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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.
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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.
So does having a degree makes the laureates make them more or less credible then the crazy bum on the corner?
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?
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.
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
"I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as a photograph of oxygen to a drowning man. "
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?
Absolutely no one.
Lies. Bedwetting neocons sure as hell did.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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
This is how the nukes will end the world.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
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.
...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 came from doom and gloom predictions involving the death of someone they actually cared about: themselves.
And of course, we didn't take his word for it. Instead, we (ie, the US, the UN, and Europe partially separately and partially jointly) had inspectors, convert intelligence, spy satellites, and analysts to check on his activities. And even though Saddam repeatedly kicked out the inspectors, all the collected intelligence left most of Europe and the UN convinced that while Saddam had desires for chemical and nuclear weapons, he was still being effectively sanctioned against actual acquisition and construction of them. Even the US intelligence was sketchy at best, at best implying he might have some of the components necessary to construct either chemical or nuclear weapons, but that he was not an imminent threat (ie, it would take at least a few years to get to the point of actually constructing such weapons, even under the most optimistic circumstances and known intelligence).
That is quite so. Having said that, if you're willing to acknowledge that the US should be the policeman of the world, you should also be for the US joining the ICC (unless of course you believe the US should effectively become the judge and jury of the world as well). As well, neocons should have been quite honest in their intentions to seize Saddam for crimes against humanity instead of bolstering a rather fictitious threat. Of course, seizing Saddam wouldn't have required invading Iraq or toppling the government per se**, although it might have been necessary to maintain stability in the region.
*My understanding is, under international law, it was illegal in Europe and the US to sell chemical weapons (or more specifically, WMDs (chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons)) to other countries. However, if a chemical weapon required components A, B, and C, the US could sell to Iraq difficult to produce component A, a European country (I think France was one that did this) could sell to Iraq difficult to produce component B, and Iraq could buy or produce component C relatively trivially. In short, the US and Europe conspired to provide Iraq with chemical weapons in their fight against Iran. Now admittedly, the US and Europe didn't do this to specifically help Saddam facilitate gassing his own people (although at that point, both the US and Europe knew that Saddam wasn't above things like torture, killing his own people, etc), but the main reason the sale of WMDs are outlawed by treaty by so many countries is WMDs are indiscriminate, mass killers (admittedly conventional explosives are too to an extent...which is why there's been a lot of international push to ban the sale or use of anti-personnel mines and things like cluster bombs); ie, the US and Europe apparently wasn't overly concerned about mass Iranian civilian deaths. So, I'd say they were partially morally culpable regardless of Saddam's actual target.
**Saddam was, in many ways, effectively the government, but one of his sons (presuming they weren't arrested as well) or another person in his regime (again, all those who weren't arrest
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
"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.
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