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may apply. may

1:01

apply. Hey and welcome to

1:03

The Short Stuff on Josh.

1:06

There's Chuck and we're sitting

1:08

in for Jerry who usually

1:11

sits in for Dave. So

1:13

yeah, let's go. Let's go. This

1:15

is... Well, it's a follow-up to our

1:17

Doomsday Clock episode, but it turns out we

1:20

didn't do a Doomsday Clock episode. I know

1:22

we've talked about this, so it might have

1:24

been in one of, when we were doing

1:26

videos years ago. I think it was probably

1:29

in one of those, but I know for

1:31

a fact, the only reason I would have

1:33

known about this is because of this job

1:35

and you. That makes me feel good

1:38

that I wasn't completely unaware that

1:40

we had done an episode on

1:42

doomsday clocks. Yeah, it popped up

1:44

in some place, but what's the

1:47

doomsday clock, Josh? So the doomsday

1:49

clock is a metaphorical clock that

1:51

is operated or overseen by the

1:53

bulletin atomic scientists, which was a

1:55

group of scientists who had worked

1:58

on the Manhattan Project. They got

2:00

together and they said, we need

2:02

to create a group that is

2:04

going to basically keep an

2:07

eye on this nuclear proliferation

2:09

that's starting up. And one of

2:11

the things they did in 1947

2:13

was create the doomsday clock.

2:15

And it essentially is this, I

2:18

guess it's a graphic representation of

2:20

how close humanity is to self-inflicted

2:22

disaster, like a nuclear war. Perfectly

2:24

said. Elegantly said. Thank you. Yeah,

2:27

so like you said, been around

2:29

since 1947. They set the time

2:31

every year. It's sort of a

2:34

thing where they say like, all

2:36

right, the time for this year

2:38

is going to be this. Would

2:41

they move it forward? Is something

2:43

really went down within a year?

2:45

I think they do it every year. So

2:47

like in January, they said it and

2:50

if like four months later, like... the

2:52

S goes down, they wouldn't be like,

2:54

they'd be like, no, gotta wait till

2:56

next year. Well, I think two things

2:58

would happen. Either it would be something

3:00

that they would take into account the

3:02

next year, yes, or the world would

3:04

end and they wouldn't have anything to

3:06

do anyway. Okay. But again,

3:08

we're talking about it this

3:10

year because there was, and

3:12

you know, we'll talk about

3:14

a little bit how it's

3:16

fluctuated over the years, but

3:18

the reason we bring it

3:20

up is because this year,

3:22

January 28th, 2025, is when

3:24

they moved the second hand

3:26

on the clock forward to

3:28

89 seconds to midnight, which

3:30

means it's the closest that

3:32

clock has ever been to

3:34

midnight since they started. creating

3:37

nukes testing nukes out in

3:39

the open underground in space

3:41

there was seven minutes to midnight

3:43

we're now less than two minutes

3:46

away from midnight because stuff is

3:48

just so close to hitting the

3:50

fan and We should say that they've

3:52

actually moved the clock

3:54

backward They've moved the secondhand

3:57

backwards further away from midnight

3:59

in the past and the

4:01

furthest away it was from

4:03

midnight was 1991 after the

4:05

Soviet Union dissolved it was

4:07

all the way back from

4:09

17 minutes to midnight which

4:11

is I think I think

4:13

that's called teaky time yeah it's

4:16

like bust out the rum

4:18

everybody exactly we're all 17

4:20

minutes yeah the closest pre

4:22

this time in 2025 was

4:24

in 1953 it was two

4:26

minutes before midnight before midnight

4:28

So we were 89 seconds till midnight and

4:30

the closest previous was two minutes. So

4:32

that's, you know, it's pretty drastic. And

4:34

again, you know, I guess we can

4:37

go ahead and mention one of the

4:39

criticisms of this is that it's... It's

4:41

something that just jins up, the critics

4:43

will say it's something that just jins

4:45

up paranoia in people and like pushes

4:47

the panic button and what is it

4:49

even doing? But what is doing, I

4:51

think it's a valuable thing because it

4:53

just raises awareness every year with people.

4:55

It's just another thing to kind of

4:57

say, hey, like we're not headed in

4:59

the right direction as humanity goes.

5:01

Yeah, so the first editor of

5:04

the bulletin of atomic scientists was

5:06

Eugene Rabinowich and Eugene Rabinowich said

5:08

that the purpose of the doomsday

5:11

clock is to quote frighten men

5:13

into rationality. Yeah. And to basically

5:15

say like hey, you know, this is

5:18

where this stuff's out of control people,

5:20

you need to be paying attention to

5:22

these things because they don't just say

5:24

we're 89 seconds from midnight. See you

5:26

next year. They explain what the... what

5:29

the reasoning is for moving or even

5:31

not moving or moving back to secondhand.

