Festival of Dangerous Ideas

The Festival of Dangerous Ideas is an annual event presented by Sydney Opera House and The Ethics Centre (formerly known as the St James Ethics Centre) that brings leading thinkers and culture creators from around Australia and the world to discuss and debate some of the most important issues of our time.

In the inaugural 2009 event, festival's opening address was given by atheism advocate Christopher Hitchens on the topic of "Religion Poisons Everything", which was countered by Australian Roman Catholic Cardinal George Pell in a session titled "Without God We Are Nothing".

In 2010 Geoffrey Robertson and Alan Dershowitz gave the opening address about sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church in the debate, "The Sins of the Fathers: Should the Pope be held to account?" Christian Lander, author of the satirical blog and book, "Stuff White People Like" discussed the meaning behind his tongue-in-cheek etiquette guide to Caucasian culture. New York newspaper columnist, Lenore Skenazy told how she was labeled "America's Worst Mom" after she let her nine-year-old son ride the subway home and how she fought back in the midst of a media maelstrom, by starting movement for "free range kids".

In 2011, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas featured a host of international and local speakers including: Julian Assange, Jonathan Safran Foer, Alexander McCall Smith, Jon Ronson, Slavoj Žižek, Mona Eltahawy and Philip Nitschke. The topics covered included: "Wikileaks has not gone far enough"; "Footballers are Barbarians not role models"; "Psychopaths Make the World Go Around"; "Ecstasy is No More Dangerous Than Horse-riding"; "All Women are Sluts" and that "Australia is a third-rate country".

In 2012, speakers included: Sam Harris, Germaine Greer, Brian Morris, Tara Moss, Illan Pappe, Jason Silva, Shiv Malik, Ed Howker, Jane Bussmann, Jesse Bering and Tim Harford. Over 50 speakers examined topics including: "The Coming Civil War Between Young & Old", "The Delusion of Free Will", "All Women Hate Each Other", "Israel is an Apartheid State", "The Devil is Real", "Genital Cutting is Normal", "We are all Sexual Perverts", "A Foetus is not a Person" and " You are Being Greenwashed".

In 2013, speakers included: Arlie Hochschild, David Simon, Hanna Rosin, Evgeny Morozov, Vandana Shiva, Dan Savage, John Safran and Peter Hitchens. The topics covered included: "We Have Outsourced Ourselves", "This is not a Conspiracy Theory", "The End of Men", "Some People are More Equal than Others", "A Killer Can Be A Good Neighbour" and "There is No War on Drugs".

In 2014, FODI (30–31 August 2014) tackles issues that question our view of ourselves and our place in the world, featuring discussions about topics including loneliness, masculinity, narcissism, modern slavery and the return of the class system in Australia. Speakers include: Sir Salman Rushdie, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina (Pussy Riot), Masha Gessen, Steven Pinker, Elizabeth Kolbert, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Malcolm Fraser, Lydia Cacho, Alissa Nutting, Tim Flannery and Mark Latham. Talks include "Russia is a Penal Colony", "Surrogacy is Child Trafficking", "Freedom to Write", "Stop Trying to Fix Human Nature", "Slavery is Big Business" and "The Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys".

In 2015, the seventh Festival of Dangerous Ideas (5-6 September 2015) is made up of solo sessions and panels featuring speakers such as Tariq Ali, Naomi Klein, Peter Greste, Gabriella Coleman, Sarai Walker, AC Grayling, Marc Lewis, Paul Krugman, Laurie Penny, Jon Ronson, Eric Schlosser and Gideon Raff, exploring themes including the economy, artificial intelligence, climate change, cybersexism, addiction and sugar. For the first time, FODI Melbourne will take place as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival.