Threat Level Midnight Forever

The Doomsday Clock is a P.R. stunt, not science.

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The 2023 Doomsday Clock. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.)

Dear Reader (Or should I say “The Readers I hold dear”?)

Question for you: What are the most successful publicity stunts in history? If you Google around asking various versions of this question, the results are pretty disappointing. I mean, they’re interesting. I was particularly intrigued by the failed McWhopper campaign, which I had completely forgotten about.

But none of that is what I had in mind. I’m thinking of what Daniel Boorstin dubbed “pseudo-events,” which he defined as events “produced by a communicator with the sole purpose of generating media attention and publicity.” A pseudo-event is “not spontaneous, but comes about because someone has planned, planted, or incited it.” And their “immediate purpose” is to be reported or reproduced by the media.

I think we increasingly live in a kind of pseudo-reality—and I’m not talking about VR stuff—because so much of what we talk and argue about takes place in a kind of digital funhouse of mirrors. Basically, whole ecosystems of pseudo-events ping off of other pseudo-events and commentary about reactions and pseudo-reactions to reactions of other people’s reactions. Our screens are the digital walls of Plato’s cave.

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  1. Avatar photo
    AndreaLeane75

    Might just be bossy pants behavior from Pippa, or it might be that she senses something wrong that Zoe isn't obviously exhibiting. Not trying to be a downer but that's what happened with my two cats. I would closely watch them for a bit to see if anything else seems the least little bit off in terms of health.

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  2. Jdoughtync

    I'm sure it would be instructive to see a side-by-side comparison of Doomsday Clock adjustments next to plausibly provocative things Republican and Democratic administrations have done.

    You'd likely find that the clock lurched forward every time a Republican president cleared his throat. But when Carter boycotts the Olympics, or Clinton intervenes in the former Yugoslavia, or Obama declares a "red line" in Syria, somehow the needle-adjuster guy is on vacation that week.

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    Ben Connelly

    “ Rachel Bronson, the Bulletin’s executive director and publisher, said threats such as climate change are being compounded by “a growing disregard for scientific expertise.””

    Maybe if scientific experts didn’t cashier their own expertise by playing fast and loose with their scientific authority for political purposes, people would trust them better. You want trust? Act in a way that is deserving of trust. Don’t blame your audience for your own failures.

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    1. Paul Houghton

      Recalling all the former high ranking national security professionals who swore that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Ben Connelly

        Yeah

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  4. Kvonfuchs

    Yes, the doomsday clock is metaphorical: however, the advent of nuclear weapons is one of perhaps two dozen events in the span of human history that actually changed everything. Yes, I know that phrase is hackneyed and Wayover used, especially by journalists who can't remember what happened last week. That said nuclear weapons really did change everything not in 1947, but certainly by 1970. We now have the capacity to kill all life on earth, or for those who are slightly more optimistic enough life that coming back from the brink would be improbable and while it hasn't happened in 70 years, that doesn't mean some idiot isn't going to do it tomorrow and once the bomb start flying…

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  5. James Morphew

    I recall a party I attended soon after college, around 1981, with some former fellow students and grads. A friend, Bruce, at the time almost a doctor, said "No nukes", and cited the Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. It was a position against both nuclear power and nuclear arms.

    Bruce had always been a very good student and social leader. Then (almost) a doctor, his statements carried weight with us. But when asked why, the explanation made no sense to me. Recall how much we esteemed doctors, both in their profession and in "science".

    The Doomsday Clock is one more fictitious PR tool, usurping any credibility it can muster, with no attempt at truth or reality.

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  6. Joe1776

    "Still, Bronson is right—words matter. But maybe one of the reasons there’s a “troubling propensity to discount, or outright reject, “expert advice” is that the experts think we’re easily manipulated idiots."

    Perhaps those who subscribe to the publications you link are easily manipulated idiots. I mean why else would they keep publishing this? Is it a parody? It wasn't published on April first. I can't believe they are still trotting this out in this century.

    https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230124113545-doomsday-clock-2023.jpg?c=16x9&q=h_720,w_1280,c_fill

    It's all so absurd I have to laugh. But then wonder if people really take it as serious as the expressions on the faces of those pictured. This is published under "science."

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    Cantorz

    I can't think of anything that might qualify as the most successful PR stunt, but this is one of my recent personal favorites: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/liquid-death-crashes-the-super-bowl-with-a-50000-bet-and-a-witch-in-the-stands/

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  8. Avatar photo
    Jericha4america

    On the canine rage issue, maybe try letting Zoe get to the bed first and then release Pippa to join her? My bloodhound and doodle share the hound's kennel, which was hers alone before he came along. I put him in first, and she goes in without complaint. But if she gets there first, she is snappy to him. It's a thought.

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  9. Rconradsr

    Ya'll are worrying about wrong things; doomsday will surely be a gigantic asteroid obliterating our planet, sending us to a dinosaurs-like extinction.

    We'd best keep Harry Stamper on speed dial.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Cogitatio

      Nah, no worries there. NASA will just hire a bunch of misfit drillers who will save the day....
      :-)

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  10. Ruth Harris

    As someone who grew up during the nuclear terror of the Cold War, and years later, acquired as a relative, a Silicon Valley techie who was rousted out of bed in the wee hours and ordered to fly to DC for what turned out to be something later known as the Cuban Missile Crises, I have heard we are not nearly worried enough about the Doomsday clock. The biggest threat, according to this individual, is that we are under constant threat by terrorists, accidental triggers, and possibly other nuke holding countries.

    His list of triggers include wildlife, like the flock of geese mistaken on radar for a flock of Soviet missiles coming over the North Pole, or the American bear that had nuclear armed aircraft scrambling down a runway, and only stopped by the base commander in a vehicle - things the American public didn't usually hear about, but were caught in the nick of time, but just barely. The goose incident eventually leaked out. Some of the others didn't until much later, like a training tape forgotten in a computer that alerted everyone to an imaginary attack that was at first deemed real.

    He has been a major technical consultant on nuclear treaties between the US and other nuclear armed countries for decades and has pictures on his walls taken with most US presidents since Kennedy and with many foreign leaders. He was there for Russia's arms reduction and when Ukraine blew up its missile silos after the fall of the Iron Curtain. In China, he saw the tears of relief in the eyes of the generals who'd lived so long in fear of the US missiles targeting their cities when he visited to talk about arms reduction. He also negotiated the treaty with North Korea to give up nuclear development in exchange for foreign aid, an agreement tossed out by Bush II on the excuse they were cheating, not a wise response. Thanks to Bush, N Korea is now a full fledged nuclear power providing support to terrorist supporting states. It's better for the weapons industry that there be scary countries, as the end of the Cold War created a recession in the defense industry.

    Among his many other projects on avoiding nuclear catastrophe, he is currently chair of the Board of Sponsors for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

    "Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Perry
    https://www.wjperryproject.org
    His podcast page:
    https://atthebrink.org

    Retired, Republican professor at the US Naval War College, Tom Nichols, has written about the nuclear threat in much the same voice, and when I forwarded on an article it got a thumbs up. People who's careers have been about curtailing nuclear threats consider our complacency dangerous.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/07/us-nuclear-strategy-cold-war-russia/638441/

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