• We Try and Kill the Internet
    Jun 2 2026

    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. So what happens if it goes down — and not for a day or two?

    Ben Bradford tries to kill the internet, hunting for weak points in undersea cables, cyberattacks, cloud computing, overlooked open-source plumbing, and fragile politics. It’s harder than it looks, but maybe not impossible. Should we be worried?

    Guests:

    Bruce Schneier, cryptographer, cybersecurity lecturer, and author of Click Here to Kill Everybody.

    Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for Kentik.

    Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/

    Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpod



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    33 mins
  • Past Dooms That Didn't Arrive
    May 26 2026

    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 can we learn? Does it mean that the current biggest end-of-the-world fears may be overblown, misunderstood, or — with effort — preventable? Along the way: failed utopias, dystopias, and the animal Ben fears most: the mini-hippo.

    Guest: Matt Novak, journalist at Gizmodo and long-time author of the Paleofuture blog.

    Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/

    Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpod



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    34 mins
  • How To Survive a Nuclear War
    May 19 2026

    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 emerging into a world where nuclear winter is descending, Ben explores what armageddon would actually look like, what the movies get wrong, and why — for most of us — it’s not a flash of light, but a cramped slog.

    Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/

    Listen to our episode "How to Start a Nuclear War."

    Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpod



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    38 mins
  • How Do You Kill a Mosquito?
    May 12 2026

    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-editing technology (CRISPR, gene drives) could temporarily wipe out disease-carrying mosquitoes in whole regions — potentially saving millions of lives. A miracle, but with an unsettling question of its own: Who gets to decide when humanity rewrites nature?

    Also: radiation-blasted flies, Australian rabbit smoothies, and … Mosquito Jurassic Park.

    Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/



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    35 mins
  • Supervolcano!
    May 5 2026

    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 actually do, why Yellowstone is almost certainly not about to blow its top, and how scientists tell when a volcano is really waking up. Panic over a national park may be distracting us from another, sneakier, more critical volcanic threat.

    Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/



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    41 mins
  • Let’s Design the AI That Kills Us All
    Apr 28 2026

    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 out. From autonomous agents with misaligned goals to hacked infrastructure, bioweapons, and a real story of AI blackmail, a nerdy apocalypse thought experiment starts to feel a little too plausible. So, then we try to dismantle our rogue creation.

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    36 mins
  • How To Start a Nuclear War
    Apr 28 2026

    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 happen, what close calls of the past tell us, and the bizarre logic of deterrence. And he lands, again and again, on one word: oopsie.

    Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/



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    37 mins
  • Introducing Are We Doomed?
    Apr 21 2026

    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 real? What can we do? What does history tell us? And do you need to learn wilderness survival?

    Each week, acclaimed journalist Ben Bradford investigates the threats that haunt humanity with curiosity and only a little panic behind his eyes. The result: Gripping true stories, thoughtful guests, darkly funny insights, and an unexpected amount of hope. We’ve survived every "end of the world" so far, and let’s figure out why. So we can do it again.



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    2 mins