Doomsday Clock set to move this Thursday

[Flagg]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34813961...nce/?GT1=43001

For the first time ever, all those with internet can watch if the clock moves a minute closer or away.

"The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2007, when it was pushed forward by two minutes, from seven to five minutes before midnight. The change was meant to reflect two major sources of potential catastrophe that could bring us closer to "doomsday," according to the board of "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," a magazine focused on warning the world of the dangers that the invention of the atomic bomb helped to unleash."


My guess is it will move forward. Do people pay mind to sort of thing? Do you think its a fair representation and that we really are on borrowed time? Does anyone even care?

Nuclear armageddon is still the biggest threat to human survival according to this.

[D7M]

What was that quote from The Watchmen: "I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as photograph of oxygen to a drowning man." I think that was it.

Anyway, what do you think is the biggest threat to human survival, Flagg?

[Flagg]

Well barring an asteroid impact, we are definitely our own worst enemy. Over population. We are growing at an exponential rate, because we have become masters of the planet we have no predators, we dont die of diseases as much, most of us live to old age consuming vast sums of resources. Every second, 5 people are born for every 3 that die, that's 2 people being added to the population every second! If it takes you a minute to read this entire post, 120 people have just been added to the population. More people means more aggriculture, more deforestation, more land being destroyed to make homes for us. I mean is the planet just going to turn into one giant farm?

Eventually we'll get to a tipping point. Resources will run low and thats when you'll get wars that will pull in everyone else. The War for Resources. Oil is reaching a peak point, I think fresh water will be tighter regulated in the future. And food. China and India sooner, rather than later, will become Developed Nations. That means all of a sudden you have 3 billion people demanding everything we take for granted.

I truly believe space exploration will be our only salvation.

[Rockin Z28]

1.i dont believe space exploration will be our salvation (the time to develop that technology and travel said distances will never be feasible probably before the earth's core expires), over population of any given species is controlled by nature and that includes us..that means a some point in the fairly near future resources will become so excessively tight that people will basically be eating eachother to survive, after the wars over resources and enough people have starved to death the population will be at a more sustainable level

2. look at starving children in africa (just as an example) over population is simply defined as a species that has populated an area without sufficient resources to sustain their life (it could very well even be a tiny population, as messed up as it is, starvation and disease keeps that population in check), its all relative anyways, none of us are getting off this rock alive

[chuckt12345]

that pretty bleak flagg.
is that randall flagg from stephen king?

[Flagg]

1.i dont believe space exploration will be our salvation (the time to develop that technology and travel said distances will never be feasible probably before the earth's core expires), over population of any given species is controlled by nature and that includes us..that means a some point in the fairly near future resources will become so excessively tight that people will basically be eating eachother to survive, after the wars over resources and enough people have starved to death the population will be at a more sustainable level

2. look at starving children in africa (just as an example) over population is simply defined as a species that has populated an area without sufficient resources to sustain their life (it could very well even be a tiny population, as messed up as it is, starvation and disease keeps that population in check), its all relative anyways, none of us are getting off this rock alive

Yeah, Africa has a high mortality rate, high birth rate but again, high mortality rate, parts of it lack education, no clean water, no stable governments..South Africa is about as stable as you get and I know people from South Africa that have seen terrible things there. Yeah maybe we'll all go Solent Green on each other, but not before a few beligerant nuts decide to let off a nuke or 10.

[Flagg]

that pretty bleak flagg.
is that randall flagg from stephen king?

Yes, The Stand! Ironically, thats about mankind and a Doomsday Sceanrio! Read the book, its epic!

[Flagg]

I know it's bleak, but im just looking at it objectively. We aren't too disimiliar to locusts, which is one of mankinds biggest competitors for food. You know some 25% of all food produced from farming everyear will simply dissapear because of locusts eating crops.

No animal wants to die on this planet, but humans have developed this mentality of dying being completely unacceptable. If you live in the West, barring a unfortunate accident, chances are you are going to die of old age. And thats another thing, there are more and more retired people every year.

If we develop technology/medicine that prolongs life by a further 100 years, there are going to be billions upon billions of people living in squalor.

Just my two cents! But nothing is infinite.

[SunHangDo]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34813961...nce/?GT1=43001

For the first time ever, all those with internet can watch if the clock moves a minute closer or away.

"The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2007, when it was pushed forward by two minutes, from seven to five minutes before midnight. The change was meant to reflect two major sources of potential catastrophe that could bring us closer to "doomsday," according to the board of "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," a magazine focused on warning the world of the dangers that the invention of the atomic bomb helped to unleash."


My guess is it will move forward. Do people pay mind to sort of thing? Do you think its a fair representation and that we really are on borrowed time? Does anyone even care?

Nuclear armageddon is still the biggest threat to human survival according to this.

They'll move it forward, and then spout a bunch of bullshit about global warming.

Meanwhile, Florida is experiencing record low temperatures. Up yours Al Gore.

You too Obama.

[MaNiCC]

What was that quote from The Watchmen: "I would only agree that a symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as photograph of oxygen to a drowning man." I think that was it.

Anyway, what do you think is the biggest threat to human survival, Flagg?

quality film

" None of you people seem to realise, im not locked in here with you, your locked in here with me!"

[J-Dogg]

1.i dont believe space exploration will be our salvation (the time to develop that technology and travel said distances will never be feasible probably before the earth's core expires), over population of any given species is controlled by nature and that includes us..that means a some point in the fairly near future resources will become so excessively tight that people will basically be eating eachother to survive, after the wars over resources and enough people have starved to death the population will be at a more sustainable level

2. look at starving children in africa (just as an example) over population is simply defined as a species that has populated an area without sufficient resources to sustain their life (it could very well even be a tiny population, as messed up as it is, starvation and disease keeps that population in check), its all relative anyways, none of us are getting off this rock alive

I disagree, i'll go further.

I think, and I'll have it be said that I'm not 100% but I theorize that the sun would consumer the earth as a red giant before the core of our earth solidify.

That would be 4.5 BILLION years away about the time the Milky Way collides with Andromeda (our galaxy next door that is much larger).

That's a LONG LONG time. Considering we have only had electricity for a little over 100 years, driving cars for about 100 years. 100 years ago....we had a model T. Since then, we've mapped human DNA, we have super computers, developed nucular and hydrogen bombs and energy sources, the same source our sun and the stars in the universe operate under.

That's in a 100 year window. That's a .000000008% window of "1 BILLION" years little alone 4.5 Billion. In that amount of time, who knows what could be done?

In the 1500's, 500 years ago, did anyone think we would have cars? I could post this from my house for the entire world to read? We could not even explain the moon, little alone put a human on it.

As the "world IQ" increases, nuclear holocaust also decreases. As the world IQ increases, and more countries gain nuclear weapons, the world powers know the consequence to using those in the time of war.

I also think as more and more people convert to atheist, the world has a better chance, since the biggest threat of nuclear weapons being used is that of religious terrorist groups gaining access to them.

I personally feel we need to invest more into exploring into outer space, figuring out the mystery of it. Consider colonizing other planets and developing faster means of travel.

What better way to stimulate our economy and raise the spirts of our plummeting nation in America? Cut the 698 billion dollar miliatary budget in half and put 200 billion into space technology and 200 billion into stemc ell research and gene/dna research? Or do we just keep trying to create factories to compete with Chinese labor?

I think humanity as a whole would benefit greatly. The holy rollers complaining about it would quickly forget the "sins" when loved ones were cured of disease, and were walking out of their wheel chairs. If there is a god, he gave us the ability to gain this knowledge, and he's not coming down and telling us to let people die, or you are not allowed to live past 80 years old.

[SunHangDo]

J-Dogg

Nothing wrong with religion, just as long as your religion isn't one which wants to kill people. Love your neighbor as yourself is a motto that everyone would do well to live by.

