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The Doomsday Clock Is Reset: Closest To Midnight Since The 1950s (npr.org)
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has taken the unprecedented step of moving the Doomsday Clock ahead 30 seconds, taking the world to two-and-a-half-minute to midnight. The scientists said Thursday that several factors weighed heavily in their decision, particularly climate change denial by people in power -- they cited U.S. President Donald Trump -- and talk about more nuclear weapons. From a report on NPR: The setting is the closest the clock has come to midnight since 1953, when scientists moved it to two minutes from midnight after seeing both the U.S. and the Soviet Union test hydrogen bombs. It remained at that mark until 1960. "Make no mistake, this has been a difficult year," Rachel Bronson, executive director and publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said as the new setting was announced Thursday.
This is a meaningless metric. There is no such thing as doomsday. The World is not a clock. You are OK. Breathe out.
Climate change is not doomsday nor does it in any way compare to nuclear holocaust. It is a different climate, one in which humans and life can continue to prosper. Comparing that to total destruction of half of the world while the half would have to live in nuclear fallout for thousands of year is just a joke.
Pay attention to us!!!!!111111
Back 20 years ago when each and every thing wasn't politicized. This doomsday clock used to actually mean something.
Potassium Iodide
Anybody? Please care about us again!
One step closer to playing Fallout in real-life!
Make some arbitrary metric from an infinite series of divisible time units, politicize it, and call it "science".
And no, "advancing" the "clock" is hardly an unprecedented event.
And people call eschatology a dubious methodology.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I find it rich how scientists masquerade their opinions as facts. If the facts are so important, why don't you present facts?
Same thing goes for the stealth editorialists in the media, prostitutes who look down on prostitutes because they're prostitutes, etc.
Happy is the man who walks a straight path.
This is nothing more than a way for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to protest against Trump's environmental policy.
No "Science" behind the reasoning of what they set their doomsday clock at.
This sounds like someone's way of expressing personal disdain for different political situations.
Particularly climate change denial by people in power -- they cited U.S. President Donald Trump -- and talk about more nuclear weapons.
Climate change in the short term is as inevitable as continued population growth.
It's not too important whether people in power acknowledge it; It's going to happen.
If you want to stop climate change, then make human populations stop growing and start declining
in countries that consume the most energy per person, And build nuclear power capacity, LOTS of
nuclear power capacity.
Created in 1947, the Doomsday Clock was conceived by scientists who had participated in the Manhattan Project. Initially seen as an indicator of the likelihood of disastrous nuclear conflict, it now also includes other threats, such as climate change, biological weapons and cyberthreats.
The more stuff they throw in, the less this thing means.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
"Over the course of 2016, the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity's most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change ... This already-threatening world situation was the backdrop for a rise in strident nationalism worldwide in 2016, including in a U.S. presidential campaign during which the eventual victor, Donald Trump, made disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change."
Liberal group of pseudo-scientists tries to instill fear of Trump...
Color me shocked.
I can't wait for another 4 or 8 more years of this.
Not.
PS - Overblown "Oh noes! Trump has unhinged me!" hyperventilating is just going to make him immune to legitimate criticisms, as the signal-to-crazy-noise ratio will be too low to get attention
With the end of the Cold War, and the last chance that the world would need their "wisdom" to avoid dying in nuclear annihilation, the pitiful Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has been trying to maintain relevance.
"Pay attention to me!", they cry. "We still matter!"
They really need to just accept that the Cold War is over, and move on.
That's one way to make people mistrust science, by politicizing it. This is an example for why it is not a good idea to blindly trusts scientists. Everyone has an agenda to push.
Your boy Trump is already fucking everything up, his inner circle doesn't agree with him on many subjects and keep having to clean up after the messes he keeps making on Twitter and in the press, and the final sign that this overgrown 70-year-old baby is not living in the Real World, is his obsessive insistance that there was 'massive voter fraud' on the scale of millions of votes -- and if you actually believe that nonsense yourself, then you need to be checked into a mental institution, because you're delusional (if not outright psychotic). Trump is melting down mentally right before our eyes. Before the 2020 gets here, the Doomsday Clock will probably be less than a minute to midnight -- assuming we make it that far -- unless of course someone assassinates the fat sonofabitch (we can always hope).
