What Comes Next

In September 2026, a federal bank agreed to lend a Minnesota iron plant $770 million, even though Project 2025 says that bank should be abolished. This episode sets the two essays in the book's own Chapter 23 beside what the government did and said. Then it imagines the bank's charter running out for good, and it follows the steel and the magnets to one dark winter. These are the sources behind ev...

About 100 million years ago, the Western Interior Seaway split North America in two, from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Mosasaurs hunted in it, and their fossils still turn up in the chalk of western Kansas. The sea drained away near the end of the age of dinosaurs. Would you rather live on the east shore of that sea or the west shore? This is the audio edition of a What Comes Next Short...

What if Donald Trump had never become president? This episode lays out the public record of both terms from official records and named news organizations, from the 2017 tax law to the 2026 tariff ruling. Then it follows the road those terms opened to its farthest end, through the pardons, the watchdogs and the official numbers. Sources and full credits are in the YouTube description.

Harry Houdini died on Halloween 1926, at 52, of a burst appendix and the infection that followed. He spent his last years exposing fake psychics, and his wife Bess held séances for ten years hoping for his coded message. No message ever came. Who would win in the radio age, Houdini or the fake mediums? This is the audio edition of a What Comes Next Short, and the video version is on the What Comes...

On March 6, 1933, every bank in America closed, and about 4,000 never reopened that year, according to the FDIC's own history. Deposit insurance was born that June, and the FDIC says no depositor has lost a penny of insured money since coverage began in 1934. This is a history thought experiment, and it is not financial advice. Which would scare you more, a closed bank or a bank run you watch on y...

What if the sun went dark for one day and then rose again? A whole hemisphere's spring crop freezes at once, every country that sells grain keeps its harvest at home, and the hungry years begin over a harbor full of grain ships that nobody will let leave. Earth at night and eclipse footage is courtesy of NASA. The full story is in Episode 8 of What Comes Next, What If the Sun Disappeared for 24 Ho...

This part is imagined. The paid warning goes out at 9:40, the free one arrives at 10:15, and by then the storm has crossed the trailer park. Would you pay for the faster warning, or keep the free one? Every scene in this Short is AI-generated, and full credits are in the episode description. The full story is Series 01 Episode 3 of What Comes Next, and the video is on the What Comes Next YouTube c...

What if the sun's light and heat switched off at noon for exactly 24 hours? Stars come out over office towers at lunchtime, every solar farm on Earth stops at once, and by midnight the young wheat is white with frost. Eclipse and Earth at night footage is courtesy of NASA. The full story is in Episode 8 of What Comes Next, What If the Sun Disappeared for 24 Hours?

Project 2025 asks to shift most disaster costs to the states, and on June 10, 2025 the president said FEMA should go to the state level. A judge later ruled the FEMA staffing cut unlawful. Who should pay to rebuild, Washington or your state? The real footage is from NASA and the Library of Congress, and full credits are in the episode description. The full story is Series 01 Episode 3 of What Come...

Mount Tambora erupted in April 1815, and NOAA says Northern Hemisphere temperatures fell about 1 degree Fahrenheit. A May frost in 1816 killed most crops across four northeastern states, and NOAA counts more than 100,000 deaths from the food shortages that followed. Harvests are still that fragile, and Russia's 2010 wheat export ban proved it again. Photographs are courtesy of NASA and the Library...

In July 2026, 34 members of Congress wrote that no balloons went up ahead of an April storm in eastern Kansas, and the tornado watch came 30 minutes before touchdown. Is 30 minutes enough warning, or far too little? The real footage is from NASA and the Library of Congress, and full credits are in the episode description. The full story is Series 01 Episode 3 of What Comes Next, and the video is o...

The light on your face left the sun about 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago. In 2024 an eclipse took 9 gigawatts off the Texas grid in 45 minutes, bees went silent the moment totality hit in 2017, and one Alaska town went from November 2025 to January 2026 without a sunrise. Eclipse and Arctic footage is courtesy of NASA. The power towers photograph by Carol M. Highsmith and the two apiary pictures com...

