
It is now 100 seconds to midnight - xerox13ster
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/#
======
ggambetta
My personal opinion is that the "midnight clock" is a pointless relic of the
cold war, extremely obsolete by now, and doesn't have any practical purpose
other than releasing a scary press release once a year.

The "measurement" aspect feels especially wrong. Might as well say "this year
things are very bad", or "terrible", or "very really extremely bad".

Edit: so much wrong with the clock metaphor to begin with. A clock is only
supposed to move forward, so they're either using it wrong, or the concept
itself is extremely biased towards OMG DOOM! If you want a less silly analogy,
use a thermometer. Also it was _started_ at 7 minutes to midnight [0], and the
farthest it's ever been is 17 minutes, so the domain of the "function" is also
heavily biased towards OMG DOOM!

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock)

~~~
giobox
Hasn't releasing a scary press release once a year basically been its raison
d'etre since it began? It's a metaphor, its not meant to be some mega-accurate
measure.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
But it's clearly not accurate even with respect to itself. The world is closer
to nuclear annihiliation now than in any year since 1953, including multiple
proxy wars between the US and USSR along with the Cuban Missile Crisis? I
don't see any plausible way to believe that.

~~~
pwinnski
They call out climate change in this year's update, so it seems they've
expanded beyond _solely_ nuclear scenarios.

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slumdev
> In the nuclear realm, national leaders have ended or undermined several
> major arms control treaties and negotiations during the last year

> US-Russia cooperation on arms control and disarmament is all but nonexistent

Moving the clock is justified.

Russia is developing new hypersonic missiles and missiles with multiple
warheads designed specifically to evade missile defense systems. The U.S. is
deploying more of our (potentially now ineffective) missile defense systems in
places where we had promised not to do so.

The Iran deal is dead. Nationalism is on the rise everywhere, and nuclear
states like Pakistan, India, and China are not immune.

The world is at greater risk now than at any point since the Cold War.

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BinaryIdiot
Their reasoning seems sound to me but I'm amused that someone built a clock
that shows what their current guess is for when "doomsday" will happen and
they get free press every single time they change it.

I feel like I'm missing out on doing something silly that I can periodically
change, call a press conference for and get some attention.

~~~
jorgeleo
It is not just "someone" picked at random from the street, the people that
work those calculations don't have a political or sensationalist agenda, they
don't do it for fame or Facebook likes.

More amusing than the clock itself is the reasoning behind it. I would
recommend researching on the depths of their claims

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I didn't say it was someone random but it's from Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists. It's a non-profit, which is good, but they do other things so
getting press for the Doomsday clock is highly beneficial for them.

I'm not saying they update it _just_ to get press but I'm sure they highly
enjoy the press they get every-time they touch the thing.

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yingw787
Might be unpopular opinion, but I honestly think nuclear weapons are fine.

Nuclear weapons are a 70 y/o technology, and I don't like my taxpayer dollars
going to innovation in WMDs.

Changing to something else would result in additional spend by military-
industrial complex for systems that might not be as ready or safe, faster
promotions by career types (vs. career death when you get shunted into nuclear
weapons work), and reinventing the wheel in terms of diplomatic protocol,
public understanding of risk/reward, and potential international crisis.

I just don't think it's worth getting rid of nukes before changing the
fundamental properties of human nature. Until that happens, I'd rather keep
the nukes rusting away in their silos to keep the saber-rattlers happy and
headaches away.

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ak39
Can game theory not be of use here? There are 3 scenarios:

1\. No countries should own WMD.

2\. Some countries can and others can't.

3\. All countries should own WMD.

Only agreement 1 can be guaranteed to save humanity. The next best choice is
surely 3 - not 2!

Thoughts?

~~~
cjsaylor
Why is option 3 the best choice? Doesn't that significantly increase the
chances of accidents?

~~~
ak39
Option 3 is better than option 2 because it is more likely that a country with
WMD will use them against a country without them (for fear of retaliation).
Option 3 is an equal standoff.

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imnewhere12
I've never fully understood this whole doomsday clock thing. We live in the
most peaceful time in human history and WMDs have significantly contributed to
that peace in the post-WW2 era. Yeah we still have civil wars, internal
conflicts and minor state disputes, but overall, were progressing towards a
more unified globalized society.

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djsumdog
I'm not trying to be snide, but this feels more alarmist than ever. I feel
like we're further away from nuclear war than we have been in a long time. We
have a lot more wars-by-proxy to fund war industries in the US, EU and Russia,
which is a huge problem within itself, but far as the nuclear death of the
planet, I feel like we've been in solid fear of mutually assured destruction
for quite a while.

There is no real science behind the doomsday clock. It's literally an argument
from authority, and I think it should be challenged.

