"Doomsday Clock" Moves Away From Midnight 287
Arvisp writes to tell us that the symbolic "Doomsday Clock," designed to represent how close civilization is to catastrophic destruction, has been moved away from midnight. "First set at seven minutes to midnight, the clock has been moved only 18 times since its creation in 1947. The group, which includes more than a dozen Nobel laureates, last moved the hands of the clock in 2007, from seven to five minutes before midnight to reflect the threat of a 'second nuclear age' and the challenges presented by global warming. Today, at a press conference in New York, the Bulletin announced that despite the looming threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, it would move the hands of the clock from five to six minutes before midnight."
Iron Maiden (Score:4, Interesting)
The Golden Goose [wikipedia.org] is on the loose and never out of season,
Blackened pride still burns inside this shell of bloody treason, [wikipedia.org]
Here's my gun for a barrel of fun for the love of living death.
The killer's breed [wikipedia.org] or the demon's seed,
The glamour, the fortune, [wikipedia.org] the pain.
Go to war again, blood is freedom's stain,
But don't you pray for my soul anymore.
6 minutes to midnight, the hands that threaten doom,
6 minutes to midnight, to kill the unborn in the womb.
The blind men shout let the creatures out, we'll show the unbelievers, [wikipedia.org]
The napalm screams of human flames, of a prime time Belsan [wikipedia.org] feast...YEAH!
As the reasons for the carnage cut their meat and lick the gravy,
We oil the jaws of the war machine and feed it with our babies. [patdollard.com]
The body bags and little rags of children torn in two,
And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you,
As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song, [wikipedia.org]
To the tune of starving millions, [socialistappeal.org] to make a better kind of gun.
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I'll skip the rest of it, but... we don't dance to Israel's song. Other way around.
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It would seem to disagree if you begin by begging the question—that is, if your assumption, entering into examining the US-Israel relationship, is that the US disagrees with Israel but finds itself helpless to resist engaging in behavior it disagrees with against its will...
Right. Because the US supports Israel's position on those matters, and Israel has no veto of its own in the UNSC. Otherwi
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Minutes!
To Miiiiiiiidnight!
First thought... (Score:5, Funny)
Holy pretentious old coots, batman!
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also add:
Illogical. The threat from nuclear annihilation is higher now than it was in 2007, thanks to Iran's and Pakistan's recent experiments with missile launches and nuclear bombs. They could nuke the European Union or the Russian Federation.
It should have been moved close to midnight but I suspect these guys, like the Nobel Foundation, are in love with the new president. They think the world is all rainbows and poppies now, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah. Total human annihalation at this point is unlikely.
However, Pakistan or Iran could find themselves nuked off the map.
Any fight involving these two would likely be very lopsided or localized.
It would suck but probably not be doomsday.
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World War I started over less. Basically the crown heir to the Austrian-Hungarian empire was assassinated in Serbia and then it escalated.
Pakistan has pretty close relations with China. If China ever got involved into a large nuclear conflict, with say India, Russia and the US could not stand by idly.
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but the problem was secret mutual defense and attack treaties that built up over time into a domino sculpture. If people could see their dominoes stacking up next to the line of other dominoes, they might very well have averted that conflict.
We know about the treaty problem, and none of the nuclear-capable superpowers are showing any particular inclination to empty their reserves.
The clock was pretty stupid when it came out, being invented by editorializing nuclear scientists and not anyone in a profession that offers particular insights into the politics that results in weapons actually being deployed. It's even dumber now, and it's even a poor metaphor for what they're trying to express: in clock form, there isn't any analogy that maps to backwards movement that makes any sense.
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...it's even a poor metaphor for what they're trying to express: in clock form, there isn't any analogy that maps to backwards movement that makes any sense.
Daylight Saving Time comes to mind. But the real metaphor here is closer to the other reason to move a clock backwards: You screwed up setting it in the first place. Backward movement on the Doomsday Clock represents its keepers' having been incorrect in their entire belief system.
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Napoleonic Wars were less than 30 years after you'd declared independence. I doubt you'd have been able to do anything at that point, what with the giant ocean between you and it, and every other factor.
