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Scientists Set Doomsday Clock Closer To Midnight Than Ever Before (nbcnews.com) 136

Posted by msmash from the it's-coming dept.
The hands of the Doomsday Clock are closer to midnight than ever before, with humanity facing a time of "unprecedented danger" that has increased the likelihood of a human-caused apocalypse, a group of scientists announced Tuesday. From a report: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists -- a nonprofit organization made up of scientists, former political leaders and security and technology experts -- moved the hands of the symbolic clock 10 seconds forward, to 90 seconds to midnight. The adjustment, made in response to threats from nuclear weapons, climate change and infectious diseases such as Covid-19, is the closest the clock has been to symbolic doom since it was created more than 75 years ago.

"We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality," Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said in a statement, adding that "it's a decision our experts do not take lightly." The Doomsday Clock was created to convey the proximity of catastrophic threats to humanity, serving as a metaphor for public and world leaders, rather than a predictive tool. When it was unveiled in 1947, the clock was set at 7 minutes to midnight, with "midnight" signifying human-caused apocalypse. At the height of the Cold War, it was set at 2 minutes to midnight. In 2020, the Bulletin set the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight, the first time it had moved within the two-minute mark. For the next two years, the hands were left unchanged.
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Scientists Set Doomsday Clock Closer To Midnight Than Ever Before More

Scientists Set Doomsday Clock Closer To Midnight Than Ever Before

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  • Bulletin of Atomic Scientists... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Yeah okay.. same old scaremongering as always.

    These same yokels are 100% against nuclear power, as well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by gardyloo ( 512791 )

      Yeah okay.. same old scaremongering as always.

      These same yokels are 100% against nuclear power, as well.

      The *entire* purpose of the committee is to educate the public about threats to the species. You might call it "scaremongering", but it's awfully hard to talk about existential threats and not be a bit scary.
      No, they're not all against nuclear power; they're against *misuse* of various technologies. If nuclear power can be safe and effective, they're all for it. Have you even ever read the Bulletins?

      • Yeah okay.. same old scaremongering as always.

        These same yokels are 100% against nuclear power, as well.

        The *entire* purpose of the committee is to educate the public about threats to the species. You might call it "scaremongering", but it's awfully hard to talk about existential threats and not be a bit scary.
        No, they're not all against nuclear power; they're against *misuse* of various technologies. If nuclear power can be safe and effective, they're all for it. Have you even ever read the Bulletins?

        I agree we need to point out the dangers, but their consistency leaves a bit to be desired to me. I don't think we are closer to doomsday today than the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the 80s when the number of nuclear missiles were quadruple what they are today and automated systems nearly triggered MAD more than once: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        • For me, this is about a moment we got closer: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt227... [imdb.com]

      • Re:Bulletin of Atomic Scientists... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @03:02PM (#63236628)

        The problem is that everyone is feeling fatigue right now. You have everyone, from the prepper dude from Canada, to the pastors, to people on the street shouting "the end is nigh, we are doomed", people just get worn out, especially because nobody has any solutions or answers except more scary stuff.

        What results is that you get people who just. don't. care. In the 1980s, people actually cared about driving because they feared getting shot. Now, because of all the sensationalism, even though dying via a bullet is lower than it was in the 1980s, it is constantly keened around on the news, people just don't really care, as that has been burned out of them.

        The Doomsday Clock was a good thing in its time, but with every single news article screaming "DOOM IS NIGH", it just has little effect, because people are so desensitized to that. If nukes don't kill them, then starving, or dying due to no medical care available will.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by sarren1901 ( 5415506 )

          A smart person knows that shouldn't care about something they cannot control. My influence in this world is near zero which means I cannot control nearly anything. Why should I "worry" about something I cannot control?

          Want to be happier and have a healthier life? Only worry about things you can do something about.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by thosdot ( 659245 )

            A smart person knows that shouldn't care about something they cannot control. My influence in this world is near zero which means I cannot control nearly anything. Why should I "worry" about something I cannot control?

            Want to be happier and have a healthier life? Only worry about things you can do something about.

            That's a conveniently incorrect reading of Stoicism. You shouldn't worry about things you cannot control. Doesn't mean you shouldn't care about them, and if it turns out you can do something about them - ring your government representative, use less fossil fuel, help a homeless person, whatever - then you should also do it.

            In fact the corollary to not worrying about things you can't control is that if you can exert some control then you more or less have an obligation to do so - but a lot of people thes

        • It's the same way people end up genuinely surprised when an elderly family member who was in poor health finally dies.

