# Doomsday clock setting **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 8, 2020, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-clock-setting/846133 "2020-01-08T17:59:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 12
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-clock-setting/846133/12 "2020-01-23T18:41:29Z")
When Donald Trump was elected President, they moved the hand forward by 30 seconds. This was my take before the announcement, and while the numbers may have (slightly) shifted, it’s still correct: > [@Donald Trump and the Doomsday clock. What time will it be?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-and-the-doomsday-clock-what-time-will-it-be/775821/7): > > This is one of those situations where developments have shown the Doomsday Clock to be nothing more than a silly exercise in bad marketing. > > By their calculations, and keeping the clock analogy with its implied 24hr day, we are already 1437/1440th away from nuclear obliteration. So what does it matter if the US gives the bomb to Donald Trump? What are they going to do…raise that percentage from the current likelihood of 99.7916% to, what, 99.8611%? Even as an analogy: what the hell does that even mean: N Korea, with its few weapons, gets us to a 99.79% chance of humanity’s doom, and DJT with his thousands of bombs, only increases this threat by 6/10th’s of 1%? How do those numbers make any damned sense? > > If this idea had any validity and was, in fact, a measure of this groups concern about the direction of current events, they wouldn’t keep the clock within the range of 98.81%-99.81% of “midnight”. IMHO, they’ve blown up the analogy by keeping the time so close to midnight that it’s irrelevant if it moves forward. There’s 100 seconds left. What happens if there are 14 10-second movements on the “bad” side? How does that even get… ugh. Don’t even get me started. Just a dumb analogy. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomsday-clock-setting/846133)._