As for your "British-French wars," there's no war called that. There's the "Anglo-French" wars, which are mostly all before the founding of the US. And since the French assisted your Revolutionary War against Britain, you were right smack in the middle of one, used as a proxy.
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
World War I started over less. Basically the crown heir to the Austrian-Hungarian empire was assassinated in Serbia and then it escalated.
Ah, no, that's not true.
The assassination was not the cause of world war one. Nor was it even the trigger. Nations and armies were poised well before that and war was already a foregone conclusion.
In truth it wasn't even a significant event. War was inevitable, any excuse would have been used. To some how assume that were it not for that one event WWI would not have happened is historically inaccurate.
Read "The Guns of August".
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Re:First thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which would then move the doomsday clock FURTHER from midnight.
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I would say that is very hopeful thinking. The biggest threat does not actually come from the explosion itself (okay, yes, the explosion is also bad), but from the nuclear fallout that occurs after.
Nuclear fallout can affect HUGE areas of the world. When a nuclear device is detonated, radioactive particles get launched into the atmosphere that can travel across the globe.
Nuclear Fallout [wikipedia.org]
I also see comments below about the bombs dropped on Japan - people need to keep in mind that was 65 years ago AND the bo
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Informative)
I also see comments below about the bombs dropped on Japan - people need to keep in mind that was 65 years ago AND the bomb types were nuclear FISSION, not nuclear fusion. There's a distinct difference.
Actually, the only real difference between fission bombs and so-called "fusion" bombs is the blast radius; fusion occurs in the latter, but its sole purpose is to increase the amount of fission in the fissile material. In both cases, the primary explosive force is provided by splitting uranium or plutonium atoms en masse. While the details are fairly complicated, the main difference between a fission and a "fusion" bomb is that a pure fission device uses a high explosive to compress the fissile core, while a fusion device uses fusion to do the same thing. A fusion device creates a small amount of fission to trigger fusion in surrounding hydrogen (technically, deuterium and tritium). The fusion of that hydrogen then compresses the main fissile core the way the high explosives do in a pure fission bomb. The reason a "fusion" bomb is more powerful is that the fusion of the hydrogen doesn't just create explosive force, it also releases neutrons which trigger fission in the U-238 shell around the fissile core. U-238 is not very fissionable; you can split it, but it won't go into a chain reaction. But the neutrons released by the fusion process trigger fission in the U-238, amplifying the amount of force compressing the core (made of plutonium or U-235, both of which do have chain reactions from fission).
The whole reason for doing this is that a fission reaction is so powerful that it would, left to its own devices, blow apart the chunk of fissile material so fast that most of it wouldn't actually fission. By increasing the power of the force that compresses the fissile core, and making the core stay together fractions of a second longer, the fission process is much more complete, leading to greater explosive power when the core eventually explodes. The radioactivity produced can actually be less; it's spread over a larger area by the bigger blast, and the original fissile material is broken down more completely (granted, more radioactive materials are produced, but the effects roughly even out, with the greater dispersal reducing the radioactivity per unit area).
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Iran and Pakistan probably only have fission bombs. Not fun to be hit by, but not that much of a problem for the rest of the world, annihilation-wise.
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A nuclear war between India and Pakistan (both known nuclear powers, who don't get along) could conceivably be enough to cause a 'nuclear winter': Scientific American [scientificamerican.com]
Basically, soot would get blown into the stratosphere, where it shades the planet. (Oh, and destroys the ozone layer while it's at it.)
So, it could be a problem for the rest of the world.
Re:First thought... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nuclear winter has been pretty much debunked now. It was a nice scare story 20 years ago but we have better scare stories now :p
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Informative)
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Nukes have a short shelf life. The big threat - nukes sold by failed former soviet states - has passed. Yes, we need to make sure that no government thinks it's clever to sell nukes to non-government entities (brigands is a good word here, lacks the near-meaninglessness of "terrorists"), but if some group of brigands just happened upon a nuke they face a high logistic hurdle to use it at any distance in time or in space from where they got it.
Even at the height of the cold war, the threat was "merely" to
Re:MY. ASS. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lies. Bedwetting neocons sure as hell did.