          They have their first medical crisis, and everyone in the family freaks out. Number two, and everyone still freaks out. Crisis #18, they groan & pick up their always-ready (by that point) bag of stuff to take so they'll have something to do while sitting in the waiting room for 6 hours. Crisis #27, the person dies... and the family IS genuinely shocked, because by that point emergency ho

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by bwt ( 68845 )

        It's good to talk about global risks to humanity, true. I just don't like the choices for what they consider the biggest threats. Ignoring the risk of malevalent AI and demographic/fertility collapse are major oversights. Putting covid and climate change on now (as opposed to years ago) is kind of absurd. In 2023, I'd argue the long term view of each is substantially better than it was in say 2020.

        There is no scientific basis for the claim that climate change or covid are existential threats to humanity. Cl

        • Bam! Hit the mail on the head. They werenâ(TM)t wrong, but mistakes and overreactions were done, and itâ(TM)s used as a political football now. The next one we wonâ(TM)t react to at all, going too far the opposite direction.

        • We don't have a fertility issue...We have a greed issue which is driving people to say no to having children because how can they possibly provide a decent upbringing in such a wretched environment?

          Besides, we are overpopulated anyway. Just look at the price of housing. According to this site, https://www.macrotrends.net/co... [macrotrends.net] we have doubled our population from 1973 to 2023. Turns out we didn't double housing though.

          Why is that? Greed. So fuck those greedy assholes. Why would I take on the burden of childr

          • We have a greed issue which is driving people to say no to having children because how can they possibly provide a decent upbringing in such a wretched environment?

            You so hit the nail right on the head. Everybody knows we're living in the most miserable period of human civilization ever. You can't have child labor anymore, so children are no longer a source of family income. And because you're required to send them to school, they can't be farm hands anymore either until they've at least reached 8th grade per Wisconsin v. Yoder. So now they're just an unnecessary expense. Especially because nowadays once they're born, they rarely ever die of natural causes before thei

        • Ignoring the risk of malevalent AI

          By the time AI gets anywhere close to that point, it will no longer be AI, rather it will be an artificial lifeform. The I in AI is nowhere close to having even been reached yet, and even when it is, it still won't have anything resembling a motivation.

    • They have not always been against

      Utility Scale Power
      Deep Mine disposal of Waste
      Atomic Weapons
      Creditable National Arms Policy

      But at 50 years of doom and gloom, it is not like they attract anyone of note on the other side for a honest debate.
      Edward Teller got the funding and everyone else got sent back to their little departments with their little budgets and a little publication to express grievance.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mpercy ( 1085347 )

      I suppose most people think that because it comes from the Board of Atomic Scientists (actually, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board with the support of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors), that it represents the threat of nuclear conflagration?

      But did you know that in 2007, the Board added "climate crisis" to their scorecard? And that they also recently (perhaps with good reason) added "bio-threat" to the score card?

      And not to be left out, they also recently decided

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      You, on the other hand, are a complete and total ignorant idiot. Do you have a clue who does this? (Hint: it's the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).

      I'm not afraid. But then, I live in a close-in suburb of DC, so I'll be dust in the wind if it happens. Idiots like you, barely on the grid, will be the ones who die of radiation poisoning over months.

  • Better headline (Score:4, Informative)

    by devoid42 ( 314847 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @01:35PM (#63236236)
    Old people who happen to be scientists, make a post on their political website.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      And when you reach a certain age, everything you've learned becomes invalid. Apparently.

      • Re:Better headline (Score:4, Insightful)

        by geminidomino ( 614729 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @02:42PM (#63236530) Journal

        No no, you're only dismissed as a "boomer" if what you've learned contradicts the listener's ideology. As long as you agree with them, you're the voice of aged wisdom.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Of course, our generation's catch phrase was "Don't trust anyone over 30." At the very least that was poor planning. In any case we weren't exactly falling over ourselves to give our parents' generation credit for kicking Hitler's ass or passing the Clean Air Act.

          I don't think intellectual tribalism is the exclusive property of young people. Plenty of us Boomers are and always were sheep.

          • Hey, don't look at me. My parents were the Boomers, I'm strictly Gen-X. That's why I used the "air quotes" - if you're older than them and call bullshit, you get "ok boomer".

            > Don't trust anyone over 30

            This new batch seems to be reviving that one, in yet another twist of irony that has convinced me to dub this particular timeline "Santayana's Hellscape"

      • As you get older and refuse to learn new stuff you will indeed find that science is passing you by. You see this daily on Slashdot with posts furious that their kindergarten level Newtonian views aren't current, who immediately dismiss any and all science stories by trying to apply their "common sense".

    • Re:Better headline (Score:4, Funny)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @01:59PM (#63236334)

      Given what the original point of the clock was - I'd think what we've learned from Russia's war on Ukraine should've set the clock back about an hour and a half.

  • ok so you set it to 90 second before, why?

    • And now they only have 88 more times that they can get the "Closer to Midnight Than Ever Before!!!!" headline (I presume they won't ever actually set it to midnight).