Every morning and evening, at 92 places across America, someone lets go of a weather balloon. In March 2025, Omaha stopped. Should the forecast stay free or be something you buy? The real footage is from NASA and the Library of Congress, and full credits are in the episode description. The full story is Series 01 Episode 3 of What Comes Next, and the video is on the What Comes Next YouTube channel...

In March 2025, the weather office in Omaha, Nebraska stopped launching its weather balloons. Chapter 21 of Project 2025 says NOAA "should be broken up and downsized" and that the National Weather Service "should fully commercialize its forecasting operations." Chapter 5 asks to shift most disaster costs from Washington to the states. This episode follows one storm from the warning before it to the...

What if the sun disappeared for 24 hours? The light on your face left the sun about eight minutes and twenty seconds ago, so you would not know right away. This episode starts with what really happened when daylight switched off: the 2024 eclipse that took nine gigawatts off the Texas grid, the 2017 study that heard bees go silent at totality, an Alaska town that went from November to January with...

Give it five hundred years and the ordinary house is gone, but bronze statues stand green under the leaves and plastic waits in the soil. The longest lasting thing we made should survive a billion years, and it is not on Earth. The full story is in Episode 7 of What Comes Next, What If Every Human Vanished Tomorrow?

What if every person on Earth vanished tomorrow morning? Within hours the grid fails, within two days water rises in the subway, and by the end of the week the last diesel at an unattended nuclear plant runs dry. The full story is in Episode 7 of What Comes Next, What If Every Human Vanished Tomorrow?

A census published in Current Biology in 2015 found wolves more than seven times as common inside the Chernobyl zone as in nearby reserves. Along the Korean border, a strip closed since 1953 now holds 5,929 wildlife species. The views from orbit are NASA astronaut photographs. The full story is in Episode 7 of What Comes Next, What If Every Human Vanished Tomorrow?

New York's subway pumps about 13 million gallons of water a day, and Hurricane Sandy showed what happens when they stop. In 2003 a blackout crossed the grid in minutes, and every nuclear plant in its path shut down safely. The archival films are from the Library of Congress. The full story is in Episode 7 of What Comes Next, What If Every Human Vanished Tomorrow?

What if every human vanished tomorrow? Under New York, pumps push about 13 million gallons of water out of the subway on a dry day. This episode follows the real nights when that protection failed, from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 to the 2003 blackout, and the two places where land already shows what happens when people leave, the Chernobyl zone and the Korean border strip. The second half imagines th...

This one is our own imagining, and the Short says so out loud before it starts. Schools are built with windows that open wide, handshakes turn into nods, and clinics post the local infection count the way we post pollen. Then it returns to the real world, where drug resistant infections caused about 1.27 million deaths in 2019. Photographs of today's labs and medical campuses are by Carol M. Highs...

This one is our own imagining, and the Short says so out loud before it starts. The war is fought without the wonder drug, surgery shrinks to what cannot be avoided, sanatoriums never close, and the money pours into vaccines and phage therapy instead. The full story is in Episode 6 of What Comes Next, What If Penicillin Was Never Discovered?

The first Oxford patient began to improve within a day in 1941, but the supply ran out and he died. In 1942 a dying patient named Anne Miller got half of all the penicillin in America, her fever broke by morning, and she lived to ninety. By D-Day, factories had about 2.3 million doses ready. Photographs are from the Library of Congress, including New Haven Hospital, where Anne Miller was treated....

In 1924 sixteen year old Calvin Coolidge Junior got a blister playing tennis at the White House, and he was dead within a week. The Coolidge Foundation writes that antibiotics could have easily treated it. Four years later, Alexander Fleming found a mold on an unwashed dish. Photographs of Calvin Coolidge Junior and his family are from the Library of Congress. The full story is in Episode 6 of Wha...

What if penicillin was never discovered? In 1924 the president's sixteen year old son got a blister playing tennis at the White House and was dead within a week. This episode follows Alexander Fleming's unwashed dish, the first Oxford patient in 1941, the woman in New Haven who received half of all the penicillin in America in 1942, and the factories that made millions of doses before D-Day. The s...