192 - The Doom and Gloom Episode
Enough of these ‘basic bitch’ concerns about the government or economy. Here are the real existential threats facing humanity, ranked by how thoroughly they could wipe us out.
This week we take a break from self-improvement to dig into something much more pressing: the vast, incomprehensible ways the universe could erase us from existence. It all started when Joe, in his usual tactful manner, dismissed his friends’ everyday anxieties (housing, jobs, relationships) as "basic bitch worries" and invited them to contemplate something truly terrifying: the heat death of the universe, and the fact that all the stars will burn out and existence itself may just...stop. But why wait that long when we have plenty of other things to panic about right now?
From cosmic horrors to atoms becoming ‘unglued’ to the Y Chromosome losing its powers, we go through the biggest existential threats on our list, ranked by sheer magnitude. Can a gamma-ray burst wipe us out instantly without warning? Are we due for another asteroid impact? And what happens if artificial intelligence decides that humans are inefficient and quietly tanks the economy while we’re all asleep? If you’re looking for a list of apocalyptic scenarios that make your day-to-day problems seem tiny in comparison—this is your episode.
Links:
https://theconversation.com/six-cosmic-catastrophes-that-could-wipe-out-life-on-earth-71178
https://longnow.org/ideas/shining-a-light-on-the-digital-dark-age/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X10001864