Eight Thoughts About Timescale

WarrenS

Stewart Brand sent in this blog piece by Warren Senders about time scales.  A good read on how the human mind’s primary feature is now operating as a bug…

I’m not sanguine about our ability to solve the climate crisis — and it’s not because the monolithic forces of global capitalism won’t let us (although they’re not helping). It’s not because we’re too greedy and acquisitive (although we are). It’s not because things have progressed too far already for us to stop them (although they have).

It’s because we humans aren’t very good at thinking in different timescales. We’re basically monkeys, and we have monkey minds. Our species-wide ADD started out as a feature, but in our present situation, it’s a bug.

Senders goes on to list his 8 thoughts, some of which cross over territory covered in this blog and Long Now content in general, but he does a great job re-synthesizing it.  You can read his full article on his blog.

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The Long Now Foundation is a nonprofit established in 01996 to foster long-term thinking. Our work encourages imagination at the timescale of civilization — the next and last 10,000 years — a timespan we call the long now.

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