Tag: doomsday clock

A little premature?

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That thing I did on the drama of the Doomsday clock.

Awful. But then, this also suggests that we could keep going at the frankly horrendous rates of killing each other and destroying the environment that we’ve been working so hard upon for the last 12 months for at least another 88 years, and we’ll still be ok. Just.
See, they’ve gone in all too dramatic, and now they have no wiggle room at all.

And the follow up post, a year later.

Once again, I am calling for a reset of the Doomsday Clock. Think of it like decimalisation hitting the UK in 1971, or the introduction of the Euro in 1999 (and 2002). Because at the moment, the Doomsday Clock is pointless. The constant attempts to drag the time down as low as possible for dramatic purposes means that it not longer has any value.

I stand by both of those posts, but I’m also very willing to admit that they might have a bit of a point if they were to chop and extra minute or so off any interim update in the very near future.

The US has launched “major combat operations” in Iran, designed to eliminate “imminent threats” from the country’s regime, Donald Trump announced on Saturday.
The operation is “massive and ongoing”, the US president said in a video on social media, pledging to use “overwhelming strength and devastating force” to destroy Iranian missiles and ensure it cannot develop a nuclear weapon.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks aimed to “remove the existential threat” posed by the Iranian regime, as he urged the people of Iran to topple the government.
A short time beforehand, Israel said it had launched “preventative” strikes on Iran.

‘No red lines’ in Iran’s response to attacks, says official
A senior Iranian official said there would be “no red lines” to the regime’s response to the Israeli and US strikes on Iran.
“We are telling Israel clearly to prepare for what is coming,” the official told Al Jazeera.
“Our response will be public, and there are no red lines… All American and Israeli assets and interests in the Middle East have become legitimate targets.”

And yes, we’re only a couple of hours in and already Iran, Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE have been attacked by one side or the other.

Russia has condemned the US/Israeli attack, but wants to keep Trump onside. The UK is trying not to get involved. South Africa hasn’t woken up properly yet after a bit of a bender last night.
China is just sitting there laughing…

…at least, for the time being.

Me? Big concerns over the 15:25 at Kenilworth this afternoon, and also whether United can bounce back away at QPR after a somewhat disappointing result midweek.

Oh – and also the potential end of the world thing as well.

Yeah. Also that.

Oh. But don’t forget about the Epstein Files.

Oh no. We’re all going to die. /s

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We’ve been here before.

This time last year, in fact, when the Doomsday Clock was set at 89 seconds to midnight.

Well, now it’s set at 85 seconds to midnight. 4 seconds closer to oblivion. Oh no.

And look, I get it. The world is in an absolutely terrible state. And I’d definitely argue that it’s worse than it was this time last year. But 4 seconds worse?

Yawn.

Yep. I said it last year, and I’m saying it again now:

Look, I get that in a day with 86,400 seconds, being just 89 from complete destruction isn’t a great place to be. But then also, looking at things another way, we started just 420 seconds away from annihilation back in 1947, and we’ve only ever been 17 minutes away at our very safest.

See, they’ve gone in all too dramatic, and now they have no wiggle room at all.

OK, so they moved four seconds this year, and not one. But even at that rate, we’ve got decades before we all go up in a big puff of smoke and radiation.

Once again, I am calling for a reset of the Doomsday Clock. Think of it like decimalisation hitting the UK in 1971, or the introduction of the Euro in 1999 (and 2002). Because at the moment, the Doomsday Clock is pointless. The constant attempts to drag the time down as low as possible for dramatic purposes means that it not longer has any value.

They messed up when they started. They should have given us an hour or two to work with, but they didn’t. And so we need to start again at quarter to midnight (or even earlier) and we need to get the Prima Donnas off the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Committee so that we can have meaningful annual updates which might actually bang some heads together and make some difference.

No-one cares about ninety or eighty-nine or eighty-five seconds. Give them some decent numbers that we can then drastically reduce when Trump tries to take Greenland.

Assuming that we’re all still around next year to review it again, of course.

The Drama of The Doomsday Clock

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It’s 89 seconds to midnight. It’s the closest that humanity has ever been to self-wrought extinction (well, since 1947, anyway). At least, that’s what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is telling us, anyway. They’re the ones that get to inform us about where The Doomsday Clock is sitting this year.

And what exactly is The Doomsday Clock?

The Doomsday Clock is a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making. It is a metaphor, a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet.

And look, I get that in a day with 86,400 seconds, being just 89 from complete destruction isn’t a great place to be. But then also, looking at things another way, we started just 420 seconds away from annihilation back in 1947, and we’ve only ever been 17 minutes away at our very safest. And then add to that, the fact that we’ve “only” moved one second towards complete obliteration in this year’s update:

In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, the Science and Security Board sends a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.

Yep. Awful. But then, this also suggests that we could keep going at the frankly horrendous rates of killing each other and destroying the environment that we’ve been working so hard upon for the last 12 months for at least another 88 years, and we’ll still be ok. Just.

See, they’ve gone in all too dramatic, and now they have no wiggle room at all.

If they’d started back in 1947 with an hour instead of seven minutes, it would mostly have been fine. They could have knocked off a few minutes here and there, added on a few when things were looking better. The only issue with this approach would likely have been that people would have looked at the thing and basically not given a toss. So sure, there needed to be a bit of drama in there, I get it.

But they went in too hard, too soon. And now we’re all supposed to be scared over a 1.11% increase in the likelihood of self-inflicted destruction? Nope.

Look at the warnings that The Doomsday Clock is sending us, and look at mankind’s reaction.

I’m calling for a reset of The Doomsday Clock: stick it back to 15 minutes to midnight or something so that we can actually move the hands a significant distance and see where we actually stand when there are important developments one way or the other.

Although, honestly, they’re really only likely to go one way, right?

Because a second here or there is really not going to put us on edge and give us the wake-up call that we so clearly need. In fact, it might take actual planetary ruination before someone important (and no, it won’t be him) pipes up and starts wondering if we should do (or should have done) something to stop it all.

Tick tock.