Re:MY. ASS. (Score:4, Funny)
Absolutely no one.
Lies. Bedwetting neocons sure as hell did.
You neglected full context.
Nobody with half a mind was afraid of Saddam either getting his hands on or developing a set of nukes. Absolutely no one.
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...in the late 80s using components* sold by Europe and the US to Saddam in his fight against Iran.
Which is admittedly quite horrible, but we didn't bother to do anything in the first Iraq War over those atrocities. And we sure as hell didn't go to Iraq under the banner of vengence or justice for those deaths. The bedwetting
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Re:First thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's real popular to feel such a level of disgust for the United States that you kind of lose sight of reality, but how exactly is Iran inching towards freedom?
Since the election, which many *Iranians* feel was rigged by Ahmadinejad and/or those in his camp, the government has steadily ratcheted up the level of oppression in Iran, including increased censorship, Internet filtering, limits on cell phone communication, etc. The Iranian government has admitted to torturing and killing its own citizens who were detained protesting the election; internally there have been allegations of rape used as an instrument of torture.
It's also apparent you have lost your "hope". Presumably "the people of USA" have actually made a stride TOWARDS more freedom -- voting the first African American President into office in a decade, in a landslide election that was widely acknowledged to be a repudiation of Bush/Cheney and their policies.
China continues to jail its political opponents, even those seeking redress for issues which the government was responsible such as development and land use issues, and practices widespread censorship of the internet in addition to organized hacking campaigns against human rights advocates. Google has complained about it and is threatening to leave China over the issue.
Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
The US let loose 2 nukes on Japan, and the world didn't end. Any nuclear conflicts involving Israel or Iran or Pakistan or India and possibly China, would be local.
You do realize that at the time we dropped those two nukes on Japan, they were the only ones on the planet. Right? It's not like anybody could nuke us back.
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And you also realize that at the time we dropped those nukes, we thought they were "just like a regular bomb, but with a bigger boom"?
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Um, not so much (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you'll find with a little research that is not the case.
This is some text about the first atomic device at the Trinity site. (Link here) [doe.gov]
Only six months before the test, according to General Groves Joseph Hirschfelder, a Los Alamos physicist, had first brought up the possibility that fallout might be a real problem. For this reason it was considered essential that wind direction be such that the radioactive cloud would not pass over inhabited areas that might have to be evacuated, and there should be no rain immediately after the shot which would bring concentrated amounts of fallout down on a small area.
The physicists who originally designed these things were no dummies. They knew what they were building. They knew that they weren't simply big bombs. They were something other, and everyone knew that.
Watch Oppenheimer's famous quote and you can see it for yourself. [youtube.com] Watch his face. He is near tears.
No - they knew exactly what they were doing.
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Reasonable people do not speak in such absolutes.
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Informative)
It should have been moved close to midnight but I suspect these guys, like the Nobel Foundation, are in love with the new president. They think the world is all rainbows and poppies now, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Or they accurately realize that GWB's leaving office and Obama entering it caused a noticeable easing of tension in world politics. This isn't so much because of the job Obama's done, but rather because of the destructive nature of GWB's administration.
Re:First thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or they accurately realize that GWB's leaving office and Obama entering it caused a noticeable easing of tension in world politics. This isn't so much because of the job Obama's done, but rather because of the destructive nature of GWB's administration.
Where has there been an "easing of tension in world politics"? Please name one tense situation that has become less tense in the last year.
Re:First thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Violence is down in Israel and the occupied territories, particularly in the West Bank.
Yes, violence is down, but tension isn't. The Israelis started 2009 by a massive assault against Gaza to suppress rocket attacks. The reduction in violence has nothing to do with Obama, it has to do with Israel's demonstrated willingness to kill those who are attacking them. The Palestinians have maintained their rhetoric about destroying Israel.
The relationship between Russia and the US have thawed somewhat.
Yes, the relationship between Russia and the U.S. has thawed, because Obama has demonstrated a willingness to allow Russia to re-conquer the Soviet Empire.
U.S.-E.U. relations are definitely warmer now than they were before Obama took office.
