from Hacker News

Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

by alphonsegaston on 1/25/18, 5:19 PM with 70 comments

by PopePompous on 1/25/18, 5:46 PM
It's depressing to see adults participate in such a stupid publicity stunt. Their silly clock was at 7 minutes to midnight during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Does anyone think we're in a more dangerous moment now than we were then?
by jMyles on 1/25/18, 6:17 PM
Stories like this are the reason that I think that the following headline format is rightly banned from HN in the future:
"Scientists <verb>."
Nobody cares that "scientists" did something. We care about the science of what they did, sure. But this is a built-in appeal to authority that seems completely anti-hacker to me.
by elmerfud on 1/25/18, 5:26 PM
"I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as a photo of oxygen is to a drowning man"
by mLuby on 1/25/18, 6:07 PM
A clock is such a terrible metaphor. It only moves forward. And it moves forward despite any actions humans take. If anything, it is slightly better suited for climate change.
What they should be doing is providing a confidence level of nuclear war, eg 3±2% chance of nuclear war in 2018.
Furthermore, conflating nuclear apocalypse with other existential threats to humanity (climate change, disease, asteroid, gamma ray burst, vacuum decay, etc.) is at best confusing. I guess a general "5% chance irrevocable extinction event begins in 2018" would have some value, it would be far better to report on individual extinction vectors so we can prioritize countermeasures.
by tambienben on 1/25/18, 5:51 PM
>The group also cited concerns over public distrust of political leaders and the media, saying it is drawing away from the focus on real threats.
So... depending on how they meant to word that, are they seriously wagging their finger at the public for not blindly falling in line behind this unprecedented, petty shit-show? That's an impressive amount of hubris.
by ghostbrainalpha on 1/25/18, 6:04 PM
On a completely unrelated, but way less scary note....
"Doomsday Clock #3" is out today from D.C. comics.
It's a mega event that crosses characters from Alan Moore's The Watchmen with more traditional D.C. characters like Batman and Superman. I'm enjoying it quite a bit even though its exploitative and somewhat tarnishes the legacy of the greatest comic book of all time.
by badmadrad on 1/25/18, 6:04 PM
These "intellectuals" complain and have these elaborate demonstrations about a destabilizing world all the while doing everything they can to create FUD and usher in that world.
by PopePompous on 1/25/18, 6:00 PM
The Ig Nobel Prize people really should honor this group.
by creaghpatr on 1/25/18, 5:27 PM
The Doomsday Clock is the Advent Candle of Scientism.
by martin1975 on 1/25/18, 6:28 PM
I feel like this clock has been asymptotically reaching midnight now for the last several decades and will do so for at least several more decades if not longer. In other words, it's about as accurate as predictions of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
by kbutler on 1/25/18, 6:57 PM
2 minutes to midnight in 2018:
"The world has seen the threat posed by the misuse of information technology and witnessed the vulnerability of democracies to disinformation."
2 minutes to midnight in 1953:
"from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization."
https://thebulletin.org/timeline
Are they being secretly ironic, giving an example of "fake news"? (To be fair, the longer statement is more detailed than their summary.)
by Balgair on 1/25/18, 8:59 PM
For a 'fun' exercise, the NUKEMAP is illustrative on the effects of these horrific devices. Try dropping various payloads on your location to have a peek at what is at stake.
To note:
NK's latest public test would kill ~33 mi^2. Not a lot of fun.
The US's Castle Bravo kills ~1,400 mi^2, most of the DMV region.
The USSR's Tzar Bomba kills ~6,600 mi^2, nearly the entire LA basin.
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Pro-tip: The button sizes don't matter
by Alex3917 on 1/25/18, 5:32 PM
I wonder if the Doomsday clock correlates at all with the sales of EMP-proof bags. (I also wonder if EMP-proof bags actually provide any non-trivial level of EMP protection.)
by lagadu on 1/25/18, 6:05 PM
This is pathetic. It's not even a "doomsday" clock, it's a "a couple of random countries go to nuclear war with each other while the rest of civilisation watches and cleans up after they're done" clock.
Sure, it'd be remembered in history books forever and up to hundreds of millions would die but this wouldn't even register on a "doomsday" scale.
by dkonofalski on 1/25/18, 5:27 PM
Cue the Iron Maiden...
by KillerRAK on 1/25/18, 6:23 PM
The Mayans applaud the efforts of these scientists.
by thrillgore on 1/25/18, 9:54 PM
How many minutes have to remain before we take drastic action to stop the nuclear sable rattling, and ignorance to the climate???
by ataturk on 1/25/18, 5:24 PM
Does it ever move back? I mean, I've read this same article a half dozen times over the past 20 years or so and I keep wondering what kind of clock it is that is perpetually 5 mins. to midnight but can move two minutes forward all the time and yet NEVER REACH FREAKING MIDNIGHT?
by ebbv on 1/25/18, 6:12 PM
Aye carumba the comments on this article are a cesspool.
If you don’t think the way Trump and Kim Jong Un have been interacting is a reason for concern I don’t even know what to say to you.
And the point of this isn’t to make people panic, it’s to point out how dangerous of a situation we are in and maybe get people to think about it and change course in some way.
by louithethrid on 1/25/18, 5:40 PM
If it were not for nukes, the people moving the clock would be drafted and clock materials used to build a cannon in world war 5.
So much for percived danger and actuall danger.