Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2015

Overview

Cybershaming and cybersexism, drug addiction and neurology, the 'extreme centre' of politics, climate change and capitalism, robots and unemployment, and sugar. They're all on the programme for the seventh incarnation of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

Coming to the Opera House over September 5–6, this year's event will be bringing us a stack of Damn the Man activists, provocative authors and controversial intellectuals from all over the world — with Canadian No Logo author, social activist, and filmmaker Naomi Klein, freed journalist Peter Greste, and The Men Who Stare at Goats author, journalist and NPR regular Jon Ronson just three of the big guns on the bill. Returning to Sydney, Ronson will flesh out his new book So You've Been Publicly Shamed in a talk on 'Shame Culture', while Klein explains the ideas behind her new book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Culture. Then, Greste will deliver his first big public talk since being imprisoned in Egypt with two other Al Jazeera English journalists, a talk  dubbed 'Journalistic Freedom'.

DIETLAND author Sarai Walker will be sticking it to fat shaming in 'Radical Fat Acceptance', while American journalist and Fast Food Nation/Reefer Madness author Eric Schlosser will be unpacking his latest book Command and Control, which digs deep into America's nuclear arsenal secrets. Israeli director, screenwriter and writer Gideon Raff (who created Israeli series Prisoners of War and its US adaptation Homeland) will be talking about the responsibilities of film and television when using 'real life' events in their storylines.

British Pakistani writer, journalist, and filmmaker Tariq Ali will present a talk on 'The Twilight of Democracy' (focused on Greece no doubt). The Economist's international section editor Dr Helen Joyce will take you through the publication's controversial  right-to-die campaign, and Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Rise of the Robots author Martin Ford will delve into the not-so-distant future in 'Hello Robots', discussing the possibility of a robot economy and subsequent jobless future. And beloved NYC podcast storytellers The Moth will make their first Sydney appearance for FODI onstage.

FODI's not just about keynotes and solo speeches, with a panel program set to fire up some furious debate on the Opera House stage. Controversial I Quit Sugar writer Sarah Wilson will chair a healthy eating-focused 'Big Sugar' panel with That Sugar Film creator Damon Gameau and executive manager of the Obesity Policy Coalition (OPC) Jane Martin. Alongside her own talk about the hactivist group Anonymous, academic and author Gabriella Coleman will take her online expertise to the 'Cybersexism' panel with powerhouse writer Clementine Ford and Penny Red/Unspeakable Things author Laurie Penny, and Seoul-born, New York-living writer Suki Kim will lead the hard-hitting 'Inside North Korea' panel, with Michael Kirby and Anna Broinowski.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg for the 2015 Festival of Dangerous Ideas, for the full program head over here.

By Jasmine Crittenden and Shannon Connellan. Images: FODI, Daniel Boud.