It Is 89 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock!

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“Every second counts.” - Juan Manuel Santos, former president of Columbia

Our last column on Tuesday came out right before the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists were to reveal their annual setting of their Doomsday Clock. To little surprise, it moved forward, but by only 1 second, from 90 seconds to midnight to 89. In the following news briefing, the only surprise from the journalists there seemed like it was too small a change.

Three weeks before this doomsday reveal, I suggested that our #1 Social Psychiatric Resolution would be to stop Dr Strangelove or, more clearly, stop any major disaster, starting with nuclear war, but including climate instability, biological warfare, and now, rapidly developing artificial intelligence (AI). Increased risks in all of those accounted for the 1 second escalation.

From a psychological standpoint, there are some limitations in this warning. One is that the clock is a metaphor and without knowing its history and structure, 89 seconds to midnight would be meaningless. Then there is the whole uncertainty of how to quantify risk assessment, especially for the whole living world anytime in the future. Sometimes the risk is viewed as a collective suicide risk or death instinct, but we have difficulty even assessing the suicide risk of an individual patient. Moreover, this doomsday risk may not be an all or none phenomena with any of the risks.

Yet, it seems reasonable to calmly warn the public and convey what they can contribute to prevention, including leadership choices. Otherwise, the public may be too frightened to keep in mind such a terrible scenario and thereby deny or repress it mentally. Maybe even a scale would be more helpful, say 89 out of a 100 that there would be a major human disaster over the next generation (when more would still be alive).

The same challenge may hold for political leaders, with their usual emphasis on their time concerns. Most are most concerned for the time of their office. So far, the Trump administration in the United States seems mixed in its concern for the major variables. On the concerned side is the claimed goal of preventing war, but on the other hand, more emphasis on drilling than less carbon-admitting energy, no new ideas about preventing a pandemic, and apparent embrace on the benefits of AI.

Moreover, we should not ignore the doomsday scenarios that are more circumscribed. That includes any of the populations in a war zone or, like Los Angeles, any area in a high-risk climate area. In psychiatry, this is a needed example of primary prevention that was established in the principles of community psychiatry back in the 1960s, but generally lost over time. Perhaps it is time for a revival, at least among psychiatrists in some sort of Peace Project.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.