The clock’s hands have been moved twenty-three times since 1947, mostly in an ominous direction, but it is only a gimmick. Climate change has been factored in since 2007, bioterrorism and artificial intelligence were included in 2015, and further causes for concern will no doubt be added in due course. The Doomsday Clock was created in the late 1940s to warn of nuclear Armageddon and now monitors other risks as well. Within the month, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock thirty seconds closer to midnight, signifying that the end is as nigh as it has ever been. In January 2018, Time ran a cover story called “The Optimists,” in which the issue’s guest editor, Bill Gates, reported that things are on the whole improving. Is the world getting better or worse? Both, it seems. An Indian health official administering polio vaccine drops to newborn babies at a hospital in Agartala, India, as part of a nationwide program to eradicate polio, January 2018
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |