Why the Doomsday Clock has outlived its usefulness
4h 10m ago by piefed.ca/u/new_otters_raft in world from theconversation.com
Complacency about the serious challenges the world is facing is not an option. But the idea that we are almost at the point of no return via the Doomsday Clock isn’t helpful.
So... the doomsday clock has run out of time, is that what you're saying? Seems apropos.
It stopped being useful ever since they stopped using it just to visualize how quickly a nuke war could end things. Climate change is serious as shit, but it's not going to lock in total devestation within the next two minutes. Same goes for many other slow-burn threats they try to cram in there. Many of them are already here, pretty much none have a discreet threshold to count towards.
The doomsday clock was effective until rich people realized they could just ignore it.
Maybe humanity wasn't meant to survive? We have all the high quality data and analysis, we refuse to act on it. We have helpful communication tools like the clock. Information is not the issue. The will to fight our uglier instincts has held everything up to now.
We should at least consider the possibility that we are not up to the task.
I think it would be better to get humanity out from under the boot of tyrants before you make such judgements. We still live under the crushing oppression of kings, albeit under different names and often from the shadows.
That tyranny is at the heart of the point I was making.
It outlived its usefulness ever since kids stopped being taught how to read analog clocks in schools. But in seriousness a nuclear attack could happen at any time and most people are just too burned out to care anymore. One can only live with a constant diet of modern news media for so long until they get desensitized.