doomsday clock

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Is there anything morepointless than this [expletive] stupid thing?

Hey, [expletive], if it hits midnight and we're still around it's wrong. If the world ends and it's not at midnight, who cares. Further, humans are capable of killing most living things on land, probably the majority of them in the ocean too, but they assuredly do not possess the power to end the world.

[sighyoung]

I think it had more relevance during the Cold War, when it reflected superpower tensions and changes in American and Soviet arsenals. I hadn't thought about it in years, to tell you the truth.

[Radbird]

Was it re-set on 12/22/12? What's the new doom date?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

http://news.yahoo.com/end-near-doomsday ... 47095.html

The hands of the infamous "Doomsday Clock" will remain firmly in their place at five minutes to midnight — symbolizing humans' destruction — for the year 2013, scientists announced today (Jan. 14).

Keeping their outlook for the future of humanity quite dim, the group of scientists also wrote an open letter to President Barack Obama, urging him to partner with other global leaders to act on climate change.

The clock is a symbol of the threat of humanity's imminent destruction from nuclear or biological weapons, climate change and other human-caused disasters. In making their deliberations about how to update the clock's time this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists considered the current state of nuclear arsenals around the globe, the slow and costly recovery from events like Fukushima nuclear meltdown, and extreme weather events that fit in with a pattern of global warming.

Couple things. 1) 5 minutes til is not a 'quite dim' outlook. There are only 8 positions the clock can be in: 7 minutes til, 6 minutes til, 5 minutes til, 4 minutes til, 3 minutes til, 2 minutes til, 1 minute til and of course midnight though if it strikes midnight, I'm assuming we're all dead so really there's only 7 positions. So, yeah, that's not a dim outlook. 2) Are scientists actually paid to do this? Seems like a pretty easy job. You have one question to answer that doesn't ahve a right or wrong answer and it's a multiple choice question. 3) Fukushima happened in 2011, guy. It is not presenting any threat of 'imminent destruction'.

[AdmiralKird]

Bump. We're still sitting near the brink of nuclear Armageddon.



http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/us/doomsday-clock-feat/

The Iranian arms deal apparently means nothing.

The group of scientists behind this aren't helping. They're harming their own case against the valid concerns of climate change by turning this into almost a PR maneuver that fuels the right wing "Scientists are just looking for attention" rhetoric.

There's no way this clock should sit anywhere so close to Cold War levels, let alone place us closer to doomsday than during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Felix The Cat]

From Wikipedia -

The Clock is not set and reset in real time as events occur; rather than respond to each and every crisis as it happens, the Science and Security Board meets twice annually to discuss global events in a deliberative manner. The closest nuclear war threat, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, reached crisis, climax, and resolution before the Clock could be set to reflect that possible doomsday.

I'm also not sure that this harms the fight against climate change at all. If anything, it seems like the scientists in charge of the clock are voicing their concerns that current efforts to combat climate change are still not enough. Right wingers don't believe in climate change anyway - if they weren't bashing this, they would be attacking the notion of climate change elsewhere.

[IMADreamer]

All I know is that guy in the picture has a really punchable face.

[Donnie Ebert]

It does seem like an odd thing to be smiling about.

[MrSaigon]

Oh man, on my phone before zooming, I thought that was Andy Samberg and Amy Poehler. And you have to admit, that whole scene looks like an SNL sketch.