They are? Of course, their really wasn't tension between the U.S. and the E.U..
The North Korea situation is better than it was under Bush, ditto for Cuba-U.S. relations.
How so?
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A couple unreliable fission nukes from Iran or Pakistan doesn't threaten "nuclear annihilation". That threat is in the large arsenals held by major powers. Reducing the size of those arsenals reduces the threat.
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Wait wait wait...
Your are going to start wailing about nuclear annihilation for countries that between them have less than 8 delivery vehicles with range and guidance systems barely able to get out of their back yard?
Well, (Score:3, Funny)
The people who say we're ~99.6% on the way to total world annihilation think the world is "rainbows and poppies"?
Enough 'poppies' and you can't help but see rainbows.
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I don't know what YOU are thinking, but I was thinking of the Wizard of Oz - rainbows and poppies.
Second Thought (Score:5, Informative)
I have been a paying member of the group for a few years now and I am distressed that they are constantly re-defining what doomsday is. Now it includes global warming, overpopulation, unstable governments, the building of any sort of nuclear power system, etc...
It really diminishes from the message when they add in all of these other things. There have always been threats to our existence and there always will be.
Asteroid impacts, genetically engineered plants or the eventual supernovae that will happen when Eta Carinae self-destructs are all threats as well.
Re:Second Thought (Score:4, Funny)
Clearly, it was programmed by Microsoft.
You look like you are trying to end the world (Score:2)
Would you like some help?
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"A symbolic clock is as emotionally reassuring as a picture of oxygen to a drowning man."
-Dr. Manhattan
Re:Second Thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Diversification is the classic response to obsolescence.
Now that the Cold War is over and there's (currently, thankfully) very little chance that the US & Russia will nuke each other, the clock is an anachronism. It *should* be moved to about 7PM, but that's boring, so they add trendy threats in order to keep the clock at a more attention-getting number.
I'm too young to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis (I was 2), but it's always seemed a bit preposterous to me that the clock is set to the last 1/2 of 1% of the day. Have we ever REALLY been 99.5% the way to destruction? Are we REALLY that close today?
Maybe the clock's time should reflect it's own relevance... I'd buy it that the Doomsday Clock is 99.5 obsolete!
Yes - we have been very close to nuclear war (Score:5, Informative)
"Have we ever REALLY been 99.5% the way to destruction?" Total destruction - no. Nuclear conflict which could have easily gotten way out of control and ruined modern life and history - yes.
The Cuban Missle Crisis was close, very close. DEFCON 2, SAC planes loaded up with live nukes, a U2 shot down and pilot killed (which Kennedy had said would cause a US invastion of Cuba), a Soviet nuclear-armed sub hit with depth charges and almost striking back at NATO ships. A hurried U.S. plan for a contingency government in Cuba and worries about how the Soviets would inflict pain on Europe in the case of a U.S. invasion of Cuba.
Able Archer in 1983 was also very close - during very tense NATO war exercises, a Soviet orbital Early Missile Warning System reported a single intercontinental ballistic missile launch from the territory of the United States. This should have resulted in upstream warning and quite possibly a retalitory nuclear strike.
--- A length collection from Wikipedia: ---
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 [wikipedia.org]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov [wikipedia.org]
Able Archer (1983) - Stanislav Petrov, a retired Soviet Air Defence Forces lieutenant colonel, deviated from standard Soviet doctrine by correctly identifying a missile attack warning as a false alarm on September 26, 1983. This decision most likely resulted in preventing an accidental retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its Western Allies.
--- --- ---
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missle_Crisis [wikipedia.org]
On the night of October 23rd, the Joint Chiefs of Staff instructed Strategic Air Command to go to DEFCON 2, for the only confirmed time in history....In response (to the missles in Cuba still being worked on), Kennedy issued Security Action Memorandum 199, authorizing the loading of nuclear weapons onto aircraft under the command of SACEUR (which had the duty of carrying out the first air strikes on the Soviet Union).
