Monday, January 27, 2020

100 seconds to midnight

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announces:
To: Leaders and citizens of the world
Re: Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight
Date: January 23, 2020

Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers — nuclear war and climate change — that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode. ...

Faced with this daunting threat landscape and a new willingness of political leaders to reject the negotiations and institutions that can protect civilization over the long term, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today moves the Doomsday Clock 20 seconds closer to midnight — closer to apocalypse than ever. In so doing, board members are explicitly warning leaders and citizens around the world that the international security situation is now more dangerous than it has ever been, even at the height of the Cold War.
Our experts have gone mad.

There have always been religious cults that warn about the impending end of the world. Anyone who really believes one of these stories is likely to take drastic steps. Most people obviously don't believe that the apocalypse is closer than ever.

Donald Trump may have been the only sane man at Davos. Most of our world leaders recite crazy stuff.

Here is more political nonsense, being passed off as science:
“England for the English” warbled Morrissey ... the sentiment is an old racist refrain. ... The only true indigenous Brits were not even our own species. So, when racists say “England for the English”, or when they talk about indigenous people, I do not know who they mean, or more specifically, when they mean.
Really, he doesn't know what they mean? Israel is for Jews, and they now use DNA tests to prove Judaism.
The most delicious irony about him is that the field he effectively established – human genetics – is the branch of science that has demonstrated unequivocally that race is not biologically meaningful.
Really? So why do consumer DNA tests tell you your race, based on objective biological data?

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