Talk:Doomsday Clock

Commentaries

I offer the following selection of articles generally commenting on the Doomsday Clock, with the thought that some might be appropriate to include in the article:

• explanations
  • How to read the Doomsday Clock BBC (multiple columns/various dates)
    • The lost nuclear bombs that no one can find (Zaria Gorvett, 8/4/2022)
    • The revealing junk of abandoned Soviet nuclear bases (Chris Baraniuk, 5/11/2022)
    • How to evaluate the risk of nuclear war (Seth Baum, 3/10/2022)
  • Panic Time Columbia Journalism Review (Spring 2020)
  • What Even Is The Doomsday Clock? New Republic (1/25/2018)
  • Eeek! Doomsday Clock 2022 Revealed Clive Maxfield (1/20/2022)
  • What the Doomsday Clock is really counting down to Vox (1/21/2022)
• elimination
  • The Doomsday Clock: why there’s no point worrying about Armageddon The Guardian (1/26/2015)
  • The Doomsday Clock has been ticking for 70 years. It’s time to let it die. Grist (1/30/2021)
  • It's Time to Nuke the Doomsday Clock Gizmodo (1/20/2022)
• disparaging
  • Why the Doomsday Clock really moved Alexandra Petri (1/10/2012)
  • Extremely Stupid Doomsday Talk Gwynne Dyer (2/5/2017)
  • The Doomsday Clock Is Stupid Paste (1/25/2018)
  • Why the Doomsday Clock is an idiotic indicator the world's media should ignore National Post (1/25/2018)
  • The ‘Doomsday Clock’ is, of course, ridiculous American Enterprise Institute (1/22/2015)
• other
  • Doomsday Clock: What's It All Mean? The Comics Journal (3/4/2020)

Fabrickator (talk) 23:03, 27 March 2022 (UTC), Fabrickator (talk) 03:08, 4 May 2022 (UTC), Fabrickator (talk) 01:09, 18 October 2022 (UTC) Fabrickator (talk) 20:19, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

How long is a second worth in this context?

A month? A year? --116.240.236.234 (talk) 12:28, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I think you have raised a good point. Time on the clock is metaphorical and does not denote actual time. The articles Doomsday Clock and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists did not make this clear, so I clarified this in both articles.—Anita5192 (talk) 15:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. 116.240.236.234 (talk) 14:22, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it is critical to an interest in this clock as a metaphor that its time units be correlated with actual time - understanding that it is a metaphor - but this correlation is the whole point of the metaphor. The clock can move forward and backward, representing a probability over ‘x’ future. Please give people an accurate temporal sense of ‘x’ and its fractions, otherwise such movements are meaningless. Thanks 173.16.164.169 (talk) 11:44, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Wikilink of self-defeating prophecy

I question the relevance of the wikilink of "unfulfilled" to self-defeating prophecy‎. The implication of "self-defeating prophecy" is that the result of making such a prediction was that the event did not ultimately occur.

While we could hope that the Doomsday Clock would have such an effect, that is certainly just wishful thinking, so I suggest that this wikilink is not appropriate. Fabrickator (talk) 18:11, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree and I have removed the link.—Anita5192 (talk) 18:40, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

On January 26, 2027, the Doomsday Clock will move closer to midnight, which it would include AI-controlled cyber attacks, and the 2026 Iran war. Nick nella 2.0 (talk) 17:36, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

The USSR dissolved AFTER the 1991 clock setting, I think

The 1991 clock setting of 17 minutes to midnight (the farthest distance ever) mentions a US-USSR arms treaty and also the dissolution of the USSR in the table. However, the Soviet Union did not dissolve until December 26th of 1991, which I'm fairly certain was after the setting was chosen for 1991. I therefore think the current table is misleading in mentioning the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a cause, unless perhaps it was viewed as very likely at the time the clock was set. If it was based on a forecast, or the partial dissolution (which had begun significantly by 1989), then that should be mentioned in the table. As currently written, readers might think the Soviet Union dissolved in 1990 (rather than 1991), or that the clock is set after December 26th of the nominal year (it is set much earlier, unless they made an exception). Fluoborate (talk) 01:41, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I found a copyright-redacted preview version of the magazine editorial that formally announced the setting of the Doomsday Clock to 17 minutes to midnight, i.e. 11:43 PM. It ran in the Tuesday, 1991-11-26, edition of the magazine, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. That is late in the year, but before 1991-12-26 (the formal dissolution of the USSR). They say that the nuclear arms race has ended. It also seems that the clock is not set "annually", as the infobox in this Wikipedia article currently says, it is apparently set when the circumstances dictate a change. This may have been the case in 1991 but not today. Fluoborate (talk) 01:58, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

I found the whole editorial in Google Books, it is from the "December 1991" issue, but it came out November 26. I will probably update the article now. Fluoborate (talk) 02:11, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Minutes and seconds

I know minutes have been added and subtracted, but we haven’t seen any seconds added. 2601:195:C000:A760:15B6:C183:4FE7:F924 (talk) 19:04, 28 September 2025 (UTC)