Pogue and Spicer’s exchange about digital “data rot” is the discouraging techno-tip of the iceberg or our common concern: cultural/historical continuity –or at least the ability to bridge over discontinuities (“dark ages”). That latter fall-back is the most likely outcome, so I think we owe it to ourselves and our heritage to build bridges. That involves the standard three tasks: to determine what it is of our essence we seek to preserve, what medium to use, and where/how to keep it safe.

Long Now’s projects are laudably designed to be nurturing of and predicated upon some degree of civilizational continuity. Whereas our “Time Capsule Tile” (TCT) project originally sought to bridge over intervening periods up to a million years, Long Now’s horizon is a more sensible 10,000 years off: about twice the distance we’re commonly aware of having come.

In the several years since we began the TCT effort, we’ve come to realize how dynamic and impermanent nearly all of the Earth’s terrain is over periods greater than 10,000 years. A time capsule is liable to get buried by watery sediment, the forest’s “carbon cycle”, subducted by the “rock cycle”, melted and blended with volcanic basalt, or turned into a pathetic smear at the base of a moving glacier.

Long Now’s mountain cave approach looks better all the time.