In a new piece in The Atlantic, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis invokes long-term thinking as a necessary but increasingly-forgotten principle of American democracy . . .   Read More

Popular 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, the Star Map at Hoover Dam, and more. Corroded, wrecked, and half-buried for . . .   Read More

WIRED’s Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Thompson recently interviewed Bina Venkataraman about her new book, The Optimist’s Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age. Venkataraman’s book focuses on the need for more long-term thinking in the world, and explores issues that have long been a focus for us . . .   Read More

The Sagrada Familia Catholic Church in Barcelona, Spain. The Catholic Church is one of the longest-lived institutions in human history.

The Long Now Foundation was founded in 01996 with the idea to build a 10,000 year clock — an icon to long-term thinking that might inspire people to engage more deeply with. . .   Read More

Executive Director Alexander Rose recently sat down with John Brockman of Edge.org to discuss Long Now. (Brockman recently gave a talk at Long Now in February about A.I.).
There are almost no artifacts that have been built for very long periods of time. With things like the pyramids or Stonehenge—we knew the. . .   Read More

In a new essay for BBC’s Deep Civilisation series, British philosopher Tom Chatfield explores how technology has co-evolved alongside humans. While humans have only existed as a brief interval on the cosmic timescale, the process of “recursive iteration” that defines our relationship with our tools has led to us having an outsized impact. . .   Read More

Figure 1. Mt. Washington in the Snake Range, NV, with bristlecone pines. Photo: Connie Millar

About 15 years ago, my work unexpectedly collided with mountain climate science research when the nonprofit organization I work for, The Long Now Foundation, acquired Mt. Washington in eastern Nevada (Fig. 1). Not the whole mountain, but important parts of. . .   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

Photo by Darv Robinson on Unsplash

This is the week when we recall what we’ve done last year, and resolve to use time better in the year to come. Indeed, in our everyday lives, time is a precious commodity. We can gain or lose it. We can save, spend or waste it. If our. . .   Read More

Image by George Steinmetz.
This month, The New York Times published an ambitious 30,000 word feature by Nathaniel Rich on how humanity missed its window to address climate change. In the decade of 01979–01989, Rich argues, the world came closer than it ever had to agreeing upon a binding, global framework to reduce. . .   Read More