Doomsday Clock Moved Two Minutes Forward, To 23:57 216
An anonymous reader writes As reported by CNN and Time, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved their famed Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight. Now at 23:57, this clock attempts to personify humanity's closeness to a global catastrophe (as caused by either climate change or nuclear war). According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, this change is due to a lack of action regarding climate issues, the continued existence of nuclear weapon stockpiles, and the increased animosity that now exists between the United States and Russia.
IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
its horseshit scare tactics that dont work anymore over nonsense bullshit that has no leg to stand on
so who cares, move it to 1 am, doesnt mean a damn thing
Re:IMO (Score:5, Funny)
Nuke the doomsday clock!
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We are already 20 minutes into the future [maxheadroom.com] of that clock.
Re:IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
In the days when the Doomsday Clock was published by actual atomic scientists, it measured their perception of how imminent the Cold War danger was. The end of Communism cut the Doomsday Clockers adrift, much as Salk vaccine did to the March of Dimes.
So are the SJWs who found this thing in the attic and dusted it off advancing the clock because of carbon, or because of Islam? Let me guess...
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Salk was done in by too much vitamin c.
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Climate Change Deniers have taken to calling themselves Skeptics precisely because of this negative connotation to our cause, just as AGW proponents changed to talk of Climate Change when they saw that Global Warming was no longer winning over the masses with their fear-mongering.
Yep, it is hilarious considering that those deniers are part of the religious right (often stating their reason for denying climate change is something about god). To them, skeptics have the negative connotation. I guess they can't ask for people to believe their claims "on faith" anymore.
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Climate Change Deniers have taken to calling themselves Skeptics precisely because of this negative connotation to our cause, just as AGW proponents changed to talk of Climate Change when they saw that Global Warming was no longer winning over the masses with their fear-mongering.
Yep, it is hilarious considering that those deniers are part of the religious right (often stating their reason for denying climate change is something about god). To them, skeptics have the negative connotation. I guess they can't ask for people to believe their claims "on faith" anymore.
Wrong on both counts.
First, your revisionist history does not match recorded history. Most of the people you call deniers have ALWAYS labeled themselves skeptics. There are some just plain disbelievers, who disbelieve based on faith. But the majority of them follow the actual science.
Second, most of these skeptics are NOT right-wing religious fanatics.
Both of these myths have been promoted by the True Believers: the alarmists who can't back up their claims with real science.
The recent declaratio
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It is a bit telling when they consider themselves "skeptics" of climate change only, and take a bunch of other stuff on faith.
Well I suppose that doesn't include the people that claim to be skeptics of science itself. I don't know what confusion of ideas leads to that conclusion.
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Your an idiot
No, "you are" an idiot.
Re:IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
its horseshit scare tactics that dont work anymore over nonsense bullshit that has no leg to stand on
so who cares, move it to 1 am, doesnt mean a damn thing
Uh, I could be spitballing here, but maybe, just maybe, the original designers of the clock felt that humanity should fucking care.
Or perhaps it was created to point out that they should. It's not called the Bake-A-Cake clock.
And don't get me started on horseshit scare tactics. Politics have caused more panic and damage with global warming than 10,000 clocks ever could.
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Theres also the problem that if you were to predict that there was a 99% chance that the world blows up today, MAYBE someone will believe you. Predict that for the next 20 years, and youre sort of nuts if you think anyone will take you seriously.
Re:IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
"so who cares, move it to 1 am, doesnt mean a damn thing"
They'll do that in March anyway.
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its horseshit scare tactics that dont work anymore over nonsense bullshit that has no leg to stand on
so who cares, move it to 1 am, doesnt mean a damn thing
I had no idea the doomsday clock was still a thing. The last I heard about it was way before the Berlin Wall fell. This is clearly a PR stunt to try to remain relevant in a world that no longer worries about Soviet ICBMs raining down.
Oh yay, more about the bullshit clock (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, when something says that we are so close to destruction for over half a century... well you have to wonder why anyone would put any stock in it. It is a bit hard to reconcile with being on the edge of destruction, and yet everything continuing to not be destroyed.
