Smart Girl Dumb Questions: Is the Future Bleak?

Open to Debate

Education, Society & Culture, News, Government, Politics

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we’re bringing you an episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions, the new podcast by one of our frequent guest moderators, Nayeema Raza. Nayeema asks the questions we’re all thinking to big thinkers in this new show. It is brimming with curiosity, open-mindedness and a willingness to learn – values we hold dear at Open to Debate. As fertility rates plummet, and Millenials and Gen Z increasingly cite climate change and the state of the world as reasons they’re not having children, Nayeema asks: is the future really too bleak to have babies? Her guest is journalist Cleo Abram, a YouTuber who has amassed over 5 million subscribers as she tells optimistic tech stories. Nayeema and Cleo break down quantum, the rise of robots and how technology shifts from IVF to artificial wombs will change not just if, but how, we have babies. Also on the agenda: the media’s bias – not toward left or right, but toward negativity and the opportunity for more curious, independent and fact-based journalism. If you like this episode, you’ll enjoy Nayeema’s episode with Mark Cuban about capitalism, Neil deGrasse Tyson about physics, and two members of Gen Alpha about screen time. Follow Smart Girl Dumb Questions on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. The Guest: Cleo Abram, an independent tech journalist behind Huge If True The Host: Nayeema Raza, journalist and host of “Smart Girl Dumb Questions” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is open to debate. I'm John Donvan, and if you've been listening to our series,
0:06.0	you already know my colleague and my friend Naima Raza. She has moderated countless engaging
0:11.2	debates for us on topics from taxes to gambling to dating, always asking really good questions,
0:17.9	and pushing hard for answers, and also injecting a bit of humor and wit.
0:22.5	Well, now I want to tell you that Naima is bringing that same curiosity and that wit to a brand
0:27.3	new podcast series of her own. It is called Smart Girl, Dumb Questions. And we are thrilled to introduce
0:32.8	you to one of her episodes today. But first here is Naima to discuss it with me. Hi, Naima.
0:36.6	Hi, John. Thank you so much for having
0:38.2	me. I just want to say I really love your series. You're taking on some very big, tough, complicated
0:44.0	topics, and you ask the questions that a lot of us are embarrassed to ask because we don't want to
0:49.9	look like we don't know, but we don't. So tell us more about the whole idea. Yeah, I feel like we live in a
0:55.0	time when we're just expected to know everything and have an opinion on everything. And we're
0:59.6	saving all of our questions for the kind of privacy of our chat GPT. But there's always a moment
1:05.0	of relief for me when someone in the room or the Zoom just ask a question about, hey, what does
1:10.5	that acronym mean?
1:11.5	Or what actually happened in Ireland? Why is that a good analogy? I think the truth is we're
1:16.2	all smart about some things, dumb about other things, and curious about a lot of things.
1:21.1	I'm glad that you're embracing this reality that some of us are embarrassed to ask questions
1:26.0	and to get information out there, which has a lot to do with our mission at Open to Debate.
1:30.6	One of the reasons I love working with Open to Debate and moderating shows here and listening to you, John, is because you do get to hear the other side, you get to have that friction.
1:38.9	And I think that friction also exists in a debate format. And in this show, exists in an interview format.
1:44.0	What are the kinds of curiosities that you have looked at so far?
	...

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