Are We Doomed? podcast

“Uh oh,” said several Manhattan Project scientists after they helped build a bomb and then it got used. They jumped to stop it from ever being used again. Solution: a newsletter. Through a somewhat convoluted chain of events that spawned t…

Scams are old. Mesopotamia old. Snake oil old. They haven’t doomed us yet. But investigative journalist Joseph Cox of 404 Media sees something changing: new technology is making the oldest cons more personal, more convincing, and much hard…

In 1859, the sky turned blood-red, telegraph machines sparked and chattered, and some of their batteries exploded. Then humanity responded by building a civilization that runs on electricity, satellites, GPS, internet cables, credit cards,…

From mild runny noses to savage pandemics, viruses and other pathogens have tormented humans for all of history. We are locked in a perpetual race against tiny shapeshifting enemies that mutate, spread, and occasionally butcher us. Can we…

A dark blue wound across the bottom of the world — that’s what NASA images showed in the 1980s. It was a hole in the ozone layer, eight million square miles across. Human activity and convenience had quietly, but rapidly, eaten away Earth’…

The best defense against nuclear weapons is nuclear weapons, according to the logic of deterrence. It has guided US defense policy for nearly 80 years. So, shouldn’t more nukes prevent nuclear war even more? For the first time since the Co…

Egy rendkívüli epizódban Ben Bradford három ellentmondásos elbeszélést követ nyomon egy szokatlan kibertámadással kapcsolatban, amelyet egy OpenAI által fejlesztett mesterséges intelligencia hajtott végre. A mesterséges intelligencia megke…

For more than a century, science fiction has imagined cyborgs: humans fused with machines to outrun the limits of the body. They show up in Edgar Allan Poe, in the gleaming menace of Darth Vader, in Halo’s armored supersoldiers, and in the…

The moon is drifting away. What does it mean? What do we do? With help from a poet, a space security expert, and the former chief scientist of NASA, Ben Bradford explores what the moon has done for Earth (tides, myths, months, werewolves),…

Az Asteroidák! A vég, amihez a legjobban értünk című epizód a Földet ért aszteroida-becsapódások pusztító erejét vizsgálja, beleértve a tömeges kihalásokat és a Hold keletkezését. Az epizódban szó esik a veszély korai felismeréséről, a Hol…

What would it take to survive after "the end of the world?" A whole culture of prepping often focuses on a familiar fantasy: grab the gear, flee the city, defend the bunker, survive alone. Anthropologist and survival instructor Chris Begle…

The planet is heating up, every plan to stop it has fallen short, and growing group of scientists has started to ask a stranger question: what if we grabbed the thermostat ourselves? Ben Bradford investigates geoengineering — the science o…

Hamza Chaudhry, a nemzetbiztonsági szakértő, a mesterséges intelligencia (MI) legfőbb veszélyének az embereket tartja, nem pedig az önállóan működő gyilkos robotokat. Kiemeli, hogy az MI-t rosszindulatú szereplők, vagy akár csak felelőtlen…

Are we living through the end times or the best moment in human history? Novelist and internet veteran Jason Pargin argues you have spent your life inside a “literal reverse apocalypse” — and if you don’t see it, he knows who to blame. Ben…

Historically, societies fall. Civilizations collapse. But is that what’s happening now in the United States? With the help of historians, a former CIA-funded researcher on political instability, and one grumbling dad, Ben Bradford looks at…

The internet is how you get your news, your paycheck, your groceries, your banking, and sometimes your drinking water. Humanity has quietly handed over the keys to civilization to a network most of us don't understand and couldn't rebuild.…

People have been predicting the end of the world forever. They’ve always been wrong. Maybe we’re wrong today, too. So, we’re looking back at three past dooms predicted in the 20th century, none of which arrived as advertised. Why not? What…

The air raid sirens scream (actually, they don’t work anymore). An emergency alert goes out, because … nuclear missiles are in-bound. It’s happening! How do we survive (non-Hollywood edition)? From diving into crumbling fallout shelters to…

Mosquitoes are little jerks. They suck your blood to make more mosquitoes, spread deadly diseases like malaria and dengue, and have killed more humans than any other creature in the history of Earth. But now, we can fight back. Gene-editin…

A supervolcano burbles under Yellowstone National Park. Enormous. Real. According to the internet’s most excitable corners, just itching to turn America into charcoal any minute now. Ben Bradford investigates what supervolcanoes can actual…

Maddeningly, even some researchers building artificial intelligence see it as a potential existential threat on par with nuclear war. Ben Bradford follows three simple steps that could lead an AI to turn on humanity and attempt to wipe us…

Humanity has repeatedly brought itself to the brink of nuclear war. Which raises a question: if everyone who can launch a nuke knows that could end the world, why does nuclear war still feel plausible? Ben explores how it could really happ…

Grin at the apocalypse and find out with this curious, irreverent weekly podcast exploring the biggest dangers to our society and our species. From nuclear war and societal collapse to rogue AI and the moon drifting off … which “dooms” are…