Re:Oh yay, more about the bullshit clock (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently we're closer (23:57) to an apocalypse than in any time during 1960 - 1984. This includes the Cuban missile crisis.
^^Winner (Score:2, Insightful)
The idea of the Doomsday clock being closer than the cold war is silly.
Take the clock, put it in the trash. Disband the committee. Perhaps the symbol helped awareness during the Cold war but this is just a joke now.
Re:^^Winner (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia is a democracy.
Ha, good one Trollston! You had me there for a minute.
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Hmm... well, when you ignore the definition of democracy and use the good ol' school metric of "grading by average"... They might even get away with a C-
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They might even get away with a C-
For what? Voting in a dictator counts as a democracy, does it? The Russians dabbled in democracy, and then rejected it.
In the context of an English-language forum, modern democracy means a multi-party parliamentary system with rule of law, as invented by the British. Without an effective opposition, the parliament becomes a rubber stamp for the executive, and politicians stop caring about votes. In some countries this can work better than a multi-party system, but it functions very differently from a dem
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Yeah, democracy in the Western sense, where you only have two parties
No, thats just the US, and other countries with first-past the-post voting system.
they are both stooges to the corporations and have no real power.
Talking about the US again? Though that is only a relatively recent development.
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So tell us, when did the US have a system that effectively allows more than 2 parties to exist? Aside of the few transition periods where parties died out and new ones emerged, there has never been a 3+ party system.
The last time a candidate in a presidental election won a state was 1968. The last time a non DemRep came in second was Roosevelt in 1916, though one may dispute whether that "counts" considering that he WAS prez before. But we might as well count it since there has not been a single other occas
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I don't know a lot about the US. But of course it has always been ruled by the elite - the founding fathers were from the 1%, and the "revolution" was just a change of management that did nothing to benefit the common man. But while fearful of mob rule, they felt a greater duty to the commoners than today's politicians seem to. (or at least the white commoners)
The recent development I think is the power of the corporations, rather than just wealthy individuals. The corporations seem to have less
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The idea of the Doomsday clock being closer than the cold war is silly.
Considering that the doomsday didn't eventuate during the cold war then it is not necessarily wrong to say that it was closer then than now. The main difference between the danger being face now and then was that back then you didn't have a huge segment of the population disbelieving the experts who said that the world was in danger. Nobody was so stupid enough to say that just because people died before the atom bomb was invented that it means that bomb couldn't be responsible for killing anyone now (to ad
Re:^^Winner (Score:4, Insightful)
Which one isn't? Even though I'd debate the intelligence of some agencies, but the first part?
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Well, I've been listening to the BBC's history of the first world war, particularly how it started in the first place. What was just some useless (and lucky!) Serbian terrorist turned into a European catastrophe remarkably quickly through a chain of events based on one country not liking another country and manoeuvring the situation to give them an excuse for local 'peach keeping' annexation.
At the same time I was listening to how Russia was entering the Ukraine "to keep the peace", even though they were no
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Peach keeping?? If that was all they wanted, we could have shipped them Georgia's (the State, not the country) entire supply rather than have to deal with a world war....
Re:Oh yay, more about the bullshit clock (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you know the most dangerous drivers are not those who have just gotten their license, but those who have had a bit of experience? The reason is that new drivers are all too aware that they're one bad decision away from being gruesomely killed, while those who have driven for a while let their guard down because "nothing's happened so far, so nothing ever will".
This is true for dangerous acitvities in general. Someone who's handling boiling acid for the first time will make damn sure to think what they're doing. Someone who's done it a hundred times is busy thinking what they'll be having for lunch. And then acid gets somewhere it shouldn't, and suddenly things get very exciting again.
We haven't been destroyed because we've been very lucky. During Cuban missile crisis American ships actually dropped depth charges on a nuke-carrying Russian submarine. The captain and the political officer were all for launching it in retaliation, but the idea was vetoed by Vasili Arkhipov [wikipedia.org]. And it's not the only time humanity's fate has hung on the decisions of a single person.
And of course this is all ignoring the possibilities of, say, biological warfare advancing technology is bringing to within reach of even non-state actors. You may not have noticed, but some of these actors are nowhere near as rational nor benevolent as the Soviet Russia of old.
