Niall is one of my oldest and dearest friends, stretching back to our time at Magdalen College. The prolific historian is out with a new book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. One of the hardest convos I’ve yet had. Simply because Niall and I go back so far together, and our friendship is deep, it’s tough to interview him without abandoning objectivity — but I hope I did ok.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player embedded above, or right below it you can click “Listen in podcast app” — which will connect you to the Dishcast feed. For three clips of my conversation with Niall — debating how likely we are screwed as a species; on how the US response to Covid19 differed from its response to the 1957 flu; and on the religious nature of the Black Lives Matter protests last summer — head over to our YouTube page. Meanwhile, many readers are sounding off on our episode with radfem journalist Julie Bindel. A dissenter of mine:Bindel was so astute about feminism, society and what needs to change. I hope, actually, that you will go back and carefully listen to her and the nuance of what she says. Like her, I’m not denying biological determinism; I am experiencing it everyday going through perimenopause. However, I felt Bindel expressed these realities with so much more subtlety than you seem to be able to, Andrew, with all due respect. In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari points out that what makes humans special is that we tell stories. “Homo Sapiens has been able to revise its behaviour rapidly in accordance with changing needs. This opened a fast lane of cultural evolution, bypassing the traffic jams of genetic evolution.” Or, as the theorist Joan Scott has written, “It is not about whether difference exists, but the meaning we make of that difference.”Humans tell stories, and those stories adapt to our different circumstances more than our evolution determines them. You seem to believe in this biological determinism in which it is ok for women to work in certain professions because it is “natural”. Hogwash. Then gay men would be relegated to being hairdressers and interior designers, and I’m assuming you would like and expect more options for yourself than those? In such a world, the masters of the universe would not be Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos — wimpy men by biological standards — but Hulk Hogan and Steven Seagal. Our circumstances change, our stories change, we adapt. THIS is what makes us human. Difference will always be there, but the meaning we make of it, what it means for people in our society, can and does change.The reader seems to misunderstand where I was coming from when I spoke of the gender-equality paradox of Scandinavian countries. I certainly don’t believe in “biological determinism”, just realism about some deep differences between most men and most women that will never be fully overcome. I strongly support any individual, male and female, who breaks out of those patterns.Another reader found pros and cons with the episode:Once again, I find myself enjoying a podcast with a person — Julie Bindel — whom I had had no interest in. I found myself agreeing with her on some points, but it was clear that she has little understanding of men and testosterone. Testosterone does not make you violent. But most people committing violence have testosterone. Just because a FTM trans person starts to take testosterone does not mean they will turn violent for the same reason the vast majority of men are not violent. I agreed with her on sex work. I also feel it is exploitation. I feel the same about pornography. But I don’t have the right to limit your choices. I did not understand her statement about the prostitute hating her client. Many people, such as lawyers, hate their clients. She should have gone more deeply into how we can offer sex workers economic alternatives.Laura Agustín goes deeper into that last point here, and Julie has a whole book on the subject, The Pimping of Prostitution: Abolishing the Sex