Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2016

Overview

"Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." One Facebook post and Alicia Garza made history, a call to action that would gain traction and spark the founding of #BlackLivesMatter in the wake of the violent deaths of African Americans Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and many others. It's one of the world's most important international activist movements, campaigning against violence toward black people, and Garza will bring it front and centre at this year's Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

Set to return to the Sydney Opera House over September 3 and 4 for its eighth year, FODI is bringing one of its most serious, enlightening programs yet as part of Sydney Opera House Talks & Ideas. Delivering the opening address with none other than Stan Grant, Garza leads a host of colossal thinkers and strong minds not afraid to question the problematic way things are — over 50 speakers across 24 solo sessions, 12 panels and one free workshop. This year, FODI has four major themes: 'Disappearing Countries', 'Dealing in Death', 'Disruptive Behaviour' and 'Dirty Politics'.

One sure to provoke is apparently repentant author of The Game Neil Strauss in his sure-to-be-debated talk 'Cheaters, Sex Addicts and Pick-Up Artists'. UK comedian and The Young Ones legend Alexei Sayle dives into his ratbag past with 'Thatcher Made Me Laugh' — a perfect pairing for anarchists locked in for Henry Rollins' already-announced 'Blood Sport' talk about US politics. In fact, politics in Australia and abroad feature prominently in FODI's response to current 'World is fukt' times.

Favourites Annabel Crabb and David Marr will pull apart the recent (and by-FODI, it'll be solved) federal election in 'The Government We Deserve?' — both have written biographies on Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten respectively, so this one's going to be a humdinger. Marr's also hosting an epic two-hour forum titled 'Can We Solve The Asylum Seeker Crisis?'. Perpetual WTF-generator and controversial commentator Andrew Bolt will lead a talk dubbed 'How Many Dangerous Ideas Can One Person Have?', so expect Twitter to be all over that one.

Climate change and social justice feature prominently on this year's bill, with Canadian activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier's 'The Right To Be Cold' set to be a highlight — she sees the failure of the world to act on climate change a gross violation of Inuit human rights — and The Economist's Environment Correspondent Miranda Johnson wants fishing the high seas stopped.

Arts and sport will both get their turn on the chopping block this year. Sport nuts should jump on tickets to see journalist Tracey Holmes, sports scientist Stephen Dank (yep, that guy), former Olympic swimmer Lisa Forrest, academic Jason Mazanov and former IOC boss Kevan Gosper will be deciding whether drugs in sport should be legalised.

Visual artist, activist and Drawing Blood author Molly Crabapple (who designed this year's 'FODI-land' concept on the festival website) will take you from Syria to Guantanamo Bay and back to Occupy Wall Street. We Need To Talk About Kevin author Lionel Shriver wants you to break a rule a day, while author of The Magicians trilogy and TIME's book critic Lev Grossman will argue that 'There Are No Good Books'.

But we haven't even scratched the surface on FODI 2016, from former Kevin Rudd staffer Jennifer Rayner standing up for millennials in 'Generation Less', to the incredibly important panel 'Not Worth Living' delving into the specific, tragic epidemic of suicide in Indigenous people. Plus, co-founder of The Maintainers Lee Vinsel wants people to stop worshipping innovation and start focusing on maintenance of technology — something we can't wait to argue with him on.

Sydney Opera House Talks & Ideas team of Ann Mossop and Danielle Harvey have curated this seriously epic program, with Simon Longstaff from The Ethics Centre as curatorial adviser .

The 2016 Festival of Dangerous Ideas is coming to the Sydney Opera House on September 3 and 4. Multipacks are on sale from July 11 at 9am, single tickets on July 14 from 9am, all from the FODI website — where you'll find the full FODI program alongside Molly Crabapple's web design.