Finally, the dawning of the Information Age is challenging whole new facets of human capacity for evil. Hypocrisy is quickly becoming impossible as privacy continues to erode. At the same time, anonymity serves to strip away pretensions of civility and expose the grinning skull beneath all too many faces. With Industrial Age, the choice was "cease warring or die"; with Information Age it's "stop being hypocrites or have your souls crushed". Given that it took two world wars to get humanity to the point where we had any chance to survive harnessing the power of the atom, I shudder to think what it'll take to prepare us for omnipresent computation.
We're running a gauntlet, a purgatory forcing us to choose between our shadow or increasing amounts of pain. Every aspect of our existence is being confronted by its shortcomings like never before, for there are no more second chances. Humanity will either demonstrate it has mastered its dark side before it will master nature and reach the stars, or it will send itself to oblivion so more worthy beings might inherit them instead. It's not two minutes to midnight, it's Judgement Day.
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Have you ever insured a car? It's a while back, but I'm pretty sure my premiums went down in the first few years, not up.
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When things are good, does the clock ever move back?
Yes. [thebulletin.org]
Global warming = doomsday? (Score:3)
you have to wonder why anyone would put any stock in it.
Especially given that they now track global warming. Nuclear war is a doomsday scenario but global warming is most certainly not. It may cause economic hardship and the displacement of populations as sea levels rise plus the need to alter crops etc. but it is not going to wipe humanity off the face of the earth. Since the clock is supposedly set by scientists if they can be so wrong about something scientific then I have little faith they can predict the likelihood of nuclear war either given that this dep
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It certainly won't knock 'humanity off the face of the earth' but it could well cause significant population and natural resource competition.
Guess what two of the most common reasons for human warfare are?
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Nukes are generally almost completely unhackable as they use technology designed during the cold war, no networks, no commercial interfaces. They're probably far more vulnerable to social hacks than technological ones.
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So Crimson Tide rather than Scorpion?
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And, amazingly enough, we are safer because of it. [wikipedia.org]
Fear (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Fear (Score:4, Insightful)
or alternatively - go do something already!
Looking at all the smart(ass) comments on slashdot gives me hope that 'living in harmony and peace' is not beyond our intelligence capabilities as the human race (how hard can it be?!?). Somebody just needs to kick the cynics' collective butt.
Fair try with the clock. 7/10.
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I run a refrigerator 24/7 with the door open. If everyone did the same, we would significantly cool the planet.
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I run the AC backwards to cool the outside in the winter. Does that help as much?
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you can't boil this down to one variable (Score:4, Insightful)
maybe when it was just the US vs USSR this might have been almost workable but at this point you really need a different clock for every nuclear power.
And short of that, this stupid clock is meaningless.
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Why? There's a hundred ways I could die in the next year, but there's no problem aggregating it so I don't see why the clock can't represent total risk. Besides, it's probably going to cascade anyway. If Russia pulls the trigger in Eastern Europe then NATO will get involved, China probably don't want NATO forces on their borders and at least somewhat back Russia and might decide the time is right to take back Taiwan and those Japanese islands and it all goes down hill from there. IS has openly stated their
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And that's just where it sparks, if you could guess that the rise of Hitler would lead to the attack on Pearl Harbor your crystal ball is good.
The two weren't correlated so your crystal ball would be broken.
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You can't distill complex information down to a single variable. If you could, then you could see everything important in front of you with ONE pixel.
You can't do that. Accept that it is complicated and deal with the complexity. Do not pretend you have magical powers that allow you to boil down very very complex datasets into a single variable.
That is a big issue with the whole AGW debate. One temperature for the whole planet is unreasonable. You need to break the data out and show the regional surface data
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I agree the anti nuclear lobby is composed almost entirely of idiots on a level with Jenny McCarthy's vaccine conspiracies.
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I also suspect that the part of the antinuclear movement which is not composed of idiots is composed of oil companies.
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More likely coal companies. Coal is the real competitor to nuclear.
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I got a better clock (Score:5, Funny)
It's always set to 4:20.
