Humankind has fearfully and sometimes joyfully anticipated the end of the world ever since it began.
asserted
it → anticipate → world
The Bible’s Book of Revelation speaks of “end times”, a period of tribulation, war, famine, plague, floods and environmental catastrophe that may seem a less absurd prospect today than perhaps it once did.
uncertain
it → speak → tribulation
Islam, too, posits a fateful day of judgment or day of reckoning.
asserted
Islam → posit → reckoning
Christian evangelicals believe that, in the final rapture, a chosen few – the righteous or the “elect” – will be saved while sinners burn.
asserted
sinners → believe → rapture
It’s a minority view.
asserted
It → ’ → ?
Matthew’s gospel predicts most people will defy, ignore or ridicule warnings of imminent Armageddon.
asserted
people → predict → Armageddon
Peter, another of Jesus’s disciples, agreed: “In the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.”
asserted
scoffers → agree → desires
Yet such worldly scepticism does not mean a universal cataclysm is less likely.
asserted
cataclysm → mean → ?
It may make it more probable.
uncertain
it → make → ?
Donald Trump’s blanket denials of the dangers ostensibly posed by artificial intelligence, whose uncontrolled development is seen by some as the latest harbinger of apocalypse, could be interpreted as fulfilling Peter’s prophecy.
uncertain
development → pose → prophecy
This US president, the nearest thing the world has to a one-man doomsday machine, is a great one for scoffing and evil desires.
asserted
world → have → scoffing
In Robert Harris’s 2019 novel, The Second Sleep, a worried scientist lists half a dozen ways the world might end.
uncertain
world → list → ways
They include devastating climate change, pandemic disease, a giant asteroid collision with Earth, or some other overwhelming calamity.
asserted
They → include → Earth
Few heed the fictional scientist’s fears.
asserted
Few → heed → fears
In the event, what destroys him and almost everybody else is a disturbingly plausible cyber crash – a global digital and internet meltdown.
asserted
destroys → destroy → him
While arguments rage over whether large language models will acquire consciousness and moral agency – and the power to delete humanity – existential AI threats remain, as of now, open to mitigation.
asserted
threats → rage → mitigation
In sharp contrast, extraordinary complacency surrounds the most pressing, avoidable and proven human-made threat to life on Earth.
asserted
complacency → surround → Earth
It is as if the world has been seized by collective deafness and by a blind refusal to see what’s staring it in the face.
asserted
what → seize → face
This is no scoffing matter.
asserted
This → scoff → ?
The accelerating, global proliferation of advanced nuclear weapons is bringing real-time “end times” closer to home by the day.
asserted
proliferation → accelerate → day
The question increasingly is not “if” but “when” limited or full-scale nuclear warfare will erupt.
asserted
warfare → erupt → ?
, how much longer can our luck hold?
asserted
luck → hold → ?
Alarm bells are ringing, if only people would listen.
asserted
people → ring → ?
Desperate Vladimir Putin recently threatened to deploy Russia’s entire nuclear arsenal, comprising about 4,400 warheads, against Nato countries if they activated a supposed plan to invade the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
asserted
they → threaten → Kaliningrad
He offered no evidence for his claim, and it’s true that the frequent Kremlin nuclear sabre-rattling since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine went pear-shaped has diminished Moscow’s credibility.
uncertain
invasion → offer → credibility
To work, nuclear deterrence relies on an adversary believing the threat is real.
asserted
threat → work → ?
Disbelief invites miscalculation.
asserted
Disbelief → invite → miscalculation
At the same time, Putin’s inability to halt Ukraine’s conventional drone and missile attacks deep inside Russia may be edging him closer to pressing the nuclear button, possibly in the form of low-yield tactical or “battlefield” nukes.
uncertain
inability → halt → nukes
Trump’s bottom-line justification for the illegal US-Israel war on Iran is his wilfully mendacious claim that Tehran was weeks away from obtaining the bomb.
uncertain
Tehran → obtain → bomb
He claims to be protecting the world from nuclear war.
uncertain
He → claim → war
Yet his reckless threat, issued at the UN, to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” implies a possible US nuclear attack.
asserted
threat → issue → attack
The US is upgrading its nuclear arsenal of 3,700 warheads and may resume nuclear tests.
uncertain
US → upgrade → tests
It unreservedly supports Israel’s hidden nuclear weapons programme.
asserted
It → support → programme
And Trump is pursuing a lucrative deal with Saudi Arabia, another bitter foe of Iran, to provide civilian nuclear technology that he knows could be repurposed to make weapons.
uncertain
he → pursue → weapons
That has prompted regional countries such as Turkey and Egypt to consider going nuclear.
asserted
That → prompt → Turkey
North Korea’s great panjandrum, Kim Jong-un, has succeeded in gaining de facto international acceptance of his country’s status as a nuclear weapons state.
asserted
panjandrum → succeed → state
South Korea said in August that Pyongyang now possesses up to 120 warheads – which Kim brandishes to intimidate neighbours.
asserted
Kim → say → neighbours
All but discarded are the twin principles that underpinned the west’s postwar Korea policy: reunification and denuclearisation.
asserted
that → discard → policy
Heedless of first-term humiliations, Trump is again seeking a summit with Kim, whom he bizarrely terms a friend.
asserted
he → seek → whom
“As long as I’m around, he [Kim] is going to be fine,” he boasted.
asserted
he → ’m → ?
…and 18 more, not listed.
The Aporia
