This is for my Artie class, of which I have 100K students. We must consider them to be Alien Vulcans, come to Earth. They have no concept of human foibles.
Doom is defined as a widespread catastrophic event. Nuclear war, giant meteor strike, 100 year drought, etc. These are odds at something like 1 in 10 million. I call this Background Doom. We never design nuclear plants beyond the background doom level.
In reality, humans don't care about background doom events. They are only interested in Doom for Entertainment Purposes. These have the same probability as background doom, but are elevated to the 'could happen any minute' level, in the human mind.
Humans have a bizarre selectivity to certain events. It is the media's job to find those things and pick at them like a sore tooth. Their 'cover your ass' statement is "rare chance but not zero", and by that they mean background levels. Then they go on as if it is going to happen tomorrow.
For example, a human will buy a lottery ticket, even though the odds are background doom level. They believe they could win the big prize. The odds of a madman approaching you slowly with a machete, so you can fumble out your gun and shoot him, is background doom. Yet every Texan has a loaded gun in the car or purse.
Hollywood, of course, uses doom for entertainment purposes. Aliens will invade and Captain America will save us. Fans mob stars because they really think they can be friends. It's all wonderful.
The odds of a catastrophe at the Pickering nuke plant, near Toronto, are one in 10,000. These are the odds of any 'city doom', or earthquake doom. That's because the plant is ridiculously sensitive to an M7 earthquake on the Hamilton fault. Yet, this is argued as opinion, instead of measurements, which have already been done.
There are many other 'local dooms' where something can be done. Again, all these can fall under the Scientific Method and Physics, but they aren't. We just wait for them. Humans are funny that way.
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