John Brockman. For the last twenty years, literary agent John Brockman has presented the members of his online salon Edge with a question that elicits discussion about some of the biggest intellectual and scientific issues of our time.(Previous prompts include “What scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?” or “What should we be worried about?”). The essay responses — in […]

Tim Ferriss, who wrote the The Four Hour Work Week and gave a Long Now talk on accelerated learning in 02011, recently interviewed Long Now co-founder Stewart Brand on his podcast, “The Tim Ferriss Show”. The interview is wide-ranging, in-depth, and among the most personal Brand has given to date. Over the. . .   Read More

Brian Eno’s creative activities defy categorization. Widely known as a musician and producer, Eno has expanded the frontiers of audio and visual art for decades, and posited new ways of approaching creativity in general. He is a thinker and speaker, activist and eccentric. He formulated the idea of the Big Here and Long Now. . .   Read More

We hope you’ll consider a tax-deductible donation to Long Now this giving season. Thank you to Long Now members and donors: we appreciate your additional support this giving season. With your help we can foster long-term thinking for generations to come.

Long Now Executive Director Alexander Rose and former Evernote CEO Phil Libin recently spoke with the design agency Dialogue about the layers of civilization, the future of products, and the Clock of the Long Now. The interview is wide-ranging, covering everything from the early tech, design and science fiction influences in Rose and Libin’s childhoods to […]

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

“WHAT BOOKS would you want to restart civilization from scratch?”

The Long Now Foundation has been involved in and inspired by projects centered on that question since launching in 01996. (See, for example, The Rosetta Project, Westinghouse Time Capsules, The Human Document Project, The Survivor Library, The Toaster Project, The Crypt of Civilization, and the. . .   Read More

Michael Heizer, an eccentric pioneer of the Earthworks movement, is almost done with the mile-and-a-half sculpture he’s been working on for upwards of half a century in a remote Nevada desert. And almost nobody has seen it. “City,” inspired by the ancient ritual sites of past civilizations and set to open. . .   Read More

As visitors to Fort Mason amble past The Interval, the Long Now Foundation’s cafe-bar-museum-venue space, some are drawn, as if by gravitational pull, to an unusual eight foot-tall stainless steel technological curiosity they glimpse through the glass doors. Metal gears sit stacked one on top of the other to form a tower, with geneva wheels jutting […]