The world remains the closest it has ever been to the symbolic hour of the apocalypse, with the Doomsday Clock set once again to 90 seconds to “midnight” for 2024.
Wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, a spiraling climate crisis and the rise of artificial intelligence are among the threats continuing to put human existence under pressure, according to the people who run the clock.
The clock, which has been used for seven decades, was created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947 amid Cold War nuclear tensions – and is seen as “a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe caused by man-made technologies,” the group said Tuesday.
“Make no mistake: resetting the Clock at 90 seconds to midnight is not an indication that the world is stable. Quite the opposite,” CEO Rachel Bronson said in a statement, a year after Russia’s war in Ukraine drove the same dire forecast in 2023. “It’s urgent for governments and communities around the world to act.”
The Chicago-based nonprofit focused this year in part on the rise of AI, saying in a statement that sophisticated chatbots such as ChatGPT “led some respected experts to express concern about existential risks arising from further rapid advancements in the field.” It called for greater global governance of what it termed a “disruptive technology.”
It also said AI had “great potential to magnify disinformation and corrupt the information environment on which democracy depends,” as well as exacerbate misinformation on topics such as nuclear risks, pandemics and climate change.
“Military uses of AI are accelerating,” it added. “Extensive use of AI is already occurring in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, simulation, and training. Of particular concern are lethal autonomous weapons, which identify and destroy targets without human intervention.”
Other threats cited by the atomic scientists include the deterioration of nuclear arms reduction agreements as well as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The Israel-Gaza war has left tens of thousands of people dead, according to authorities in both places, and the conflict threatens to spill over in the region.
The Earth also experienced its hottest year on record in 2023, along with devastating floods, wildfires, and extreme-weather impacting millions of people globally, it added, which contributed to its decision.
Former California governor and executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jerry Brown, likens the situation to being on the ill-fated Titanic ship.
“Leaders are steering the world toward catastrophe – more nuclear bombs, vast carbon emissions, dangerous pathogens and artificial intelligence,” Brown said. “Only the big powers like China, America, and Russia can pull us back. Despite deep antagonisms, they must cooperate – or we are doomed.” The Bulletin makes the annual decision in consultation with its board of sponsors, which includes several Nobel Laureates.
The clock was set at two minutes to midnight in 2019 and at 100 seconds to midnight in 2022. It was the furthest from “midnight” in 1991, when it was wound back to 17 minutes after the Cold War was officially declared over.
Science educator Bill Nye, who took part in the 2024 announcement, said it was “time to act.”
“For decades, scientists have been warning us of the dangers facing humankind. We could be facing catastrophe unless we better manage the technologies we’ve created,” Nye said.
Some have criticized the clock as fearmongering or questioned its usefulness. In a 2015 essay, a University of Oxford researcher in global catastrophic risk cast doubt on the clock as a measurement of “actual risk,” writing that it was more a reflection of the “strong feeling of urgency” about the risks among the team who operate it.
The group said there was always hope to prevent despair. “The Clock could be turned back,” the Bulletin said. It added that it felt particularly “inspired – in seeing the younger generations leading the charge.”
“Everyone on Earth has an interest in reducing the likelihood of global catastrophe,” they added. The group also pointed at leaders from the United States, China and Russia as global powers to “take responsibility for the existential danger the world now faces. They have the capacity to pull the world back from the brink of catastrophe. They should do so, with clarity and courage, and without delay.”
(c) 2024 , The Washington Post · Adela Suliman
They’ve been posting this “90 seconds” “Doomsday Clock” fear-mongering for at least 6 years now.
Of course, we all certainly WISH that all this is simply fake empty fearmongering as “nothing is out there.” The problem though, is that there actually IS “something out there.” Ever since that right-before-dawn test explosion of “the gadget” in the outlying desert of New Mexico on July 15, 1945, 5 Av, 5705, and several days later, on August 6, 1945, 27 Av, 5705, and August 9, 1945, 30 Av, 5705, when two more of those “gadgets” were combat employed massacring over two hundred thousand people, there has been a whole new dimension of a hyper-horrific-threat, Rachmana Litzlan, on the people of the world.