5:33

And this year, being 89 seconds, the

5:35

closest we've ever been, they had a

5:38

whole crop of issues that go well

5:40

beyond the nuclear risk that was originally,

5:42

the clock was originally designed to track.

5:44

And I say we take a break

5:46

and we come back and talk about

5:49

why we're so close to midnight right

5:51

now, according to the bulletin of atomic

5:53

scientists. Let's

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listen to us at 92. All

7:44

right everyone we're back. We're 80

7:46

seconds to midnight Not 10 minutes

7:48

to midnight like Charles Bronson was

7:50

in that great movie What was

7:53

it called 10 minutes to midnight?

7:55

Yeah, you didn't see that one. No, you

7:57

should check that out. It's got a couple

7:59

of choice scenes. It's about a creepy

8:01

serial killer that he's he's chasing. Though

8:04

Bronson's not the creepy serial killer, he's

8:06

being chased by a creepy dude. Charles

8:08

Bronson is always the guy on the

8:10

hunt for the bad guy. Have you

8:13

ever seen Deathwish 3 where like the

8:15

group of points is taken over the

8:17

neighborhood? Yeah, all the Deathwish movies. I mean

8:19

the first one was genuinely pretty

8:21

good, but they got really sort

8:24

of over the top after a while. Yeah, it's

8:26

good though. You got the Deathwish

8:28

pal! This is my favorite impression to

8:30

do. I can't wait till you get

8:33

your Morgan Freeman down. Oh no. I

8:35

don't think so. All right, so how

8:37

do we get 89 seconds to

8:39

midnight? This comes direct from the bulletin

8:42

website. Some we can kind of summarize.

8:44

A few of these I'm just going

8:46

to read outright because it's so

8:48

like sort of expertly put. But the

8:51

first thing is the ongoing war in

8:53

Ukraine and not just that, but the

8:55

nuclear risk therein involved in the

8:58

third year of that conflict that,

9:00

you know. Hopefully it doesn't go

9:02

that way? Maybe things are wrapping up,

9:04

but at the peak of this thing,

9:07

like any weird bad decision could have

9:09

led to something like that happening. Yeah,

9:11

same with the Middle East right

9:13

now. That can spiral out of

9:16

control and suck in nuclear powers

9:18

against one another. That's a nuclear

9:20

risk for sure. And then we're back

9:22

to increasing the size of our nuclear

9:24

arsenals, which is a reverse of what

9:26

we were doing in the 80s and

9:28

90s, where we were... getting rid of

9:30

them, that's not a good sign. And then

9:32

one other thing too, and this is

9:35

definitely new, countries that hadn't had nukes

9:37

before were basically like, well, we're never

9:39

gonna have nukes because that's just not

9:41

the way things are. It's changed geopolitically,

9:43

and now countries are starting

9:45

to think about developing their

9:47

own nuclear programs where if

9:49

you have more countries with more nukes, you

9:51

have that much more risk. Yeah. For

9:53

sure. Climate change is the next

9:55

thing they have listed. And this one

9:58

kind of speaks for it. We

10:00

don't need to beat a dead

10:02

horse, but their take basically is

10:04

that global greenhouse gas emissions are

10:06

still rising. No one is doing

10:09

enough to combat this. This is

10:11

bringing on extreme weather and climate

10:13

change events or climate change influence

10:15

events. And it's affecting people all

10:17

over the world. And even if

10:19

we're growing things like solar and

10:22

wind, it's just not fast enough

10:24

and not nearly enough to make

10:26

a dent in the damage that's

10:28

being done. Right. Also, there's the

10:30

biological arena, as they put

10:32

it. Oh boy, this one

10:34

is very scary. That's the

10:36

most mucusy arena. Yeah, but

10:38

obviously coming out of COVID,

10:41

and with the avian, the avian

10:43

flu, now expanding, you know, to

10:45

farm animals, to dairy products, human

10:47

cases, all this stuff is very

10:50

scary. And the point of this

10:52

episode isn't to scare the crud

10:54

out of everybody, but it's hard

10:57

to read the stuff and not...

10:59

get the credit scared out of

11:01

you sometimes. Yeah, also don't

11:03

leave AI on the sidelines

11:06

in their disruptive technology part.

