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by mLuby 3068 days ago
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.
1 comments
ModernMech 3068 days ago
They've actually moved it backward several times:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock#/media/File:Doo...

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mLuby 3068 days ago
Yeah I know (thanks for the link). I mean using a clock as the way to communicate how likely nuclear war is happens to be a terrible way of communicating to a public that knows clocks only, and naturally, move forward. Having seen a clock and reading this news, it would be reasonable for children to expect us to reach nuclear war very soon, which is not at all accurate.
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labster 3068 days ago
It's pretty accurate. Presidents of two countries have been declaring that they will use nuclear weapons against the other. They have been provoking each other, and each interprets the provocation as an act of war. It's pretty bad. The only reason no one is reacting is because there's nothing we can do. Might as well live your life while there's still time, and hope rationality will win out.
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mLuby 3068 days ago
The reason people aren't reacting is because they don't believe the bluster, not because they're resigned to a slow death in an inevitable nuclear winter.

If the US military seriously thought the North Koreans were about to nuke an ally, it'd pre-empt that with conventional and/or nuclear means. And if POTUS were serious about nuking another country, I don't think he'd last long in office, let alone manage to carry out the act.

I'd be happy to bet as much money as I can muster as an indication of my confidence in our continued existence. Any takers? :P

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labster 3068 days ago
Sure. I'll bet you one million dollars that we're all going to die. Zimbabwe dollars, of course.
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