The Doomsday Clock

The infamous doomsday clock is supposed to reflect how close to "midnight"--to technological or environmental destruction, or destruction of the species from things completely beyond our control--humans are.  At specified points in a year, the clock will be moved closer or further from midnight to allegedly show how near to extinction or apocalyptic catastrophe humans stand at the moment.  Just how accurate this kind of "clock" is cannot be determined by appeals to authority or by assuming the accuracy of that a clock adjusted only twice a year with arbitrary measurements for danger converted into times.

The only way to create a system for a doomsday clock is to make assumptions about the precise degree to which certain threats promise to affect humankind or to assign an arbitrary set of "danger values" to a specific amount of time on the clock.  Unlike something like money, the currency value of which is also chosen in a purely arbitrary manner, the doomsday clock's settings have no cultural necessity for everyday life and thus have no role in stabilizing society.  These purely arbitrary measurements of how close humanity is to global disaster are taken seriously by gullible people even though they have nothing to do with proving anything about future events or determining the exact "amount" of danger facing the globe at a given moment.

Then, there is the logical flaws of actually thinking that the exact dangers of the future can be known.  This idea that anyone at all can just reason out what events will happen in the future, regardless of whatever experiences they have had that seem relevant, is asinine because reason is what reveals that anything at all which is logically possible could take place even a moment from now, no matter how much or how little evidence there was for it.  Impending disaster that seems moments away might never come; catastrophes or the apocalypse itself could spring upon us with not a hint of evidence that they are about to arrive.

Now, nothing about these truths means humans should not prepare to weather out various potential catastrophes, especially when they seem more probable than others, nor do these logical truths mean that there is no benefit to trying to rouse the apathetic from their indifference.  The ramifications simply entail that any sort of belief that a doomsday clock is anything more than an unnecessary, imperfect construct is invalid.  Thus, it does not matter what the doomsday clock is set for; disaster will fall if it will fall and can be avoided if it is not inevitable (almost nothing is).

Anything, anything at all, that goes beyond this approach to the matter cannot be a rational stance to hold on constructs like the doomsday clock.  The fear the masses often thoughtlessly have for whatever apocalyptic event others in their country also fear can be used to drive reflection rather than needless panic.  For this reason, the most useful part of having a doomsday clock is nothing other than having someone to motivate some people to sincerely, rationalistically think about the epistemology of the future and the sheer irrelevance of many social constructs to life.