
Doomsday Clock: It is *still* 2 minutes to midnight - joshblour
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/
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kstenerud
That's because the calculation for the doomsday clock is purely subjective.
Eventually they'll run out of minutes, subdividing more and more until the
whole exercise becomes meaningless.

~~~
beatgammit
We are two picoseconds to midnight...

Honestly, I don't even know what the numbers are supposed to mean beyond
smaller numbers are scarier, and there's no indication of what really goes in
to changing that number. Yet it's mentioned quite a bit without any real
justification.

Instead of that, how about a list of "clear and present dangers" with numbers
based on real time where appropriate?

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thansz
I'm not surprised. 7+ billion people on the planet and growing, some of whom
enjoy the highest standard of living ever which requires more and more
resources. Those not enjoying the high life want it. Climate change is and
will continue to place ever increasing stresses on modern societies. From
damage to coastal cities (where most humans live), problems growing crops due
to weather changes, and water scarcity - the things we need to live in the
manner we are accustomed to are becoming rarer as there are more and more of
us living on the planet.

And then there are nuclear weapons. Nuclear proliferation is introducing new
actors that must be accounted for when trying to prevent nuclear war. Existing
actors can experience a significant change in leadership, policy, and
direction - take a look at recent US politics as an example of this. You can
imagine maintaining nuclear peace as a weighted graph, with every nuclear
state as a node, with vertices to every other node. The graph will only
continue to grow over time and the weights can change, sometimes drastically.
It just becomes more unstable over time due to the strain of nationalism,
climate change, and nuclear proliferation. Then throw in miscommunication and
computer glitches into the nuclear mix - events like the Cuban Missile crisis
and Vasili Arkhipov, Stanislav Petrov in the 1980s, Boris Yeltsin and the
Norwegian Rocket Incident, and unfortunately many others. The risk of large
scale nuclear conflict is only growing. Yes, I'm aware of MAD (Mutually
Assured Destruction) and how as a policy it has helped us so far. But MAD is
less effective for smaller nation states and rogue groups (who will more
easily obtain materials and know-how over time), it works until it doesn't.
And MAD does nothing for the miscommunication and computer glitch scenarios I
have provided. It's not a magical blanket that will protect us from the
consequences of having nuclear weapons.

Sorry for the rant. I think this will be our Great Filter. I hope I'm wrong.

\- Links:

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/you-and-
almost-e...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/you-and-almost-
everyone-you-know-owe-your-life-to-this-man/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents)

~~~
Mithriil
Don't be sorry for the rant: the current state of things seems dire, and your
opinion is shared by some.

I have a friend that hopes there will be war, since we cannot sustain so many
humans on the planet.. While I don't want this outcome for moral and idealist
reasons, it does seem like a it will be a viable solution in the long run for
the species.

I keep thinking about the paper on deep adaptation agenda from a researcher in
sustainable development [1], saying climate change is already haywire, and
that we will see a societal collapse. As a citizen, I don't even know where to
begin with this information. I bet I'm not alone. Based on the premises the
author makes, on the current situation on climate change and the lack of
action to assess them, it seems the stress will be immense on our society,
hence the collapse. I just hope we make it.

[1] www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

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joshblour
I think it's super interesting to read the Timeline of Doomsday Clock changes
from the bottom up.

