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Doomsday Clock To Advance

Posted by kdawson on from the fire-next-time dept.

Dik Zak writes "Many news sites are reporting that the magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists intends to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock on Wednesday 17 January. The clock was started at seven minutes to midnight during the Cold War and has been moved forward or back at intervals, depending on the state of the world and the prospects for nuclear war. Midnight represents destruction by nuclear war. It is not revealed in which direction the hands of the clock will be moved, but it should be safe to assume that they will move closer to midnight: the magazine cites 'worsening nuclear [and] climate threats.' The clock stood at two minutes to midnight when both the United States and the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons in 1953. The farthest away from midnight it ever got was 17 minutes, in 1991 when both superpowers signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It currently stands at seven minutes to midnight."

6 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. strike 12 already... by 10100111001 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sick of waiting for the return of my deity.

    --
    1 voice in a sea of voices
    1. Re:strike 12 already... by Matt+Edd · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey! Some of us don't have a deity so keep it down.

  2. Preemption by ewg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Some superpower or another needs to preemptively attack and destroy this doomsday clock before it hurts someone.

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    org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
  3. Re:Arbitrary? by GuyMannDude · · Score: 5, Funny

    I doubt there is an equation involved. But I think one look at today's front page of slashdot justifies moving the hands a little closer to midnight:

    • A schoolteacher could get 40 years because her antivirus software subscription ran out.
    • A schoolboard rules that global warming is a "mere" scientific theory.
    • The US continues to use some idiot system of measurement based on some dead dude's foot.
    • The next Star Trek film is about Kirk and Spock -- The Early Years.
    • Shatner was allowed to break the news.

    If these aren't a sure sign of the apocalypse (especially the last item), I don't know what is.

    GMD

    --
    watch this
  4. stupid clocks.... by dnc253 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Where did they get their doomsday clock? On my former planet we got one of those, but we could never figure out how to program it, so it just blinked 12:00.

    ...And our world tragically came to an quick end......

  5. PST by Ikcor · · Score: 5, Funny

    Damn, that means Doomsday will be tape-delayed on the west coast.