The power law is the shape of our age You know something is up when an audience member is taking cell phone photos of the presenter’s slides for instant transmittal to a business partner. Chris Anderson does have killer slides, full of exuberant detail, defining the exact shape of the still emerging opportunity space for…  Read More

Community-built content rules Vision is one of the most powerful forms of long-term thinking. Jimmy Wales, founder and president of the all-embracing online encyclopedia Wikipedia, examines how vision drives and defines that project and its strategy— and how it fits into the even larger world and prospects of “free culture.” “The design of Wikipedia,” said…  Read More

Recursion drives science The co-founding editor of “Wired” magazine and author of OUT OF CONTROL is working on a new book on “what technology wants.” His research led to the first-ever history of scientific methodology. Starting from this long-term view of science’s past transformation, he speculates on how the practice of science will change in…  Read More

Hidden order in the Balinese “religion of water” With lucid exposition and gorgeous graphics, anthropologist Stephen Lansing exposed the hidden structure and profound health of the traditional Balinese rice growing practices. The intensely productive terraced rice paddies of Bali are a thousand years old. So are the democratic subaks (irrigation cooperatives) that manage them, and…  Read More

Long Now collects stories of the “digital dark age”.  Originally these were kept in discussion boards, but we have moved this to our blog as of 02007 (Acknowledging that the present will in fact be known as the digital dark age, since all our digital data has no forward migration path.) I thought that the…  Read More

Climate change and nuclear prospects Given the power to decide who would go first— anti-nuke Ralph Cavanagh from Natural Resources Defense Counsel or pro-nuke Peter Schwartz from Global Business Network— the large audience Friday night voted for Schwartz to make the opening argument. It is the threat of “abrupt climate change” that converted him to…  Read More

On necessary heresy With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? Harris began…  Read More

Categories go nova It is fortunate that the leading thinker in “social software” is one of the best speakers in the high-tech world, a hot ticket at any conference that can get him. CLAY SHIRKY gave one of his dazzling presentations Monday, Nov. 14, examining a new dimension in one of the most vexed problems…  Read More

Finessing the future Instead of one podium there were four chairs on the stage of Wednesday’s seminar. In three seats, three Dysons: Esther, George and Freeman. They were appearing together on stage for the first time. The fourth held Stewart Brand who led the three through an evening of queries. The questions came from Stewart…  Read More

Escape velocity Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of imagining that the pace of the future is like the pace of the past. Pondering the next ten years, we usually begin by studying the last ten years. He recommends studying the last twenty year for clues about the rate…  Read More