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The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is an American
non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
based in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
that seeks to start and promote a long-term
cultural institution A cultural institution or cultural organization is an organization within a culture/subculture that works for the preservation or promotion of culture. The term is especially used of public and charitable organizations, but its range of meaning can ...
. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster/cheaper" mindset and to promote "slower/better" thinking. The Long Now Foundation hopes to "creatively foster responsibility" in the framework of the next 10,000 years. In a manner somewhat similar to the
Holocene calendar The Holocene calendar, also known as the Holocene Era or Human Era (HE), is a year numbering system that adds exactly 10,000 years to the currently dominant ( AD/ BC or CE/ BCE) numbering scheme, placing its first year near the beginning of th ...
, the foundation uses 5-digit dates to address the
Year 10,000 problem In computer science, time formatting and storage bugs are a class of software bugs that may cause time and date calculation or display to be improperly handled. These are most commonly manifestations of arithmetic overflow, but can also be the ...
(e.g., by writing the current year "0" rather than ""). The organisation's logo is , a capital X with an overline, a representation of 10,000 in
Roman numeral Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, ea ...
s.


Projects

The foundation has several ongoing projects, including a 10,000-year clock known as the ''
Clock of the Long Now The Clock of the Long Now, also called the 10,000-year clock, is a mechanical clock under construction that is designed to keep time for 10,000 years. It is being built by the Long Now Foundation. A two-meter prototype is on display at the S ...
'', the '' Rosetta Project'', the ''Long Bet Project'', the open source ''Timeline Tool'' (also known as Longviewer), the ''Long Server'' and a monthly seminar series.


Clock of the Long Now

The purpose of the ''Clock of the Long Now'' is to construct a
timepiece A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the ...
that will operate with minimum human intervention for ten
millennia A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...
. It is to be constructed of durable materials, to be easy to repair, and to be made of largely valueless materials in case knowledge of the
clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and ...
is lost or it is deemed to be of no value to an individual or possible future
civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). ...
; in this way it is hoped that the Clock will not be
looted Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...
or destroyed. Its power source (or sources) should be renewable but similarly unlootable. A prototype of a potential final clock candidate was activated on December 31, 1999, and is currently on display at the
Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in ...
in London. The Foundation is currently building the ''Clock of the Long Now'' in
Van Horn, Texas Van Horn is a town in and the seat of Culberson County, Texas, United States. According to the 2010 census, Van Horn had a population of 2,063, down from 2,435 at the 2000 census. The 2020 census results detailed a decline in population to 1,941. ...
.


Rosetta Project

The ''Rosetta Project'' is an effort to preserve all languages that have a high likelihood of extinction over the period from 2000 to 2100. These include many languages whose
native speaker Native Speaker may refer to: * ''Native Speaker'' (novel), a 1995 novel by Chang-Rae Lee * ''Native Speaker'' (album), a 2011 album by Canadian band Braids * Native speaker, a person using their first language or mother tongue {{disambigua ...
s number in the thousands or fewer. Other languages with many more speakers are considered by the project to be endangered because of the increasing importance of English as an international language of commerce and culture. Samples of such languages are to be inscribed onto a disc of nickel alloy three inches (7.62 cm) across. A Version 1.0 of the disc was completed on November 3, 2008.


Long Bet Project

The ''Long Bet Project'' was created by The Long Now Foundation to propose and keep track of
bets Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elem ...
on long-term events and stimulate discussion about the future. The Long Now Foundation describes The Long Bet Project as a "public arena for enjoyably competitive predictions, of interest to society, with philanthropic money at stake." One example bet would be on whether people will regularly fly on pilotless
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or by using the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in ...
by 2030. Bets that were resolved in 2010 included predictions about
peak oil Peak oil is the hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which it is argued that production will begin an irreversible decline. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; whil ...
,
print on demand Print on demand (POD) is a printing technology and business process in which book copies (or other documents, packaging or materials) are not printed until the company receives an order, allowing prints of single or small quantities. While oth ...
,
modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by modulating one or more c ...
obsolescence, and commercially available 100-
qubit In quantum computing, a qubit () or quantum bit is a basic unit of quantum information—the quantum version of the classic binary bit physically realized with a two-state device. A qubit is a two-state (or two-level) quantum-mechanical system, ...
quantum computer Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Thoug ...
s.


Seminars about long-term thinking

In November 2003, The Long Now Foundation began a series of monthly seminars about long-term thinking (SALT) with a lecture by
Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop a ...
. The seminars are held in the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...
and have focused on long-term policy and thinking, scenario planning, singularity and the projects of the foundation. The seminars are available for download in various formats from The Long Now Foundation. They are intended to "nudge civilization toward making long-term thinking automatic and common". Topics have included preserving
environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scal ...
resources, the deep past and deep future of the sciences and the arts, human
life extension Life extension is the concept of extending the human lifespan, either modestly through improvements in medicine or dramatically by increasing the maximum lifespan beyond its generally-settled limit of 125 years. Several researchers in the area ...
, the likelihood of an
asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
strike in the future,
SETI The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other pl ...
, and the nature of time.


