What If Renewable Energy Was Discovered in 1800?
• 7 min read • history
No coal rush, no oil wars, no climate change — but also no industrial revolution as we know it. The trade-offs are staggering.
Daily thought experiments, philosophical puzzles, and impossible scenarios explored in depth. One question at a time.
• 7 min read • history
No coal rush, no oil wars, no climate change — but also no industrial revolution as we know it. The trade-offs are staggering.
• 6 min read • fun
Commuters get a live feed of your existential crises and snack cravings. The advertising industry collapses under free content.
• 6 min read • philosophy
Spoilers vanish, heartbreak fades, and you can rewatch your favourite film for the first time — every Friday night.
• 7 min read • science
Gravity increases by 40%, planes struggle to fly, skyscrapers can't stand, and humans evolve short and stocky.
• 7 min read • society
Barter economies sound romantic until you need a dentist and all you have to trade is a sourdough starter and some poetry.
• 7 min read • nature
1,500 active volcanoes firing together. Ash blocks the sun for years. Agriculture collapses. This is how civilisation actually ends.
• 6 min read • technology
Bandwidth rationed like petrol. Streaming becomes a luxury. And email makes a triumphant, grudging comeback.
• 6 min read • fun
They'd unionise immediately. Demand wages for emotional support. And file a class-action lawsuit over millennia of selective breeding.
• 7 min read • history
The Fourth of July becomes just another Thursday. North America stays British. And the world's most powerful country might still drink proper tea.
• 7 min read • survival
Minus 60, six months of darkness, and the nearest human is 1,000 miles away. Your biggest enemy isn't the cold — it's your own mind.