11:08

They were like, like yes, AI, they

11:10

didn't get into the existential threat,

11:12

the AI itself posed. They more

11:14

looked at it like, hey,

11:16

some militaries are starting to

11:19

incorporate AI in their like

11:21

battlefield decision making. Like we're

11:23

a step away from AI's deciding whether

11:25

to kill or not kill. and then

11:27

eventually giving AIs control over

11:30

nuclear arsenals, and that's not

11:32

a direction we want to be going.

11:35

And then the whole thing, this is the

11:37

reason why all these things that have been

11:39

around for a while, or have been

11:41

developing for a while, have been

11:44

accelerated to 89 seconds for midnight

11:46

because of the threat multiplier of

11:48

misinformation and conspiracy theories. Yeah, and

11:51

this is the one I wanted

11:53

to read a part or two

11:55

from this. Because it just kind of speaks

11:58

volumes of things. They really they really put it

12:00

very distinctly, spread of misinformation, disinformation, and

12:02

conspiracy theories that degrade the communication

12:04

ecosystem, increasingly blur the lines between

12:06

truth and falsehood. And then they

12:08

talk about AI making it even,

12:11

you know, we've talked about deep

12:13

fake video and stuff like that,

12:15

like making all that stuff just

12:17

so much easier. And then this

12:19

final line is really, really good.

12:21

The battered information landscape is also

12:23

producing leaders who discount science and

12:25

endeavor to suppress free speech and

12:28

human rights, compromising the fact-based public

12:30

discussions that are required to combat

12:32

the enormous threats facing the world.

12:34

So like all of the problems that

12:36

we've been listing are bad enough.

12:38

And then when you've got disinformation

12:41

and conspiracy theories and misinformation thrown

12:43

on top of that. and AI

12:45

exacerbating all that, that's when it's

12:47

like they're moving that clock as

12:49

close to midnight as they've ever

12:51

been. Yeah, and the reason why

12:53

is because people would be under

12:56

that circumstance, they're being led away

12:58

from paying attention to the

13:00

stuff the doomsday clock is warring

13:02

against, and that just makes it that

13:04

much riskier too, because we have to

13:06

be paying attention to it, whether you

13:08

like it or not. For some reason when

13:11

I was researching this today, I

13:13

was like, this is striking me as

13:15

a little ridiculous and

13:17

Like I get the point of it and

13:19

I think it is noble and worthy

13:22

But there's also some like real

13:24

I Don't know real criticisms of it,

13:26

and I found one piece by

13:28

a guy named Stephen Johnson on

13:30

life hacker And he interviewed Lawrence Kraus,

13:33

who's a physicist and a member

13:35

of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

13:37

Sorry, the New Republic interviewed Kraus.

13:40

And he said it's not scientific.

13:42

It's a number that's arrived at

13:44

by a group of people. We're

13:46

exploring each of the questions and

13:48

having a huge amount of discussion

13:50

and ultimately convergence on a number.

13:52

That number is frankly arbitrary.

13:55

And that's true. You have to

13:57

remember it's a metaphor. There's no way

13:59

to measure. For 89 seconds for

14:01

midnight right now, how much longer

14:03

is the world going to last?

14:05

Yeah. And the big problem with

14:07

it, I think, is national geographic

14:10

put it, if everything's a

14:12

crisis, nothing's a crisis. So

14:14

before the whole thing was created

14:17

to say this one thing, nuclear

14:19

proliferation, this is what we're warning

14:21

about, now you've got climate change,

14:24

AI, avian flu, disinformation,

14:26

it's just like... being piled on

14:28

and I think it's it's really

14:30

diluted the the point in the

14:32

pointedness of the whole thing. Yeah

14:34

maybe but that's also the word we're

14:37

living in right now. Yeah but it makes

14:39

it so easy to just be like oh

14:41

well I give up I'm gonna get so

14:43

pay attention to I don't know flowers

14:45

versus zombies do people play that still?

14:48

I didn't know that was a thing.

14:50

I think it was at some point

14:52

unless I had a fever dream. Well,

14:54

you didn't have a fever dream.

14:56

One thing, whether or not you

14:58

agree with the doomsday clock or

15:01

not, one thing we can, I

15:03

can recommend, because you're too humble

15:05

too, is a little limited podcast

15:07

series called The End of the

15:09

World with Josh Clark. That way

15:11

you can really learn something and

15:14

take a deep dive into real

15:16

existential threats that face humanity. Thanks,

15:18

Chuck, I appreciate that. Holds up,

15:20

I appreciate that. Holds up, though.

15:22

Yeah. Well, because one of the

15:24

number one rules in show businesses

15:27

leave them wanting more, I say

15:29

short stuff is out. Stuff you should

15:31

know is a production of I Heart

15:33

Radio. For more podcasts, My Heart

15:36

Radio, visit the I Heart Radio

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