The Doomsday Clock.

A while back, at university, I was introduced to the Doomsday Clock – a concept run by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that charts how close civilisation is to destroying itself with technologies of its own making.

The clock charts how many minutes away we are from ‘midnight’, or the end of civilisation, and has been ‘ticking’ since the beginning of the Cold War in the late 1940s. We are currently, in 2016, at ‘three minutes to midnight’. If you’re thinking ‘gee, that’s concerning,’ you’d be right: we have only been this close to midnight on two other occasions, once in 1949 and again in 1984, both during points of extreme tension during the Cold War.

Primarily, the Doomsday Clock documents the risk of nuclear annihilation, but it also includes threats associated with climate, biological and cyber technologies – all of which are rapidly unfolding and continuously developing. These threats are severe and need to be quickly and comprehensively addressed, but for now, consider Trump’s recent nomination as President-elect.

Consider that in light of the Doomsday Clock. Now consider the Doomsday Clock in light of the fact that the Bulletin gave the three minutes to midnight assessment in January of this year – way before Trump had even been nominated as the Republican candidate, let alone President of the United States.

Definitely enough to make you grimace, I’d say.

Finally, consider this: The Thucydides Trap. Thucydides was an Athenian historian and General, who wrote about the war between Athens and Sparta back in the 5th Century BC. Thucydides reasoned that war was inevitable because Athens’ growing power was considered too great a threat for a hegemonic Sparta to overlook, causing a Spartan declaration of war on Athens in 431BC, simply put.

When one considers the Doomsday Clock, Trump’s election, the Thucydides Trap, and the current relationship between the United States and China all together, it certainly leads to some frightful worst-case scenarios. I’m keen to see when the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists updates their clock. It’s certainly not going to move away from midnight anytime soon.