Episode

Episode 139: The Rational Doomers

Podcast
The Theory of Anything
Published
May 9, 2026
Duration seconds
4226
Processing state
processed
Canonical source
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/four-strands/episodes/Episode-139-The-Rational-Doomers-e3j42pi
Audio
https://anchor.fm/s/14b6fc10/podcast/play/119720178/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-9%2F97755112-ae90-0ce9-9f36-ff5a21a31601.mp3
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/the-theory-of-anything-859886/episodes/episode-139-the-rational-doomers
Markdown
/podcast/the-theory-of-anything-859886/episode-139-the-rational-doomers.md

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Summary

This week we talk about doomers, specifically AI doomers. Why has it become such a popular notion, especially amongst those who consider themselves the most rational kinds of people, that this kind of apocalypse, amongst others, is imminent? What assumptions are behind this pessimistic assertion? This episode was actually entirely unplanned. We started recording another episode and got off on to this tangent and thought it was a fun topic.