The Doomsday Clock just moved — and we're closer than ever

The Doomsday Clock just moved — and we're closer than ever At the end of January 2026, the Doomsday Clock was set to 85 seconds to midnight — the closest it has ever been since its creation. The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic timepiece maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947. It represents how close humanity is to self-annihilation, with midnight symbolizing global catastrophe. The key risks driving us to 1 minute and 25 seconds from the end of the world, according to the Bulletin, are: 1-Nuclear weapons threats 2-Disruptive technologies, including AI 3-Biological security concerns 4-Climate change On a lighter note — and this is genuinely worth a smile — for something published by a board of scientists and Nobel laureates, the methodology behind the clock is remarkably loose. There is no defined formula, no scoring rubric, no aggregation model. It is, at its core, a group of very smart people agreeing on a number that feels right. The scientific method apparently took the day off when this one was designed. Jokes aside, you can think of it as a sentiment index on existential risk — a rough but informed read on how the world's brightest minds perceive the state of things. And right now, they are not feeling optimistic. Worth noting: all of this was set before the war that just started. So here's a question worth sitting with for a moment: how much time would you give us as a species before Doomsday? https://thebulletin.org/2026/01/press-release-it-is-85-seconds-to-midnight/

- Pedro

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