From nuclear war to AI gone wrong—humanity faces real existential threats, but our obsession with apocalypse in pop culture often distorts which disasters actually deserve our worry. Ben Bradford, host of NPR's new podcast Are We Doomed?, separates genuine civilization-ending risks from unlikely scenarios and reveals why surviving catastrophe depends less on bunkers and more on community. The four most pressing existential risks experts track are nuclear war, climate change, pandemics, and AI—all created by humans rather than natural forces.