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Could It Though?

Garry "Gazza"

Could Elon Musk end world poverty? Could AI run a country? Could you buy every lottery ticket and guarantee a win? Big “what if” questions, answered with real numbers.

Each episode takes one wild hypothetical and runs it through three questions. Could it? Is it even possible? Would it? What happens when someone actually tries? Should it? And if we could, is it a good idea?

Hosted by Gazza. Real maths, real sources, short episodes and a straight verdict at the end. From stopping ageing to moving a million people to Mars, we take the questions everyone wonders about and find out whether they’d actually work.

New questions, real answers. Could it? Would it? Should it?

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8 episodes
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S1 · E8
Today · 4 min
Could We Dig a Hole Through the Earth?
n 1989, a Christian TV network in America told its viewers that Soviet scientists had drilled straight into hell, and played a recording of the screams. The screams were sound effects. But the hole was real: the Kola Superdeep Borehole, 12 kilometres down, and still the deepest hole humans have ever dug. So could we dig right through the Earth? It’s 12,742 kilometres through the middle, the core is about as hot as the surface of the Sun, and our best ever effort got a tenth of one percent of the way. If we did it, you’d fall for about 38 minutes, then fall all the way back. And you’d probably come out in the ocean. Then the real question: why would anyone want to? Because deep heat is power. We look at the Iceland well that hit magma by accident, the company trying to drill with beams instead of a drill bit, and the geothermal projects that set off earthquakes. Could it? Would it? Should it? I’m Gazza, and this is Could It Though? Numbers in this episode: “Well to Hell” broadcast, 1989, and the made-up follow-up: Wikipedia, Snopes Kola Superdeep Borehole, 12,262 m, 23 cm wide, 180 degrees, stopped 1995: Wikipedia Earth 12,742 km across: NASA figures via Universe Today Shenditake 1, 10,910 m, 580 days: China Daily, 2025 Core about 6,000 degrees, 3.3 million atmospheres: ESRF / Science, 2013 Mponeng gold mine, over 4 km, rock 66 degrees: Wikipedia 38 minute fall: Alexander Klotz, American Journal of Physics, 2015 Antipodes, about 15% of land has land opposite: Wikipedia Project Mohole, 183 m into the seabed: Wikipedia Iceland IDDP-1 hit magma at about 2.1 km, 2009: Live Science Quaise, 100 m through granite, 2025: Quaise Basel 2006 magnitude 3.4: Swissinfo Pohang 2017 magnitude 5.4: Korea Times, 2019 Got a hypothetical you want us to run? Send it in. If you’re enjoying Could It Though?, hit follow and leave us a five-star rating. It really helps new people find the show. New episode every day.
S1 · E7
Yesterday · 4 min
Could you buy every lottery ticket and guarantee a win?
One man won the lottery 14 times. Legally. Stefan Mandel, an economist from Romania, never picked lucky numbers. He bought all of them. So could you do it with the Powerball? We do the maths: 292 million combinations at $2 each is $584 million just to be sure you win, and nine years filling in slips day and night. Then the people who actually pulled it off, from a mathematician and his 27 friends in Ireland to a syndicate in Texas that bought 99% of the tickets. Would it make you money? Taxes, cash payouts and split jackpots say maybe not, and every time someone wins, the lottery changes the rules. And should you even be allowed to? Because the house doesn’t just win. The house is the state. Could it? Would it? Should it? I’m Gazza, and this is Could It Though? Numbers in this episode: Stefan Mandel’s wins in Romania and Australia: NPR (Planet Money / Hidden Brain) Virginia 1992, $27m jackpot, about 7 million combinations: Roanoke Times; Washington Post, March 1992 Powerball odds 1 in 292.2 million at $2 a ticket: CBS News, Sept 2025 (the $584m and nine years are our maths) Mega Millions at $5 a ticket from April 2025: NBC News Ireland 1992, Stefan Klincewicz’s syndicate: RTE; Adam Kucharski Texas 2023, 99% of 25.8 million combinations, $95m jackpot, the law change after: Texas Tribune, June 2025; AP $2.04bn Powerball 2022 and the $1.787bn split in 2025: lottery jackpot records; CBS News After-tax profit of