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Support Long-term ThinkingPopular Science recently profiled our Rosetta and 10,000 Year Clock projects, as well as a number of related long-term thinking projects, such as Martin Kunze’s Memory of Mankind, the Apollo 12 MoonArk, nuclear waste ray cats, and the Star Map at Hoover Dam.
Corroded, wrecked, and half-buried for 2,000 years like an accidental time capsule, the Statue of Liberty that looms over Charlton Heston in the final scene of the original Planet of the Apes is a literal symbol of humanity’s missteps: a horrible communiqué from the distant past about atomic annihilation. In the real world, many linguists, designers, and scientists are puzzling over how to intentionally send millennia-spanning messages to recipients whose languages, senses, and fears could bear little resemblance to our own. The projects these forward-thinkers dream up aim to convey clues about our existence, hellos to extraterrestrials, or warnings about nuclear waste—like postcards that will be legible to beings 1,000, 5,000, even 10,000 years ahead.
A highlight of the piece are the illustrations of the various projects, presented as postcards from the future.
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