The Long Now Foundation

Historian of capitalism and author of “Borrow: The American Way of Debt” discussed deep economic history and a forgotten chapter of the New Deal era:
 how capitalism itself stalled in the Great Depression; and what government, allied with entrepreneurs, did to jump-start capitalism. The question is: could it happen again today? From January 02016. "The New Deal You Don't Know" was given on January...

The daily news tells us what happened yesterday. It rarely tells us what’s happening tomorrow. Kirk Citron curates the Long News: looking for longer-term trends that will matter for decades, centuries, even millennia. "The Long News: What Stories Will Matter for Centuries?" was given on January 19, 02016 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks. These hour l...

Consider this, optimists. All the societies in the world can collapse simultaneously. It has happened before. In the 12th century BCE the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Mediterranean—all of them—suddenly fell apart. Their empires evaporated, their cities emptied out, their technologies disappeared, and famine ruled. Mycenae, Minos, Assyria, Hittites, Canaan, Cyprus—all gone. Even Egypt fell...

The pundits we all listen to are no better at predictions than a “dart-throwing chimp,” and they are routinely surpassed by normal news-attentive citizens. So Philip Tetlock reported in his 02005 book, "Expert Political Judgement"—and in a January 02007 SALT talk. It now turns out there are some people who are spectacularly good at forecasting, and their skills can be learned. Tetlock discovered t...

Before Andy Weir's self-published novel "The Martian" became a "New York Times" bestseller and a blockbuster film, it began as a series of blog posts. Those posts, and the online conversation they sparked, reflect Andy's lifelong love of space and his detailed research into how humans could survive a journey to the fourth planet in our Solar System. In October of 02015, in his talk at The Interval...

The Executive Editor of Imbibe magazine and author of The Cocktail Chronicles looks back 150 years and then forward to ask:
 What Will They Drink in 02115? "The Cocktail Crystal Ball" was given on October 20, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks. These hour long talks are recorded live at The Interval, our bar, cafe, & museum in San Francisco. Sinc...

Infrastructure decisions—and failures to decide—affect everything about a society for centuries. That long shadow, James Fallows points out, is what makes the decisions so difficult, because "We must choose among options whose consequences we can't fully anticipate.” What we do know is that infrastructure projects are hugely disruptive and expensive in the short term, and neglecting to deal with i...

In recent years 
the automation debate has returned. Author and veteran tech journalist John Markoff discusses the potential and peril in designing robots for human use. "The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots" was given on September 29, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks. These hour long talks are recorded live at The Interval, ou...

So far we are trying to deal with climate change at the wrong time scale. A really deep problem cannot be solved by shallow innovations, no matter how clever. The scale of climate change requires thinking and acting in multi-decade terms at the level of infrastructure—personal as well as societal. Get it right, and “the result can be like living in a beautifully managed garden.” Saul Griffith is a...

"Rumsey Map Collection preview event" was given on August 25, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks. These hour long talks are recorded live at The Interval, our bar, cafe, & museum in San Francisco. Since 02014 this series has presented artists, authors, entrepreneurs, scientists (and more) taking a long-term perspective on subjects like art, desig...

We are one tool away from learning which distant planets already have life on them and which might be welcoming to life. MIT Planetary Scientist Sara Seager is working on the tool. She is chair of the NASA team developing a “Starshade” that would allow a relatively rudimentary space telescope to observe Earth-size planets directly, which would yield atmospheric analysis, which would determine a pl...

The written word has transformed humanity. Ideas now outlast their creators. Knowledge builds on knowledge across generations. The author of "Wool" and "The Bern Saga" asks: “How will texts survive deep time? What does the library of tomorrow look like?” "The Library That Lasts" was given on July 28, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks. These hour...

Techno thriller meets realistic optimism. Ramez Naam, a former Microsoft executive with 19 patents to his name, wrote a riveting just-completed science fiction trilogy ("Nexus", "Crux", and "Apex") that plays out current trends in brain enhancement. As Naam reports in a recent blog, “Neural implants could accomplish things no external interface could: Virtual and augmented reality with all 5 sense...

