The article in the url below is a somewhat dark (humorous?) portrayal of the prospects for humanity, as measured by the Doomsday Clock, which was invented in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to highlight the threat posed by nuclear weapons. While nuclear annihilation is perhaps less likely, today, there are other threats that have emerged to rival it:
"The clock was originally designed with a 15-minute range, counting down to midnight — the stroke of doom — and the Bulletin's members move it from time to time in response to current events, which now include threats like climate change and pandemics."
While the minute hand has gone back and forth (mostly forth), it is currently uncomfortably close to midnight:
"A year ago, after Russia invaded Ukraine and brandished the threat of using nuclear weapons, the clock was set to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has yet come to The End. The threat of nuclear weapons in Ukraine has diminished since then, but the clock remains poised at 90 seconds before zero."
While this feels perilously close, the author questions whether we are alone in the universe in inventing technologies that could potentially lead to our own destruction:
"Life arose on Earth within half a billion years of its formation, which suggests to hopeful astrobiologists that generating life is easy, at least in microbial form. Maybe intelligence is the hard part."
The author continues to comment on the likelihood that we are not alone in the universe:
"Another theory is that intelligent civilizations, when they do arise, don't long survive their own intelligence, or at least not long enough to make a dent in the cosmos."
What I like is the idea that "generating life is easy, at least in microbial form," which sets the foundation for the author's hopeful conclusion – even if you need a dark sense of humor to fully appreciate it:
"The secret sauce of life is evolution and natural selection, not any particular species. The extinction of a species — dinosaurs, viruses, us — is a loss for the vigor of the world, but it opens realms of possibility for others, new avenues of evolution. With another billion years to go before the sun burns Earth to a crisp, our planet's most interesting life-forms may be yet to come."
Take care
David
David Chandler
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Keeping Time With the Doomsday Clock
By Dennis Overbye
February 13, 2024
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
D3
