Hi there, I'm Jason Gautz and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

I like to think. If I didn't, this would be the wrong job for me.

But I realized that as open-minded as I like to consider myself, I've taken a thick black Sharpie

to certain areas of the philosophical

map scrawling, here there be monsters and mostly leaving them be.

We're all like this to some extent.

It's the flip side of interest.

Even if you're super curious, the things that interest you most become safe spaces, comfort

zones.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

But if you want to keep learning, it's necessary to spend time in regions of reality that scare the crap out of you, the things

you don't want to look at. And if, like me, your unsafe spaces include the many catastrophes

that could befall the human race, you couldn't ask for a more affable, well-informed tour guide

than Josh Clark. Trained in history and anthropology, Josh is a writer and a podcaster. He's the host of Stuff You Should Know, and now The End of the World, a 10-part series that looks at the many ways humanity might go extinct and what we can do about them and why it's all worth taking very, very seriously. Welcome to think again, Josh. Thank you, Jason. It's an honor to be here. I want to approach the end of the world asymptotically. I don't want to dive right in just yet. In your show, stuff you should know. How long have you been doing it? Coming up on 11 years in April. Ah! Eleven years? 11 years podcasting. Before anyone knew what a podcast was.

We spent the first like four or five years, you know, when someone asked what we did,

we had to explain what that was for a while.

And by the time we figured out, okay, we've got it.

It's kind of like a talk radio show, but rather than tuning in to a certain dial at a certain time

to hear it, you can just go on the internet and download it and listen to it any time.

By the time we finally articulated this, serial came along and then everybody knew it

a podcast was all for nod anyway.

But it was a major pain in the ass back then.

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