The next morning, Kennedy informed the executive committee that he believed only an invasion would remove the missiles from Cuba. However, he was persuaded to give the matter time and continue with both military and diplomatic pressure. He agreed and ordered the low-level flights over the island to be increased from two per day to once every two hours. He also ordered a crash program to institute a new civil government in Cuba if an invasion went ahead.
At this point, the crisis was ostensibly at a stalemate. The USSR had shown no indication that they would back down and had made several comments to the contrary. The U.S. had no reason to believe otherwise and was in the early stages of preparing for an invasion, along with a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union in case it responded militarily, which was assumed.
Castro, on the other hand, was convinced that an invasion was soon at hand, and he dictated a letter to Khrushchev which appeared to call for a preemptive strike on the U.S. He also ordered all anti-aircraft weapons in Cuba to fire on any U.S. aircraft.
A U.S. U2 reconnaissance plane was shot down (pilot killed) by a Soviet SAM emplacement. Anti-aircraft fire toward other U.S. planes continued. Kennedy has previous stated that if a U.S. plane was fired upon, he would order an attack against Cuba (a U.S. invasion).
Military preparations continued, and all active duty Air Force personnel were recalled to base for possible action. Robert Kennedy later recalled the mood, "We had not abandoned all hope, but what hope there was now rested with Khrushchev's revising his course within the next few hours. It was a hope, not an expectation. The expectation was military confrontation by Tuesday, and possibly tomorrow..."
Plans were drawn up for air strikes on the missile sites as well as other economic targets, notably petroleu
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As far as overpopulation goes, how long until it's the matrix. I mean once we pass what 30 billion, where are we going to put people? Endless suburbs? What will their mentality be like.
Some other ones: total blandishment... the end of change in human society.
Group suicide: The best explanation for why we can't find aliens, civs reach a point figure something out and die off.
Grey goo, we're closer than ever before, what would five year
Don't forget... (Score:2)
Who watches the Watchmen?
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I don't think anyone can account for a rich, mad genius wreaking psychic warfare in the name of world peace and unification.
Pretty much (Score:5, Insightful)
Were this any sort of real measure, it would have been moved back a big measure a long time ago. I mean I'll grant them that when the US and USSR were in the middle of their "who's got the biggest dick" contest, things were getting perilously close to a nuclear war. Also, due to the amount of weapons on both sides, it really would have been a doomsday scenario. However now? Not so much. While the nations still have arms, they aren't on the verge of using them. Things have cooled off and there is very little worry of an all out nuclear war.
Just a bunch of useless posturing. They want to keep pretending like they matter.
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Hey parents... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you ever need to explain to your kids what masturbation is without getting too graphic, you can point them to this story.
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That was exactly my point but you ... ah hem... beat me to it. Seriously, a textbook case of mental masturbation if there ever was one.
Re:Hey parents... (Score:5, Funny)
Heh. Instead of *tick tock*, this clock goes *fap fap*.
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You see Timmy, masturbation is kind of like when you move your big hand in such a way that you forget whats really happening.
Somehow, Six Minutes To Midnight (Score:3, Funny)
Just doesn't have the same sound [wikimedia.org].
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Funny, the first thing I thought of was *three* minutes to midnight [lyricsfreak.com].
Glad to know I wasn't the only one.
Still Quite Meaningless. (Score:2)
I'd like to know how the origional designers chose to measure probability in terms of 'minutes to midnight'. It makes my head hurt.
Populism (Score:2)
That's all it is. It's just a way for a small group of smart folks to summarize their opinion and communicate with the plebes. I suppose in the information age it is kind of a throw back to a time when this sort of communication was more meaningful, but who cares. I think the real thing to do right now is ask them why they don't think such and such events (like the economy) merit moving the minute hand in the other direction.
4 minutes (Score:2)
Six Minutes! (Score:2)
I'm not worried (Score:5, Funny)
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Who cares what state we leave the world in for future generations. Amirite?
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This attitude of "I'm not worried about it, I'll be dead by the time it gets bad anyway" is one of the most destructive things that impacts humanity.
Especially disgusting if held by people also holding dear "intellectual and moral demise of youth will doom the civilization", which do happen way too often for my taste.
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If humans first emerged 200,000 years ago, then six minutes left would indicate we have well over 800 years to go. We should be able to get off-planet by then. If humans emerged 50,000 years ago, then we have about 100 years, but I'll be dead by then anyway. Either way, I'm not worried.
But 6000 years equates to 25 years... FYI
The value of an education. (Score:2, Interesting)
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Uhm...what?
Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think I've seen a more mangled sentence composed in English in a long time.
Well done, sir. Well done, indeed.
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I've seen worse, despite the errors you still know what he means.
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Don't YOU take this take it the the wrong way, but I happen to make an art like a pro of mangling English grammar structure. The thing is important to know what the message tried to say, not so much or a lot about how its delivery was delivered.
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So does having a degree makes the laureates make them more or less credible then the crazy bum on the corner?
Wangari Maathai is a Nobel laureate and she's nuttier than a fruitcake.
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So does having a degree makes the laureates make them more or less credible then the crazy bum on the corner?
I don't think I've ever seen a bum on a street corner yelling "The end is less near than it was six months ago"
They called him mad... (Score:2)
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Are they using a fing-longer to control it??
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's the human condition. We all look like idiots sometime. Kind of like this doom clock thing, it's just one of those times a bunch of smart people get together and do something stupid.
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Nukes? Nukes, my ass... (Score:2)
So why again were they moving the hands on their non-quantifiable imaginary model clock again?
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Because attention-whore scientists have always been about the short-term political points, and not about their (stated) long term altruistic goals.
It was true in the 40's. It was true in the 80s. It's true today.
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Personally, I think the idea of negotiating a reduction of nuclear weapons is silly, when both sides retain enough weapons to destroy the other side completely. Furthermore, no sane nation would get rid of their nuclear shield while another potentially hostile nation is around.
I advocate peace, and suggest
Science? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this listed under science? They’re just a bunch of fear-mongering wackos with an agenda.
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Because Slashdot doesn't have a 'Frigtarded' section. The real question is how this ever got onto the main page.
As Dr. Manhattan said, (Score:4, Interesting)
A broken clock is cuckoo (Score:2)
Climate change, now, huh? (Score:2, Funny)
Climate change was included in the list. Do giant squids need to be added on now, too?
Or do giant squids make the clock go back?
Because...? (Score:5, Insightful)
More credible if they included a 'seconds' hand. (Score:2)
So this says to me that global catastrophe is 20% less likely than it used to be, since they've moved it from 5 to 6 minutes... but still 14% more likely than when it was 7 minutes in 1947. How do they get such numbers? Seems like huge jumps in probability. I think they need a 'seconds' hand.
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Seems rather unlikely (Score:2)
The chances of a random terrorist group getting their hands on one of the many Russian nukes that they managed to lose are significant, and if not stopped in time, sure, I could see a city getting nuked. That's only going to result in the destruction of that city and that terrorist group (when basically every nation in existence works together to crush them.) Likewise, it's quite possible that a 2 nation nuclear war in the middle east could result in 2 destroyed nations, with fallout affecting nearby nation
End of World Simulation (Score:4, Funny)
This is how the nukes will end the world [youtube.com].
Richard Feynman said (Score:3, Insightful)
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."
I agree with Feynman. And I'll add - I've known buckets of physicists, and nearly without exception they are intoxicated by their own shiz.
Re:In 1947 the clock was at 7 minutes until doom.. (Score:2)
That's the problem with metaphors. They tend to be pretty inconsistent. Anyway, I agree that, as far as the metaphor goes, it should not be moved back. Even if they're basing it entirely on temperament rather than substantive conditions—for fucks sake, the US is out-of-hand rejecting North Korean offers to negotiate for a full peace treaty—I find it highly questionable to claim that the temperament in the world today is any better than it was in recent years. In fact, it seems to be growing wors
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Actually, this particular clock specifies a particular time before midnight. So they have only been right once a day for the past six decades.
In other words, a stopped clock was right twice as often (assuming, of course, that it was a standard analog clock without an AM/PM indicator).
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No no, it's coming true. It's just... you aren't Dr. Manhatten. You're Mothman. Now please take your meds, Mr. Lewis.