Doomsday Clock nonchalantly ticks to 12:01 without incident

CHICAGO – Scientists with the Science and Security Board (SASB) took a collective sigh of relief as the world-famous Doomsday Clock, an ominous time piece designed to symbolize the countdown to mankind’s inevitable self-destruction, ticked past midnight without engulfing the world in catastrophic nuclear winter.

It’s the first time the clock has reached midnight, the moment when humanity was meant to wipe itself off the planet through nuclear weapons, climate change, or some other form of avoidable stupidity.

“No one said anything when we walked in and saw the clock at midnight, but everyone was thinking the same thing, ‘oh, shit’,” said Dr. Wallace Grimley, a leading member of the SASB. “I remember someone taking my hand, which felt nice because we were expecting the world to implode, or something, in that moment. But then it moved to 12:01 which was odd because if the clock is wrong, then what the fuck have I been doing with my life the past 21 years? It’s the Mayan calendar all over again.”

While the scientists at the SASB are relieved humanity has not (yet) destroyed itself, millions of people around the world are agitated it’s actually taking so long.

“How have we not wiped ourselves off the planet yet? What are we waiting for?” said Vivian Boucher, a millennial. “We’ve been teetering on the edge of destruction for how many years now? Does no one seriously have the balls to just end all our suffering?”

And Boucher isn’t alone. According to a recent poll, 96% of all millennials feel like a global, life-ending catastrophe would actually lead to a better quality of life.

“It costs too much to eat, it costs too much to rent, and I owe $100,000 more on my student loans than the original balance,” said Tonya DeRing, a senior marketing manager. “I make more money today than I ever dreamt possible and yet I’m barely living paycheck-to-paycheck. I giant-ass meteor sounds nice right about now.”

Before today’s mysterious change, the clock has changed 26 times since it debuted in 1947 when the United States and Soviet Union began mass producing nuclear weapons and were on a collision course to an arms race. The closest the clock has ever come to midnight, prior to surpassing it, was in 2023 when it was moved to 90 seconds to midnight, due mostly in part to the war in Ukraine.

Here is an overview of the Doomsday Clock’s history and every instance in which the clock changed thanks to humanity’s lack of will for self-preservation.

Year	Catalytic event	Minutes to midnight
1947	Threat of a US/USSR nuclear arms race	7
1949	USSR tests its first nuclear weapon	3
1953	US tests its first hydrogen bomb	2
1960	US/USSR begin cooperative relations to mitigate the threat of nuclear war	7
1963	US/USSR sign partial test ban treaty which ends all atmospheric nuclear testing	12
1968	The Vietnam War intensifies, India and Pakistan wage war over Kashmir, Middle East tensions, France and China develop nuclear weapons	7
1969	Nearly every nation on Earth signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty	10
1972	US/USSR sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty	12
1974	India develops the nuclear bomb	10
1980	Tensions between the US/USSR heighten and begin behaving like “nucleoholics”	7
1981	USSR invades Afghanistan. President Ronald Reagan scraps talks of arms control and proposes the only way to end the cold war is to “win”	4
1984	US/USSR relations become almost non-existent	3
1988	US/USSR sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty	6
1990	Anti-Soviet revolutions end the post-WWII ideologies that divided Europe	10
1991	US/Russia begin cutting their nuclear arsenals following the end of the Cold War	17
1995	Fears that terrorists could exploit poorly secured former Soviet nuclear facilities	14
1998	India conducts nuclear tests that outrage the rest of the world	9
2002	Following 9/11, the US has increasing concern for unsecured and unaccounted for weapon-grade nuclear material	7
2007	North Korea conducts nuclear tests and the world fears Iran may be working toward creating a nuclear bomb, too	5
2010	Nations around the world agree to cut carbon emissions and limit global warming at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen	6
2012	North Korea continues its nuclear rhetoric and the nuclear situation in the Middle East and Southeast Asia remain tense	5
2015	Nations have made little effort to improve climate change and nuclear arsenals remain oversized	3
2017	US/Russia tensions continue to rise through the wars in Ukraine and Syria.	2.5
2018	In addition to the nuclear and climate threats, the rise of online disinformation creates a climate for inaccurate information about the threats facing humanity	2
2020	The threat of nuclear annihilation and catastrophic climate change go unchecked and cyber-warfare threatens society’s ability to fix the problem	100 seconds
2023	The war in Ukraine continues to erode the norms of international cooperation	90 seconds

Scientists at SASB are currently investigating the clock in hopes its time is simply a technical error, but after analyzing current events such as the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza and multiple elections around the world where democracy is at risk, they cannot comfortably say the end of days is not upon us.

“I wouldn’t freak out,” said Grimley. “But I would make sure to call your friends and family to tell them how much you love them, just to be safe. I’m sure it’ll be fine though.”