How the simulator works

The simulator starts from the official clock value set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: 85 seconds to midnight, announced on 27 January 2026. From there, every crisis you activate removes seconds and every lever adds some. The result is your clock, not a forecast.

Where do the weights come from?

Each card carries a number of seconds between −60 and +20. These values do not come from a mathematical model: they translate, in a deliberately readable way, three criteria applied to every card.

• Potential severity: an event that could kill hundreds of millions of people or make part of the planet uninhabitable (nuclear weapon use, climate tipping point) weighs more than a serious but reversible one.
• Cascade effect: a crisis that triggers others (regional war → diverted budgets → unmonitored epidemics) weighs more than an isolated one.
• Reversibility: what can still be corrected weighs less than what is final.

Levers are deliberately weaker than crises. That imbalance is a lesson, not a flaw: in the real world, destroying is faster than rebuilding, and prevention costs less than repair.

What the simulator is not

• It is not the official clock. That one is set once a year by the Bulletin's Science and Security Board after expert deliberation. We have no connection with that organisation.
• It is not a prediction. Midnight is not a date; it is a symbol of irreversible planetary catastrophe.
• It is not a risk model. No probability is computed. Seconds are there to compare orders of magnitude, not to measure.

Sources

Every card cites a primary source (international agency report, peer-reviewed paper, public database). Facts are reviewed at each site update; weights may change with the news. If you spot an error, the About page explains how to reach us.