The Clock Of The Long Now: Time and Responsibility

The difference between the two examples—dirigible ports versus ecological conservation—is a great demonstration of the difference between long-term planning and long-term responsibility. I agree that the former is futile, but that’s no excuse to give up on the latter. The difference is between trying to control the future and trying to give it the

One reason the metaphor resonates is that it offers insight about the distortion we all feel from the pace of events these years. As one falls into a black hole, the fierce gravitational field of the singularity pulls the traveler into a long thin shape, like taffy.

What do we owe the future humans? Existence, skills, and a not-bad world. Maybe even a better world.

There are two ways to make systems fault-tolerant: One is to make them small, so that correction is local and quick; the other is to make them slow, so that correction has time to permeate the system. When you proceed too rapidly with something mistakes cascade, whereas when you proceed slowly the mistakes instruct. Gradual, incremental projects en

Metcalfe’s Law,

The destiny of our species is shaped by the imperatives of survival on six distinct time scales. To survive means to compete successfully on all six time scales. But the unit of survival is different at each of the six time scales. On a time scale of years, the unit is the individual. On a time scale of decades, the unit is the family. On a time sc

The trick is learning how to treat the last ten thousand years as if it were last week, and the next ten thousand as if it were next week. Such tricks confer advantage.

Ten thousand years is not all that long. It is only four hundred generations—counting a new generation every twenty-five years, four to a century, for a hundred centuries.

Burning libraries is a profound form of murder, or if self-inflicted, suicide. It does to cultural continuity—and hence safety—what destroying species and habitats does to nature’s continuity, and hence safety. Burning the Amazon rain forest burns the world’s richest library of species. The accumulated past is life’s best resource for innovation .