Is the Clock Ticking Toward Doomsday?

Each January, the science and security board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists unveils an estimate of the likelihood that humanity will self-destruct. They do so by marking the time on a metaphorical “Doomsday Clock,” on which midnight represents the apocalypse. In 2017, the clock stood at a frightening two and a half minutes to midnight; this month could easily see the minute hand creep even closer to doom.

My colleague Charles Hildebolt and I wanted to understand how and why people have come to such fundamentally different conclusions. We began by reading Pinker’s book. As evolutionary anthropologists, we were particularly interested in his claim that our hunter-gatherer ancestors “started off nasty and … the artifices of civilization have moved us in a noble direction.

Pinker was right about nonstate societies usually losing greater chunks of their populations to warfare in comparison to states. However, to our surprise, we found that the percentages of war deaths were best predicted not by state- or nonstate-hood but by population size, for both chimpanzees and humans.

Despite their similarities, warfare in chimpanzees and humans differs in an important way that may have implications for the doomsday scenario. For people, as population size goes up, the total number of annual war deaths goes up—even as the percentage of war deaths goes down. But this trend toward bigger losses in bigger societies does not exist in chimpanzees.

It's 'the news'.

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

N.J reports 1,385 COVID cases, no deaths. Numerous indicators suggest virus is spreading again.New Jersey's rate of transmission ticked up to 1.05 Monday. Keep spreading the fear! Must be time to set up those fraudulent mail in voting boxes soon, huh? How disappointing.... There HAS TO BE deaths... That's what the Democrats want... Oh well... Covid not working for them anymore... Time to a new SCAMDEMIC !!! - Lets see what GovMurphy has up his sleave...
Source: njdotcom - 🏆 282. / 63 Read more »

Mobile City Council to consider $30 million contribution to airport terminalThe Mobile City Council will consider a giant step toward relocating the Mobile Regional Airport to the Aeroplex at Brookley Field – a $30 million contribution toward a new terminal.
Source: FOX10News - 🏆 581. / 51 Read more »

U.S. oil benchmark ticks back above $100 a barrel after Tuesday routOil futures edge higher as supply worries move into focus after a Tuesday rout that drove the U.S. crude benchmark below the $100-a-barrel threshold.
Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »

Zound Industries CEO Reveals What Makes His Business TickZound Industries is a company based in Sweden with its own audio brand and licenses to produce audio products using the Marsha
Source: ForbesTech - 🏆 318. / 59 Read more »

17 Symptoms to Help You Identify Lyme Disease, and When to Talk to Your Doctor17 Lyme Disease Symptoms and Tips for Identifying the Tick-Borne Illness
Source: PreventionMag - 🏆 141. / 63 Read more »

Dollar soars as recession fears finally hit the round-the-clock currency marketAfter more than a month of evaluation, the currency market sees recession turning into “global phenomenon,” said Tom Nakamura of AGF Investments in Toronto.
Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »