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When i first heard about the "Doomsday" clock, i was about 10 and some crisis was happening on our old black and white TV! My dad was explaining that we were so many minutes to midnight and at midnight there would be a nuclear war.
I was terrified as i lived in an era when nuclear drills were run and there were alot of shows on TV explaining what to do in the event of war. I think it was called "four minute warning" and it didn't seem long....
My dad died not long after and i was terrified for some time as i had no one who would carry on this conversation with me.
My life took a funny turn and it was decades before i heard of the doomsday clock again. I looked into it and it's a meeting of eminent scientists from around the world who meet bi annually. They use a mirriad of indicators to set the atomic clock. There are various things taken into consideration when the scientists from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decide what Midnight and Global catastrophe really mean a particular year. They might include "Politics, Energy, Weapons, Diplomacy, and Climate science." Potential sources of threat included nuclear threats, climate change, bioterrorism, and artificial intelligence.
The clock has been between 17 minutes and 2 minutes to 12, or doomsday. Eighteen months ago the scientists decided to use fractions of a minute and the clock was set at two and a half to twelve. It has since moved to two minutes to twelve. the closest it's been for the second time.
During the Cuban missile crisis was the closest we have been at our closest to nuclear conflagration but that crisis was so quick it never had the chance to be registered on the clock.
I think 2018 will see another record set on the clock, perhaps one and a half minutes to twelve. With the rhetoric being ramped up against Russia, Iran and others i think we are coming to the brink..