Balderdash (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Balderdash (Score:5, Insightful)
Make that was given, regardless of if you are an Obama supporter or not, you must admit many of the resasons he was given the prize so early in his presidency were not based on actions, but based on campaign promises that never came to passs.
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Obama got it for not being Bush, which at the time was a major step forward for world peace.
Re:Balderdash (Score:5, Insightful)
Has world peace made a major step forward in the years Obama has been President? No. In fact by abandoning Iraq before they were ready Obama fostered the Islamic State which we will be spending the next few presidencies working on.
Obama was indeed handed the NPP for not being Bush but that says more about the NPP's political leanings and how irrelevant the NPP is than anything else.
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It's more like us invading Iraq fostered the Islamic State. Sadam's army would have crushed the IS had they tried invading Iraq with him in power rather than running away as today's Iraqi army did. Not only that but we lost a great counter weight to Iran by taking Sadam out and set off wide spread inter-ethnic / inter-faith violence in the region which has only helped the IS advance.
All Obama did was end our misguided and arrogant attempt at nation building
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Oh sure, Obama is the prince of peace. He won the NPP, closed Guantanamo & left Iraq in a state capable of dealing with IS.
By cutting and running Obama abandoned the partnership with the Sunni tribes that were the main reason violence in Iraq went down to the level it did as Obama took office. In doing so, Obama created the power vacuum that birthed ISIS. But of course some will blame Bush for everything bad in the world.
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It's only apt to blame Bush if you chose to ignore Obama's mistakes. But of course Obama won the NPP so for people like you, he can do no wrong. Bush's actions had repercussions, but the rise to power of IS is almost purely Obama's responsibility.
Obama, by cutting and running - getting out as fast as he could, surrendered sovereignty to the Al-Maliki Shiite government who promptly declared the heads of the allied Sunni tribes terrorists and refused to integrate the sunni tribal members (as promised) into th
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Wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
When did they add climate change to the Doomsday Clock and what makes the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists experts on how much closer global warming puts us to global catastrophe?
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what makes the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists experts on how much closer global warming puts us to global catastrophe?
They have a consensus.
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Understand, I don't disagree that global warming is a serious global threat. I just wonder why atomic scientists are judging it's relative danger.
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They're allowed to have an opinion, too, and they are scientists, after all, which means we might actually want at least to consider what they have to say. We're free to disagree with them, but we really should have some good reasons for that.
Those who aspire to become nuclear physics do not study a "nuclear scientific method"; they learn how to apply the scientific method to the field of nuclear physics. Folks who want to become climate scientists do not study a "climate-scientific method"; they learn how
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Don't get me wrong, I value their opinion. But if suddenly I found out that odds of an earthquake were added to the National Weather Service's hurricane warning system I'd be asking the same question.
The clock has always been about the odds of nuclear annihilation. Saying it's now also about global warming makes no sense.
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Sadly, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is against using fission for producing electricity, which, along with large-scale hydro, is the only way to actually reduce greenhouse gas without impacting quality of life.
Endings (Score:2)
Well, that's what I want to talk to you all about; endings. Now, endings normally happen at the end. But as we all know, endings are just beginnings.
You know, once these things really get started, it's jolly hard to stop them again. However, as we have all come this far, I think, under the circumstances the best solution is that we all just keep going. Let's keep this going in sight, never an ending. Let's remember that this world wants fresh beginnings.
I feel here, in this
Galaxy Quest (Score:2)
Wasn't that a scene in this movie where the self destruct timer continued to count down to :01? In spite of the correct code being entered. Because all self destruct timers seen in movies are disabled with only moments to spare for dramatic effect.
Three minutes... (Score:2)
to miiiiiiid-niiiiiight!
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Re:More Global Warming Alarmism!!!!!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Global warming is a hoax.
Try to separate reality from politics. Al Gore and the rest of the billionaire elite may well be using Global warming as an excuse to keep us peons down yet such actions are independent of and speak nothing about whether global warming itself is occurring nor does it shed any light on what potential consequences if any may be. These are things that require careful research and consideration to arrive at an understanding that isn't completely worthless.
It is possible to concurrently agree with a climate prediction while strongly disagreeing about what should be done about it.
