Kim Won-soo

A time bomb has been set to the man-made doomsday. Last week the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) advanced the doomsday clock to 89 seconds to midnight, which is the metaphoric moment of humanity’s potential extinction. It is the worst-ever since the clock started 78 years ago by the renowned scientists including those who participated in the Manhattan Project for the first nuclear bombs used in 1945. Among others, Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer were instrumental in creating this initiative to warn humanity of looming existential threats. It is also the first time for the clock to be set by a one-second difference.

For the last seven years, the clock consecutively keeps breaking its record for all-time high. In 2018, the two-minute mark, the highest it reached at the peak of the Cold War, was broken. The 2020 clock saw it broken and advanced to 100 seconds. Then it moved to 90 seconds in 2023 when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.

This year the BAS decided to move the clock by one second. This may look not much as compared to previous instances when it moved by a minute, 20 seconds and 10 seconds. But I think this move has been carefully weighed, carrying far deeper symbolism for the following three reasons.

The first and foremost message it intends to........

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