WEBVTT - Two Minutes To Midnight: The Doomsday Clock 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.239 Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.200 your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Christian Sager. Robert, 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.279 you and I both grew up in the eighties. How 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.840 worried were you about nuclear annihilation as a kid? Because 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.520 I was terrified of it. It was like constantly being 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.199 talked about on the news or in popular culture. It's 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.559 an interesting question because, you know, I look back on 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:39.879 it and I remember I think back on threats that 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.640 were present in the media or in the conversations of 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.360 adults and how they influenced me. Like I remember, I 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.280 remember going to church and being in hearing about the 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.400 becoming battle of Armageddon and how everyone's gonna have to 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:56.600 fight on one side or the other. I remember being 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.280 concerned about that. I remember picking up on some of 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:04.600 the the the Aid's Scare material and thinking like, oh, 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.800 how does this affect me? How does this affect the 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:12.480 people I care about. I don't remember being feeling like 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:17.319 the anxiety of nuclear war so much, and maybe I 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.240 was just you know, part of this. Part of this 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.800 was a time when I was I was living outside 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:24.960 of the US, I was in Canada, we only had 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.240 the one TV TV channel, so that might have played 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:30.920 a role. Or maybe I was just you know, removed 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:35.400 enough from the or distracted enough from the the nightly 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.959 you know, TV news that it didn't affect me, or 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:40.920 maybe it's an I mean, we're about the same age though, 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.160 so I don't know how to what extent that played 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.360 into In the past, I've kind of wondered, well, maybe 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:47.800 I was just a little too young, Like I didn't 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.880 to to to use the language of Queen. I didn't 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.520 quite grow up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud. 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.840 You know. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, well, and I also, 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.400 you know, moved around overseas a little bit too, so 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.520 that could have contributed to it in different ways as well. 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.840 But I definitely remember the eighties being like scary and 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.400 then like, you know, maybe it was also just because 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.440 of my age, but then in the nineties it was like, oh, 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.200 things are okay now, like that there's not as much 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.919 of a threat. We can all breathe easy, We're not 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:19.880 going to have to like we don't have to do 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:23.160 the whole stop, drop and roll thing in the cross rooms, right. 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:26.320 I definitely looking back, I definitely see that trend where 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.799 there is the nineties, there was this feeling of, yeah, 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:30.880 this is not that big of a threat anymore, maybe 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:32.520 it's even not a threat. Don't worry about it, just 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.480 do your thing. But I've always been a fan of 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.440 stuff from the eighties in the late seventies, from you know, 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.480 the fiction, the music, in the literature, and you certainly 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:48.800 see nuclear anxiety displayed in in that in various ways. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.120 Oh yeah, yeah, I mean we've got, of course Terminator 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.919 to Judgment Day. I mean, they are of course talking 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.640 about an artificial intelligence bringing about the apoco Ellipse, but 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:05.040 it's through nuclear warfare. Uh. And then the big one 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.520 that I always think of is Watchmen, especially when I 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.400 think of what we're going to talk about today, which 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.880 is the doomsday clock. Now I don't believe this was 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.280 featured in the movie version of Watchmen, but in the 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:20.520 comic book version, every issue began with the doomsday clock 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.839 blood dripping down the page further and further, and as 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:27.760 you got to the twelfth issue, I think the blood 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:29.760 was covering the clock like all the way or something 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.359 like that. But the idea was that the reason why 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.640 these events were happening in the story is because we're 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:38.680 inching closer to midnight on the doomsday clock. Yeah. I 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.280 you know, maybe when I first read Watchman, I wasn't 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:43.120 for some reason, I never really put one and two 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.080 together on the doomsday clock. But yeah, I believe that 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.560 there's like a kind of synchronicity of the metaphor there 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:54.120 with Dr Manhattan being connected to atomic energy. He's also 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.400 a watchmaker, and he's obsessed with time and taking apart 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.720 clocks and putting them back together again, and then the 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.280 background metaphor of the doomsday clock. Now here's the thing. 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.119 I didn't know the doomsday clock was a real thing 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:13.200 until I was an adult, and actually just recently it 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.960 was updated. Now, we shared this on our social media 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:18.920 for stuff to blow your mind, and there was a 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.479 lot of comments about it, uh so much so that 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.840 we thought this is probably worth digging into because there's 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.359 a lot of science behind the Doomsday clock and the 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.280 group that manages it, which is called the Bulletin of 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.280 Atomic Scientists. So we figured, let's do a dive into that, 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.760 explain what that is and see what's going on there. Yeah, 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.520 because I feel like there is a lot of confusion, 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:43.520 especially and I don't mean I don't. I don't mean 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.760 to vilify people who say didn't read the link, it 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:48.400 didn't fall with the link and read the article that 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:50.800 we shared, because I think we all have to do this. