Humanity Is Doing Its Best Impression of a Black Hole

There is no greater catastrophe in the universe than a black hole. The destruction caused by a black hole is complete. The monsters gobbling up stars, planets, and asteroids, ripping them apart.

Climate change, hunger, nuclear war, and other human-made disasters are not comparable to total destruction. Daniel Holz is a physicist at the University of Chicago. Space telescopes peer back to the beginning. It is amazing. We are on the verge of completely destroying our only home.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The goal of the organization is to assess threats to our species, be they nuclear weapons or climate change, and to that end it sets the time on the Doomsday Clock. The clock shows how far away the Bulletin's scientists think humanity is from extinction. The time on the clock has increased from two minutes to 100 seconds. Tock tock.

Looking into the universe and thinking of our own insignificance is a strange beauty. WIRED sat down with Holz to talk about catastrophes, how to cope with doom, and why this is a unique time in human history. The conversation has been edited to make it clearer.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Doomsday Clock are things that most people don't know about.

In 1947, it was founded. There will be thousands of H-bombs and an arms race. The planet will be in danger. There won't be a way to defend against these weapons. We need to think differently. The scientists felt like they had to do something about the threat.

Our way of showing how we are doing around the world is by using the Doomsday clock. What are we doing to respond to the threats? Nuclear and climate are the biggest threats, and you can argue about it.

Bulletin members are not crazy. Scientists are the majority of these people. The people are calm and rational. We are not in this because we are excited to move the clock. The goal is to leave the area. All of us are doing this because we want to get to a point where nobody cares. It would be better if I spent all my time on black holes and not worry about civilization.