Catastrophic drought is coming back

There are two kinds of historians, Brian Fagan says, parachutists and truffle hunters. Parachutists command an overview of the landscape, while truffle hunters dig deeply to uncover marvelous treasures. Fagan is a parachutist. In his talk Fagan emphasized a wide view of human history as it unrolls in the landscape. . .   Read More

Welcome to the Anthropocene

The graphs we see these days, John Baez began, all look vertical— carbon burning shooting up, CO2 in the air shooting up, global temperature shooting up, and population still shooting up. How can we understand what really going on? “It’s like trying to understand geology while you’re hanging by. . .   Read More

Giant contradictions

“China is the most unresolved nation of consequence in the world,” Orville Schell began. It is defined by its massive contradictions. And by its massiveness— China’s population is estimated to be 1.25 to 1.3 billion; the margin of error in the estimate is greater than the population of France. It. . .   Read More

Recursion drives science

The co-founding editor of “Wired” magazine and author of OUT OF CONTROL is working on a new book on “what technology wants.” His research led to the first-ever history of scientific methodology. Starting from this long-term view of science’s past transformation, he speculates on how the practice of. . .   Read More

Escape velocity

Attempts to think long term, Ray Kurzweil began, keep making the mistake of imagining that the pace of the future is like the pace of the past. Pondering the next ten years, we usually begin by studying the last ten years. He recommends studying the last twenty year for clues about the rate. . .   Read More

The rainforests of home

SPENCER BEEBE is founder and head of Ecotrust, the Portland-based organization that is setting in motion a permanently prosperous conservation economy for the entire Pacific Coast from San Francisco north to Alaska— the temperate rain forest also known as “Salmon Nation.”

SPENCER BEEBE began his Seminar About Long-term Thinking. . .   Read More

The long search

“The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: Necessarily a Long-term Strategy” is the title for Jill Tarter’s Seminar About Long-term Thinking this Friday. There’s no deeper question than “Are we alone in the universe?” And there’s no quick way to answer it. Slow, steady science is the hardest. . .   Read More

Long-term Policy Analysis

Dewar is head of RAND’s Pardee Center on very long-term policy—35 to 200 years

For over half a century the RAND Corporation has influenced national policy and invented major intellectual tools. Packet switching (Paul Baran) came from RAND; so did scenario planning (Herman Kahn); so does the current. . .   Read More

The art of the really long view

For such a weighty subject there was a lot of guffawing going on in the Seminar Thursday night.

The topic was “The Art of the Really Long View.” Peter Schwartz chatted through his slides for tonight’s lecture, then the discussion waded in. Present were Danny Hillis, Leighton. . .   Read More