Doomsday Clock? Seriously???

[hal2kilo]

The Doomsday Clock has been around for a long time.

For all of you young people out there, I'll mention that in my day as a kid, most people were sure we were going to have a nuclear war with the "godless Reds". There were fallout shelter companies similar to the swimming pool companies you might be familiar with today. Magazine articles on building your own shelter, how to stock it, etc.. Ads in the magazines for Geiger counters, guns (you could buy guns by mail-order with no paperwork before Kennedy got shot too; hell, department stores sold them as a regular check-out item), food and medical kits. We did atomic attack drills in grade school. We had "Duck and Cover" cartoons about it and everyone knew where the public fallout shelters were (we had one in the basement of our grade school stocked with Civil Defense supplies), virtually all radio dials were marked with special symbols indicating the Conalrad emergency broadcast stations (640 and 1240AM).

Everybody knew about the clock. Everybody watched it advance during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and many figured the shit was on in short order.

So no, it was not a stupid idea when it was conceived. That it continues is a reminder to those who give little thought to all out nuclear war. So, I suppose you could debate its relevance today, but certainly not its early days.

Sounds like my childhood. And you wonder where hippies came from.

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