...
Episode 113: Carol Cohn on Life Under Communism and Escaping to the West
12 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com to get our weekly dystopian newsletter!Communists! Assassination! Romance!Carol Cohn is an exceptional ma...
Episode 112: Mark Johnson on Watching Big Brother
28 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!Live facial recognition! “Legal but harmful” speech! Spycoin!In th...
Episode 111: Professor George Church on Genetics and DNA Technology
14 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and special updates!De-ageing in dogs! Genetic scanning in dating apps! The Singularity!...
Episode 110: Andy Agathangelou on Fixing the Financial System
31 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe at 1984today.substack.com for dystopian news, transcripts, and more!In this episode, I sit down in the studio with Andy Agathangelou, the fo...
Episode 109: Emily Finley on Undemocratic Democracy and the Seeds of Modern Tyranny
17 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and transcripts.I’m joined in this episode by Emily Finley, author of The Ideology of ...
Episode 108: Beatriz Busaniche on Digital Rights and Surveillance in Argentina
03 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Subscribe at 1984today.substack.com for updates, transcripts, and more!All eyes on Argentina in this episode, as I’m joined by Beatriz Busaniche, an...
Episode 107: Sergei Loznitsa on Totalitarianism and Truth
18 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sergei Loznitsa is an award-winning director of feature films and documentaries, a Ukrainian born in the Soviet Union, and a compassionate interrogato...
This Is How We Do It: AI Found Me A Wife (Valentine's Day Special)
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Allow me to introduce This Is How We Do It, our new occasional sidebar exploring love in the age of dystopia.Aleksandr, a tech-savvy young man from Ru...
Episode 106: Jonathan M. Katz on Substack's 'Nazi Problem', Free Speech, and Modern Journalism
04 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Substack has been in the news recently, due to accusations of and/or objections to extreme/racist/Nazi writers who have newsletters on the platform, a...
Episode 105: Tim Boucher on the Fever Dream of the AI Mind
21 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can AI imagine itself?Is an organic life possible in a machine world?Do you want a computer chip in your brain?Tim Boucher is the author of the AI Lor...
Episode 104: Elle Griffin on Faith, Hope, and Clarity
07 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can Substack survive mainstream media pearl-clutching? Do we dare to dream of utopia? Was the Virgin Mary really a virgin?These are just some of the q...
Episode 103: CJ Hopkins on Thought Crime
24 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charged! Convicted! Sentenced! Then tried?In this episode, I speak with CJ Hopkins, an award-winning playwright, novelist, and political satirist who ...
Episode 102 - Ken Silva and the Fed Files
10 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Entrapment! Terrorism! Nazis! It’s time for our second episode!Our guest is Ken Silva, an investigative journalist focused on data privacy and, more...
1984 Today! Episode #101 - Dorian Lynskey
26 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thank you all for being the very first subscribers to our shared podcast journey.Speaking of sharing…This episode features the author, journalist, a...