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We are now 90 seconds to our doom

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Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#21

Post by xrayarx »

jxramos wrote: post #9
gowld wrote: post #4

Clickbait title. Factual headline: "This is the closest humanity has ever been to its own annihilation, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists."

the thing I never understood about nuclear annihilation is that doesn't it mainly focus on urban areas? Just curious are there enough nukes in the world to wipe every square km of the earth? When nations scale their arsenal what's their budgeting rationale, to hit all the major cities of an opponent? Dropping a Tsar Bomba 17,080 km² https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ * Surface of North America 24.71 million km² * Su…

https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-...

There are about 13,000 nukes, 2000 are on alert, that means ready to be used at any time.

Here is a US list of targets, there are also lists from Russia:

https://futureoflife.org/resource/us-nuclear-targets/

There are of course secondary effects:

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/devastating-effects-of-nu...

Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#22

Post by 0xffff2 »

efficax wrote: post #19
jxramos wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing I never understood about nuclear annihilation is that doesn't it mainly focus on urban areas? Just curious are there enough nukes in the world to wipe every square km of the earth? When nations scale their arsenal what's their budgeting rationale, to hit all the major cities of an opponent? Dropping a Tsar Bomba 17,080 km² https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ * Surface of North America 24.71 million km² * Su…

don't neglect the fallout, and the nuclear winter

Nuclear winter is largely a myth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_d...

Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#23

Post by pleonasticity »

hourago wrote: post #2

> While it’s just a metaphor, the decision to move the clock’s hands closer to midnight reflects real-world risks. To have studies and experts is not enough to communicate the world situation. This seems a very visual and pedagogic way of representing the risks that the world is facing. And to be fair, Russia has said numerous times that they are willing to use atomic bombs to fulfill the annexation of new territorie…

This is false, no Russian government official has threatened to use nuclear weapons.

Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#25

Post by fallingknife »

zingplex wrote: post #10
fallingknife wrote: post #5

Problem is they have to keep moving it closer to midnight or they won't get any media attention. This leads to ridiculous outcomes like showing we are currently 5x closer to nuclear war than during the Cuban missile crisis when it was at 7 mins. Not sure why anybody takes this seriously.

> Problem is they have to keep moving it closer to midnight or they won't get any media attention. It was last moved in 2020 and doesn't appear to move every year. Moreover, it has been moved back in the past. I don't get the impression this is some cynical media ploy but instead an educational effort from some well meaning experts in their respective fields trying to raise awareness and provoke action towards remedy…

They are atomic scientists, so they actually aren't even experts in any of those fields. The risk of nuclear war is a geopolitical question which has nothing to do with the science behind the weapons.

Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#26

Post by fallingknife »

pavlov wrote: post #8
fallingknife wrote: post #5

Problem is they have to keep moving it closer to midnight or they won't get any media attention. This leads to ridiculous outcomes like showing we are currently 5x closer to nuclear war than during the Cuban missile crisis when it was at 7 mins. Not sure why anybody takes this seriously.

Honestly it seems to me that Putin is mentally much closer to using nuclear weapons in his offensive war than Krushchev was in his perceived defense of Cuba in 1962. The likelihood of an accidental nuclear launch was definitely higher then (e.g. by a submarine commander misinterpreting the situation). But I do think the likelihood of an intentional nuclear strike is substantially higher today. Some Russian decision m…

Putin is threatening nuclear war because he wants the general public in the west to fear their leaders' policies of sending more weapons to Ukraine. He directly benefits from the perception among the public that he is crazy enough to do it. But a look at his history shows him to be much more calculating and intelligent than that. He is not going to give the order to end the world when there are not even enemy troops on Russian soil.

As for a tactical strike, this is the "Doomsday Clock" so that doesn't count.

Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#27

Post by zingplex »

fallingknife wrote: post #25
zingplex wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Problem is they have to keep moving it closer to midnight or they won't get any media attention. It was last moved in 2020 and doesn't appear to move every year. Moreover, it has been moved back in the past. I don't get the impression this is some cynical media ploy but instead an educational effort from some well meaning experts in their respective fields trying to raise awareness and provoke action towards remedy…

They are atomic scientists, so they actually aren't even experts in any of those fields. The risk of nuclear war is a geopolitical question which has nothing to do with the science behind the weapons.

Quite to the contrary, the clock is set by the Science and Security Board which seems much more focused on geopolitical questions instead of scientific. The Science and Security Board is advised by the Board of Sponsors, which does have quite a few scientists, but only in an advisory role.

Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#28

Post by jxramos »

jerlam wrote: post #18
jxramos wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing I never understood about nuclear annihilation is that doesn't it mainly focus on urban areas? Just curious are there enough nukes in the world to wipe every square km of the earth? When nations scale their arsenal what's their budgeting rationale, to hit all the major cities of an opponent? Dropping a Tsar Bomba 17,080 km² https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ * Surface of North America 24.71 million km² * Su…

You don't need to nuke every literal single square inch of the world to kill a majority of the population. Remove enough governments and the world will become anarchy. Destroy a lot of infrastructure and suddenly no goods, food, or water gets transported. Contaminate the sky and ground enough, and agriculture won't grow. If you live in some tiny corner of the world, off the grid, grow your own food, without any depen…

Very true. I think I'm hung up on the discrepancy with animations around this topic I eventually came to realize were extremely exaggerated. Like I think I saw a cartoon where like a chunk of the earth was removed like a lobotomy sort of thing, a huge sector of mass.

I realized much later that these bombs simply do not have that kind of power as terrible as they are. I also later realized that asteroids can do some major serious damage on a whole other magnitude beyond nukes. The size of an asteroid crater is way beyond the crater size of nukes

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_on_Eart...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_Crater

Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#29

Post by jxramos »

jxramos wrote: post #28
jerlam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to nuke every literal single square inch of the world to kill a majority of the population. Remove enough governments and the world will become anarchy. Destroy a lot of infrastructure and suddenly no goods, food, or water gets transported. Contaminate the sky and ground enough, and agriculture won't grow. If you live in some tiny corner of the world, off the grid, grow your own food, without any depen…

Very true. I think I'm hung up on the discrepancy with animations around this topic I eventually came to realize were extremely exaggerated. Like I think I saw a cartoon where like a chunk of the earth was removed like a lobotomy sort of thing, a huge sector of mass. I realized much later that these bombs simply do not have that kind of power as terrible as they are. I also later realized that asteroids can do some m…

Interestingly enough I can't make out the Tsar Bomba crater https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bomba+Zar/@73.5383394,54.7...

Re: We are now 90 seconds to our doom

#30

Post by The_Colonel »

pleonasticity wrote: post #23
hourago wrote: post #2

> While it’s just a metaphor, the decision to move the clock’s hands closer to midnight reflects real-world risks. To have studies and experts is not enough to communicate the world situation. This seems a very visual and pedagogic way of representing the risks that the world is facing. And to be fair, Russia has said numerous times that they are willing to use atomic bombs to fulfill the annexation of new territorie…

This is false, no Russian government official has threatened to use nuclear weapons.

Medvedev threatens almost daily, albeit indirectly.

(his credibility is also questionable)

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