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.039 Where it was so many different pieces of media and 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.120 our streams, you just can't click on everything. I don't 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.440 understand that. But it's easy without without diving in to it, 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.400 it's easy to mistake what the doomsday clock is. On 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:05.080 one hand, you might think, oh, well, this is a 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:09.679 this is a rigorous scientific like um, you know, FIRMI 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.400 kind of a contemplation on what the chances of nuclear 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.120 war are. Or you may think, oh, this is just 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:20.880 complete political bs. This is just somebody or some group 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:25.600 of people just making some with with political motivation, deciding 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.960 how dangerous the current climate is. And the answer is 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.640 it's somewhere in the middle. Uh. And but it's worth 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.720 taking a look at because while yes, it so, let's 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.120 make this very clear right from the top, the doomsday 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.200 clock is not managed by any kind of like supercomputer 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.919 or device that's calculating things and figuring out what the 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.440 exact time on the clock should ye do not confuse 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.719 it with an actual atomic clock, which is a you 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:56.200 know a highly precise um time measurement system. This is 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:58.880 and this is something where a human hand is essentially 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.560 going to reach up and change time exactly. And it's 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.120 fairly subjective. But at the same time, the people who 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.280 are in charge of making that subjective judgment call are 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:11.720 experts in their field. And we're gonna go over all 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:15.000 of that. We'll talk about it, we'll talk about the group, 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.920 the journal surrounding this, the doomsday clock itself, and then 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.600 we're gonna look at some arguments both four and against it. 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.039 Uh So, just to back up here in case you 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.799 missed it, at the beginning of the bulletin of atomic 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:33.160 scientists calculated that we're even closer to doomsday and they 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.239 adjusted the doomsday clock to two point five minutes to midnight. 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.560 Midnight being doomsday, meaning the human population will be completely 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:46.680 wiped out by something usually nuclear annihilation. Uh And by 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.159 their prediction, we're that much closer to the end of humanity. 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.440 This is the closest the clock has been to doomsday 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.800 since nineteen fifty three, after the US tested its first 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:03.080 thermonuclear device. Now, why why, why why did they push 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.239 it forward? Well, certainly, if you've if you've been following 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.000 the news enough to pick up on the doomsday story, 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.360 then you've probably been following the news enough to pick 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:11.880 up on all these various other stories. We can basically 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.360 reduce a lot of it to sort of to saber rattling, 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:19.880 to the testing of new regimes, to new regimes, uh, 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.360 you know, rolling out their stance on the issues of 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:30.280 of nuclear armaments, uh, warfare in general, and international relations. Right. Yeah, 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.840 so you know this is going to get a little 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:37.200 bit political here only for the purposes of us describing 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.320 why they made this decision. So they cited specifically that 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.320 the global security landscape darkened. This is a direct quote, 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.600 as the international community failed to come effectively to grips 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:54.520 with humanity's most pressing existential threats, and by that they 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:59.520 mean nuclear weapons and climate change. Now, this was announced 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.360 in an op ed to the New York Times. There 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.920 are two people, theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss and retired 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:11.760 Navy Rear Admiral David Titley, And they wrote on behalf 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.960 of the Bulletin of of Atomic Scientists, and this was 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.320 their quote. They said, making matters worse, the United States 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.680 now has a president who has promised to impede progress 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.240 on both of those fronts. Never before has the Bulletin 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.360 decided to advance the clock, largely because of the statements 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.679 of a single person. But when that person is the 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:37.319 new President of the United States, his words matter. Now. Specifically, 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.760 I believe they're referring to some comments that that the 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.880 President has made regarding the arms race. I think he 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:46.440 said something to the fact of let there be an 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.280 arms race or you know, will outproduce uh, you know, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:57.199 the competition in terms of nuclear armaments and if the 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.360 if you've been following the news, you know that the 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.880 president will say one thing and then he may restate 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.439 it later. Yeah, but this response was was coming to 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.560 some of the spikes in the rhetoric. Yeah. And this 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.400 is stuff that he said on the campaign trail before 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:17.679 he was elected too, So you know, there's a there's 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.960 a well documented record of his policy or at least 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.440 stated policies on nuclear armament and on climate change. So 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.480 these are things that concerned the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Uh. 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.000 And you know, even since they made this announcement, he's 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.360 continued to say things for this effect. Um. Now, I 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:39.000 would be remiss if I did not mention the Iron 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:42.360 Maidens song two minutes to Midnight, because I believe, looking 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.200 back at the time, wine two minutes is the is 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.280 as close as we've come. It is, Yeah, and we 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.760 are currently two and a half minutes to midnight now. 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.000 I there was a listener out there who pointed this 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.400 out to me. Actually, when we posted the original story, 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.480 he shared the video for Iron Maidens two Minutes to 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.560 been Night, and oh of course, And man, this is 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.480 one of those instances where I wish we could get 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.520 away with playing music on the show because that song 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.320 is pretty great and it's perfect as like a as 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:11.720 a theme song for this episode. But go check it 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.400 out if you're unfamiliar with it and you love metal. Uh. 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.280 And there's all kinds of other popular culture things that 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:22.720 would resonate with this. Uh. One of my favorite songs 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.400 that isn't necessarily a big one is the SKA band 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.360 Mephis Scopolise has a song called Doomsday that is about 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.079 this as well. Oh yeah, I'm not familiar with the 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:40.560 Mephis scoff. Uh. They're silly nineteen nineties ska band. Okay, yeah, well, 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.520 you know I already mentioned that. You know that I'm 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.480 a big fan of so many things that came out 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.760 of the late seventies and nineteen eighties, early nineties as well. 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.200 But but some of the big ones that of course 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:53.160 come to I think come to people's mind in addition 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.560 to all the post nuke fiction out there. War Games, 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:00.719 of course, Yeah, that's the classic example. Well, the only 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.600 way to win the game is not to play. See 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:04.840 this is why I think it was it had such 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:06.960 so much impact on me. War Games is the first 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.559 movie I ever saw on videotape really, yeah, Beta Max. 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.599 My parents rented a Beta Max machine when I was 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:16.640 a little kid. In the two movies they got for 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.840 me were War Games and Star Wars, both movies with 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.400 war in the title. But I think with war games 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.160 like this probably didn't have that big an impact on 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:28.480 me personally, because I don't think I ever I may 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.840 have never seen it in its entirety. I think it's 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.080 all of those films that I just later saw parts 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.520 of on TV and got the general you know, just 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.400 of it. But but it never had the opportunity to 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:41.439 really get its hooks into me like it did for 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.000 for other people. Yeah. I mean, as I've said on 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:45.760 the show before, I watched a lot of stuff when 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:47.680 I was five years old that I probably shouldn't have. 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.400 This was one of the three that was right when 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:52.959 I was five years old, I saw war games. I 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.440 also watched The Shining when I was five years old. 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.040 Uh so, you know, well that explains a lot. Well, 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:00.920 you know, I think we were games. I think makes 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.840 sense for for some younger viewers. But we in a 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.840 previous episode, the Butter episode, we talked about the Butter 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:12.360 Battle Book, Pursus Book and subsequent Turner TV special that 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.200 deals with the arms race and deals with the idea 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.600 of mutually sure destruction. So really, no matter what your 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.040 age was during during this era, there was the potential 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:27.560 to be introduced to the larger cultural anxiety regarding this. Yeah, 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.960 it was a period that was rife with popular culture 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.920 surrounded by this. And now that we're inching closer to 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.080 midnight on the doomsday clock, I kind of wonder if 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.120 we're going to see more stuff like this again. Uh, 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.720 time will tell. Now you're probably wondering who are the 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.960 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists or what is this thing? Well, 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.040 the Bulletin was actually founded by some of the people 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.520 who worked on the Manhattan Project. These were people who 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.960 felt that they could not remain aloof to the consequences 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.280 of their work creating atomic weapons. Uh. And they were 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.720 the people who the atomic bomb, but then they also 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:07.520 lobbied for its abolition. Now today it's a nonprofit organization 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.720 and it has an international board of experts who assess 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:15.040 scientific advancements, then the benefits and risks that they give 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:19.680 to humanity. Now, their stated goal is to influence public policy. 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.480 So let's be very clear here, Like they state, and 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.000 they say very plainly on all their literature, like, yes, 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:32.320 this is our goal is to communicate and to change policy. Uh. 