Time capsule secrets High school classes and world’s fairs do it. Universities and builders and companies and municipalities do it. They bury little hoards of things they think people in the future will treasure— the future being ten years or ten thousand or never (most time capsules are immediately forgotten). Something strange, deep, and rather…  Read More

A world made of cities Cities are the human organizations with the greatest longevity but also the fastest rate of change. Just now the world is going massively and unstoppably urban (governments everywhere are trying to stop it, with zero success). In a globalized world, city states are re-emerging as a dominant economic player. Environmental…  Read More

The rainforests of home SPENCER BEEBE is founder and head of Ecotrust, the Portland-based organization that is setting in motion a permanently prosperous conservation economy for the entire Pacific Coast from San Francisco north to Alaska— the temperate rain forest also known as “Salmon Nation.” SPENCER BEEBE began his Seminar About Long-term Thinking last night…  Read More

Ancient American politics ROGER KENNEDY, the former head of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and former Director of the US National Park Service, is so eloquent that Walt Kelly based a “Pogo” character on him (the bear P.T. Bridgeport, whose speech balloons are circus posters). Roger Kennedy’s most driving current interest is the…  Read More

Finite and infinite games Countless readers have been hooked by the opening line of James P. Carse’s FINITE AND INFINITE GAMES— “There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other, infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing…  Read More

What long life means Ken Dychtwald gave a terrific talk Friday evening to a standing-room audience on “The Consequences of Human Life Extension.” The growing—and soon overwhelming—prevalence of the old in developed nations is leading to a “new old.” Ken described meeting a bright-eyed apparent 70-year-old who talked about his gym workouts. “I asked when…  Read More

Ever longer life Our germline cells (eggs and sperm) are already immortal. What if the rest of the cells of our body could acquire the same ability? Tissue by tissue, one degenerative disease after another, it could gradually happen in the course of one or two human generations. When it does happen, what we mean…  Read More

  With the Republican control of the House and Senate, there is no scenario in which a Democrat can become President by August 2005 (the two-year horizon of my original Bet). Looking at the two arguments, Eno’s is persuasive in detail, mine clearly wrong. The morning after the election I wrote Eno my summary of…  Read More

  The Red Sox have won the Series and with it falls Mike Elliot’s argument around the speed of globalization vs. the Red Sox pitching depth.  Below is the write up in the New York Times. Hey, Cliff Clavin, This Time Sam Malone’s the Smart One By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER The New York Times Published: November…  Read More

The long green The environmental movement has moved on. It has become so deep and wide that it adds up to something new entirely, still unnamed. Whatever it is, it is now the largest movement in the world and the least ideological. Driven by science and patience, it is civilization-scale therapy. Paul Hawken co-authored the…  Read More