How many minutes have to remain before we take drastic action to stop the nuclear sable rattling, and ignorance to the climate???
Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight
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Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 o…
Sure. I'll bet you one million dollars that we're all going to die. Zimbabwe dollars, of course.
Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best part of this submission is definitely the pithy comments.
It was always little more than a political statement made by scientists using their scientific respect in non-scientific contexts, a major negative. But they had some justification; the Cold War threat was that the two major superpowers would fling thousands upon thousands of highly-destructive warheads at each other, and anything that might conceivably be valuable in one of their proxies, which meant every major cit…
> if North Korea simply goes insane and launches everything it could conceivably have 5 years from now, it wouldn't even remotely resemble that outcome
As it turned out, the First World War was not fought between Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian royalty, nor was the Second World War fought between Germany and Poland.
> Even if it literally precipitated World War Three somehow, it would very likely still not even remotely reach the outcome
There are things happening today that are more dangerous than the Cold War. You just don't know about them yet.
Re: Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead to 2 minutes to midnight
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was always little more than a political statement made by scientists using their scientific respect in non-scientific contexts, a major negative. But they had some justification; the Cold War threat was that the two major superpowers would fling thousands upon thousands of highly-destructive warheads at each other, and anything that might conceivably be valuable in one of their proxies, which meant every major cit…
> if North Korea simply goes insane and launches everything it could conceivably have 5 years from now, it wouldn't even remotely resemble that outcome As it turned out, the First World War was not fought between Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian royalty, nor was the Second World War fought between Germany and Poland. > Even if it literally precipitated World War Three somehow, it would very likely still not even remot…
"There are things happening today that are more dangerous than the Cold War. You just don't know about them yet."
That is not a defense for the scientists moving the clock. That's not what the scientists were claiming. They claim they're moving the clock for North Korea and Climate Change, not biological warfare (with or without a soupcon of genetic engineering), the immanent victory of the New World Order, the immantization of the eschaton, or whatever else you're referring to. The stated reasons are showboating, compared even to the known dangers of the Cold War.