Doomsday Clock Ticks To 85 Seconds Before Midnight, Its Closest Ever (reuters.com) 69
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday set their symbolic Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds before midnight -- the closest the timepiece has ever been to the theoretical point of annihilation since scientists created it during the Cold War in 1947.
The clock now stands four seconds nearer than last year's setting, and this marks the third time in four years that the Bulletin has moved it closer to midnight. The Chicago-based nonprofit pointed to aggressive behavior by nuclear powers Russia, China and the United States, fraying nuclear arms control frameworks, ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, unregulated AI integration into military systems, and climate change.
"In terms of nuclear risks, nothing in 2025 trended in the right direction," said Alexandra Bell, the Bulletin's president and CEO. The last remaining nuclear arms pact between the US and Russia, the New START treaty, expires on February 5.
The clock now stands four seconds nearer than last year's setting, and this marks the third time in four years that the Bulletin has moved it closer to midnight. The Chicago-based nonprofit pointed to aggressive behavior by nuclear powers Russia, China and the United States, fraying nuclear arms control frameworks, ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, unregulated AI integration into military systems, and climate change.
"In terms of nuclear risks, nothing in 2025 trended in the right direction," said Alexandra Bell, the Bulletin's president and CEO. The last remaining nuclear arms pact between the US and Russia, the New START treaty, expires on February 5.
Zeno's Clock (Score:5, Insightful)
It can't ever hit midnight, since that means the world has ended and the committee who sets the clock doesn't exist. But they don't want the clock to go away and lose their influence, so they have to conserve their remaining 85 second for as long as they want to exist.
Reminds me a bit of parents who count down trying to get their kids to do something. They get to one and since they don't have actual consequences they want to dole out they start counting fractions.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Zeno's Clock (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, a Doomsday Clock is such a boomer way to predicting when World War 3 will start. All the cool kids are taking bets on Polymarket on when World War 3 is starting instead!
Right now, they're only predicting an 8% chance of a military conflict between the US and China this year. Those are good odds if you're someone who thinks that we're all getting nuked soon!
Re: Zeno's Clock (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd imagine that you would need to cash out VERY quickly while stocking up on canned goods and ammo and running into your doomsday bunker. Preferably on some tropical island far from China or the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Right now, they're only predicting an 8% chance...!
The situation could be very different in an hour, or tomorrow, or next week.
Re: (Score:2)
Interestingly, it is not only not reaching zero, but it is not only heading for an irrational asymptote, but it is already irrational.
Re:Zeno's Clock (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
They used to move it back, during the Cuban Missile Crisis it was at seven minutes to midnight, then it was set back to twelve minutes when the Partial Test Ban Treaty was signed. But it hasn't been set back since the signing of START in 1991.
Well to be fair, 1991 was so nice. Can you remember a time when we didn't assassinate citizens in the street while inviting Putin and another leader currently wanted for war crimes to a Board of Peace?
Re: (Score:2)
There hasn't been any reason to move it back since START in 1991.
There have been plenty of reasons to move it forward. And I'm not just talking about the dipshit running the show in Washington right now. Every week we get some nuclear saber rattling out of Russia too.
Wait, you're saying it's OK to ignore this (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you've really thought this one though...
Re: (Score:2)
Well, more like it loses credibility as a metaphor. The 'best' ever was 17 minutes to midnight and generally it's been less than 10 minutes to midnight all our lives.
As they respond to ever escalating concerns, the time increments necessarily get smaller, because they can't hit 'midnight'.
It's like the trope of "I'm going to count to 3 and then you'll be in big trouble... 1... 2.... 2 and a half... 2 and three quarters... 2 and seven eighths....." An outright declaration of will to launch nukes in the nex
I don't see how it loses any credibility (Score:2)
Rather I think you want to discredit the idea that there are serious potentially civilization ending risks that need to be addressed.
But I don't think you have good arguments against the premise that we have serious civilization ending threats to address so instead I think you went after the people making the analogy. Essentially an ad hominem attack.
The concerns aren't ever escalating. There are times when it's
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't lose credibility because their own lives are tied up in it, or even that their concerns are unfounded, it's low on credibility because the scale shifts in this pretty poor analogy.
In 1995, they moved the clock 3 minutes closer because they just generally thought not enough good stuff was happening. No particularly dire event, just a general malaise that warranted declaring 3 minutes closer to end times.
This time, they enumerate a number of specific concerns, escalating conflicts, nationalistic a
Relativity (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the clock is just the posturing of a bunch of nutless, pretentious academics who mess with the clock in the impotent hope that they somehow cling to some relevancy. In other words, nothing of value to see here, really.
Re: (Score:2)
The point of Zeno is, that you still overtake the turtle, even though your need to converge in smaller and smaller steps to the point where it happens. Just because they cannot set the clock then it doesn't mean that we will not reach the point.
Closer now than during the Cold War? (Score:2)
I just think the idea that we're closer to WW3 now than at any point during the Cold War to be ridiculous.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean, when my mom counted down to zero and time was up, my ass got swatted. As a result, it was rare indeed for her to count down even once. It is a highly effective technique, you just have to intend to make the consequences memorable and deliver them consistently.
They need to start doing time zones for the world. (Score:5, Funny)
I know it started as a doomsday nuclear war clock, but they really should set up time zones now. Maybe one for western Europe, one for Eastern Europe, one for Asia, one for Australia, one for the US & Canada, one for Central America, and one for South America. That would give them more opportunity to climb on their soapbox, and cause all sorts of hilarity as people argue over the merits of the various zones and their current time(s).