Just 30 seconds to go.
This signature is false.
President Trump and Putin are cultivating a bromance and somehow that puts us closer to nuclear war?
This stinks of propaganda.
Look for NPR's reporting to become more desperate as their funding becomes threatened.
What a fucking joke.
I have no respect for these guys; they simply use their scientific credentials to promote their own political prejudices. These people are so ignorant, they still believe in a Malthusian catastrophe.
I think The Onion puts it pretty well:
Doomsday Clock Pushed To One Minute To Midnight After Arby’s Threatens Launch Of 3-Cheese Jalapeño Beef ’N Bacon Melt
http://www.theonion.com/articl...
Am I confused, or the word "unprecedented" is wrongly used in this article? Wasn't the clock already moved to this time once in 1953?
Yeah because the US and Russia are the only two nations on the planet with nuclear weapons and are the only two possible targets for the use of nuclear weapons!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Mexico's currency tumbled as a result — are you sure, it was Trump, who got embarrassed by the cancellation?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What happens when they fall out? There is nothing more dangerous than a woman scorned! How do you think Trump will react when Putin says "it's not you, it's me... can't we still be friends?"
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Mexico has repeatedly said it won't pay for THE WALL that Trump wants to build for $20B. If a push comes to a shove, Trump could always nuke Mexico City. That would fix immigration issues on the border for a long time.
This is a *Doomsday* clock, yes? As in, something that measures how close we potentially are to Doomsday - that is, an event that leads to the total extinction of the human race.
Can anyone - anyone! - say with a straight face that we are closer to that scenario right now than we were, say, at the height of the Cold War? That was a period when two nuclear superpowers were genuinely considering launching thousands of nuclear warheads at each other; where one bad day might literally end the species.
I don't disagree with the assessment that the world has become less stable recently. I think the prospect of some rogue dictator or terrorist group setting off a nuclear bomb is high and increasing. However, the retaliatory aspect is missing: If Russia had nuked New York, America would have levelled Russia in response. One nuke would have lead to thousands. But if, say, ISIS nukes New York... what target is there to hit back at? Any response would almost certainly be in the form of conventional weapons. There would be chaos and war, sure, but not outright extinction.
The truth is, we are waaaaay further away from Doomsday than we were in the '60s.
-- Note to Mods: There is a good reason there's no "-1 Disagree" option. --
A nuclear wasteland would actually be an improvement to most of mexico
God, it sickens me that I have to defend trump, but there is so much BS on this. :
It amazes me that so few on the far left pay attention to what is really happening.
1) Putin is invading numerous areas for controlling them. Putin shows that he has no issues with taking what is not his. That is OK.
Putin threatens the west with nuclear war, and that is OK.
Trump (and unknown) gets into office and then we have nuclear war issues that are as bad as 1953.
2) China is not only emitting 3-5x the amount of CO2 that America does, but they continue to grow at a frightening rate (check OCO2, not chinese gov numbers).
Trump gets in and says that he will help Coal. Yet, wind already costs less to run than coal does or can. And solar continues downward. IOW, coal really can not be expanded.
Then Trump is talking about letting America export oil/nat gas. That will increase America's nat gas on the market, BUT, all it will do is lower the prices elsewhere. IOW, it will not increase the burning of it, or any more CO2.
So, exactly why is this moved now, and why is this blamed on Trump?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
NPR is reporting what Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are saying, nothing more.
Sadly, you far righties are so full of lies and BS, that you blast some of the best and ONLY 2 sided reporting that is going on.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
putin will come by for nighttime hook-ups at Trump's hotel and then leave him a couple of billion here and there?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Because then we would be on midnight, as she would have started nuclear war with Russia. Thank GOD Trump was elected to avoid that.
Yeah, except that even Trump's detractors say that he has a better relationship with Russia than Obama ever did. If Trump is Putin's patsy, why would he push the big red button?
Because Trump is demonstrably unstable, and won't always get his way (even with his butt-buddy Putin)
If these scientists continue to use the Doomsday Clock to express their political opinions they're going to have to start adding more minutes to the clock.
Here is something interesting.
Here is a little article about it.
But, so many here, have such knowledge of the world and what it is all about.
