As IF Times

Source: The Doomsday Clock just advanced, ‘thanks to Trump’: It’s now just 2½ minutes to ‘midnight.’ – The Washington Post

You know what they say about a broken clock.  In that case, a broken clock would be more accurate than the ‘doomsday clock’ propagated by this cabal of atomic scientists for decades now.

The recent claim from this group is that because of Trump, the clock now figuratively points to a few minutes before kaboom day. Not North Korea’s version of Elmer Fudd playing with matches, not Iran enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, not Pakistan and India whom are already in possession of them and not Russia with their aggressive leader Putin.  Apparently, it’s the election of Donald Trump that pushes the minute hand on the death clock.

This of course is just one of the numerous swords of Damocles looming above the human race if you paid attention to the numerous chicken little industries that always seem to flourish.  The tin foil hat business should be booming.  When not paralyzed by the imminent threat of nuclear annihilation, people are also paying through confiscatory taxes to assuage the effects of hysterical global warming, also incidentally on the verge of irreversible damage.  Or at least, was a while ago.  They’ll have to push the date back a bit to get more money. But we get it; the end of the world isn’t always that easy to pinpoint.

No less than Stephen Hawking has raised the imminent possibility of alien takeover, not to mention the likelihood of a catastrophic asteroid strike. At various points in my lifetime, hysteria has been pushed on imminent human extinction events ranging from: starvation, disease, overpopulation, religious retribution, Y2K, global cooling, now of course, global warming, atomic war, asteroid crashes and alien takeover.  The one that will soon be in vogue will be robot takeover, so we may want to stock up on metal detectors.

Someone can certainly make a lot of money on this.  There’s no point being paralyzed like myotonic goats awaiting death. As mentioned earlier, fashionable tin foil hats can be offered for sale on Amazon.  What about worry beads? They’d have to be sustainable of course…though that shouldn’t really matter.  How about special lotion for all the hand wringing brought on by on-going angst? We hear of billionaires building bunkers in anticipation of the final kabing, so someone’s already taking advantage of the gullible.  Whatever the product, it may as well be shameless because there’s no downside.  If it all ends, well then you’ve done your bit.  If it doesn’t end, you at least get rich. Now that is a good ending.

link Doomsday clock set at 5 to midnight – CBS News.

We last visited this doomsday clock back in 2010. http://asiftimes.com/2010/01/14/thats-a-relief/  Over the many years since they first brought out this metaphorical measure of human extinction back in the early 1950’s, you’d think that the purveyors would have worn out the skin on their hands from all the wringing.

While it’s hard to argue with the reality that since the 1950’s when only two parties had access to the big kaboom, today there are many nations with nuclear bomb making capability.  No longer the exclusive domain of the Americans and the Soviets, the new players include the 17th century nations of North Korea and Pakistan.  Pakistan of course got the bomb because arch rival India got it years ago.  Nations that house their people in tin roofed shanties nevertheless have the capability to ixnay their neighbors if they were to go all Richard Sherman one day.  Iran has aspirations to join this exclusive circle as well, so the players keep a-comin’.   Despite this arms buildup, it’s unlikely that any of them would be dumb enough to fire the first shot, since that would likely mean a large mushroom shaped cloud would in turn be directed their way in minutes not days.

The stated reason for the metaphorical clock is to warn against a “civilization threatening catastrophe” which in the day meant an atomic bomb event.  If you ask me, the word “civilization” strictly speaking  doesn’t just mean people in general, as those living in Syria, the Sudan or North Korea will attest.  There is no civilization if people are oppressed, enslaved, starved and unable to enact free will.  There is just a large majority being pushed around by a very small minority.

In nations such as those, there is no long history of democratic free will or the establishment of ‘civilized’ protocols for its citizens.  Education and information flow is both low and controlled, so people can be more easily repressed.   Instead, their histories are marked by autocratic rulers who determined the rules of society as they saw fit to enact.  Typically, violence is the preferred method of enforcement.  Life is miserable anyway, so nuclear angst is probably low.

Therefore when they talk about ‘civilization ending catastrophe’, they really mean western civilization, because in parts of the world where despotism prevails, no one spends their days worrying about anything other than getting through their day alive and fed.  However, even in the ‘enlightened’ western world, the angst of imminent doomsday, nuclear or otherwise, is a bit down the list of concerns for the average Joe, perhaps adjacent to how they get the caramel in a Caramilk bar.

Unless of course you are in the professional doomsday business.  While nuclear warfare may exist as a theoretical possibility, that dynamic has evolved into a circular firing squad, so the chances of an event are slim.  Over the years, numerous other imminent world ending scenarios have had their turn in the spotlight as the pending disaster du jour.   Remember global overpopulation?  Bioterrorism?  Today, there is  the possibility of the earth colliding with a wayward asteroid; massive volcanic eruption; or solar flares.  Let’s not rule out alien invasion.  Of course we can’t forget the current imminent disaster headliner; climate change.

I think that the doomsday crowd should pay some attention to the real civilization ending event(s) that are going on right now.  This dynamic has been going on forever and is as prevalent now as it has ever been.  As mentioned above, this is where the small minority are pushing around and enslaving the large majority.   It’s the dumb preying on the dumber.