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"Doomsday Clock" Moves Away From Midnight
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."
Kill for gain or shoot to maim, but we don't need a reason,
The Golden Goose is on the loose and never out of season,
Blackened pride still burns inside this shell of bloody treason,
Here's my gun for a barrel of fun for the love of living death.
The killer's breed or the demon's seed,
The glamour, the fortune, 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,
The napalm screams of human flames, of a prime time Belsan 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.
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,
To the tune of starving millions, to make a better kind of gun.
Holy pretentious old coots, batman!
Sent from your iPad.
If you ever need to explain to your kids what masturbation is without getting too graphic, you can point them to this story.
Just doesn't have the same sound.
Best Slashdot Co
This is it! This is the answer. It says here... that a bolt of lightning is going to strike the clock tower at precisely 11:54pm, next Saturday night! If... If we could somehow... *harness* this lightning... *channel* it... into the flux capacitor... it just might work. Next Saturday night, we're sending you back to the future!
Shouldn't the clock always be at midnight since the climate is always changing and always has changed.
One would assume that a group, consisting of > 12 Nobel laureates, would abandon the Doomsday Clock for something less obscure and meaningless.
I'd like to know how the origional designers chose to measure probability in terms of 'minutes to midnight'. It makes my head hurt.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
I think 4 minutes is more like it. Seems like it should be a little closer to midnight.
SIX MINUTES? God, are you telling me that I have 3hours36 minutes GMT to live? And you forgot to tell me you insensitive clod!
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Six minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes, Doug E. Fresh you're on!
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.
So does having a degree makes the laureates make them more or less credible then the crazy bum on the corner?
Once again Professor Farnsworth's work has been overlooked by the scientific community.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
From the article: [quote]Citing collaborative efforts by world leaders to reduce nuclear arsenals, secure nuclear bomb-making materials and pledge to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the group said the world was facing a "hopeful" state of affairs. The Bulletin also said that the election of President Barack Obama, along with his efforts to initiate arms reduction talks with Russia and negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, affected its decision. [/quote] Why does this sound more like it is about short-term political points rather than deep points about the fate of humanity?
In the span of roughly two decades we've gone from the most minutes until midnight (17 in 1991) to being 7 minutes from total annihilation (which is where the clock started at in 1947). So we're back at the default setting of the clock which is 7 minutes until midnight. Does that seem right? That we are in the same situation now, regarding our proximity to doomsday, than we were in 1947?
Think about that, the clock started at 7 minutes to midnight in 1947, a time when a global nuclear threat was far less realistic (as only one nuclear superpower existed). Now six decades and a few years later we have multiple countries, competing and even rival nations, that have nuclear weapons, and we have terrorists and militants who would love nothing more than acquiring a nuclear weapon, not to hold as a deterrent mind you...but to actually use.
Factor in that we have pandemics like AIDS and are always being warned of something like the Spanish flu coming back (swine flu hysteria). We have massive environmental catastrophes occurring, fish populations decreasing rapidly, and a growing water shortage.
For the threat of nuclear weapons alone the clock seems awfully inconsistent.
If they really wanted to help us, give us a universal timestamp in reverse so we can sit and watch the end coming in real time. Keeping a clock stationary for several years really doesn't excite the masses.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
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.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Why is this listed under science? They’re just a bunch of fear-mongering wackos with an agenda.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
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.
Sweet! Well, I think they've deserved their Nobel Peace Prize award, what do you think, guys? Hmm, yep. See you at the ceremony.
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.
Tisha Hayes
Who watches the Watchmen?
Nobel laureates or not, these people are dimwits.
For over sixty years these guys have been messing with this clock, and for sixty years they've been wrong every time. Why do they think anyone cares what they have to say now?
Microsoft leads to Bluescreen; Bluescreen leads to downtime; downtime leads to suffering.
Why would nuclear weapon reduction have any bearing on doomsday scenarios? Sure, a full nuclear exchange would have drastic global impact, but if something is going to end life on earth, it will be either a) A massive impact from a meteor, or b) a massive gamma ray burst from some nearby star unexpectedly going full nova. And, I somehow doubt that either of these events are being actively prepared for.
So why again were they moving the hands on their non-quantifiable imaginary model clock again?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
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 worse.
"I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as a photograph of oxygen to a drowning man. "
What?! Are you telling me that the Watchmen isn't coming true? And I spent all that time getting a rutherford-style hydrogen atom tattooed on my forehead and dyeing my skin blue. Next thing you'll be telling me that I can't go out fighting crimes wearing a mask or making love to women while working on a fusion reactor at the same time... I do get some looks walking down the street so maybe the prejudice part is right though.
The inevitability of bird brains. Perhaps our future will routinely involve recalibration, or will chime like musical chairs. If not a nuke, perhaps a comet, or just a sudden stall, like a snooze alarm. 5 more minutes....just a few moments more.
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.
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?
That was the real concern with Saddam...
HAHAHAHAHAHA, no.
Nobody with half a mind was afraid of Saddam either getting his hands on or developing a set of nukes. Absolutely no one.
