SIGforum
Doomsday Clock: 2 minutes to midnight

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January 24, 2019, 09:09 PM
flesheatingvirus
Doomsday Clock: 2 minutes to midnight
I need a bigger eye rolling emoji. Roll Eyes

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/24...lock-2019/index.html

quote:
(CNN) If you have anything left on your bucket list, do it now, because the world is close to annihilation.

That's according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which gave its annual presentation of the Doomsday Clock on Thursday.

A group of scientists and scholars, including 15 Nobel laureates, set the clock at 11:58 p.m. -- two minutes before the symbolic apocalyptic midnight.

The minute hand didn't move since last year. But 11:58 p.m. is the closest the clock has ever been to symbolizing doom.

"The fact that the Doomsday Clock's hands did not change is bad news," said Robert Rosner, chair of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board.
So why are we so close to destruction? Nuclear weapons and climate change, experts say.

"In the nuclear realm, the United States abandoned the Iran nuclear deal and announced it would withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), grave steps towards a complete dismantlement of the global arms control process," the Bulletin said.

"The Iran agreement is not perfect, but it serves the interest of the international community in restraining the spread of nuclear weapons."

As for climate change, "global carbon dioxide emissions -- which seemed to plateau earlier this decade -- resumed an upward climb in 2017 and 2018," the Bulletin said.

"To halt the worst effects of climate change, the countries of the world must cut net worldwide carbon dioxide emissions to zero by well before the end of the century."

The scientists lambasted President Donald Trump's announcement to pull out of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, "the main global accord on addressing climate change."

The Doomsday Clock hasn't always spelled doom and gloom since it was first introduced in the 1940s.

Back in 1991, it was set at a whopping 17 minutes before midnight.

But before the clock struck 11:58 p.m. in both 2018 and 2019, the last time the world was considered so close to annihilation was in 1953, when the United States and the Soviet Union were in a nuclear arms race.


I think their timepiece is jacked up. They should send it to Dave Truong. He'd make it prettier, too.


________________________________________

-- Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. --
January 24, 2019, 10:10 PM
sigmonkey
Wait. I thought we were 12 years to the EOTW?




"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב!
January 24, 2019, 10:51 PM
Expat
I visualize pretty little snowflakes wringing their hands in anxiety over the news. And I smile.
January 24, 2019, 11:34 PM
YooperSigs
I used to stand on the SAC ramp while doomsday taxied past me. I don't recall a clock being involved.
And the climate was chilly.


End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
January 25, 2019, 02:11 AM
Gustofer
quote:
Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I used to stand on the SAC ramp while doomsday taxied past me. I don't recall a clock being involved.
And the climate was chilly.

I fondly remember those "SAC ALERTS" and seeing them eight engine big boys taking off. It always made you pucker up just a little. Wink


________________________________________________________
"Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton.
January 25, 2019, 04:46 AM
sourdough44
2 minutes, 12 years? I think we can go back to the 1800’s and find some predictions of the end.

As a person ages, they seem to want to take the world with them, Harold Camping a classic.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/...the_end_of_the_world


What can I say, many people have a mind a few short of a 6 pack.
January 25, 2019, 07:44 AM
Leemur
Climate change eh? How many times has weather related Armageddon been predicted? Between that, Ebola and every flu strain that pops up we should be dead about 82 times already.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Leemur,
January 25, 2019, 08:11 AM
71 TRUCK
So what happens if the clock strikes 12:00 does the world all of a sudden come to the end?




The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State



NRA Life Member
January 25, 2019, 08:17 AM
LS1 GTO
quote:
Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
So what happens if the clock strikes 12:00 does the world all of a sudden come to the end?


Clock strikes twelve on a Saturday night
All the creeps are sleepin' all the cools in sight
All the kings and queens, they're out tonight
Lookin' for some action 'til I feel allright







Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.



Only in an insane world are the sane considered insane.


The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime


January 25, 2019, 08:21 AM
sourdough44
Maybe a good time to pop a few blue pills & look for some of that ‘end of the world sex’ they show in the movies???
January 25, 2019, 09:23 AM
Elk Hunter
quote:
Originally posted by Gustofer:
quote:
Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I used to stand on the SAC ramp while doomsday taxied past me. I don't recall a clock being involved.
And the climate was chilly.

I fondly remember those "SAC ALERTS" and seeing them eight engine big boys taking off. It always made you pucker up just a little. Wink


I remember those B36s flying out over our house in Lewiston, ID. AIR, they were flying out of an airfield at Spokane. You could hear them for quite a while before they came into sight. Those 6 "pusher" engines made for a very unusual noise from them.


Elk

There has never been an occasion where a people gave up their weapons in the interest of peace that didn't end in their massacre. (Louis L'Amour)

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. "
-Thomas Jefferson

"America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." Alexis de Tocqueville

FBHO!!!



The Idaho Elk Hunter
January 25, 2019, 10:10 AM
LimaCharlie
Been hearing the end is near since the 1940s. So far, so good.

You never saw the nuke subs.


U.S. Army, Retired
January 25, 2019, 10:39 AM
SPWAMike0317
That's great, it starts with an earthquake.



Let me help you out. Which way did you come in?
January 25, 2019, 11:15 AM
Skins2881
quote:
Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
So what happens if the clock strikes 12:00 does the world all of a sudden come to the end?


That's a silly question. Our carriages turn to pumpkins, duh.



Jesse

Sic Semper Tyrannis
January 25, 2019, 11:17 AM
kz1000
5 minutes to Wapner!


------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yidn, shreibt un fershreibt"

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."
-Bomber Harris
January 25, 2019, 02:40 PM
Perception


2 minutes to midnight is pretty damn good as far as I'm concerned.




"The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford, "it is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them. They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards."
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard, then the wrong lizard might get in."
January 25, 2019, 05:25 PM
archerman
I guess I better buy thet gun i want, and soon!


Archerman
January 25, 2019, 05:32 PM
Ryanp225
How much money do we need to give the communists before we can feel safe again?
It's just like a protection racket except instead of using Guido with a bat they have Bill Nye the dumbfuck guy.
January 25, 2019, 06:27 PM
KenS
Well, let's do the math. The earth is roughly 4,000,000,000 years old; if that is compressed to a single day analogy, then 1 minute = 2,777,778 years; so, 2 minutes left on the clock = 5.555 Million years. Don't think I'll cash in the 401K to build a bunker just yet. Smile

Ken
January 25, 2019, 06:48 PM
sjtill
As far as I'm concerned, it's past midnight and the loonie left has taken over my country. Now fighting to take it back.


_________________________
“ What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.”— Lord Melbourne