~~~
glbrew
You need to do basic reading into the doomsday clock. The primary concerns
right now are catastrophic climate change and technological threats, including
nuclear technologies. Regardless, many nuclear theorists and academics
including Noam Chomsky (known war hawk and military industrial complex
supporter) also think we are at an increasing threat of nuclear war.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7hOpT0lPGI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7hOpT0lPGI)

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mellosouls
Can't help feeling they are cheating a little bit by changing from minutes to
seconds. I think they got a bit too doomy and trigger-happy on the minute
finger and didn't want to backtrack.

They get to stave it off forever now, invoking Zeno's paradox, going to
fractions of seconds next.

Does that mean we're safe?

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BaraBatman
I did a little web [0] to keep track of the Doomsday Clock history, or at
least visualize it better.

[0]: [https://fdelmazo.github.io/doomsday-
clock/](https://fdelmazo.github.io/doomsday-clock/)

~~~
repler
points for the hat tip to Watchmen

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BitwiseFool
So the doomsday clock went from being a metaphor for the probability of
Nuclear War to being a metaphor for the end of the world in general?

This is a big sign that it has outlived its usefulness and the organization is
trying to reinvent itself.

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keiferski
This is silly. The risk of outright nuclear warfare is probably the lowest it
has ever been; no one wants a full-scale war and even states with massive
ideological conflicts are still looking for ways to peacefully trade and deal
with each other. The Cold War is over and if something like the Cuban Missile
Crisis happened today, the responses would be far more measured.

~~~
chewbacha
I don't know, it seems that recently there are people in control of nuclear
arsenals that seem to have a desire to use them:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/trump-asks-why-us-cant-
use-n...](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/trump-asks-why-us-cant-use-nukes-
msnbcs-joe-scarborough-reports.html)

~~~
keiferski
Trump saying stupid things is nowhere near comparable to the decades-long
standoff that was the Cold War. I don't think people today generally
understand how much bigger the divide was from Post WW2 to the 1990s.

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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _The world is sleepwalking its way through a newly unstable nuclear
> landscape. The arms control boundaries that have helped prevent nuclear
> catastrophe for the last half century are being steadily dismantled._

There is so much ignorance in this piece. Almost nobody in the real world
abides by these arms controls. Russia ignored them. So did Iran. So will the
next country. Why would the US abide by a treaty that’s being overtly flouted?

Also, how does recognizing this reality make things _more_ dangerous like the
article suggests?

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DBYCZ
I wonder why they chose to use a clock, something that only ever moves in one
direction, as their analogy.

Maybe a thermometer would be more optimistic, as that can rise and fall.

~~~
glbrew
The doomsday clock goes in both directions, it went "backwards" significantly
for 10+ years after the Cold War.

~~~
bb88
Specifically in 1991 at the end of the Cold War, it was set back to 17
minutes.

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ragerino
Watching the press conference now. To be honest I am not surprised, that the
clock was moved closer to midnight.

In my opinion the major issue is, that most people don't understand what is
happening.

~~~
davmar
Here's a link to the press conference:
[https://youtu.be/tXf6ygotBZ4?t=950](https://youtu.be/tXf6ygotBZ4?t=950)

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contravariant
Is the webpage malfunctioning or is it supposed to take up half the page with
headers and footers, leaving barely any space for the single column of text?

~~~
whatshisface
The closer we get to midnight, the more the content is squeezed.

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caseysoftware
A "Doomsday Clock" run by an international group called "The Elders"?

When do they pass out the kool-aid?

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cpr
Highly cynical statements by highly politicized scientists.

What could go wrong?

~~~
bb88
What could go wrong with Facebook, it brings us all closer, right?

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/15/technology/de...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/15/technology/decade-
in-tech.html)

