A man has an idea. The idea grows. It attracts followers. The followers organize. And sooner or later, the idea hardens into an institution. What was the idea? A line immortalized by a movie villain, but no less true for that: anything humans create—even when born of the best intentions—immediately begins to decay.
If the thing is effective, it will be weaponized. If it can coerce, it will be monetized. And if it can influence behavior at scale, it will acquire a price tag, because control over such a mechanism is valuable beyond measure.
The Doomsday Clock was originally created by Einstein, Oppenheimer, and a group of other scientists. One may generously assume good intentions, though with an avowed later-day communist like Oppenheimer involved, some skepticism about ideological purity is not only allowed but encouraged. Regardless, whatever the original intent may have been, the clock is now eighty years old—and that intent is long dead.
What remains is a tool. A tool that allows a small group of people with questionable incentives to influence the masses, and by extension, politics. Oh—did you think science was some last redoubt of human purity? A realm of facts unsullied by ambition, ideology, or self-interest?
I’m sorry to shatter the illusion, but anything touched by humans is inevitably infected with human vice. All of it. Scientists do not operate for the good of humanity any more than anyone else does. Like everyone else, they seek advancement, prestige, money, and relevance. Every priest dreams of becoming a bishop. Every bishop dreams of becoming a cardinal. And every cardinal, sooner or later, finds that white would look far better on him than red.
Religion, science, NGOs—it makes no difference. Where there are humans, you get the full spectrum. So let’s stop pretending there is some bastion of moral cleanliness standing above the rest of us. And let’s also stop pretending there is a doomsday scenario perpetually seconds away from unfolding, just waiting for the latest press release to confirm it.
The Doomsday Clock is no longer a warning. It is a stage prop. A ritual. A circus attraction. And it should be treated with exactly the seriousness such attractions deserve.