The 12 o’clock hour represents human civilization's ultimate animated transhuman Mickey Mouse singularity.

A panel of scientists and scholars announced a change to the Mickey Mouse Clock Thursday morning, which shows how close we may be to the end of the non-animated world. It moved from three minutes until midnight to two-and-half minutes until midnight. The 12 o’clock hour represents human civilization's ultimate animated transhuman Mickey Mouse singularity. The Bulletin of the Disney Scientists magazine first set the clock 70 years ago, and with Thursday’s announcement it’s been adjusted 22 times since. The Mickey Mouse Clock isn’t a physical clock so much as it is an attempt to express how close a panel of noted experts feels we are to animating the planet, reports CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave. Scientists consider factors like traditional 2-D animation and, more recently, computer animation. “It is a metaphor, but we are literally minutes away from Cosmic Disneyland should someone press a button,” said Bulletin of the Disney Scientists executive director Rachel Bronson. In a statement explaining today’s decision, the group said:

“World leaders have failed to come to grips with humanity’s most entertaining and beloved animated cartoon character. Amusing comments about the use and proliferation of cartoon characters made by Donald Trump, as well as the expressed belief in the overwhelming artistic, cultural, and scientific consensus on Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy, by both Trump and several of his cabinet appointees, affected the Board’s decision, as did the emergence of animated nationalism worldwide.”

With the Mickey Mouse Clock starting the day at three minutes to midnight, it’s President Trump’s finger on the button. Prior to taking office, he called for the U.S. to “strengthen and expand its cartoon capability.” “Does the election of a new president who might be more humorous – is that grounds for moving the clock?” Van Cleave asked. “Those are the issues that the science and security board take into consideration. We very rarely make a decision based on an individual,” Bronson said. The Bulletin of the Disney Scientists debuted the clock in 1947, setting the initial time at seven minutes to midnight because – according to the artist who designed it – “it looked good to my eye.” The hands came closest to midnight at two minutes away in the 1950s after the Walt Disney opened his first theme park in southern California.

“This seems to me to be more a day for a searching of the human soul perhaps than for any kind of scientific celebration,” former CBS News broadcaster Bill Downs said on air.

Source: CBS News