I would place it closer to midnight. With the obvious onset of climate change in many parts of the world, the devastating rift between cultures, to companies like Monsanto genetically modifying food and patenting it, we humans are closer to extinction than ever before. Western societies, especially the USA, have completely lost touch with reality. We live in a fantasy world created for us by rich--therefore powerful--corporations. Just look around. Companies like Goldman Sachs just got away with swindling billions and billions of dollars from US taxpayers and the masses don't even have a clue what happened. All they want is their cellphone to work and genetically modified microwaveable "food" product stuffed in their mouths. Almost the entire human race should get the Darwin award next year, we've certainly earned it. For god's sake, the very fact that linux still hasn't "made it to the desktop" should be alarming in itself. The next 50 years are going to make the cold war look like a fucking paddy cake contest.
Because Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is somehow less at risk now that 2007? Because Iran is somehow farther away from nuclear enrichment than in 2007? Because Russia and China have both become friendlier with the West since 2007? Hmmm.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
You use your barometer; I'll use mine.
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.
It's not getting any FUD-dier than the doomsday clock.
Did they move it back because global warming is a hoax? Or because the world now has less niggers because of haiti?
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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I suspect that their formulas and/or intuitions (whatever the source of their declarations) are nowhere close to being more precise than what a minute hand can represent.
> It will be great destruction, but only for the involved nations.
And for anyone downwind from the fallout...
Would you like some help?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
So... this is a clock that only moves when you manually move it's hands with your own hands?
How useful. Where can I buy one of these devices?
I guess my question is: Why are they using a clock at all? What the heck does midnight have to do with anything? Why not a count-down mechanism with red LCD display, like hollywood attaches to all those bombs? At least the object would relate to what their trying to say.
I agree with what I think the common sentiment is here: this is just stupid and the minutes value has no comparative meaning.
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 nations, and small climate effects reaching much further. While that would have a death toll similar to the world wars, that would not be an apocalypse any more than either of those wars were. It would truly suck as the civilian death toll would be insanely high, but the world would move on.
Worldwide nuclear war and annihilation of most intelligent life on Earth was a distant possibility even at the height of the Cold War (the US and USSR both had way too much to lose), and now I'd argue the odds are about as close to 0 as they can get without us colonizing other planets.
They need a watch with a second hand, millenium hand and an eon hand.
Or for that matter, read any of the prevailing paradigm regarding nuclear weapons and deterrence. The more countries that have them, the less likely nukes are to be used. In fact, according to Waltz in his article "Nuclear Myths and Political Realities"(APSR 1990), he finds that, when states have nuclear weapons, the probability of major war between them approaches zero. The presence of nuclear weapons forces the participants in a conflict to find a way to DEESCALATE the conflict, rather than escalate it. Now, what he finds as destabilizing are not nukes themselves, but rather defensive systems designed to destroy nukes.\
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
They are sure going to look silly if the world ends tomorrow.
for fucks sake, the US is out-of-hand rejecting North Korean offers to negotiate for a full peace treaty
Sounds like someone needs to do a little research on this topic and come to grips with the motivations, cultural and political differences between the nations before making such a wildly inaccurate statement.
Sounds like someone assumes I didn't do research just because I didn't publish my full comprehension of, and reflection on, that research in a one-off Slashdot comment. Or it sounds like someone assumes that I'd come to the same conclusions as them from said research, presumably based upon "motivations, cultural and political differences between the nations[sic]".
yeah. these are among the smartest people in the world and they pick a clock? they know that they want to let it sit in one place forever, maybe move it back if they are happy, and they pick a clock?
I would have picked the doomsday thumb and index finger illustration with some copy that read, "Doomsday is THIS close."
or a pie chart.
those wounderfull pink pills...
*SCNR*
It is a silly metaphor these days.
I work night shift (11pm-7am) you insensitive clod!
/citation required
"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
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
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
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
I don't think you know what citation means.
This is how the nukes will end the world.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
I do not think it means what you think it means.
How would you propose I provide valid citation that demonstrates that I have researched the subject matter being discussed? I didn't make any factual claims besides that.
I say we just move it to 3pm and call it good.
I think this applies to the conversation so far:
See Troll. See Troll Roll Right Over You. Roll Troll, Roll.
to cull the population and advance the human race in general, thermonuclear war is necessary.
look how far japan has come since that wake up call.
was assassinated in Serbia and then it escalated.
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina actually. Which was a part of Austria-Hungary at the time.
He was shot by Gavrilo Princip, an ethnic Serb, born in Bosnia, who considered himself a Yugoslav(ian).
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... they explode in the middle of New York.
Should something similar happen in Tokyo it would be considered business as usual.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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)
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. Watch his face. He is near tears.
No - they knew exactly what they were doing.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The Universal Bullshit Thermometer crawled ten degrees higher today.
This picture is no more nourishing to the intellect, as a picture of oxygen is to a drowning man.
It's exactly like the clock at work: it doesn't move for what feels like years, and when it does, it's only a little bit. Also, it's operated by Nobel laureates.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
but where did i go?
I'll bring the popcorn one last time
"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.
46 & 2
I stand by Dr. Manhattan on this one.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein