Binge Thinking

Caspar speaks with 29 year old Young Workers Centre Director Felicity Sowerbutts about the successful campaign to make Wage Theft a crime. After growing up in the UK and moving to Australia as a young politics graduate, Felicity worked retail jobs, internships and slugged away until finding herself working with the Victorian Trades Hall Council just as they created a dedicated legal service and hotline for youth workers...

Caspar speaks with young upstart theatre producers Amy Johnson and Nathan Alexander about how they started Australia's best immersive psychological mindbending theatre company Realscape Productions. The two discuss meeting while Nathan was working on a live zombie apocalypse show in London, how they decided to merge business and theatre and why we should reimagine the artform beyond "plays" and "musicals". They share ho...

After knocking the first wave on its head and coming back outside for air (read beer), the fine people of Melbourne have again been overrun by the coronavirus COVID-19. While Australia is yet to experience the case rates of countries like Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, the UK or US, this second wave is challenging our belief that we would get through this easier than the rest of the world. To navigate these dark ...

For many years the world has been facing the biggest mass movement of people since the second world war. Destabilized countries like Syria, Yemen, and Libya have seen millions seeking safety in neighbouring countries and beyond ethnic violence continues to be a driver of displacement in places like Myanmar.

In previous episodes we've looked at the topic of seeking asylum in Australia and for anyone interested...

Did you ever watch those TV legal dramas like Law & Order? Have you ever wondered what it's like inside a criminal case in Australia? What do defence lawyers do? Is it like the movies? And what is the morality of trying to defend drug dealers, and violent people? 

Today we bring you Caspar’s conversation with 28 year old criminal defence lawyer Nikhil Sood.

Nikhil grew up in Auckland, New ...

Like many young people, you may feel like you'll never own your own home. Between stagnant wages, a never-ending property boom, tax breaks like negative gearing and a general sense that the system is rigged, many young Australians feel that the whole property question is cooked. And it seems the only young people that can afford to buy houses are those who have rich parents.

Well, to challenge this view, we b...

As the initial wave of coronavirus recedes and we begin reopening our economies, what should we expect to find? Come binge thinking with 29 year old macro economist David Murakami (@hirothreading) and 31 year old Health Economist Jay Stiles (@jaystiles5) as they discuss market failures in a crisis, revising wages for essential workers, exploring a universal basic income, affordability of government spending, potential f...

In our first episode for Season 4, Caspar is joined by two Binge Thinking "All Stars": epidemiology expert Alex McLean & psychologist Vicki Smith. They discuss COVID-19 and its impacts on youth development and mental health.

Alex explains how the SARS CoV2 virus works, its impact and movement around the world, how it is spreading and why it isn't “just the flu”.

The three outline governm...

The world has changed, and Binge Thinking must change too. In this Bonus Binge Nina and Caspar speak directly to the audience about the COVID-19 crisis - what it means for young people and how they are dealing with it personally. The two also share what's in tore for Season 4 of Binge Thinking, including format changes, returning "all star" guests and their plans to make the show more interactive and sustainable.

Have you ever wondered how furniture is made? How is it possible to bend wood? Perhaps you’ve considered going into a new career but you wish you could do it without years of training and studies?

Meet 27 year old furniture maker Nathan Lawrence. Nathan is a self-taught maker and designer at his own company called Heimur. After growing up with a knack for creating and a curiosity for how things fit together,...

Why did local councils stop taking our recycling in recent months? Why did some people blame China, while others thought the EPA had a role to play? Have you ever really understood what happens to your garbage, recycling, organic waste and hard rubbish when it’s picked up by your local bin collectors? 

This episode features a fascinating conversation between Caspar and Waste Management expert...

You know how when you search something in Google, it says it finds 185 million results in less than a second? Have you ever wondered how Google decides which webpage to list first? Think about it, how do you rank hundreds of millions of web search results? And how do you do that across an infinite number of possible search terms covering every possible domain of human knowledge? I mean, do people working at Google even ...

Caspar goes binge thinking with 31 year old osteopath and small business owner Jemimah Nicholson. They discuss what osteopathy is and how it differs from similar allied health practices such as physiotherapy. Jemimah outlines the history of the profession and how it is evolving over time. They discuss the challenges in healthcare, how sedentary lifestyles impact our muscles and bones, and what we should all be doing to ...

Episode 54 covers three topics: Mentoring and closing the gap between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians, finding musical feet and balancing everyday life with creativity, and the future of democratic participation through technology.

34-year-old Tom Wensley works for AIME (The Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience), is Co-Director of New Vote (check out Season 2 episode 36 with Dion M...

This episode brings you Caspar's conversation with 23-year-old social entrepreneur Rona Glynn-McDonald. Rona is a Kaytyete woman from Central Australia, and the founder and CEO of CommonGround, a not-for-profit organisation that shares First Nations cultures, histories and lived experiences through storytelling.

After going to school in Alice Springs, Rona moved to Melbourne to study Economics and Finance whe...

What do you know about Virtual Reality technology? Maybe you've seen those photos of people with VR goggles on and wondered how they avoid walking into things? You might have been curious to know if the technology is used beyond video games and pornography? This episode brings you Caspar's conversation with 24 year old VR entrepreneur and software developer Ryan Pousson. Along with David Chaseling, Ryan is the co-founde...

Have you ever notices on ads for pads and tampons they’re always shown absorbing blue liquid instead of blood? Have you ever had to dash from a meeting at work with a tampon discreetly in your hand so that no one notices? Maybe you got your period when you weren’t expecting and have had to quietly whisper to your colleague if they have a spare one.

31-year-old Casimira Melican, who works as a research and adv...

Tax is the system that funds our roads, schools, hospitals, welfare and more. Without it, the government has less money to spend. But what happens when our jobs and economy change so radically, that people no longer earn enough money to be taxed? Or when big tech giants like Google and Uber use tax-payer built infrastructure, like the NBN, but don’t have to pay a digital services tax?

It may be a topic most p...

What is mechanical engineering and why do we need it in our lives? According to our guest, 28 year old Aileen Ng, mechanical engineering enters most facets of our lives, from our train system and bridges, to our toasters, our renewable energy and more.

Aileen has spent the last 8 years or so studying and working as a mechanical engineer and industrial designer. But, like many people out there, she soon realis...