Goody, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. I am back in Australia, on TerraFerma.

This is the first episode that I've recorded since my big adventures off to the Middle East and West Africa, a little bit of time in Europe and Asia on the way home.

Someone asked me what it's like to be back in civilization,

which I thought was a delightfully politically incorrect

and sort of 1950s or even earlier,

perhaps imperial attitude towards things.

Here we are in civilization.

What is it like to be in the uncivilized world

where people wander around without so much as clothes on their person?

So it is nice to be back in civilization, in the civilized world, a rich country, should we say, where things function.

There are upsides to things functioning.

That's why we escaped the prison of poverty and

destitution and dysfunction that we had endured, lo these many millennia. And we invented

civilization. And now we're here. It has upsides, also downsides. And it was very nice to

check out for a while. It was very nice to spend days where I wasn't looking at a watch.

I wasn't looking at a clock because there were no watches and there were no clocks and there

were no phones. There was just me and the sea and a bit of cholera. No, I didn't catch it.

I didn't get it, but it was there and the breeze breeze and, you know, the feces in the street.

There's a lot to love and a little bit not to love about the uncivilized countries.

Anywho, I'm back.

So let's talk to Shadi Hamid, who's today's guest.

Shadi's fascinating.

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