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.360 They describe the bulletin as such. They say, it's like 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:41.640 a doctor making a diagnosis by looking at data, considering symptoms, measurements, 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.160 and circumstances, and then coming up with a judgment on 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:48.680 how to treat a condition. And I do have to 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:52.200 throw in here that I I don't think anyone out 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.600 there saying in the world is arguing that nuclear war 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.640 is a desired outcome or you know, even you know, 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.800 we've mentioned in the comments that the President has made 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:07.720 and when pressed on the matter, he has said, oh, well, 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.640 nuclear weapons are horrible. You know that this is this 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.720 is you know, bad, not good. That he very specifically 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.840 uses the term these are bad things. So I don't 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.600 think anybody is arguing that that, yeah, let's have a 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:22.880 nuclear war. That sounds like a great idea. The the 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.120 arguments come into the balance, and then how do you 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:30.960 reduce etcetera, and then into the political, uh, situations that 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.400 increase the likelihood of one of these weapons being used, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.880 because really, we've we've we've been very lucky in the 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.120 in the in the regard that there have only been uh, 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:46.280 you know too military uses of nuclear weapons, and of 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.760 course they were both both deployed by the United States 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.440 the close of the Second World War in Japan. Uh. 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:55.960 Outside of that, we've had, you know, plenty of tests. 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:01.240 We have had some testy situations regarding the are their 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.680 their positioning, and their potential use, but we have not 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.600 had to suffer any any subsequent users, and we haven't 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.120 had to see actual nuclear warfare between or any war 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:16.080 warfare between two nuclear arm nations. Right. Yeah. The idea 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.960 here being that the build the up of these armaments 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.880 will be a deterrent to various powers to to either 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.360 either in the course of their militaristic actions or in 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.160 their own armament of nuclear weapons. Right, and it's not 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.960 just the United States and Russia anymore. And we'll get 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.520 into that. There's all kinds of factors that come into play. UH. 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.960 Now The Bulletin is also an award winning journal, and 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.840 it puts issues and events into context UH and provides 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:48.840 fact based debates and assessments about you know that, basically 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.800 the end of humanity UH. And they have been around 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.920 for seventy years. There's lots of other reports and analysis 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.160 on their site. Their site is is pretty fantastic in 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.120 terms of like layout and all the contents available. UH. 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.920 Infographics to their infographics are really good. UM. But there's 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:09.120 also a bi monthly magazine. Now today we're talking about 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.480 in terms of like the people who make the decision 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.080 about the doomsday clock. We're talking about ten to twenty 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.400 people who literally sit in a room for a day 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.720 and do the best they can to communicate disaster to 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.640 the rest of us. Now, it's it's either once or 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.040 twice a year, the board's members get together and they 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.560 gather for a one day discussion where they review what 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.840 worried them the following year and what they anticipate as 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:39.080 new concerns. They don't use devices or computers to calculate this. 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.240 This is just experienced, expert adults trying to come to 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.040 a consensus. There's no algorithm that is deployed here exactly. 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.800 So you may be wondering, well, who are these people, 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.240 what are they so expert at? And that this is 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.560 you know, maybe going to be a little dry. But 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:57.600 I want to go through the list of the current 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.600 people so you have an idea of who who's making 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:04.280 this decision now. The current membership of the board. It 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.359 is the Science and Security Board for the Bulletin of 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:11.560 Atomic Scientists UH, and they're said to also consult widely 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.280 with their colleagues across a wide variety of disciplines before 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.040 they get together to make decisions about the doomsday clock. 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.760 So let's go through these here. Okay, So the first 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.800 is Lynn Eden, she's one of the co chairs UH 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.560 and she's a research scholar at Stanford University who studies 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:34.080 military and society, science, technology and organizations, as well as 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:38.880 nuclear weapons history and policy. Of Next, we have Robert Rosner, 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.640 co chair, Professor of of of Astronomy, Astrophysics and Physics 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.879 at the University of Chicago. There's rod Ewing he's a 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:50.600 professor of Nuclear Security and Earth Sciences at Stanford University. 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:55.680 Then there's a Steven kartha senior scientist at Stockholm Environmental Institute. 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.480 Focuses on technological and policy options for addressing climate change. 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.800 Their herb Lynn uh this is a senior research scholar 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.880 for cyber policy and security at Stanford University. You're seeing 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.040 a trend here. There's a lot of people from Stanford there. 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.119 Next is a Suzette McKinney, former Deputy Commissioner of the 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.879 Bureau of Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response at the 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.280 Chicago Department of Public Health. She's an expert in emergency 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:25.879 preparedness efforts. Steve Miller is the director of the International 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:30.480 Security Program at Harvard University. Now, next we have Raymond T. 