Shesh. How the fuck does ACs with no intelligence get modded up?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A least most Slashdot folks appear to see through this tripe. Be nice if the editors eventually figure it out.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
She wanted to establish a no fly zone in Syria that would risk conflict between the US and Russia. They seemed to be more willing to go to war over a hack than over the invasions of their friends and allies.
Can anyone - anyone! - say with a straight face that we are closer to that scenario right now than we were, say, at the height of the Cold War?
Absolutely. At their worst, the Soviets and Americans during the cold war were always rational, had their own self-interests as nations and world powers clearly in mind, and dealt with facts, not self-delusional made up fiction.
That can not be said of either party today. Putin puts his own interests ahead of those of his country's, and Trump deludes not only his followers, but himself, with made-up facts supporting a deluded, demonstrably false word-view. This is not a recipe for stability, or even sanity, when it comes to dealing with crisis or conflicts, and so does put us at a significantly higher risk of nuclear war than at any other time in our history, with the possible exception of the Cuban missile crisis (and we are arguably worse off now, because both Kennedy and Khruschev were at least rational human beings who lived in the real world and understood the consequences of what they were doing).
Congratulations, America. The world thanks you for electing the Tangerine Imbecile.
If they add thirty more seconds we'll start to hear a particular Iron Maiden song a lot more on the radio.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Impossible for me to not hear Two Minutes to Midnight when ever this is mentioned. This is from the 80s when the threat was real. Today's announcement is just a bunch of domestic politics. Also, get off my lawn.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
So, this is basically like when they awarded a Nobel prize first to Al Gore and then to Obama (in his first year in office) just to make sure to remind everybody how much they hated George Bush (and Republicans in general)?
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
The primary author of the Middle East study which inspired the CNN story you linked to says the CNN story is bunk. 8N other words, their own source says they are full of shit.
The study's actual conclusion, the author says, is that once every 30 years there may be one six-hour period in which people shouldn't be outside. If they can't go inside, they should get wet (wade in a stream, hose off, whatever).
Currently, normal highs in the southern region of the gulf are around 50C (122F). It's always been pretty damn hot there. People know to either go inside or wet their clothing when it's extremely hot.
If it's meaningless then why did all of the senior level management of the US State Department quit yesterday? It's an unprecedented exodus and should be a signal to the world that we are about to be an erratic, unpredictable nation.
The US is only a few years away from becoming like 1990's Soviet Union.
Let me get this straight: A scientific community is using arbitrary and varied social climate factors to predict the end of the world. I'll put my faith in Chicken Little.
The BAS has *always* been a purveyor of FUD (or as they themselves characterize their tone: Failure, Peril, and Fear): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Their Doomsday Clock has been a meaningless bit of political theater that only is publicized when Left-Leaning media need to attack a (generally Right-leaning) president, congress, or leader for something they don't like. They were casting about around the end of the Cold War in fear of their sudden irrelevancy, but fortunately (coincidentally, I'm sure) Global Warming has a taken its place as a new 'sky' they can confidently predict is 'falling'.
It is, literally, nothing.
-Styopa
I guess what strikes me as amusing is that there are people that actually get paid to sit around and write this stuff.
The late 50s were, in retrospect, pretty close to omnicide. JFKs crew were shocked that SAC command had decided they could launch the Sunday Punch if they felt like it. But closer than the Cuban Missile Crisis? Really?
I'm no Trump fan but, barring some insane Generals (that you Curtis?) convincing him to first strike China because [ insert Trump joke ] or some insider knowledge that Putin has taken to meth we're no closer than we were last year. Even NATO v Putin in the Baltics would stay conventional because everyone, arguably besides Trump, is smart enough to know that limited becomes full scale and the end of the world includes them and their children. Or maybe Pence rapture blahblahblah ... nah ...
And you're not even "a few people".
Oh gee...a "republican" comes into office, and the clock is set closer. A liberal comes into office and its set back. This group of concerned scientist is nothing more than a bunch of PHD types who've never worked outside the academic settings in private industry. They are book smart, common sense STUPID.
There are ways Trump could force Mexico to pay short of war. They just have unfortunate consequences.