But regarding space exploration, I'm looking forward to the time when they finally stop sitting on the Extraterrestrial phenomena. Other life forms have been visiting this planet for thousands of years. Even ancient cultures such as the Sumerians wrote about them. I wish our world was stable enough for them to just let us in on the "big secret" already. But the general populous is far to weak and scared for them to do it yet.

Oh, and regarding the multi billion dollar military budget? That's chump change. The US military said that is has 2.3 TRILLION unaccounted for, and that was back in 2001. Not to mention the TRILLIONS of dollars the Federal Reserve has been stealing. Ask yourself where that money is going, and why the public isn't being informed about it. Then ask yourself if the people running the nation really have our best interests in mind.

[J-Dogg]

J-Dogg

Nothing wrong with religion, just as long as your religion isn't one which wants to kill people. Love your neighbor as yourself is a motto that everyone would do well to live by.

But regarding space exploration, I'm looking forward to the time when they finally stop sitting on the Extraterrestrial phenomena. Other life forms have been visiting this planet for thousands of years. Even ancient cultures such as the Sumerians wrote about them. I wish our world was stable enough for them to just let us in on the "big secret" already. But the general populous is far to weak and scared for them to do it yet.

Oh, and regarding the multi billion dollar military budget? That's chump change. The US military said that is has 2.3 TRILLION unaccounted for, and that was back in 2001. Not to mention the TRILLIONS of dollars the Federal Reserve has been stealing. Ask yourself where that money is going, and why the public isn't being informed about it. Then ask yourself if the people running the nation really have our best interests in mind.

I have no qualms with religion, I just feel as the world IQ increases, more people will realize a lot of the traditions and rules behind would require some evidence to back rather than blind faith and fear of the unknown.

Eventually we'll understand things more. Much the previous cultures worshiped the sun, because they did not know what it was....so it must be a god. As we gain more knowledge, and evolve we understand how the sun operates, it's no longer a mystery, or a phenom-on that humans have to write off as a god or holy being.

[Kibble]

If overpopulation seriously comes to the point of deplinished resources, then the government will limit the number of children that a couple may have. Some countries in Asia were doing that I believe. Overpopulation solved

[ranging1]

Well barring an asteroid impact, we are definitely our own worst enemy. Over population. We are growing at an exponential rate, because we have become masters of the planet we have no predators, we dont die of diseases as much, most of us live to old age consuming vast sums of resources. Every second, 5 people are born for every 3 that die, that's 2 people being added to the population every second! If it takes you a minute to read this entire post, 120 people have just been added to the population. More people means more aggriculture, more deforestation, more land being destroyed to make homes for us. I mean is the planet just going to turn into one giant farm?

Eventually we'll get to a tipping point. Resources will run low and thats when you'll get wars that will pull in everyone else. The War for Resources. Oil is reaching a peak point, I think fresh water will be tighter regulated in the future. And food. China and India sooner, rather than later, will become Developed Nations. That means all of a sudden you have 3 billion people demanding everything we take for granted.

I truly believe space exploration will be our only salvation.

lol actually ur right in saying this since im currently studying econmoics and writing a thesis on this

stats are actually world population has DOUBLED every 10 years for the last 200 years

and its the biggest concern for every economist,a nd is generally believed that population control will be inevidable if the human race is to survive

another fun fact is poverty had a 98% correlation with GDP growth with the 10 wealthiest nations in the world, meaning that the richer we get, the poorer and worse off everyone else becomes

and just for another fun fact, most developed countires nows living standards are falling due to higher living costs, and higher populations, the distribution of wealth is also growing dramatically

meaning the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer, but at the same time both types of peoples living standards are falling dramatically, and have been for the last 10-15 years


i wouldnt worry about doomsday, in the end of the day mankind capitalism approach to wealth will be end of its existance

but then again man itself will end up destoying itself inevidably, capitalsim just accelerated it

[edenfield]

Isn't Russia launching a satellite to deflect an asteroid that's on course to hit Earth?

