The Doomsday Clock was born in the 40s and initially set at seven minutes to midnight, midnight representing armageddon. The clocks hands have been moved over a dozen times, and it is currently set at seven minutes to midnight.
Though we have traveled back and forth through doomstime, we haven't gone very far in either direction. In 1953, following U.S. and Soviet hydrogen bomb tests, we were two minutes away from disaster. In 1991, following the end of the Cold War, we were a safe seventeen minutes from the same disaster.
This approach seems flawed.
If I were in charge of the Doomsday Clock, I think I would have initially set it somewhere in the 200 to 1,000 years to midnight range. Setting the clock at seven minutes to midnight at the beginning of this project lacks foresight. But then again, hindsight is 20/20, seeing as we haven't been blown to kingdom come in the recent minutes.
I also think I would be more generous with clock adjustments. Seventeen minutes from utter catastrophe during one of the most peaceful times of our century hardly seems fair. I mean, were the 70s really that much worse?
I've wasted too much time talking about this. I need to live it up in my last four minutes of existence. Whoops, three minutes. I kinda wish I'd been more adequately prepared. Thanks, doomsday scientists.
1 comment:
That is literally crazy. They don't even have minute-show-ers for anything before the 15 minutes-to-midnight mark. That's so biased.
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