He could, for example, put a large tax on remittances. Mexicans living in the US, legally and illegally, send a lot of money back to Mexico. This would create serious diplomatic trouble though: There would be immediate and irresistible pressure on the Mexican government to respond somehow, which probably means legal action of some sort. There would be riots in Mexico. People would die. Somehow, I don't think Trump cares. If Trump announces this, expect Bitcoin to shoot up in value and shady back-street money transfer agents to flourish.
He could also go one step further, and simply seize assets. Confiscate the homes and bank accounts of Mexicans living in the US, and the assets of Mexican businesses with a US presence. This would destroy international trust in the US, but leave the Mexican government with no choice but to bail out the affected.
He could hold illegal immigrants hostage: Throw them into the most miserable hole of a prison he can, make sure a few of them die in there, and demand a payment from Mexico per immigrant returned.
For anyone else, such extreme measures would be unthinkable. But this is Trump: Normal rules do not apply.
taxpayer-funded Leftist propaganda outfit NPR hypes the propaganda from leftist "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists". Is there something here that is NEWS????? This is not a "man bites dog" story.... it's a "dog bites man" story.
BAS has been hysterical during Republican presidencies and passive during Democrat presidencies for as long as it's been around, and while itt has always been terrified by weapons in the hands of American and Brits, it has never been particularly alarmed by the weapons in the hands of Russia, China, Pakistan, India, North Korea or Iran.
Where were all their extremely terrified alarms over the Norks going nuclear? {crickets} They were not particularly alarmed because that would shed a bad light on Bill Clinton and those weapons would be aimed AT Americans rather than BY Americans.
Where were all their extremely terrified alarms over Iran going nuclear? {crickets} They were not particularly alarmed because that would shed a bad light on Barack Obama and those weapons would be aimed AT Americans rather than BY Americans.
These very dishonest and anti-American trolls were big supporters of American disarmament and "nuclear freeze" policies during the cold war but never spent any effort on a Soviet disarmament or a Soviet nuclear freeze. If they'd had their way, the cold war would still be underway, Germany would still be divided, Poland would still be under Soviet control, and MILLIONS of people would have less freedom. These clowns at the Bureau are EVIL.
In other news, psychics by any other name can't see into the future any better than a turnip can. Liberals still wetting their beds. Film at 9:00.
I thought it was almost lunchtime.
Damn!
Have gnu, will travel.
He could, for example, put a large tax on remittances.
There are proposals to confiscate all remittances to Mexico. Nobody cares about screwing over illegals. But Mexican-Americans will file lawsuits left and right.
For anyone else, such extreme measures would be unthinkable. But this is Trump: Normal rules do not apply.
Or Mexico could declare war, deliberately lose with minimum causalities, and Trump will have no choice to annex Mexico into the United States of North America. That would take care of the existing border problem.
Nuclear bombs have always been a threat to world peace and stability. Somebody needs a new tact because the fear is not large enough, not enough bombs so we gotta add Presidential beliefs and global warming.
Great! I'm looking forward to Nuclear War. It'll help with population control. Just think of all the jobs for Americans if we nuke Mexico for NOT paying for the wall.
And if we nuke the middle east, that'll mean our oil is more valuable.
Now if only we can nuke America's welfare population without affecting the rich, who do all the work in this country.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The study's actual conclusion, the author says, is that once every 30 years there may be one six-hour period in which people shouldn't be outside. If they can't go inside, they should get wet (wade in a stream, hose off, whatever).
This is the Trump era. Facts are not permitted to ruin a perfect doomsday scenario. Next thing you will be saying that Trump misrepresented a Pew study about millions of illegals voting for Hillary in California and New York.
I'm saying it's 50/50 we gonna do this baby! Popcorn and Tequila for all!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Let me get this straight: during the cold war the fear of nuclear attack basically boiled down to the idea of "We could all die at any moment!" and everyone being firmly convinced of it.
How is this different from every day life?
The truth is that death could come for us all at any moment already.
Thermonuclear war is much less likely because those in charge of pushing the little red button have reasons to not push it.
Entropy is killing you slowly every moment as errors add up in your DNA.
The dice are rolling every time you get into your car to commute to work.
Slipping and bashing your head open in the shower is a statistically measurable possibility.
Hell, just sitting here at a desk for half the day is statistically the single most deadly thing I could be doing yet I do it every day!