Dr. Maryanne Wolf shares her research on the reading brain: its protean capacities; its surprising differences (e.g., in dyslexia); and its changes for good and ill in a digital culture. "The Changing Reading Brain in a Digital Culture" was given on July 14, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks. These hour long talks are recorded live at The Interv...

Rick Prelinger uncovers the diverse histories of
Bay Area telecommunications infrastructure: telephone, radio, television, data, image and sound. A tour of technologies, dead and flourishing, that overlay, underlay and penetrate us all. "Bay Area Telecommunications Infrastructure History" was given on June 16, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks....

Neil's talk will explore the way stories, myths and tales survive over great lengths of time and why creating for the future means making works that will endure within the oral tradition. Preternaturally eloquent, Neil Gaiman has told stories in every medium—graphic novels ("The Sandman"), novels ("The Ocean at the End of the Lane"; "American Gods"), short stories ("Trigger Warning"), children’s b...

A working and teaching blacksmith for over thirty years, James Austin specializes in making Viking age axes using traditional methods. "21st Century Iron Age" was given on June 02, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval” Salon Talks. These hour long talks are recorded live at The Interval, our bar, cafe, & museum in San Francisco. Since 02014 this series has pres...

A special daytime talk by celebrated speculative fiction author
 Neal Stephenson on the occasion of his just released novel "SEVENEVES". After a reading, Long Now co-founder Stewart Brand joins Neal to discuss the research and writing of the new book, plus a little bit about what is coming next. "Seveneves at The Interval" was given on May 21, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversati...

Beth Shapiro is far from a giddy enthusiast about de-extinction. She knows more than nearly anyone about the subject because she is a highly regarded biologist in the middle of the two leading efforts in the new field—to resurrect extinct woolly mammoths and passenger pigeons. She knows exactly how challenging the whole process will be and how imperfect the later stages of success might appear. An...

Through building and analyzing systems, D. Fox Harrell: http://foxharrell.com's research investigates how the computer can be used to express cultural meanings through data-structures and algorithms. In his talk he showed that identities are complicated by their intersection with technologies like social networking, gaming, and virtual worlds. Data-structures and algorithms in video games and soci...

Steven Pinker writes: “Shermer has engaged the full mantle of moral progress and considered how far we have come and how much farther that arc can be bent toward truth, justice, and freedom." “Through copious data and compelling examples Shermer shows how the arc of the moral universe, seen from a historical vantage point, bends toward civil rights and civil liberties, the spread of liberal democr...

A conceptual artist and experimental philosopher, Jonathon Keats' work has included personalizing the metric system, copyrighting his own mind, applying general relativity to time management, and attempting to genetically engineer God. Recently he opened the shutter on his first millennium-long photograph. Co-sponsored by The ZERO1 Art & Technology Network. "Envisioning Deep Time" was given on Apr...

According to futurist (and Long Now board member) Paul Saffo, the "new economy” anticipated in the late 01990s is arriving late and in utterly unexpected ways. Social media, maker culture, the proliferation of sensors, and even the 02008 market crash are merely local phenomena in a much larger shift. What unfolds in the next few years will determine the shape of the global economy for the next hal...

The versatile author and historian Richard Rhodes (a Pulitzer-prize winner for his book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb") leads us through innovations both medical and military from the Spanish Civil War, the subject of his new book "Hell and Good Company". "Hell and Good Company, the Spanish Civil War" was given on March 10, 02015 as part of The Long Now Foundation's “Conversations at The Interval...

A filmmaker, historian, and self-proclaimed rogue archivist, Jason Scott discusses his personal history of preserving the digital commons which began with rescuing his favorite BBS-era "text files: http://textfiles.com/" and continued with saving gigabytes of the first user-created homepages (i.e. GeoCities.com) which were about to be trashed by their corporate owner. Today his mission, in his rol...