Human history in the Americas may be twice long as long as previously believed — at least 26,500 years — according to authors of a new study at Mexico’s Chiquihuite cave and other sites throughout Central Mexico. According to the study’s lead author Ciprian Ardelean: “This site alone can’t be considered . . .   Read More

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

As someone who spent my childhood moving from epidemic to epidemic with my virologist father and epidemiologist mother, I am surprised at the degree of certainty expressed by both optimists and pessimists regarding their predictions of the COVID-19 epidemic. . .   Read More

In the hours after news broke that the Cathedral of Notre Dame suffered extensive fire damage, many found hope in a story that circulated on social media about a centuries-old protocol the fire department in Paris followed when battling the fire. The story originated with Twitter. . .   Read More

BBC Future has launched a new series about “the long view of humanity” called “Deep Civilization:”

[Deep Civilization] aims to stand back from the daily news cycle and widen the lens of our current place in time. Over the coming months, we will explore multi-generational thinking in all its forms, and hear from writers. . .   Read More

In 02011, anthropologist Michael Frachetti discovered a lost city that holds clues to how civilizations rise and fall when diverse communities integrate. From Michael Frachetti’s Long Now Seminar “Open Source Civilization and the Unexpected Origins of the Silk Road” which you can watch in full here. . .   Read More

Alan Moore (left) chose comedian Stewart Lee as the recipient of his Longplayer letter.

In January 02017, Iain Sinclair, a writer and filmmaker whose recent work focuses on the psychogeography of London, wrote a letter to writer Alan Moore as part of the Artangel Longplayer Letters series. The series is a relay-style correspondence, with. . .   Read More

Iain Sinclair (left) chose Alan Moore as the recipient of his Longplayer letter.
In November 02015, Manuel Arriga  wrote a letter to Giles Fraser as part of the Artangel Longplayer Letters series. The series is a relay-style correspondence: The first letter was written by Brian Eno to Nassim Taleb. Nassim Taleb then wrote to. . .   Read More

It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes an entire civilization to build a toaster.

That’s what Designer Thomas Thwaites learned when he set himself the challenge of building his own, from start to Pop Tarts. He smelted ore, coaxed plastic out of oil, and toiled towards a prototype that. . .   Read More

We under-imagine benefits and over-imagine problems with civilian infrastructure projects, yet we do the opposite with military infrastructure-scale weapons systems.  Both behaviors defy reason and cause harm.
— Stewart Brand
James Fallows recently wrote a piece for the Atlantic describing common bias in dealing with military infrastructure vs. public infrastructure, expanding on the. . .   Read More