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Author Archive

Podcast: The Future of Breathing | James Nestor

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on December 22nd, 02020

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, journalist James Nestor questions the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function, breathing. Nestor tracks down . . .   Read More

Podcast: The Making and Maintenance of our Open Source Infrastructure | Nadia Eghbal

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on December 10th, 02020

Nadia Eghbal is particularly interested in infrastructure, governance, and the economics of the internet – and how the dynamics of these subjects play out in software, online communities and generally living life online. Eghbal, who interviewed hundreds of . . .   Read More

How Long-term Thinking Can Help Earth Now

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on October 26th, 02020

Inside Finland’s Olkiluoto nuclear waste repository, 1,500 feet underground. Photo Credit: Peter Guenzel With half-lives ranging from 30 to 24,000, or even 16 million years, the radioactive elements in nuclear waste defy our typical operating time frames. The questions around nuclear waste storage — how to keep it safe from . . .   Read More

A Long Now Drive-in Double Feature at Fort Mason

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on October 21st, 02020

Join the Long Now Community for a night of films that inspire long-term thinking. On October 27, 02020, we’ll screen Samsara followed by 2001: A Space Odyssey at Fort Mason. SAMSARA Drive-in Screening on Tuesday October 27, 02020 at 6:00pm PT Get Tickets SAMSARA is a Sanskrit word . . .   Read More

Study Group for Progress Launches with Discount for Long Now Members

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on September 7th, 02020

Long Now Member Jason Crawford, founder of The Roots of Progress, is starting up a weekly learning group on progress with a steep discount for Long Now Members: The Study Group for Progress is a weekly discussion + Q&A on the history, economics and philosophy of progress. Long Now members can get 50% . . .   Read More

Michael McElligott, A Staple of San Francisco Art and Culture, Dies at 50

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on August 31st, 02020

It is with great sadness that we share the news that Michael McElligott, an event producer, thespian, writer, long-time Long Now staff member, and relentless promoter of the San Francisco avant-garde, has died.. . .   Read More

Long Now partners with Avenues: The World School for year-long, online program on the future of invention

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on July 17th, 02020

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” – Alan Kay The Long Now Foundation has partnered with Avenues: The World School to offer a program on the past, present, and future of innovation. A fully online program for ages 17 and above, the Avenues Mastery Year is designed . . .   Read More

Long-term Perspectives During a Pandemic

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on May 27th, 02020

On April 14th, 02020, The Long Now Foundation convened a Long Conversation featuring members of our board and invited speakers. Over almost five hours of spirited discussion, participants reflected on the current moment, how it fits into our deeper future, and how we can address threats to civilization that are rare but ultimately predictable. . . .   Read More

The Cataclysm Sentence

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on May 6th, 02020

WNYC’s Radiolab recently released a podcast about what forms of knowledge are worth passing on to future generations. One day in 1961, the famous physicist Richard Feynman stepped in front of a Caltech lecture hall and posed this question to a group of undergraduate students: “If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific . . .   Read More

Kim Stanley Robinson: “The Coronavirus is Rewriting Our Imaginations.”

by Ahmed Kabil - Twitter: @ahmedkabil on May 4th, 02020

Science Fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson has written a powerful meditation on what the pandemic heralds for the future of civilization in The New Yorker. . . .   Read More