about $40m is our illustration, not tax advice Jerry and Marge Selbee: CBS 60 Minutes, June 2019 US lottery sales about $105bn in 2024, about two thirds paid as prizes: Stateline (Pew), April 2026 Massachusetts spending per person: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Dec 2024 Got a hypothetical you want us to run? Send it in. If you’re enjoying Could It Though?, hit follow and leave us a five-star rating. It really helps new people find the show. New episode every day. Chapter markers (paste into Buzzsprout’s Chapter Markers): 0:00 The man who won the lottery 14 times 0:45 Could it? The maths of buying every ticket 1:53 Would it? Taxes, split jackpots and changing rules 3:12 Should it? Who really wins 4:03 The verdict 4:16 Next time: could we dig a hole through the Earth?
S1 · E6
Friday · 5 min
Could protesters bring down France's government?
It started with a few high school kids in the suburbs of Paris. No teacher for six months. Three weeks later, 550,000 people were marching across France, and a historic town hall had burned. So could protesters actually bring down France’s government? We look at how easy it is to sack a French prime minister (France lost three in under a year), why the president is almost untouchable, and the rule that says once 3.5% of a country hits the streets, governments almost never survive. Then the history: the Bastille, May 1968, the yellow vests, the pension marches, and the young people who just toppled governments in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. Plus the one problem with toppling Macron: he’s already packing. Could it? Would it? Should it? I’m Gazza, and this is Could It Though? Got a hypothetical you want us to run? Send it in. If you’re enjoying Could It Though?, hit follow and leave us a five-star rating. It really helps new people find the show. New episode every day.
S1 · E5
Thursday · 5 min
Could we stop ageing?
A microphone got left on at a military parade in Beijing, and the whole world heard Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin chatting about living forever. Meanwhile, Bryan Johnson spends about $2 million a year trying to be 18 again. So could we actually stop ageing? We do the maths on living to 1,000, look at what nature has already cracked (a 400-year-old shark and a jellyfish that turns itself back into a baby), and follow the billions pouring into labs trying to reset old cells. Then the hard part. Young blood, biological age tests, a drug for transplant patients, and a world record nobody has beaten in almost 30 years. And if it works: 935 years of pension, a world that grows twice as fast, and dictators who never get old. Could it? Would it? Should it? I'm Gazza, and this is Could It Though? Numbers in this episode: Hot mic at the Beijing parade, 3 Sept 2025, "live to 150": Al Jazeera, CNN Bryan Johnson, about $2m a year, 100+ pills a day, plasma swap with his son: Fortune, July 2023 At 25, about a 1 in 1,000 chance of dying in a year: US insurance mortality tables (ACLI). Living to about 1,000 is our illustration, not a forecast Global life expectancy about 32 in 1900, about 73 today: Our World in Data (UN WPP 2024) Japan: 99,763 people aged 100+ in 2025, 153 in 1963: Japanese health ministry via Euronews Greenland shark, up to about 400 years, adult at about 150: Nielsen et al., Science, 2016 Turritopsis dohrnii, the "immortal jellyfish" Shinya Yamanaka, Nobel Prize 2012; eyesight restored in old mice: Lu et al., Nature, 2020 First human trial cleared (Life Biosciences ER-100): Longevity.Technology, Jan 2026 Altos Labs $3bn; Sam Altman $180m into Retro Biosciences; Hevolution up to $1bn a year: MIT Technology Review Jeanne Calment, 122: Guinness World Records Biological age tests disagree: Live Science Young blood plasma, $8,000 a litre, FDA warning 2019: CBS News Rapamycin in mice: Harrison et al., Nature, 2009 63m deaths and 132m births a year: UN World Population Prospects 2024 The rich live longer: Chetty et al., JAMA, 2016 Got a hypothetical you want us to run? Send it in. If you're enjoying Could It Though?, hit follow and leave us a five-star rating. It really helps new people find the show. New episode every day.
S1 · E4
Wednesday · 4 min
Could we all have flying cars?