If we're concerned about our continued ability to breathe then I suggest we ignore some blowhards and their phony clock analogy; we've got much more pressing issues to be concerned about.
I guess the people in charge of the doomsday clock are still under the influence of the gloomy picture that Mr Trump painted about the situation of the USA and its population in his inauguration speech. I never knew you people had it quite so bad and I've seen some Michael Moore "documentaries."
Adults don't pay much attention to it. But kids don't know what politics is and so it ruins their young lives.
That damned thing ruined the 80s for me.
When the world climate data gets adjusted, or there's a down turn in the temperature, the climate change deniers are quick to point out that climate change isn't really a thing. In response the climate change believers are quick to jump all over that by pointing out it's a long term trend and brief downturns don't change a thing.
The doomsday clock has been going to hell since 1991. Just look at the graph and numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock. In 2015 alone it dropped 2 minutes. 2 MINUTES! Not a mere half a minute. I've forgotten now, who was president in 2015? Oh right, not Trump.
It's clearly obvious that the trend has been going heading to midnight for more than a decade. Yet Trump, who has been in power less than week, is suddenly the reason for it.
Damn! You Americans are one whiny bunch of sore losers...
Brings us closer to a nuclear war than a person who DOES? That make no sense to me...
Where are you getting that from? He has publicly said he wants to nuke the middle east I would say that clearly counts as wanting war.
when daylight savings time ends.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Im so fucking scared now! The entire Rothschild propaganda network is spouting this "News" today!
the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating Slashdot troll!
More people die from cold waves than from heat waves. And higher CO2 increases crop yields. Deserts over the past 30 years have been shrinking as atmospheric CO2 has risen. The theory of increased CO2 leading to increased hurricanes hasn't panned out. So where's the threat to humanity here? Shrinking property values for coastal mansions?
Climate change changes resource availability. Particularly water. If areas that once had water no longer have water
Except that is exactly backwards as to what happens as the earth warms. A generally warmer climate means water evaporates more quickly. If you believe that oceans are gong to rise significantly, that means even more surface area with water to evaporate more quickly...
Some weather patterns may change but overall there is more, not less, water as the climate warms.
If natural disasters increase linked to climate change
Which they aren't.
widespread homelessness and unrest.
Some areas being more like San Francisco is not doomsday. Perhaps they will get trendy toast shops.
Climate change has upset the status quo many times over history.
Again how is that doomsday? It is change, but it is certainly not an event that means the destruction of everything. It is something slowing down, and something starting anew.
Climate change whether man made or natural always upsets the status quo... but now we have nuclear weapons.
Not everyone, and the ones that do are generally stable enough not to use them because of shifting changes. Except of course for Iran but you can ask Oabma why he thought it was a good idea to make sure Iran would have nuclear weapons.
Oh and North Korea, but come on. They aren't shifting anywhere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
More Stockholm Syndrome panic from the globalist Borg.
to 0bama threatening Russia by moving US troops into Poland?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
Maybe because I grew up Fearing The Bomb, but temperatures going up a few degrees and water levels rising a bit just doesn't provoke the same emotional reaction as global thermonuclear war.
And then there is the destruction of crop yields and other damage to agriculture. And there is also the reduction of fresh water because of droughts.
And then there is the mass migrations of people looking for resources and food.
And of course, that WILL cause wars.
Anyone thinks migration is a problem now, wait till things start heating up more. I'm middle aged so, I'll be on my out when it starts getting bad.
But the short shortsightedness of you and other people are condemning our children to a world where they will not have our way of life: it'll be much worse.
And they'll look back and wonder how we could have been so stupid.
Doomsday clocks interestingly enough seem to have very narrow operating ranges.
Furthest from 100% (Doomsday) this particular clock has ever been was 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 @ 98.8% of the way till doomsday.
Now it's 2.5 minutes or 99.8% of the way to doomsday.
Do these wonderful PhD scientists really have objective scientific information they believe is able to inform predictions able to discriminate between 98.8% vs. 99.8% distance to doomsday or have the hands been driven primarily by random noise since the clock started ticking?
"Hillary was openly hostile with Russia, and while I doubt it would have reached the point of increased risk of nuclear war, Russia still has real nukes, so you never know. Trump on the other hand is, if anything, too friendly with Russia."