[ranging1]

Isn't Russia launching a satellite to deflect an asteroid that's on course to hit Earth?

lol i wouldnt rely on russia to build a satelite to deflect a life threatening asteroid

thats like getting a primary school kid to build you a house, im sure he will do it to the est of his abilities like russia will

[Flagg]

Isn't Russia launching a satellite to deflect an asteroid that's on course to hit Earth?

They are making plans to steer away a asteroid that has a chance of hitting our planet in 2029. Thing is, the same asteroid will pass by us again in 2034.

@Ranging, i've been studying population dynamics in my ecology classes, and while the population isn't doubling every ten years, it is accelerating at a ridiculous rate. I think round abouts the time of the Industrial revolution, there were 1 billion people on the planet. Just think, it took some 10,000 years to get to that. Yet in 160 years we now have 6.7 billion. I think the projected figures for 2099 is 15-19 billion.

There's already talk in the UK of not allowing our population to exceed 70 million. All I know is, in a democratic society, who is going to like being told they can only have a certain number of kids?

[chuckt12345]

Yes, The Stand! Ironically, thats about mankind and a Doomsday Sceanrio! Read the book, its epic!

ive read pretty much everythign hes ever written,, flagg actually comes out in several of his books. best author ever iMO

[BJJ]

Well barring an asteroid impact, we are definitely our own worst enemy. Over population. We are growing at an exponential rate, because we have become masters of the planet we have no predators, we dont die of diseases as much, most of us live to old age consuming vast sums of resources. Every second, 5 people are born for every 3 that die, that's 2 people being added to the population every second! If it takes you a minute to read this entire post, 120 people have just been added to the population. More people means more aggriculture, more deforestation, more land being destroyed to make homes for us. I mean is the planet just going to turn into one giant farm?

Eventually we'll get to a tipping point. Resources will run low and thats when you'll get wars that will pull in everyone else. The War for Resources. Oil is reaching a peak point, I think fresh water will be tighter regulated in the future. And food. China and India sooner, rather than later, will become Developed Nations. That means all of a sudden you have 3 billion people demanding everything we take for granted.

I truly believe space exploration will be our only salvation.

Agreed

[Flagg]

Hi Bjj, havent seen you around in awhile.

Did you enjoy yourself over the christmas holidays?

[J-Dogg]

They are making plans to steer away a asteroid that has a chance of hitting our planet in 2029. Thing is, the same asteroid will pass by us again in 2034.

@Ranging, i've been studying population dynamics in my ecology classes, and while the population isn't doubling every ten years, it is accelerating at a ridiculous rate. I think round abouts the time of the Industrial revolution, there were 1 billion people on the planet. Just think, it took some 10,000 years to get to that. Yet in 160 years we now have 6.7 billion. I think the projected figures for 2099 is 15-19 billion.

There's already talk in the UK of not allowing our population to exceed 70 million. All I know is, in a democratic society, who is going to like being told they can only have a certain number of kids?

While asteroids are a threat, the vast amount of space in our solar system and space in general, collisions of any significance are extremely rare and are even more rare in our system as we've been in the same orbit for over a billion years. Most things that were on a collision course, have already collided, it's why our solar system was so chaotic in the start,but is now so stable.

Everything runs like millions of gears in a rolex watch. But it's not a design, it's just by chance.

A asteroid would have to be on pin point accuracy to hit us, we are a pin head in a gym in our solar system. If one was on course, and I'm sure in time there will be, the projectile could move 1" and miss us by thousands of miles with any significant notice.

The most logical way I've read about, is simply having a small craft or satellite orbit the asteroid, and in doing so throw it off course.

[solid-d]

If overpopulation seriously comes to the point of deplinished resources, then the government will limit the number of children that a couple may have. Some countries in Asia were doing that I believe. Overpopulation solved

Close... But wrong.. The government has just began population control. Its called a f#cked up health care, or as some my say "pulling the pug on grandma".. Why do you think the government does not have the same general health care as the citizens of the USA.. You watch, it has already begun.....