Elon Musk walked onto a stage in Texas and said four words: "Flying cars are real." Then the new Tesla Roadster flipped upside down in midair, fired its thrusters and hopped over a Cybertruck. The FAA had a look and said it isn't an aircraft. But the real future of flying cars looks nothing like a Roadster. In China, a two-seater that flies itself has been carrying passengers for 17 months. Joby flew JFK to Manhattan in seven minutes. Archer flew Oakland airport to downtown San Francisco in ten. So how does this actually work its way into your life? We walk through the official roadmap, stage by stage: pilots on board first, then vertiports and sky corridors, then aircraft that fly themselves. Then the hard part. Why you won't own one, what a seat will cost, how many aircraft one city would need, what the weather does to it, and the crash in Beijing that froze everything. Could it? Would it? Should it? I'm Gazza, and this is Could It Though? Numbers in this episode: - Tesla Roadster reveal, flip and thruster hop, 15 October 2026: TechCrunch; CBS News - "Flying cars are real" and the FAA saying it is not an aircraft: CBS News, 15 October 2026 - BYD Yangwang U9 jumps about 20 feet over a pothole, about 1.4 inches off the ground: Fast Company, August 2026 - EHang EH216 flies itself, 17 months of passenger trial operations: Low Altitude Economy, April 2026; EHang Q2 2026 results - Joby JFK to Manhattan in seven minutes, May 2026: The Next Web - Archer Oakland airport to San Francisco in about ten minutes, 19 October 2026: Archer - NASA noise test, about 45 decibels at 500 metres: NASA via Vertical Magazine, July 2022 - Three-stage roadmap, 2027, 2030, 2035 or later: US DOT Advanced Air Mobility National Strategy, December 2025 - Corridors, remote pilots, operators separating their own aircraft: FAA Urban Air Mobility Concept of Operations 2.0, April 2023 - Dubai vertiports at the airport, Dubai Mall and Atlantis The Royal: Joby; Dubai RTA - 35 hours plus a 250-hour commercial licence: FAA, 14 CFR 194.216 and 61.129 - Vertiport approach surface extending 4,000 feet: FAA Engineering Brief 105A - US$7 to 12 a seat mile, landing fees the biggest cost: Valour Consultancy - Dallas: 25,000 trips a day needs 102 vertiports and about 1,200 aircraft: NASA - New York weather grounds flights about 8 of 11 hours: Reiche, Cohen and Fernando, IEEE, 2021 - Beijing tower crash, June 2026, and China freezing approvals: Aviation Week - EHang's announced fare, about US$41, never sold: Low Altitude Economy, 2026 Got a hypothetical you want us to run? Send it in. If you're enjoying Could It Though?, hit follow and leave us a five-star rating. It really helps new people find the show.
S1 · E1
Monday · 4 min
Could Elon end poverty?
EP01: Could Elon Musk End World Poverty? In 2021 the UN told Elon Musk that $6 billion could keep 42 million people alive for a year. He said show me the plan. They showed him the plan. They got nothing. Five years later he’s worth around a trillion dollars. So we ran the actual numbers: could he end world poverty? Would it even work? And should he? Three acts, one verdict. I’m Gazza, and this is Could It Though? Numbers in this episode: Musk net worth: Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes, early October 2026 Taylor Swift net worth about $2 billion: Forbes, March 2026 Extreme poverty line $3/day and 837 million people: World Bank $340 billion a year to end extreme poverty: UC Berkeley, 2026 $6.6 billion WFP plan and the $5.7 billion Musk Foundation transfer: CNN, Snopes, SEC filing Feb 2022 2.3 billion to 837 million since 1990: World Bank Got a hypothetical you want us to run? Send it in. If you’re enjoying Could It Though?, hit follow and leave us a five-star rating. It really helps new people find the show. New episode every week.
S1 · E2
Monday · 4 min
Could AI pay everyone a universal high income?
