What is “The Long Now”? Understanding Through a Civilization-Scale Context

“The Long Now” is a concept that draws from the ancient past and distant future to provide the civilization-scale context crucial for modern society. It proposes a mindset that moves beyond immediate gains and short-term trends, encouraging us to consider matters in terms of centuries or millennia, thereby fostering a sustainable future.

This framework emphasizes the accumulation of human experience and knowledge, and it addresses contemporary challenges such as information overload in the digital age and the difficulties of long-term digital preservation (the “Digital Dark Age”). Through themes like AI systems, neural media, and the evolution of life and intelligence, it explores how a long-term perspective should influence present-day decision-making and technological development.

Specific projects and articles like “The Essential Art of Civilization” and “Anatomy of an AI System” offer tools and examples for practicing this long-term thinking, providing readers with deep insights. This serves as an opportunity to re-examine our responsibilities to the next generations and beyond.

This article was generated by Gemini AI as part of the automated news generation system.