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.280 Peter Humbert. This is professor of physics at the University 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:40.119 of Oxford. Specializes in how climate works. Rama murte Raja Rahman. 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:46.360 He's a professor of physics at Joel Harlal Nehru University. 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.760 Next we have Jennifer Sims. She's senior fellow at the 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.320 Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a consultant on intelligence 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.720 at Homeland security. Susan Solomon is a professor of environmental 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:01.199 studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Techno Oology. She's actually 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.760 one of the pioneers in the work that explains why 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.000 there's a hole in the Antarctic ozone layer, and she 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:11.719 specifically specializes in climate science. Next, we have Richard Somerville, 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.679 Professor of oceanography at the University of California, and his 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:19.520 focus his climate systems. Sharon Squassani. She's the director of 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.760 the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:28.320 International Studies at Washington d C. She specializes in nuclear 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.240 non proliferation, arms control, and security policy. And then we 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.919 have David Titley, Professor of Meteorology and International Affairs at 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.480 Pennsylvania State University, a former naval officer with the rank 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.960 of your admiral who used to work in the Pentagon. Okay, 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.600 so we've gone through that list. That is clearly a 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.560 list of people who have a lot of credentials under 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:51.719 their belt. Right It's it does not seem like a 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:53.520 list of I mean, I think we've got like a 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:55.760 little of her ten people. There's probably twelve or thirteen 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.440 of them here. They're not just whimsically going to say 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:03.040 something like we're two minutes away from the world ending. Right, 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:07.480 it seems like, uh, yeah, maybe they have rhetorical agendas, 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.200 but they are all experts in fields like uh, nuclear 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:18.720 non proliferation, military, uh, climate change, and and a growing 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.760 thing that they're looking at his cyber security. Right. And 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:25.520 then yeah, there's not a single celebrity or or you know, 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.879 isn't on the doomsday clok committee. Okay, let's take a 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.320 break and when we get back, let's really dive into 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:42.200 what the doomsday clock actually is. All right, we're back. 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.119 So everyone has probably seen a picture of the doomsday 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.920 clock thus far, if nothing else, it should be the 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.960 lead art for this episode on the website Stuff to 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.080 your Mind dot com. But but beyond that, beyond just 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.080 what it looks like, what is the doomsday clock? Okay? 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:02.560 So it was originally funded by, as I mentioned before, 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.520 people who were involved with the Manhattan Project, and one 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:09.680 of the Bulletin's members was a nuclear physicist named Alexander 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:14.320 Langsdorff and his wife, Martl. She was an artist, and 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:16.440 when they were coming up with this journal for the 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:20.480 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, she created a clock symbol, and 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:24.080 she said it to eleven fifty three for the cover 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.080 of the group's magazine. Now, she did this, she said, 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.840 because quote, it looked good to her eye. So there 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.879 was no there was no reasoning behind why it was 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:36.200 at eleven fifty three on the very first issue, which 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:38.440 just more like, yeah, this, this feels about right exactly 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:43.320 in nineteen nine, however, her husband reset it four minutes later. 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.879 Since then, this group has been around for seventy years 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.400 and they've used the clock to draw attention to worldwide 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:54.560 crises that they believe threatened the survival of the human species. 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:58.720 And their focus is almost entirely on the availability of 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.920 nuclear weapons and the world powers that are willing to 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.919 use them. So they kind of they describe it as 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.560 such as they say, it's a symbol obviously, but it's 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.160 a symbolic intersection of art and science, and its goal 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.680 is to get people to talk more about nuclear weapons. Basically, 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:18.400 you know, I think I think it's easy to say 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:20.760 this now, like especially since like what we were saying 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:22.280 with the nineties, it kind of was like, oh, the 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.480 Cold War is over. Who I don't have to worry 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.439 about that? Being a think the clock itself went to 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:32.199 something like seventeen minutes. Yeah. Yeah, nineteen one was the 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:34.919 most optimistic position it ever was at, and it was 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:38.960 seventeen minutes to midnight. Uh. Now the clock itself is 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:42.879 wavered between that seventeen minutes and two minutes. Uh. Since 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.600 its inception in seven The time itself, like we described, 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.440 as determined by this board of scientists and nuclear experts 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.840 who meet regularly. But ultimately, yes, this is a political 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:57.800 tool for communication. But here's the thing. It works. The 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:00.520 last few times they've announced a change of the clock, 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:03.760 it has been not only international news and that it's made, 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.679 you know, headlines and every major news outlet, but it 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:11.400 is also trended on Facebook and Twitter, so people talk 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.200