  • If we are all gonna die (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @01:36PM (#63236242)
    Can we hurry up with it. The suspense isn't killing me.

  • It's a logarithmic clock.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bkmoore ( 1910118 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @01:49PM (#63236290)
    ....midnight is the asymptote. We'll never reach it within our lifetimes.

    • A bit of a self-filter, there. The fact that you can make such a claim is reflective of the fact that it hasn't hit "midnight" yet, in at least two senses.

    • Oh we could certainly reach midnight.

      In the early days after Russia invading Ukraine there was a lot of concern over whether aiding Ukraine would prompt Russia to use nukes. Thankfully that has not happened. But I find it odd that concern is subsiding, since the crucial moment has not yet occurred - the fall of Putin. What will he do if brought to that moment? A 10% chance of nuclear annihilation is a huge risk to all of us.

      So I can easily see why the clock will be advanced now, although if Ukraine

  • Whatever we still have 90 seconds (Score:3)

    by S_Stout ( 2725099 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @01:50PM (#63236294)
    Time to eat me some McDonalds.
  • Nothing to see here. Look at these comments. Future Earth: We did nothing. I was all we could do.

  • they're reactionaries, but they (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @01:57PM (#63236324)
    have a point.

    non-proliferation is falling apart, hair trigger intermediate-range nuclear missiles are back in vogue, old-timey send-in-wave-after-wave-of-men and firebomb-the-civilians style war is back, and a new cold war is on but now with an adversary 5 times larger than Axis was in ww2.

    The (somewhat more) enlightened countries can't just roll over and give up. That would encourage a bunch of dictatorships and socialisms to expand by force, and that would definitely make the world a worse place. But, If I had to bet, my money would be on more nukes used in war, sometime this century. I really hope that I'm wrong. But the more reasonable, cynical hope is that they go off somewhere far away from me.

    • old-timey send-in-wave-after-wave-of-men and firebomb-the-civilians style war is back,

      Clint Howard: Well, in many ways the Big Boy never left, sir. He's always offered the same high-quality meals at competitive prices.

  • Bay of Pigs / Cuban Missile Crisis (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @02:01PM (#63236344)
    There's absolutely no way the humanity is in more actual, legit danger of ending right now than it was during these two events in the early 1960s. Not because of Putin, and not because of global warming, or China, or AI, or anything else. Yet the Doomsday Clock was at a mere 7 minutes to midnight at that time. This is and has always been political theater of the lamest kind.

    • There's absolutely no way the humanity is in more actual, legit danger of ending right now than it was during these two events in the early 1960s.

      This is certainly true. All of the first four post trinity US presidents received advice from their military advisors to use nuclear weapons and the list of nuclear near misses is extensive.

      The fact nukes have not been used post WWII seems more like an improbable chance lottery jackpot / weak anthropic principal at work than something attributable to rational human behavior.

      Not because of Putin, and not because of global warming, or China, or AI, or anything else. Yet the Doomsday Clock was at a mere 7 minutes to midnight at that time. This is and has always been political theater of the lamest kind.

      Tend to agree yet I still wonder how much of current reality is dominated by random chance that may run out at any time? Could a less

      • There's a theory that the world has been destroyed multiple times in the past, only to be replaced picoseconds later by a different reality asserting itself.

      • The fact nukes have not been used post WWII seems more like an improbable chance lottery jackpot / weak anthropic principal at work than something attributable to rational human behavior.

        Are you aware that one nuclear exchange was prevented by one lone Soviet radar man not believing that the missiles his instruments told him were headed towards Russia real. That he couldn't believe the U.S. would launch said attack?

    • For all of recorded history, up to and including events of the past years and decades, there has always been a large group of people convinced the world will end for reason $X (hint: it never does). Of course they are based on real issues, but their conclusions simply aren’t rational. They filter out mitigating info, and let fear drive their thought process. This is all very normal for the flawed apes we call humans - I simply wish a few more (especially the educated ones in a place like this) were be

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by j-beda ( 85386 )

      There's absolutely no way the humanity is in more actual, legit danger of ending right now than it was during these two events in the early 1960s. Not because of Putin, and not because of global warming, or China, or AI, or anything else. Yet the Doomsday Clock was at a mere 7 minutes to midnight at that time. This is and has always been political theater of the lamest kind.

      Perhaps the current clock setting is accurate and the previous clock settings were overly optimistic?

      It is difficult to really do this type of thing with a single "measurement". Personally, I am more interested in statements from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists than I am from most of the rest of our Corporate Overlords, even if their clock-idea has issues.

  • Fearmongers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @02:07PM (#63236376)

    These guys are basically fear mongers. In the West there's no safer time than today, period.