The only reason why after the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bloodbaths this threat has not actually materialized any further is obviously the Chesed Hashem. And we absolutely must continue to beg Him to continue to fully protect us, and, of course, bring the Geula Sheleima B’Karov.
They said the same thing regarding Y2K. It was going to be a total apocalypse. I was waiting with baited breath as the clock stroke 12:00…….and gornisht. Fake news. I still can’t find a stinkin parking spot in Brooklyn.
This is the threat level against the Deep State Cabal who are panicking.
The article relates that one of the key reasons for the recently increased and continuing Doomsday level to 90 seconds has been from the war in Ukraine and the recent incursion of Russian forces into it. This war was really started a decade ago by the West, when, in 2013 & 2014, the US Government with its CIA, instigated & manipulated the overthrow & expulsion of Ukraine’s duly elected prime minister. They then installed there a series of their loyal puppets as the prime ministers.
Provinces in the eastern area of the country, whose populations are mostly of ethnic Russians, strongly resisted this western manipulation. In response, for the next eight years, the western-controlled-Ukraine-governments — whose security brigades are comprised of Nazi thugs, Yimach Shemam — continually bombarded these eastern areas, massacring many, many thousands of civilians. Finally, in February of 2022, Russia sent in its army to stop this killing and secure integrity for the Russian peoples & aspects of the country.
Throughout this conflict, the western governments have adamantly refused to consider even the slightest recognition of the totally valid & understandable concerns & needs that Russia does have. They have likewise adamantly refused to consider even the slightest offers of even the slightest compromises that would have easily prevented the whole Russian incursion. Soon after the incursion had started, (the current western-puppet-prime-minister) Zelensky — as excessively corrupt of a wicked person that he is — had worked out with the Russians an agreement that would have, right then, after it had barely begun, ended the war!! However, Zelensky’s severely wicked masters in the US & UK Governments sharply scolded him for this “crime” and forced him to outright renege on his promises.
The severely wicked western officials, especially of the US Government & its Ukraine puppets, have done everything they possibly could to provoke and escalate the dangerous conflict. They promised that Ukraine would become a NATO military outpost. They declared that nuclear strikes would be employed. They bragged that they would enter Moscow and replace the Russian rulers. They pumped into Zelensky’s corrupt regime virtually endless streams of big money and endless streams of more and more and more offensive threatening weapons. They attacked crucial Russian bridges and blew up the key oil-gas pipeline. (Incidentally, this stoppage of oil & gas from the ruined line has harmed Western Europe infinitely more than it hurt Russia.) They continually shot rockets and drones right into Russia’s private territory and even into the streets of Moscow and even into the walls of the Kremlin itself!!
The hyper evil George-Soros-Klaus-Schwab-UN-WHO-CDC-WEF-One-Government-World-Globalists gang along with their puppet operatives like Joseph Biden and Barak Obama and Lloyd Austin and Justin Trudeau and numerous other similar wicked officials of the illegitimate regimes over our USA and several other western countries were disappointed with the results of Covid. Oh yes, with the many abuses of the bizarre Covid SCAMdemic regulations and especially the deadly Covid vaccines, over 20 million people were killed. But that was no where near “enough” for the tyrannical gang.
So they have also tried to instigate major wars, with the hope that the conflicts will, Chas V’Shalom, escalate to the employment of nuclear weapons. This is clearly what they attempted to do with Ukraine. Boruch Hashem though, despite many times that Russian officials warned that the nuclear “red line” was being crossed, no “mushrooms” ever actually appeared on the horizon. We must most certainly thank Hashem for this infinite Chesed He has done for us and the whole world and (as the second remark above) beg Him to continue to fully protect us and the whole world, and, of course, bring the Geula Sheleima B’Karov.