Long Now Foundation debate format

As part of the seminar series, there are occasionally debates on areas of long term concern, such as synthetic biology or "historian vs futurist on human progress". The point of Long Now debates is not win-lose. The point is public clarity and deep understanding, leading to action graced with nuance and built-in adaptivity, with long-term responsibility in mind. In operation, "There are two debaters, Alice and Bob. Alice takes the podium, makes her argument. Then Bob takes her place, but before he can present his counter-argument, he must summarize Alice's argument to her satisfaction — a demonstration of respect and good faith. Only when Alice agrees that Bob has got it right is he permitted to proceed with his own argument — and then, when he's finished, Alice must summarize it to his satisfaction." Mutual understanding is enforced by a reciprocal requirement to describe the other's argument to their satisfaction, with the goal being more understanding after the event than there was beforehand.


The Interval

Opened in June 2014, The Interval was designed as social space in the foundation's Fort Mason facility in San Francisco. The purpose of The Interval is to have a public space where people can come together to discuss ideas and topics related to long-term thinking, as well as provide a venue for a variety of Long Now events. The Interval includes lounge furniture, artifacts from the foundation's projects, a library, audio/video equipment, and a bar serving tea and coffee during the day, and cocktails during the night. In October 2014 The Interval was named by Thrillist as one of the best new bars in America.


PanLex

PanLex is a linguistic project whose stated mission is to overcome language barriers to human rights, information, and opportunities. Started in 2004 at the University of Washington’s Turing Center, the project sought to build software that would enable all humans to use their native language to share information, ideas, and emotions with the rest of the world. This research produced a lexical database (TransGraph) designed to support panlingual translation, and a more powerful extension of it (PanDictionary) based on intelligent automated inference. After this work demonstrated the feasibility of the concept, the PanDictionary became the PanLex Database, and PanLex has continued to enlarge, enrich, and modify it by consulting multilingual dictionary and dictionary-like sources. In 2012, PanLex became a project of The Long Now Foundation.


In popular culture

Neal Stephenson Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work e ...
's science fiction novel '' Anathem'' was partly inspired by the author's involvement with the
Clock of the Long Now The Clock of the Long Now, also called the 10,000-year clock, is a mechanical clock under construction that is designed to keep time for 10,000 years. It is being built by the Long Now Foundation. A two-meter prototype is on display at the S ...
project. As a result of Brian Eno's work on the clock project, an album entitled '' January 07003 / Bell Studies for The Clock of The Long Now'' was released in 2003. English songwriter
Owen Tromans Owen Tromans is a British musician and writer. He played with the group San Lorenzo and now records under his own name. Tromans has recorded several albums and two EPs since 2001. Tromans plays in the improv guitar duo Delphic Vapours with aut ...
released a single entitled "Long Now", inspired by the foundation, in 2013.


Board members

The Board of Directors of The Long Now Foundation :


See also

*
All Species Foundation The All Species Foundation (stylized as ALL Species Foundation) was an organization aiming to catalog all species on Earth by 2025 through their All Species Inventory initiative. The project was launched in 2000 by Kevin Kelly, Stewart Brand an ...
* Big History *
Deep time Deep time is a term introduced and applied by John McPhee to the concept of geologic time in his book ''Basin and Range'' (1981), parts of which originally appeared in the '' New Yorker'' magazine. The philosophical concept of geological time ...
* '' The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch'' (book) *
Longue durée The ''longue durée'' (; en, the long term) is the French Annales School approach to the study of history. It gives priority to long-term historical structures over what François Simiand called ''histoire événementielle'' ("evental history", ...
* ''
Longplayer ''Longplayer'' is a self-extending composition by British composer and musician Jem Finer which is designed to continue for one thousand years. It started to play at midnight on 1 January 2000, and if all goes as planned, it will continue wi ...
'' *
Longtermism Longtermism is an ethical stance which gives priority to improving the long-term future. It is an important concept in effective altruism and serves as a primary motivation for efforts that claim to reduce existential risks to humanity. Sigal S ...
* Open Source Ecology *
Pioneer plaque The Pioneer plaques are a pair of gold-anodized aluminum plaques that were placed on board the 1972 ''Pioneer 10'' and 1973 ''Pioneer 11'' spacecraft, featuring a pictorial message, in case either ''Pioneer 10'' or ''11'' is intercepted by inte ...
* Seven generation sustainability *
Voyager Golden Record The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for ...
* Memory of Mankind


References


External links

*
The Rosetta Project

The Long Bets Foundation
*

Radio feature about The Long Bet Project, from the U.S. public radio program 'Marketplace' *

(''
Fortune Magazine ''Fortune'' is an American multinational business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The ...
'' on a Longbets bet) * ttps://www.panlex.org PanLex {{authority control Non-profit organizations based in California 501(c)(3) organizations 1996 establishments in California Brian Eno Organizations established in 1996