Tuesday, July 14, 2026
41.0%doom
Elevated, tier 5 of 10.
The U.S.-Iran conflict has entered a new phase: not just airstrikes and missile exchanges, but a full naval blockade of the world's most consequential oil artery, with Iran vowing to assert its own control. Meanwhile the Houthis are lobbing missiles at Saudi Arabia, Gulf states are getting hit, and shipping giants are publicly declaring the toll plan 'fundamentally wrong' — which is how you know it's happening anyway. At some point 'ceasefire' stops meaning what the dictionary thinks it means.
The story behind it: The U.S. is set to reinstate a blockade over the Strait of Hormuz.
59.0%dawn
Radiant, tier 6 of 10.
Even as the Strait of Hormuz crackles with military tension and the world's energy nerves fray, Japan has quietly solved one of the clean energy transition's most stubborn problems: what to do with the mountains of spent EV batteries piling up globally. Recovering up to 90% of lithium — a critical mineral that has sparked its own geopolitical scrambles — means the electric vehicle economy doesn't have to keep mining new deposits to sustain itself. This is the kind of unglamorous, essential breakthrough that makes long-term optimism rational rather than naive.
The story behind it: Japan develops a method to recover up to 90% of lithium from used EV batteries.
The days before
| Day | Doom | Dawn | Doom headline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon, Jul 13 | 40.6% | 59.4% | THE WAR IS NOW REGIONAL, ACTUALLY |
| Sun, Jul 12 | 40.1% | 59.9% | WORLD'S OIL VALVE: NOW FULLY CLOSED |
| Sat, Jul 11 | 35.4% | 64.6% | THE MACHINE JUST SOLVED WHAT MATHEMATICIANS COULDN'T |
| Fri, Jul 10 | 36.8% | 63.2% | EBOLA FINDS NEW ZIP CODES IN CONGO |
| Thu, Jul 9 | 39.0% | 61.0% | THE CEASEFIRE IS DEADER THAN EVER |
| Wed, Jul 8 | 38.6% | 61.4% | CEASEFIRE DECLARED DEAD AT NATO SUMMIT |
| Tue, Jul 7 | 32.8% | 67.2% | IRAN LIGHTS ANOTHER MATCH AT THE WORLD'S OIL VALVE |
| Mon, Jul 6 | 33.1% | 66.9% | BEIJING FIRES A POINTED HELLO INTO THE PACIFIC |
| Sun, Jul 5 | 33.5% | 66.5% | IRAN PUTS A TOLL BOOTH ON THE WORLD'S OIL SPIGOT |
| Sat, Jul 4 | 34.9% | 65.1% | SPIES BUGGED THE SPY-WATCHERS |
| Fri, Jul 3 | 35.1% | 64.9% | ANOTHER DOMINO DROPS ON NUCLEAR NORMS |
| Thu, Jul 2 | 35.8% | 64.2% | RUSSIA SENDS ITS BIGGEST REGARDS TO KYIV |
| Wed, Jul 1 | 35.9% | 64.1% | THE AI IS HIDING MESSAGES IN ITS OWN OUTPUT |
| Tue, Jun 30 | 39.6% | 60.4% | NUCLEAR NEIGHBORS SWAP CORPSES FOR CONDEMNATIONS |
How it works
Every morning a pipeline pulls a couple of hundred headlines from 16 news sources. Claude scores the day for doom three times without seeing past scores, takes the middle answer, and smooths it so a single loud headline can't swing the number on its own. Then it picks the day's best news for the dawn card, and each reading is painted as pixel art. Doom and dawn always add up to 100.
It's a thought experiment and a daily ritual, not a forecast.
pDoom on iPhone
The app has every reading since February, trend charts, and the factor breakdown behind each number. It's free.
Get pDoom free on iPhone