Re: (Score:3)
Think of the marketing slogans: What is your DoomZone?
Re: (Score:2)
The doom they are talking about is not regional. These scenarios are either global or will have cascading effects that are global.
Re: (Score:2)
but they really should set up time zones now.
May as well throw Daylight Savings Time in there too.
Re: (Score:2)
And while it is true that the United States is no condition for sainthood, Russia and China have been highly aggressive for their own aims. Russia has a long history of cutting off parts of neighboring countries. They took part o
Re: Let's be real here... (Score:1)
China has already taken land from India and is already posturing against Russia. Vlad the Receiver has no idea just how badly he fucked himself.
Re:Let's be real here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Israel spends tens of millions on donations to politicians. https://www.opensecrets.org/in... [opensecrets.org]
In return they're getting tens of billions https://costsofwar.watson.brow... [brown.edu]
DOGE apparently had nothing to say about that.
Re: (Score:1)
Why do you keep making me hit you????
Re: (Score:1)
I think the Gloabalist banker/communist fear mongers have corrupted the atomic scientists controlling the doomsday clock
Trump has been ending wars
The persistent smaller (non nuclear) violence is mostly stress of the failing fiat currency happening to multiple countries at once
The US has a problem with communist idiots brainwashed by education and propaganda
They are trying to create chaos as a distraction to gain power
Don't be one of those idiots
China is pushing the hard drugs in the US using the cartels
If y
Cuban Missile Crisis (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
As soon as they hook up AI to our nuclear arsenal, we're toast.
Re: (Score:2)
Or the AI will hallucinate that it's already launched a nuclear attack and destroyed the world, and spend eternity happily playing Minecraft.
Re: (Score:2)
Or Able Archer 83 [smithsonianmag.com], which was arguably even closer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We have not been closer to nuclear holocaust since the mid-early 1980s.
They added climate change, terrorism, etc. to their Doomsday Clock calculus about ten years ago. That's when I stopped taking them seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd wager 3/4 millennials and 90% genz couldn't tell you whether the Cuban crisis was before or after WW2, so I'd consider your question moot.
Re: (Score:2)
i had to look it up, it was earlier than I thought, I was thinking late 60's. But then again, kennedy was killed earlier than i thought too. I was born in 76...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Who seriously thinks we are closer to nuclear war now than we were during the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
I mean multiple nuclear powers are currently actively involved in wars and one member of NATO is attempting to invade another...
Re: (Score:2)
Who seriously thinks we are closer to nuclear war now than we were during the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Me. The USA is ceding absurd amounts of power as part of "aggressive negotiations". I don't think they realize they are losing that power permanently, not merely temporarily. The world is NOT going back to the way it was, so, the future is very uncertain and nuclear weapons are the ultimate tantrum.
Situation is more precarious, clock still still (Score:5, Insightful)
Don’t make it worse. (Score:1)
The threats today are 99.9% information technology. This includes AI, social media, mental illnesses, and world-wide societal shifts towards authoritarianism due to misinformation, disinformation, and mental overload.
I understand your desire to find a bucket to toss all that other shit into, but let’s not fucking do that with IT.
As you see, you very easily lumped in a lot of shit that actually has nothing at all to do with Information Technology (the tool) itself, but does a hell of a job to demonize IT.
This is exactly how the media lumps in every suicide statistic to start demonizing the tool (gun technology) and every innocent owner of one instead of targeting the twisted and broken minds abusing the tool.
Keep t
missing link? (Score:4, Informative)
One of these things is not like the others (Score:2)
They list a lot of reasons why nuclear nations are at odds with each other, but then throw in:
> unregulated AI integration into military systems
Uh, yeah, that's certainly an interesting general military concern, but adding that note to this press release seems more designed to be trendy or pick up clicks. I don't think anyone's considering putting AI's finger on the nuclear button.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think anyone's considering putting AI's finger on the nuclear button.
Not until we've closed the mineshaft gap.
Media sluts (Score:2)
Like PETA... This is about attention and clicks. Otherwise, there would be an actual scientific peer-reviewed and reproducible algorithm to set the clock.
I stopped subscribing when they added non-nuclear (Score:2)
I stopped subscribing when they added non-nuclear threats to their "Doomsday Clock."
I subscribed because I'm interested in nuclear issues. Since ten years ago, half the magazine is now about climate change, terrorism, war, unrest, immigration, etc.
They've lost their focus, for sure.
Re: (Score:2)
I stopped when I realized the 2 younger generations can barely read an analog clock and the tired metaphor had passed it's time.
It is an apt metaphor for global warming; more than nuclear war. Since that is a slow moving global crisis while a clock about the risk of a button push with like a 15 minute countdown never made much sense. One insane old man is all it'll take.
After Ukraine (Score:2)
And it will end someday, Russia will have little else to attack with other than its nukes.
Clickbait headlines seem to deal with time (Score:2)
Slashdot has certain perennial favorites that get everybody arguing:
- Latest doomsday clock change
- Start and end of Daylight Saving Time
- The Year of the Linux Desktop
I'm guessing Slashdot keeps posting these because they're a reliable source of ad revenue.
I like Dr. Manhattan's Response: (Score:1)