there's something called the doomsday clock which tells how close we are to the end considering all the variables. We are closer to midnight now than then.
http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/timeline
or actually not, now it's 5 min to midnight. in 1984 it was 3 to midnight under raygun and 4 to midn under carter in 81, when he didn't go to moscow olympics and cut talks with moscow.