Consider very recent history. George W. Bush ran his whole campaign in 2000 on a "compassionate conservative" platform, including that we needed to put America first, not being involved in foreign adventures, stop telling other countries what to do, etc. But he was a dimwitted cowboy wannabe who had no capacity for a real commitment or follow-through to that. He surrounded himself with belligerent neocons like Cheney and Rumsfeld and gave them incredible power. He spent the summer of 2001 saber-rattling at China which turned out not to be the actual brewing threat. Then we did suffer an actual attack on 9/11 and bam, within 24 hours he's freaked out and flipped to the exact opposite; global alliances, regime change, and a philosophy of first-strike invasions if needed around the globe. Before his term was done he'd started two separate intercontinental wars -- one having entirely nothing to do with the attack on us -- which have proved to be the longest in American history, and still not done after almost two decades now.
That is the proven historical result of a fundamentally dumb, belligerent, yahoo, volatile commander-in-chief. It's easy to predict; this is the standard reaction of a chaotic, short-attention-span bully. Sometime in a quiet space ask yourself this: Is Trump truly more or less volatile than George W. Bush?
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Trump wouldn't nuke the Middle East because of the fall out for Israel.
I'd see even more military aid to Israel as well as support of her policies.
I wish he would Nuke Jerusalem, say he's the hand of God, and be done with it. That ancient shithole causes more problems than the ancient artifacts there are worth. And many of those artifacts are nothing but crap invented in the Middle Ages for getting money out of wealthy pilgrims. It was Disneyland in its day. Fighting over shows the idiocy of religion and tribalism.
the furthest we have **ever** been from 'midnight' is seventeen minutes, in 1991.
The closest, two minutes, was in 1953 when "The United States and the Soviet Union test thermonuclear devices within nine months of one another."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock
Trump won. Get over it.
No, it's been moved forward because the man who is now president of the United States of America, a very heavily armed nuclear power, that has stated it is "at war" with terrorism, where terrorism is sourced from a fairly distinct group of countries, has said:
And in response to this remark by interviewer Matthews...
Trump said:
That's a "holy shit, the man is outright insane" remark. Period. That's not why we make them. We make them because of MAD; which is to say as a deterrent against others using them. Russa, China, even stupid little North Korea shoots them off, then we guarantee we will shoot ours off in response. IOW, whoever uses them gets to meet their own particular sky-daddy. Or hellspawn, as the case may be.
In response to interviewer Bolling, who said, in the context of using nuclear weapons:
Trump responded:
In both cases, after he said these things, he walked them back. However, he said them, and given the usual word salad he spews, they have to serve as a window into his attitudes. You can only pick out individual remarks in Trump's meanderings; he presents incoherent verbal streams when taken more than a sentence at a time (which is why Twitter kind of works for him... he has to limit his remarks to 140 characters. It provides the structure he is incapable of providing for himself.)
Interviewer Dickerson:
Trump responds:
Let's just be perfectly clear about this: No sane person wants the USA to be "unpredictable" about its policy for use of nuclear weapons. This is a window into the fact that Trump is a fucking idiot. Not just any fucking idiot, but THE fucking idiot with his finger on the button. He's insane.
This is the root of the problem. Trump's obviously not like previous presidents. So people are paying very, very close attention to what he says. And there are times when what he says is very, very worrisome. As above.
So yes, there's a reason people are thinking we're closer to the use of nuclear weapons, and that reason isn't a dislike of Trump; it's just actually listening to what the man has said on the subject. A sane person would not make the remarks Trump has made. Simply would not. He is visibly, obviously, and frighteningly batshit. And he's the guy who can shoot them off. If it's North Korea he decides to make glow, or some little Arab country, we might not see an escalation; then again, we might. Perhaps if we fire, Israel will too; perhaps Russia will feel it needs to step in. Pakistan. India. Etc.
