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posted by martyb on Friday January 26 2018, @01:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-read-this-VERY-quickly dept.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) has set the Doomsday Clock to "two minutes to midnight" to reflect fears of a nuclear confrontation with North Korea, as well as the failure of world leaders to address climate change and other factors. The clock is now set as close to doomsday as it was in 1953:

The team of scientists singled out a series of nuclear tests by North Korea. They dramatically escalated tensions on the Korean peninsula and led to a war of words between North Korea and the US.

The BAS also referred to a new US nuclear strategy that was expected to call for more funding to expand the role of the country's nuclear arsenal. Rising tension between Russia and the West was also a contributing factor.

The "weakening of institutions" around the world in dealing with major global threats - including climate change - was another major concern, the scientists said. They also mentioned US President Donald Trump's "unpredictability", pointing to his often controversial tweets and statements.

We're back, baby!


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday January 26 2018, @08:08PM (2 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 26 2018, @08:08PM (#628477)

    For example, the First World War which is thought to have killed 15-20 million people started with an assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire

    Nah nah nothing to do with that. The root cause of WWI was the leadership, culture, political geography, and national boundaries of Europe were pre-industrial, but here's all this industrial era stuff rolling around like locomotive deployment of troops and machine guns and submarines and tanks and the Russians are industrializing and expanding.

    If you want a less "root" cause the pre-industrial era ottoman and austro-hungarian empires were dead men walking on the verge of collapse and disintegration and everybody wanted a piece of the corpse(s) and everyone figured the best way to get a piece of the action was to go in shooting, because, well, frankly that usually worked pretty well, pre-industrially anyway, mostly.

    ballooned greatly from there

    It wasn't an accident it was the whole purpose of the exercise. It was the old guard vs the new revolutionaries and millions on all sides begging for an excuse to start shooting.

    Thats the problem with the analogy. So... NK itchy trigger finger because for 50 years they've been extorting the region with tantrums and "sure would be a shame if war broke out, so how about you send a few train loads of food to us and we'll extort you next year?"

    There's nothing new or revolutionary or civilization wide going on. Just the usual extortion game thats getting old and too dangerous to keep playing.

    Watch what Trump does not what he says... we have examples of recent presidents party to assassination, think of Vince Foster, for example. Or maybe Seth Rich. There's bluster as a negotiating technique and then there's bloodthirsty psychopaths. Both have recently (currently) been in charge. I prefer Trump's bluster, personally. Someone like Clinton would have been more likely to politely cuck on TV, but nuke NK anyway. Trump ironically sounds scarier but is less likely to do something stupid and bloodthirsty based on past examples (like say decades of business activity, or a year of presidential behavior).

    Eventually, someone will use them (such as a fight between a superpower and a small, nuclear-armed country).

    Almost certainly the next nuclear war will be between India and Pakistan and its hard to call a country a superpower when most of its citizens are still street-shitting. With a side dish of maybe the middle east will fight first. But I'd take a bet on India/Paki nuclear war before middle east. Its too easy for superpowers to "Afghanistan" a small country, nuke or no. Or Soros-funded "color revolution"

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:38AM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:38AM (#628717) Journal
    And that couldn't happen here? How about the US (and possibly Europe) taking on the role of the Ottoman and Astro-Hungarian empires. China and India taking up roles as the up and comers. I think you see where I'm going with this. It's not particular unstable right now, but right now isn't going to continue forever. And the future may well look like the lead up to the First World War.
    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:07PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:07PM (#630502)

      However, "wanting a slice of the pie" and "using nuclear weapons" are relatively incompatible. Nobody wants radioactive pie, so the only reason to nuke it is if your enemies have already claimed the pie and you don't see any realistic way to get any yourself. AND you are willing to risk your enemies nuking you in retaliation for spoiling their pie.