For most of the last 100 years the world has lived with the terrible knowledge that we are one button press away from completely annihilating ourselves. Since 1950, The Doomsday Clock has been a grim reminder of what we have created.
And if you're the same age as me you likely only remember it moving back once, in 2010. And if you're the same as me, you would have had to have a been huge weirdo in 2010 because what 28-year-old is paying close attention the The Doomsday Clock.
I certainly wasn't.
Looking back now, and what we've lived through in those 16 years, and it feels like that might have been a high water mark for who we are.
The New START agreement between Russia and The United States halved the size of their nuclear arsenals, and at the same time the United Nations Climate Change Conference had countries agreeing to limit carbon emissions and commit to keeping global temperature increase to 2 degrees.
We'd emerged from a global recession and were celebrating with a return to innocence and a desire to escape: Toy Story, Alice In Wonderland, Harry Potter, Inception, and fairytales like Shrek 4 topped the box office.
Obama was a new president. Hope was in the air.
Since then things have been getting worse.
And if you're like me you're likely also thinking about how bad it get. What the rock bottom will look like. Or if we'll even know we're there.
We're all thinking about how it ends.
This is what I think will happen.