Season Three

future

What would happen if the Earth suddenly had a second moon? This week, we work through the impact an additional satellite would have on our planet, from tides, to the night sky, to the potential destruction of Earth. Oh also there are space pirates. 

The Second Moon is a Harsh Mistress

This week’s future is a social experiment. What if Earth had a robotic overlord who decided to ban all weapons? All fights would have to be hand to hand. Would there be less death that way? Less casualties? What counts as a weapon anyway? Listen to the episode to find out!

Forcing the Hand

What would happen if we rounded up all the critically endangered animals and plants and put them in armored zoos?

Caged

Today we travel to a fully digital world, a world where paper is a thing of the past.


Tree Free

What happens when everybody has 100% control over when they do or don’t have babies?

How is Babby (Not) Made?

This week we travel to a future where there is so much fake news that nobody can tell what is real anymore. Are we already there? What happens next?

Extra! Extra!

Today’s episode is about a future where nobody works on farms anymore, all farming is done by robots. Is it possible? Probably not. But it might be closer than you think.

Robocrop

Every year, over 20 million people get on a cruise ship and set sail for a seafaring vacation. Most of those cruises take their vacationers to warm, sunny climates. But thanks to climate change, a new hoard of ships might start sailing North rather than South. This episode explores a future where the Arctic becomes a tourist destination just like the Bahamas or the Great Barrier Reef.

Greetings from Paradice

California has one of the largest economies in the world. So what would happen if it broke away from the United States? Could California ever go independent? And if it did, what would that look like?

California Dreaming

This month on Flash Forward, we go to a future where anybody can make a video of you doing anything they want. And that technology is cheap and easy to access. What happens?

Unreel

Flash Forward is a show about possible (and not so possible) future scenarios. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Could there ever be a fecal transplant black market? (Complicated, it wouldn’t, and yes, respectively, in case you’re curious.) Hosted and produced by award winning science journalist Rose Eveleth, each episode combines audio drama and journalism to go deep on potential tomorrows, and uncovers what those futures might really be like. The future is going to be weird, so let's get ready for it together.