There's so much news happening around the world that we're somehow supposed to stay on top of.

That's why we launched The Big Take.

It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio that turns down the volume a bit

to give you some space to think.

I'm Wes Kosova.

Each weekday I dig into one important story and talk about why it matters.

Listen to The Big Take on The I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Hey everybody, Josh here.

We wanted to include a note before this episode, which is about existential risks,

threats that are big enough to actually wipe humanity out of existence.

Well, we recorded this episode just before the pandemic, which explains the weird black of

mention of COVID when we're talking about viruses.

And when this pandemic came along, we thought perhaps a wait and see approach might be best

before just willy-nilly releasing an episode about the end of the world.

So we decided to release this now, still in the thick of things, not just because the

world hasn't ended, but because one of the few good things that's come out of this terrible

time is the way that we've all kind of come together and given a lot of thought about

how we can look out for each other.

And that's exactly what thinking about existential risks is all about.

So we thought there would be no better time than right now to talk about them.

We hope to explain things and that you realize we're not releasing this glibly in any way.

Instead, we hope that it makes you reflective about what it means to be human and why humanity

...