It's also worth noting that Trump has spent the last two years making severe economic threats in China's direction. China is another nuclear power, and they are not like us in their thinking. It is not wise to severely piss off people you do not understand -- and it is patently obvious that Trump does not understand China at all. I mean, quite aside from the demonstrated fact that he doesn't understand why we have nuc
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Everyone seems to be attacking or defending the clock along thinly-veiled pro/anti-Trump lines. Let's pause for a moment and start a discussion about the underlying state of the world the clock is supposed to represent. To help with this, here's a short list of why the clock moved closer to midnight, taken from the 2017 Clock Statement written by the scientists who made the decision to move the clock:
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
You're telling me that giving Iran hundreds of millions of dollars and freeing them from the requirement to bury all nuclear work somehow magically prevents them from developing weapons? You've drunk the coolaid. Nothing in this agreement has, in any way, hindered their nuclear activities. It has reduced the cost.
but, but, inspectors, you say. Really? Given 42 days, you can't clean your room and make it nice like mom wants it? Are the inspectors allowed to watch what comes in and out in the notification period? Who picks what the inspectors may and may not see? The Russians were more open and honest about their nuclear weapons program in the 60's and 70's than the Iranians are now. You're a naïve fool, and deliberately, willfully so.
They eat each other.
You wouldn't be familiar with "The Mouse that Roared" by any chance?
The Doomsday Clock has always been bogus. It is a political stunt. It always was.
Are they political scientists who know to predict wars? Sociologists and feminist reaserchers? Are they statisticians? How would they do the prediction given the fact that global doomsday never happened?
What are they except a bunch of pundits who disagree with something.
The world is no closer to nuclear annihilation war then yesterday.
I feel like the Doomsday Clock is an artifact of the Cold War and another era entirely. It was used to "take the temperature" of the Cold War. Since the Cold War has ended, seems to me that the Doomsday Clock has outlived it's usefulness.
And this is in spite of Putin, Trump, and all the nukes still in the arsenals.
Also, "Doomsday Clock" is hopelessly dark and negative. Gee, if we hit 12 Midnight on the Doomsday Clock, does that mean we just started a Doomsday War? Via a clock?? And this is in spite of the Doomsday Clock supposedly reflecting political tensions, not causing them.
Maybe it's time for a new symbol.
whining for your attention by creating fake news using a long-standing icon of fake news.
and again and again and again. Why have these loons never gotten the Nobel Peace Prize? Guess they aren't socialist enough.
You wouldn't be familiar with "The Mouse that Roared" by any chance?
One of my favorite Cold War movies.
Daylight savings time or Standard?
You are wrong. He DOES NOT want to nuke the middle east. He only wants to nuke muslims. Big difference. For one thing, muslims are not human.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
Putin, unlike the United States, hasn't invaded shit. If Russia illegally overthrew the government of Canada, can you say with a straight face that the American response would have been so restrained as to accept southern Ontario - if it overwhelming voted to join the U.S.?
Iran's stance against nuclear weapons is why Iran isn't seeking a nuclear weapon, as even Israelis will admit.
Competent at what?
She didn't do ANYTHING well, and covered her own arse for deliberately breaking the law.
What are these wonderful achievements that you attribute to The Secretary Of State-sponsored Terrorism ?
According to the Mayans, we've already had doomsday.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
Yawn,...
The doomsday clock used to signify the risk of all-out nuclear war as perceived by people who developed the first nuclear weapons.
Those people are all dead, and now the closk signifies the risk of climate change as perceived by scientists who like to be politically active.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
I am a big fan of that quote, mostly I guess because I remember and know the past so much better than most people - especially you.
We know that warming does not increase disasters - there will always be floods and large storms, warming or not. It's important to remember that weather is not climate!
Also we remember from history, that the Medieval Warm Period was one of amazing prosperity for Europe, along with greatly increased agricultural yields.
Perhaps before bringing up the past, you should seek to understand it better yourself.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's closer, however not because of Trump. He moved it back probably to just 6:00 PM. However North Korea is trying to get the H bomb, want us to believe they have one and they're exporting this knowledge to bad countries, such as Iran.
Hillary while she was Scty of state worked out a deal for Russians to get Uranium from Canada - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/0... (NY Times because so many of you don't believe anything else). Now they're giving it to Iran - http://www.foxnews.com/world/2... .
We know they want bombs. We know they can do it. What could go wrong, right? Mad Mad Mad world folks.
I was there in the '50s and '60s, and that clock was about the danger of nuclear weapons.
There is no way that the danger is anything like it was then. Or do you personally have a fallout shelter?
The doomsday clock has been taken over by a bunch of political types that define "the world ending" as their candidate losing... 8-{