44.8
Reading dated 2026-08-12
Stupidity, here, is worse than malice. Malice requires intent. Stupidity requires none. That is why it spreads faster than malice, and answers to no one.
Much of it is not a flaw in any individual mind. It is a failure of coordination: a species that understands a risk clearly enough to name it, and still cannot act on that knowledge together.
This index measures that failure. Not intelligence. Not virtue. It makes no moral claim about any person. What it tracks is simpler, and harder to look away from: how much agency our species still holds over the risks it has created for itself, and whether that agency is growing or running out.
The index over time
1789–2026 · line opacity marks how many of the 7 pillars have real data that year
7 pillars
- Existential risk
- w 0.2044.5
- Armed conflict
- w 0.1550.8
- Interpersonal harm
- w 0.1527.6
- Climate and biosphere
- w 0.2053.9
- Resource misallocation
- w 0.1058.9
- Epistemic condition
- w 0.1059.4
- Cooperation
- w 0.1015.0
How close humanity has pushed itself toward irreversible catastrophe, nuclear war above all.
How much organised violence is happening right now, and how many people it has driven from their homes.
How much people harm each other directly, outside of war: exploitation, homicide, and violence within homes and communities.
How much we have altered the atmosphere, and how much wildlife has vanished as a result.
How much the world spends preparing for war compared with what it spends helping people survive, and how concentrated its wealth has become.
How free people are to know the truth and to have a say in how they are governed.
How well governments, institutions, and communities cooperate on the existential risks no single nation can solve alone.
Explore the weights
The weights above are a judgement, not a derivation, stated plainly in the methodology. Move them and see what the index would read under a different judgement. This is not the published reading; hover a pillar to see which cells are its.
44.8
Published weights
How close humanity has pushed itself toward irreversible catastrophe, nuclear war above all.
How much organised violence is happening right now, and how many people it has driven from their homes.
How much people harm each other directly, outside of war: exploitation, homicide, and violence within homes and communities.
How much we have altered the atmosphere, and how much wildlife has vanished as a result.
How much the world spends preparing for war compared with what it spends helping people survive, and how concentrated its wealth has become.
How free people are to know the truth and to have a say in how they are governed.
How well governments, institutions, and communities cooperate on the existential risks no single nation can solve alone.
19 indicators
The pillar scores above are built from these numbers. Every one carries its source and the date it refers to.
| Indicator | Value | Score | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doomsday Clock, seconds to midnight | 85 s | 71.7 | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | 2026 |
| Global nuclear warhead inventory | 12187 count | 17.4 | Federation of American Scientists, Nuclear Notebook | 2026 |
| State-based conflict deaths per 100,000 people | 1.15 rate | 5.7 | Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) | 2025 |
| Active state-based armed conflicts | 65 count | 100.0 | UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset | 2025 |
| Forcibly displaced people, share of world population | 1.4 % | 46.7 | UNHCR Global Trends | 2025 |
| People in modern slavery, share of world population | 0.63 % | 63.0 | ILO, Walk Free & IOM, Global Estimates of Modern Slavery | 2021 |
| Intentional homicide rate per 100,000 people | 5.2 rate | 5.2 | UNODC, via UN SDG Indicator 16.1.1 | 2023 |
| Women subjected to intimate partner violence, past 12 months | 11 % | 11.0 | World Health Organization | 2023 |
| Children aged 5-17 in child labour | 7.8 % | 31.2 | ILO & UNICEF, Global Estimates of Child Labour | 2024 |
| Atmospheric CO₂, Mauna Loa monthly mean | 429.12 ppm | 53.3 | NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory | 2026-07 |
| Global surface temperature anomaly vs 1880–1899 | 1.42 °C | 35.5 | NASA GISTEMP v4 | 2025 |
| Living Planet Index, 1970 = 100 | 27 index | 73.0 | WWF Living Planet Report | 2020 |
| World military expenditure as share of global GDP | 2.5 % | 41.7 | SIPRI Military Expenditure Database | 2025 |
| Ratio of world military expenditure to official development assistance | 16.56 ratio | 82.8 | SIPRI Military Expenditure Database + OECD DAC | 2025 |
| Top 1%'s share of global wealth | 37 % | 52.2 | World Inequality Lab, World Inequality Report 2026 | 2025 |
| RSF World Press Freedom global score | 54.3 score | 45.7 | Reporters Without Borders (RSF) | 2026 |
| V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index, population-weighted | 0.27 0–1 | 73.0 | V-Dem Institute | 2025 |
| Global DTP3 immunisation coverage | 85 % | 15.0 | WHO/UNICEF WUENIC | 2024 |
| World population in extreme poverty | 9 % | 15.0 | World Bank, $2.15/day 2017 PPP | 2022 |
19 public numbers, 7 pillars, one weighted score. See exactly how it's calculated.
Raw data, in full
This number is a formula over public data, with fixed anchors and published weights. It is not an opinion, and nothing here is required to be taken on faith. A mirror that cheats is worthless, so every raw value, every score, every source and date behind the reading above is open to inspect, question, or recompute independently.
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Should this index be tradeable, like a prediction market or a financial derivative, on this site?