Doomsday Clock

A "symbol" which represents the likelihood of when a man-made global catastrophe will happen.

Historical perspective: It has been maintained since 1947 by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board, the clock represents an analogy for the threat of global nuclear war.

Alarmed by increasing nuclear tensions with North Korea and Iran, climate change, and the belligerence and unpredictability of President Trump, the metaphorical Doomsday Clock was moved ahead 30 seconds in February 2018. It’s now set at two minutes to midnight, marking the closest humanity has theoretically been to annihilation since 1953, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union tested the first hydrogen bombs.

Perhaps not to be outdone, billionaire Jeff Bezos installed his own 10,000-year cuckoo clock. In March 2018, the Amazon CEO installed a $42 million timepiece in a hollowed-out mountain in West Texas. He announced that work had begun on a colossal 500-foot-tall, 10,000-year clock that is meant to serve as a "symbol of long-term thinking." The clock, which will tick only once a year, features a century hand that shifts once every 100 years and a cuckoo that emerges every millennium.