What on earth does this mean?

[asblindasabat]

News report says the doomsday clock has been moved 10 seconds closer to midnight… should I be worried?? Not sure what to make of that. I really don’t know why they make news articles about these things with no explanation for people who don’t have a clue what they mean.

news.sky.com/story/amp/doomsday-clock-moves-10-seconds-closer-to-midnight-as-ukraine-war-rages-12794400

Already a thread about this

sorry can't do a link to it

I hadn’t seen it.

Well it says in the article that the doomsday clock is a metaphor for global collapse created by a group of scientists. It's not a real countdown..

But yeah you probably should be worried about things like war, nuclear aggression and climate change I suppose

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock

The doomsday clock is a nifty bit of political propaganda. A bunch of blokes with PhD after their names meet twice a year and based on how pessimistic or optimistic they feel about the way things are in the world, they fiddle with the hands of a clock and act like there’s science behind it. There’s not. There are no objective criteria whatsoever behind it. It’s all the Delphic method- which is no more reliable than when the Greeks actually asked the Oracle of Delphi to predict the future.

It has terrified me a wee bit… it all sounds a bit intimidating!

Imagine what it was like in the 70s and 80s - Protect and Survive, Threads, Able Archer 83, etc. Kelvedon Hatch has a very interesting exhibit that gives the flavour of the time.

It reminds me of the thing you do when counting down to something that takes longer than you predicted.
'Three.....two..........one and a haalf....oooonne......zeeeeeeeeeerrrooooooooo.....'

Its like you and your mates sitting in your living room discussing the state of the world and deciding the end is nigh and moving your clock forward a bit to represent your thoughts.

It doesn't actually change anything, it's a pretty meaningless gesture probably aimed to make us all a bit more scared and compliant.

What a crock of shit. We're all going to die one day anyway. No one, absolutely no one, can predict the future, with or without a clock.