EP02: Could AI Pay Everyone a Universal High Income? Elon Musk says AI and robots will take everyone’s job, and then we’ll all get paid anyway. Not a universal basic income. A universal HIGH income. He even typed it in capitals. So we ran the numbers. Paying all 8.3 billion people a high income costs $119 trillion a year, which is 94% of everything the planet makes. Elon’s trillion dollars would cover it for about three days. Then we look at how the robots are actually going (remote-controlled bartenders, 18,000 cups of water, bacon ice cream), whether free money works (surprisingly, yes), and the big question: who owns the robots? Could it? Would it? Should it? I’m Gazza, and this is Could It Though? Numbers in this episode: “Universal high income” and “probably none of us will have a job”: Musk at VivaTech, Paris, May 2024 “Universal HIGH INCOME” in capitals: Musk on X, April 2026 “Like growing your own vegetables”: Musk on X, October 2025 “No need to save money”: Musk on X, December 2025 High-income line US$14,375: World Bank country classifications, July 2026 World population 8.3 billion: UN, 2026 World economy about $126 trillion: IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2026 US federal revenue about $5.2 trillion: CBO AI industry revenue about $200 billion a year: Epoch AI, 2026 Remote-controlled Optimus robots at Tesla’s 2024 event: TechCrunch, Bloomberg, The Verge Robotaxis “next year”, 2019: Tesla Autonomy Day Taco Bell AI and 18,000 waters: Wall Street Journal, 2025 McDonald’s AI drive-through test ended: AP, 2024 Klarna AI and rehiring humans: Klarna CEO interviews, 2025 $1,000 a month study: OpenResearch / NBER working paper w32719 One million robots in Musk’s Tesla pay deal: Tesla shareholder vote, November 2025 Keynes, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, 1930 Half of entry-level office jobs: Dario Amodei to Axios, May 2025 About 80% of Twitter staff cut: Musk to the BBC, April 2023 “Just embeds inequality”: Lord Stockwood, UK Minister for Investment, February 2026 Albania’s AI minister Diella: AP and TBS News, September and October 2025 What hypothetical should we run next? Send it in. If you’re enjoying Could It Though?, hit follow and leave us a five-star rating. It really helps new people find the show. New episode every week.
S1 · E3
Monday · 4 min
Could AI run a country?
EP03: Could AI Run a Country? In September 2025, Albania hired a new government minister. She never sleeps. She never takes a bribe. And she doesn’t exist. Her name is Diella, she’s an AI, and a month later the Prime Minister announced she was “pregnant” with 83 AI babies, one for every MP in his party. So could AI actually run a country? We do the maths on replacing a prime minister with a $30 subscription, then look at how AI in government is really going: a New York chatbot giving illegal advice, a government report quoting a judge who never said it, a Dutch algorithm that brought down a whole government, and an AI candidate beaten by the Monster Raving Loony Party. Then the big one: should we let it? Because you can’t vote out a chatbot. Could it? Would it? Should it? I’m Gazza, and this is Could It Though? Numbers in this episode: Diella appointed September 2025: Al Jazeera, NBC News “Diella is pregnant”, 83 kids: Rama at the Berlin Global Dialogue, October 2025 Australian PM salary $622,050: Remuneration Tribunal, July 2025 Estonia online vote about EUR 2.30 vs paper about EUR 20.40: e-Estonia UK “Humphrey” AI tools and GBP 45 billion savings: UK government, January 2025 DOGE AI deregulation tool, 200,000 rules: Washington Post, July 2025 NYC MyCity chatbot illegal advice: The Markup, March 2024 Deloitte A$440,000 report with invented references: Bloomberg, AFR, October 2025 Robodebt, “crude and cruel”, over $2.4 billion: Royal Commission 2023; Canberra Times 2025 Dutch childcare benefits scandal, about 26,000 families, government resigned January 2021: Brussels Times; Amnesty International Leader Lars and Denmark’s Synthetic Party: Fortune, October 2022 AI Steve, 179 votes, Brighton Pavilion 2024: UK Parliament election results AKSHI investigation (allegations, no convictions): OCCRP, 2026 Actress Anila Bisha’s lawsuit: Anadolu Agency, Balkan Insight, February 2026 Albania Constitutional Court ruling, October 2026: Bytes Europe Sweden PM uses AI for “a second opinion”: Dagens industri via The Guardian, August 2025 “A computer can never be held accountable”: IBM training slide, 1979 Got a hypothetical you want us to run? Send it in. If you’re enjoying Could It Though?, hit follow and leave us a five-star rating. It really helps new people find the show. New episode every week. Chapter markers TimeChapter0:00 | Albania’s AI minister 0:40 | Could it? A robot PM for $30 a month 1:32 | Would it? How AI in government is going 2:53 | Should it? Who’s accountable 3:57 | The verdict 4:13 | Next time: could we stop ageing?

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