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Comment by fallingknife | Hacker News Reader

Problem is they have to keep moving it closer to midnight or they won't get any media attention. This leads to ridiculous outcomes like showing we are currently 5x closer to nuclear war than during the Cuban missile crisis when it was at 7 mins. Not sure why anybody takes this seriously.

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> Problem is they have to keep moving it closer to midnight or they won't get any media attention.

It was last moved in 2020 and doesn't appear to move every year. Moreover, it has been moved back in the past. I don't get the impression this is some cynical media ploy but instead an educational effort from some well meaning experts in their respective fields trying to raise awareness and provoke action towards remedying various existential threats, including nuclear war, but also climate change and biological threats.

They are atomic scientists, so they actually aren't even experts in any of those fields. The risk of nuclear war is a geopolitical question which has nothing to do with the science behind the weapons.

Quite to the contrary, the clock is set by the Science and Security Board which seems much more focused on geopolitical questions instead of scientific. The Science and Security Board is advised by the Board of Sponsors, which does have quite a few scientists, but only in an advisory role.

> They are atomic scientists

"Atomic scientist" isn't even really a thing. This is a political advocacy magazine, and always has been.

The Cuban Missile Crisis only lasted 13 days. They operate this clock on a longer time scale. It's often years between updates.

Honestly it seems to me that Putin is mentally much closer to using nuclear weapons in his offensive war than Krushchev was in his perceived defense of Cuba in 1962.

The likelihood of an accidental nuclear launch was definitely higher then (e.g. by a submarine commander misinterpreting the situation). But I do think the likelihood of an intentional nuclear strike is substantially higher today. Some Russian decision makers seem to believe they could get away with a tactical strike. And then there's North Korea.

Putin is threatening nuclear war because he wants the general public in the west to fear their leaders' policies of sending more weapons to Ukraine. He directly benefits from the perception among the public that he is crazy enough to do it. But a look at his history shows him to be much more calculating and intelligent than that. He is not going to give the order to end the world when there are not even enemy troops on Russian soil.

As for a tactical strike, this is the "Doomsday Clock" so that doesn't count.

> Honestly it seems to me that Putin is mentally much closer to using nuclear weapons in his offensive war than Krushchev was in his perceived defense of Cuba in 1962.

That's because it wouldn't be Krushchev who would start nuclear war in 1962.

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