The Doomsday Clock and the cult of fear
It’s the end of the world. Again.
It’s the end of the world. Again.
As you will read, should you so wish, in the articles linked at the bottom of this opening salvo, I’ve always been tremendously fond of the “Doomsday Clock”. If my memory holds up, which it rarely does these days, is seeing the seemingly yearly pronouncement as a short, late article on the “News” declaring that the clock has gone forward or backwards and I giggled at the absurdity, made myself some jam on toast, and probably went to bed.
Here are this evening’s top 5 current news headlines surrounding this bizarre performance art:
Sky News: “Doomsday Clock moves 10 seconds closer to midnight as Ukraine war rages”.
CNN: “The Doomsday Clock reveals how close we are to total annihilation”.
The Guardian: “Doomsday Clock at record 90 seconds to midnight amid Ukraine crisis”.
Independent: “Doomsday Clock live: Experts announce how close we are to midnight and oblivion”.
Forces.net: “Doomsday Clock moves to 90 seconds to midnight — the closest in history”.
Notice the language, “total annihilation”, “oblivion”, “the closest in history”.
The Independent even have a rolling “live” section!
Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m as worried at the state of the earth and the ghouls and goblins in dark, expensive suits with the cold dead eyes that are intent on destroying it as you are.
But dusting off a quarter of a clock once a year, inserting new batteries and moving one of its hands closer to a black dot doesn’t help.
But fear sells.
Here are two examples of the current news stories as noted above and my two articles posted last year:
The world is about to find out how close it is to oblivion - follow live
Tech The world is about to find out just how close to oblivion we are. The Doomsday Clock - intended as a way of…www.independent.co.uk
The Doomsday Clock reveals how close we are to total annihilation | CNN
Sign up for CNN's Life, But Greener newsletter. Our limited newsletter series guides you on how to minimize your…edition.cnn.com
The Doomsday Clock
and why this utterly surreal piece of performance art never fails to make me smilemedium.com
The Doomsday Clock: Revisited
Why haven’t the boffins updated the clock? Don’t they take impending nuclear war seriously?medium.com
Using the Independent article alone as a grisly guide through the black magik (sic) and the mystical of the macabre, first there is a doom laden video of the history of the clock and the atomic scientists who maintain it, judging whether we are closer or further away from a catastrophic world ending annihilation, and all after they’ve unveiled it akin to someone opening a church fete perhaps, or a Conservative MP at the opening of a foodbank.
Here are a selection of quotes from that article during the past five hours alone, and of a clock lest we forget, well a quarter of a real clock, that’s been manually changed to be 10 seconds closer to a witching hour in a deliberately bewildering and bamboozling magik (sic) spell for a piece of performance art so named to scare the living piss out of you:
Rachel Bronson, the chief executive of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the leader of the announcement today, has urged the world to help reverse the dangers that it identified.
“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality. 90 seconds to midnight is the closest the Clock has ever been set to midnight, and it’s a decision our experts do not take lightly,” Bronson said in a statement. “The US government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the Clock.”
Bulletin “announcements”
“Devastating events like the COVID-19 pandemic can no longer be considered rare, once-a-century occurrences. However, disease-induced disaster can be avoided if countries around the world cooperate on global health strategies,” said Suzet McKinney, DrPH, Principal and Director of Life Sciences, Sterling Bay, and member, Science and Security Board (SASB), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
In its statement, the Bulletin also warned that the war in Ukraine could lead to other kinds of bio threats.
“Recent events — including especially the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its continuing disinformation efforts in regard to biological weapons — have changed the landscape of biological threats,” the Bulletin wrote. “The risk that Russia will engage in biological warfare increases as conditions in Ukraine become more chaotic, weakening norms of warfare. Escalation of the war in Ukraine poses many potentially existential threats to humanity; one of them is biological.”
It’s not all doom and gloom in the Bulletin’s announcement — not entirely. Its section on “Disinformation and Disruptive Technology” notes that there has been some positive developments, too.
“On the disinformation front, there was some good news: For the most part, the American electorate rejected election deniers in 2022, and in France, President Emmanuel Macron overcame a historic challenge from his country’s far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile, the Biden administration continued its efforts to increase the role of scientists in informing public policy,” it writes.
But it’s not all good. It pointed to the fact that Russia has blocked the spread of truthful information about the war in Ukraine, and the use of surveillance technology in China.
The Bulletin has been warning about the danger for decades. So, a questioner asks, why should we pay attention to its panics now?
Bulletin CEO Bronson says that it’s intended as a way of communicating the danger. And the public can see that as a way of understanding where their focus is, and how much their pressure is working on politicians.
“What we’re conveying with this clock move is that things are not going in the right direction,” she says.
Much of this year’s announcement is about the threat of nuclear war. But it’s not all coming from the war in Ukraine, and the threat from Russia, the Bulletin says.
In the conclusion of that part of its statement, it calls on various countries to work to minimise the danger from nuclear weapons.
“As a matter of priority, all five permanent members of the UN Security Council — including, especially, Russia — should make a renewed commitment to confront nuclear dangers through arms control efforts and strategic stability agreements,” it reads. “At the proper time, major multilateral nuclear diplomacy will be needed precisely because of a dire reality the Ukraine crisis underscores: The existential threat posed by nuclear weapons endures even as political circumstances change.”
From top to bottom we have “experts” not taking the decision “lightly” of moving a piece of plastic (presumably recyclable) a tiny fraction to the right of a quarter sized yet still oversized representation of a clock named “Doomsday”. Hooray! What’s more, everything must be done to “turn back the clock”, there’s a one sided war going on in Ukraine, there’s a one world solution to the threat of worldwide pandemics, there must be a renewed effort from the members of the UN Security Council to “confront nuclear dangers” but worry not, there is some good news, we’re winning the war on dis-information!
“On the disinformation front, there was some good news: For the most part, the American electorate rejected election deniers in 2022, and in France, President Emmanuel Macron overcame a historic challenge from his country’s far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile, the Biden administration continued its efforts to increase the role of scientists in informing public policy,” it writes.
I know it’s only me but (a) why are atomic scientists so keen on talking about that beautifully Orwellian word of dis-information and (b) isn’t this all fucking bonkers?
If I was the CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Rachel Bronson, and believe me I’m not and Rachel Bronson will continue to be eternally grateful that I’m not her, but if I was, I’d carry the “Doomsday Clock” onto the stage before listing the catalogue of wars, proxy wars, wars for the rare earth minerals that are wrecking and destabilising large swathes of the earth now 90 seconds from total destruction, point out the hypocrisy that flows from our telescreens at the rapacious greed of a handful of companies and the dark eyed entities in expensive suits they pay to promote their insatiable need for economic growth at the expense of any and everything in their path. The forever war. The culture war. The economic war. The bread and circus of distraction from the black magik (sic) spell cast by the Kings of Queens of a “family” entirely different from that of ours, the human family they are intent on destroying.
Then I’d berate anyone for watching for this silly surreal spectacle of a plastic clock before smashing it to pieces with an axe.
Thanks for reading. There is a cave of wonders to be found within my archival lists or here are my three most recently published articles:
In Court with Billy Joel
“I guess you’d rather be a martyr tonight”.medium.com
“Adaptation” (2002)
The surreal inner workings of Charlie Kaufman.medium.com
Mid-table bore draw helps neither Chelsea Blue nor Liverpool Red
Liverpool 0 Chelsea 0, 21st January 2023.medium.com