    • In the West there's no safer time than today, period.

      Surely the West was safer when there wasn't an ongoing war in Europe, where one of the belligerents is a nuclear power threatening to use those nuclear weapons if things go poorly for them? We could debate about the magnitude of the threat that the situation poses, but it's silly to claim that it somehow leaves the West in a safer state.

    • Aside of the time between about 1945 and 2022, yes.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • These guys are basically fear mongers. In the West there's no safer time than today, period.

      There are things to be concerned about:
      - tensions in the US itself bordering on calling for civil war
      - middle east as usual,
      - Europe tensions between Serbia and Kosovo
      - war in Ukraine with country having second/first biggest stockpile of nuclear warheads and "banned" chemical and biological weapons
      - Turkey (a NATO member) playing mostly to their own goal, vetoing Sweden membership to get US weapons and Turkey's refugees from Sweden
      - China doing daily raids towards Taiwan,
      - North Korea having nukes and occas

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      Disagree.

      ca. 1990 until ca. 2010 were safer times. There was more time to do something about Climate Change, and the risk of global war was lower than ever before. Russia was seen by most as a trade partner and even a potential candidate for a larger EU, and the warmongers in the US were happy with beating up small 3rd world countries.

      Now we're basically in Cold War II with a very visible escalation path to WW3. And while we're hoping for that to go away, the climate gets fucked up because resources are div

  • Of course, the usual nil-wit deniers will claim everything is peachy, thereby delaying anything effective being done. Which makes the outlook even darker.

  • Zenos doomsday clock (Score:5, Funny)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @02:21PM (#63236426)
    Seriously, how many times can you halve the distance to midnight? I’m pretty sure it’s just a few more and we will reach past plank time thereby generating a black hole which really will destroy the earth.

  • After midnight... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tgibson ( 131396 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @02:21PM (#63236432) Homepage

    ...we're gonna let it all hang out.

  • The adjustment, made in response to threats from nuclear weapons, climate change and infectious diseases such as Covid-19, is the closest the clock has been to symbolic doom since it was created more than 75 years ago.

    We navigated the covid-19 pandemic and have gained a fair bit more technological and societal preparedness. No one would have said before that we as a species could come up with novel vaccines and anti-virals so quickly.

    Carbon emissions dipped substantially and are only now slightly more than they were in 2019.

    We also are clearly far less at risk of nuclear war than we were six-months ago when Putin was actively hinting at possible use of nuclear armaments. Now it appears the conflict has probably been navi

  • So, what do we win if we manage to get it to strike midnight?

  • Kill me as I smile.

  • I work Night Shift you insensitive clods.

  • this would merit the handstanding girl on the beach.

    LOOK AT MEE EVERYONE! LOOK AT MEEEEEE! ...since what, 1982?

    Psst: you guys, Reagan's not even president anymore.

  • Antony Blinken will drag the world headlong into nuclear war. If anyone survives long enough to retrospect they'll pontificate about him the same way we do about Hitler if we had a time machine.
  • This fails as education as I am not enlightened from this news of whatever imminent threat this purportedly embodies. I shouldn't have to look for the message.

    It fails as performance art because it is, well, done. Reductive and long in the tooth, failing to attract attention unless framed as CNN does: "The Doomsday Clock reveals how close we are to total annihilation." And of course, it does no such thing on its face.

    In others words, overplayed, and there's no room left on the clock! It might still work a

  • Meanwhile a nuclear weapons state, Pakistan can't keep the lights on and is going bankrupt [washingtonpost.com]

    Nothing to worry about, am I right?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Boy are they gonna feel dumb (Score:3)

    by mandark1967 ( 630856 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @09:36PM (#63238008) Homepage Journal

    when daylight savings time ends...

  • Time only moves forward. Risk increases and decreases based on likelihood and severity of impacts. Proximity to a cliff would have been a more accurate metaphor, albeit a blander visual in the mind's eye.

    Regardless, Assuming the clock is set at Greenwich Doomsday Time: we're already post doomsday here in Western Australia at +8 GDT.

  • "Everyone should just get along" is not enough here. Should Western powers provide security guarantees to totalitarian states, in exchange for totalitarian states renouncing any claims on South Korea, Taiwan and Ukraine? How might such agreement be achieved in the face of democracies dependant on public sentiment and dictators being nutcases? Complaining without a plan does not solve any problems.

  • When at the height of the cold war, when both sides seriously considered starting an all out nuclear war it was set at 120s ..and now when that is less likely they have it at 100s ...

    it's rarely been set at a value that makes sense, and for scientists they seem to be extremely arbitrary

  • The scientists of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are long dead. It's now just a left-wing puppet of some kind. Paying attention to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2023 is like buying an RCA television thinking it was made by a US corporation.

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