A wealth redistribution program
Gasoline is a wealth redistribution program if ever there was one with hard earned dollars going to fund cartoon empires with medieval sensibilities all around the globe.
The claims more and more outrageous. What's next? Amber Alerts over gasoline guzzlers? EPA patrols at night to enforce a driving curfew or carpools?
Doubtful "elite" have appetites for things which also negatively affect them. Taxing shit they dislike to death so peons can't afford is more their style.
Want to stop 'man made' global warming? Kill yourself. End overpopulation. Starting with the UN and every politician.
As an agent of the Aschen confederation you should demonstrate more patience.
Re:More Global Warming Alarmism!!!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
A wealth redistribution program
Gasoline is a wealth redistribution program if ever there was one with hard earned dollars going to fund cartoon empires with medieval sensibilities all around the globe.
Yeah. But with gasoline. You get...gasoline. Something for something.
With "carbon credits" you get...what? Some guy going "Good for you dude! And thanks for the cash!". Something for nothing.
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Yeah. But with gasoline. You get...gasoline.
To the AC who missed this most important half of the gasoline "wealth redistribution program", you fail economics. To the moderator who modded Chas's post as "troll", get off my internet. This is a basic observation about the oil trade that everyone should acknowledge from the start.
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Amongh many other things, with carbon credits you get less CO2 pumped into the atmosphere
Really? HOW?
What evidence do you have that the company selling you the "carbon credit" is actually DOING anything.
Basically what you're doing is the same thing you're doing when you drop something in the offertory at Mass.
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Why the bickering about whether it's man made or natural? I honestly don't want to resolve the question on whether someone set my house on fire or whether lightning hit it while it's still burning, first I want it extinguished, then we can find out what caused it!
Re: More Global Warming Alarmism!!!!!!!! (Score:2)
No, but you can prevent its effects by using a lightning rod.
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Well, there is a way. But my lawyer said it's still illegal. And it's still likely that someone would keep me from doing it forcefully.
I'll just wait 'til at least the latter doesn't apply anymore.
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You just did.
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Re:Be a scientist and look at the data (Score:5, Informative)
Which sex is responsible for the vast majority of crime?
That's a good question. Women are likely convicted less when guilty [wikipedia.org] (read also following section) so it's impossible to say.
Which sex has the most deadbeat fathers?
And now we see how surveys are conducted.
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And now we see how surveys are conducted
"Not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those" - Sir Humphrey Appleby [youtube.com]
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Which sex has the most deadbeat fathers?
Is this a trick question? Something from Common Core?
Was I left behind as a child?
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Which race is massively over represented in prison? It isn't Asians.
Americans. At least the last time I checked.
Re:Wow you sure showed me! (Score:4, Insightful)
Genes aren't the only things that are hereditary. Many behaviors are learned from the environment rather than being innate to a person's biology.
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Reasons.
Re:What a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, there's a left now in US politics? When did that happen?
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Well, then maybe you can point me to the US left?
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What have you found that's better thanks sex? Heroine?
No, you can have sex with a heroine. The word you want is heroin. HTH, HAND.
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What have you found that's better thanks sex? Heroine?
Heroine's are OK under the proper circumstances but they tend to be all bossy and in charge of things, after all, they are the heroes.
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We were told in something like 2005 that unless there was action X within 4 years then we would be heading to disaster.
No, we were not told that. Your assertion is simply a lie. Global warming happens over a much longer time period than this. There is not one single climatologist who would make such an absurd statement as to predict disaster within 4 years.
Re: sponsored links? (Score:2)
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I've actually written a comment about this [slashdot.org] and it's doable today, with crypto-currencies.
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Sure, I always run with that option enabled, and get a lot fewer ads. But pissing and moaning that a high-karma perk isn't 100% effective is pretty poor form. Slashdot is a business venture after all, not a public service. It needs to make a profit somehow.
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Even .orgs need to pay the bills, and they can get quite high on high-traffic sites. So, either it's a vanity/public service project that somebody is paying for out of their own pocket, advertising material for an organization that generates income elsewhere, a charity (how often have you made a donation to keep the lights on here?), or it needs to generate income.