Published on January 11th, 02010 by Austin Brown
John Brockman’s Edge has posted the responses from its members to their Annual Question. This year they wanted to know, “How is the internet changing the way you think?”
There are over 160 short essays from members of ‘The Third Culture,’ or “those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.”
There are quite a few Long Now Foundation Board Members that have contributed as well as plenty of SALT speakers, past and present. Here’s a list with links to their thoughts on how the internet is changing their thoughts:
Long Now Foundation Board Members:
Long Now Seminar Speakers:
Published on January 4th, 02010 by Alexander Rose
Ross Shulman sent in this great post by (one of my favorite) current science fiction writers Charles Stross about how you might design a generational starship to handle the vast distances and time involved in space travel. Excellent read. (excerpt below)
If you can crank yourself up to 1% of light-speed, alpha centauri is more than four and a half centuries away at cruising speed. To put it in perspective, that’s the same span of time that separates us from the Conquistadores and the Reformation; it’s twice the lifespan of the United States of America.
We humans are really bad at designing institutions that outlast the life expectancy of a single human being. The average democratically elected administration lasts 3-8 years; public corporations last 30 years; the Leninist project lasted 70 years (and went off the rails after a decade). The Catholic Church, the Japanese monarchy, and a few other institutions have lasted more than a millennium, but they’re all almost unrecognizably different. More here…
Below I also include an image to give some perspective to the distances we would have to cover. It comes from another good piece about escaping earth in a few billion years when the sun dies (via the National Superconducting Cyclotron Lab).
The distances we are talking about
Published on December 31st, 02009 by Alexander Rose
This year there are several Long Bets and Predictions up for adjudication. We will be contacting these bettors this year to ask them to make a self assessment of the bet, if the parties cannot come to an agreement we will make a determination. Some wont be decided officially until the end of the year, but we may have passed the tipping point on some of these already.
We welcome your input as comments on this thread…
A profitable video-on-demand service aimed at consumers will offer 10,000 titles to 5 million subscribers by 2010.
Predictions: While we dont officially make adjudications on predictions, they are posted for the world the judge. Tell us what you think.
Published on December 29th, 02009 by Danielle Engelman
There is new media available from our monthly series, the Seminars About Long-term Thinking. Stewart Brand’s summaries and audio downloads or podcasts of the talks are free to the public; Long Now members can view HD video of the Seminars and comment on them.
Watch the video of Sander van der Leeuw’s “The Archaeology of Innovation”
Watch the video of Rick Prelinger’s “Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 4 “
Published on December 24th, 02009 by Alexander Rose
A little while ago Clock designer and Long Now founder Danny Hillis came across this podcasted radio show by former president Thomas Jefferson. We were all surprised to find him giving radio broadcasts given he passed away in 01826 (on the 4th of July I might add). But what was most surprising was to find that one of his episodes discussed the Clock of the Long Now (Listen to the MP3). Danny listened with great interest as Jefferson discussed our project, clocks and time in general, and decided to send in a letter. And just the other day Jefferson discussed the letter at length on the show (Listen to that MP3). As you would expect, Jefferson has an encyclopedic knowledge of new and old world technology, clocks and mechanica. It makes for fun listening, happy holidays.
Published on December 16th, 02009 by Danielle Engelman
About this Seminar:
Anthropologist Wade Davis is one of the world’s great story tellers, with personal adventures to match. An Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic, he specializes in hanging out with traditional peoples and exploring their religious practices.
Published on December 15th, 02009 by Kevin Kelly
One thousand years from now, much of what we know will be forgotten. That’s been true in the past. We have only a fragmentary cultural memory of what happened 1,000 years ago. And what we think we know about 1000 may in fact be quite garbled. In a very witty demo of this, this youtube clip, the Beatles 3000, imagines how corrupted our current ideas of “what everone knows” will most likely be in 10 centuries. Ever heard of the Beatles? (Thanks, Mark)
Published on December 14th, 02009 by Kirk Citron
The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.
Hollywood notwithstanding, it seems fairly unlikely that mankind will be wiped out in 02012. But unfortunately, tales of mass extinction turn out to have some basis in reality; some even say we are already in the midst of a sixth great planetary catastrophe. The difference this time is that the culprit isn’t an asteroid, or a volcanic eruption: it’s us.
Some recent news stories about threats to biodiversity:
1. The most dangerous animal is man:
It’s nature’s law: when people arrive, animals vanish
More than 800 wildlife species now extinct
Species census reveals extinction threat
New list highlights animals threatened by climate change
Loss of top predators causing surge in smaller predators, ecosystem collapse
Mankind using Earth’s resources at alarming rate
2. On the other hand, maybe things will turn around:
New findings show a quick rebound from marine mass extinction event
Antarctica served as climatic refuge in Earth’s greatest extinction event
Australian dust storms feed life explosion
3. Why we might care:
Animal biodiversity keeps people healthy
4. Not to worry, evolution will make more:
Study catches two bird populations as they split into separate species
We invite you to submit Long News story suggestions here.
Published on December 12th, 02009 by Stuart Candy
You’ve seen Seattle-based artist Chris Jordan’s work before — at this very blog, for instance. Aside from the unmistakable green thread of ecologically conscientious, socially critical themes running through it, a signature element is his use of scale: a pattern that looks one way at a distance is revealed as something else up close. Often the near and far perspectives comment on each other.
Below appears a set of images of a 2009 work called “E Pluribus Unum” — “Out of many, one” (an important U.S. motto).
Jordan’s website explains:
This large scale mandala depicts the names of one million organizations around the world that are devoted to peace, environmental stewardship, social justice, and the preservation of diverse and indigenous culture.
The actual number of such organizations is unknown, but Paul Hawken’s “Blessed Unrest” project estimates the number at somewhere between one and two million, and growing. If the lines in this piece were straightened out, they would make an unbroken line of names, in a ten point font, twenty seven miles long.
Of course, to read the statistics is one thing; actually to image them is another. This remarkable visualisation helps bring home the scale of social transformation, at the institutional level, which we are currently undergoing.
Paul Hawken’s Seminar About Long-term Thinking that deals with the themes of Blessed Unrest can be found here.
[Images: Chris Jordan]
Published on December 11th, 02009 by Danielle Engelman
There is new media available from our monthly series, the Seminars About Long-term Thinking. Stewart Brand’s summaries and audio downloads or podcasts of the talks are free to the public; Long Now members can view HD video of the Seminars and comment on them.
Listen to the Audio of Rick Prelinger’s “Lost Landscape’s of San Francisco, 4 “ (downloads tab)
Ideas about Long-term Thinking.
The Long Now Foundation
Fostering Long-term Responsibility
est. 01996.
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