Counting the Minutes: Turning To G-d

The clock is ticking, but are we aware enough to know when it is running out? The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists maintains the Doomsday Clock, and after 25 adjustments over the last 78 years, it currently sits at just 90 seconds to global catastrophe.

The countdown was originally started as a result of the development of nuclear weapons to warn the world that it is coming ever closer to that fateful moment when all hell breaks loose and mass destruction is assured. Their website now lists not only nuclear risks but also climate change, disruptive technology (such as AI), and biosecurity (such as pandemics and biowarfare—think of COVID as just a tiny dress rehearsal). Truly, the world is a dangerous place filled with potential for the unleashing of manmade destruction by some very bad actors, including dictators, megalomaniacs, and sociopaths.

Recently, I read Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobson, where I learned that it only takes 72 actual minutes from the launch of the first ICBM to the end of civilization. 72 minutes! And no, contrary to popular belief (perhaps based on former President Reagan’s Star Wars program), we can’t stop a barrage of hundreds or thousands of nuclear warheads.

However the world ends, whether by nuclear Armageddon or germ warfare, SkyNet AI destroying mankind, or even an asteroid just 7-8 miles wide hitting the earth, it doesn’t take that much for an existential-level event (ELE) to wreak our total destruction.

Interestingly enough, the Wall Street Journal ran an article today titled Has World War III Already Begun? asserting that the axis of autocracies of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea is already taking us down the path of the next, and perhaps final, world war. Whether in Ukraine (the gateway to Europe), Taiwan, or the Middle East, there are proxy wars going on and limits being tested even as you read this article. The question is: when do we go from fighting at the fringes to the superpowers dropping thermonuclear bombs on each other?

Additionally, there is an almost endless array of new and exciting, but also potentially dangerous, technologies coming online, from AI to quantum computing (your passwords will all be toast!), space weapons for everything from destroying space infrastructure and even EMPs to fry all the electronics on the planet below, to creating superhumans bioengineered and/or technologically enhanced with everything from exoskeletons, embedded technologies, and augmented cognition, to armies (and swarms) of drones that can not only sense, surveil, communicate, and coordinate, but also attack with deadly precision one target or countless ones.

Of course, all things can be used for good or evil; the problem is that once created, all things at some point do get used, and not all times will they be for the pure and holy advancement of mankind and civilization. This is why Elon Musk, perhaps the smartest man in the world today, has it right to believe that colonizing Mars is essential to the survival of the human race and is working towards a Starship mission to Mars in as little as four years.

Given the chaos and uncertainty surrounding us, it’s easy to despair. But as believers, we must turn to G-d, the ultimate source of hope and strength. Only through faith and surrender to His divine will can we truly find peace and purpose. While we may not know the exact path ahead, we can trust that G-d’s plan is perfect. And who knows? Perhaps the Third Temple will one day stand in Jerusalem, connected via a Starlink to Mars!