Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#61

Post by mLuby »

labster wrote: post #52
mLuby wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#62

Post by kbutler »

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.)

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#63

Post by tambienben »

Thriptic wrote: post #58
tambienben wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still sounds as though they accuse the public for this, though. I can't abide that.

Well, it is the public who elected the leaders, the public who chooses the advice of biased talking heads while disregarding those with legitimate domain expertise, and the public that is unwilling to engage in real debate between factions and engage in independent critical thought. So yes, it is the public's fault.

I agree, but only so far. There is also the enormous amount of corruption that keeps these political machines opaque and inaccessable to the public, by design.

My point isn't that we are blameless, but that this has been forced upon us in varying degrees. Our options each election year are purposefully limited, and no matter the campaign promise, we get the same results each time--and those are the officials we have a modicum of control over through elections.

We're responsible for fixing it, but distrust in the system is an integral part of fixing it.

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#64

Post by AnimalMuppet »

bllguo wrote: post #50
jMyles wrote: post #35

Stories like this are the reason that I think that the following headline format is rightly banned from HN in the future: "Scientists ." 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.

The doomsday clock is somewhat silly, but I disagree in general. I think "appeal to authority" fallacy is misunderstood. How is it illogical to listen to qualified authorities? It only breaks when one uses authority in one field to claim credibility in something else.

But that's exactly the situation here. The scientists' authority is not in fields related to international relations, or to arms control theory, or to game theory applied to military escalation.

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#65

Post by Balgair »

cabaalis wrote: post #39
codingdave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone think we're in a more dangerous moment now than we were then? Yes. Then, we had world leaders whose philosophies and policies almost led to war, but who personally didn't really want to go there. Now we have a couple world leaders who don't seem to grasp the significance of their fights, and are just driving their decisions with their own egos.

Publicly. I highly doubt either of the two leaders you are thinking about really believe nuclear war is an actual option. Mutual assured destruction is still a thing. Regarding the saber rattling from current POTUS, stating our nuclear arsenal is the most powerful in the world is a non-statement. It changes nothing other than public perception of his political position. It doesn't reduce or increase the power he wiel…

>I highly doubt either of the two leaders you are thinking about really believe nuclear war is an actual option.

...ummm....

"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#66

Post by zamalek »

PopePompous wrote: post #11

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?

I wouldn't agree with moving it ahead as much as 30 seconds for North Korea. NK resulting in a doomsday scenario (which is different to mass casualties) requires a substantial chain of unfortunate events after the two idiots push their buttons.

A nuclear arsenal isn't the only deterrent between US and Russia. Both countries have decades of experience with nuclear defense. NK is relatively (or possibly absolutely) defenseless. While there would be enormous casualties (which is horrific and sad but is not doomsday), the fight would be extremely one-sided. Nobody else, including Putin, wants to get involved in a global nuclear catastrophe. At worst, US would be slapped with consequences six-ways-from-Sunday: think Germany after WW2. With a sane president, US wouldn't even have to use nukes to quash NK and, you never know, someone might actually calm the president if that time comes.

However, there is always a possibility - a nuke is sabotaged and lands in Russia, or something.

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#67

Post by Balgair »

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

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#68

Post by bmm01 »

cabaalis wrote: post #39
codingdave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone think we're in a more dangerous moment now than we were then? Yes. Then, we had world leaders whose philosophies and policies almost led to war, but who personally didn't really want to go there. Now we have a couple world leaders who don't seem to grasp the significance of their fights, and are just driving their decisions with their own egos.

Publicly. I highly doubt either of the two leaders you are thinking about really believe nuclear war is an actual option. Mutual assured destruction is still a thing. Regarding the saber rattling from current POTUS, stating our nuclear arsenal is the most powerful in the world is a non-statement. It changes nothing other than public perception of his political position. It doesn't reduce or increase the power he wiel…

There's no mutually assured destruction between the US and NK. The US can destroy NK, but NK cannot annihilate the US, even if it can severely damage many of its urban centers.

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#69

Post by Turing_Machine »

bllguo wrote: post #50
jMyles wrote: post #35

Stories like this are the reason that I think that the following headline format is rightly banned from HN in the future: "Scientists ." 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.

The doomsday clock is somewhat silly, but I disagree in general. I think "appeal to authority" fallacy is misunderstood. How is it illogical to listen to qualified authorities? It only breaks when one uses authority in one field to claim credibility in something else.

What makes "scientists" somehow especially qualified to opine on military and national security matters?

For making the actual bombs, yes, you need scientists and engineers, but the use (or likelihood of use) of the bombs is not a scientific issue.

> It only breaks when one uses authority in one field to claim credibility in something else.

Which is exactly what they're doing.

Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight

#70

Post by Turing_Machine »

Retric wrote: post #41
lagadu wrote: post #25

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.

Every country would see significant death totals from a very large scale nuclear exchange. 50-100 nukes would as you say be far less significant, but do 100x that and you get more worldwide impact.

The thing is, there isn't going to be any large scale nuclear exchange. For one, North Koreans don't have that many bombs. On the other side, it wouldn't take that many bombs to glass the entire country of North Korea.

During the Cold War, by contrast, the Soviet Union had approximately ~48,000 warheads.

Post reply on HN