[Lift-Eat-Repeat]

^^^ Agreed

[Friend]

I'm not usually one for travelling but the post apocolyptic world is a place i would visit

[BJJ]

Hi Bjj, havent seen you around in awhile.

Did you enjoy yourself over the christmas holidays?

I have been busy with personal issue, that's why.
Yes, those holidays are a moment to spend with one's family and those who have little kids enjoy even more because of the "magic air" they breath.

A part from that, christmas is just a business!

[ranging1]

They are making plans to steer away a asteroid that has a chance of hitting our planet in 2029. Thing is, the same asteroid will pass by us again in 2034.

@Ranging, i've been studying population dynamics in my ecology classes, and while the population isn't doubling every ten years, it is accelerating at a ridiculous rate. I think round abouts the time of the Industrial revolution, there were 1 billion people on the planet. Just think, it took some 10,000 years to get to that. Yet in 160 years we now have 6.7 billion. I think the projected figures for 2099 is 15-19 billion.

There's already talk in the UK of not allowing our population to exceed 70 million. All I know is, in a democratic society, who is going to like being told they can only have a certain number of kids?

yea indutrial revolution is when it started accelerating dramatically

apologies its the top 20 devloping countires actually that growing at this rate over 200 years, even half CENTURY, my mistake

no ones going to like being told they can onyl have a certain number of kids,

but at same time their not going to like being told theirs not enough food to feed them either lol

im a big believer that the human race will destroy itself, its only until the emergence of capitalism and the indutrial era (sorry it never was a revolution, happy to debate it lol) that we starting accelerating this process

unless we stop our industrial societys, capitalism will accelerate its development and inevidably the human race will be destoryed

however im not a believer we will all die at a radical rate close to extinction

but rather our population will be dramatically reduced to a much smaller size due to some circumstance

e.g what happened during the dark ages of europe and most the world when the plague erupted and reduced europes populations by over 80%

and then once again we will grow again

[stevey_6t9]

or we can just not care because were going to die regardless of anything?

[ranging1]

or we can just not care because were going to die regardless of anything?

thats the reasonw hy were gonna die out eventually

btw send me ur avatar, i love it

[Flagg]

While asteroids are a threat, the vast amount of space in our solar system and space in general, collisions of any significance are extremely rare and are even more rare in our system as we've been in the same orbit for over a billion years. Most things that were on a collision course, have already collided, it's why our solar system was so chaotic in the start,but is now so stable.

Everything runs like millions of gears in a rolex watch. But it's not a design, it's just by chance.

A asteroid would have to be on pin point accuracy to hit us, we are a pin head in a gym in our solar system. If one was on course, and I'm sure in time there will be, the projectile could move 1" and miss us by thousands of miles with any significant notice.

The most logical way I've read about, is simply having a small craft or satellite orbit the asteroid, and in doing so throw it off course.

Well there is a 250,000 to 1 chance of the Asteroid hitting. The fact it's passing by us twice, and within 30,000 km (the moon is 380,000 km away from us) concerns me, by space standards that pretty close. But then you might say "well 250,000 to 1 of it not hitting are pretty good" but we're talking about something that can wipe out most life on earth. You simply can't ignore that and "hope for the best". The chances of you winning the lotto are probably greater than 250,000 to 1 yet someone has to win it. Eventually that asteroid will have to hit a planet through the laws of averages alone. If I pointed a 12 gauge at you, one that was damaged, rusted because it'd been sitting in a well for 20 years, hadnt been fired in years and the ammo was wet, but loaded and I said "Hey theres a 250,000 to 1 chance of this thing going off, do you mind if I pull the trigger?"...naturally you are never going to take your chance because human survival supercedes most odds that threaten it.

[Flagg]

The clock went back! Okay, so 6 minutes to midnight still seems like impending doom is imminant, but that's quite an "optimistic" adjustment to the clock.