Brian Eno’s and Danny Hillis’ Long Now Lectures

I also recommend Brian Eno’s inaugural Long Now lecture, and Danny Hillis’ lecture on the progress of the 10,000 year clock.

I first learned about the clock when I read Po Bronson’s The Nudist on the Late Shift, which has a chapter on Danny Hillis and his work on the clock. Ever since, it has kept popping up.

The foundation’s mission is, as Brian Eno explains in his lecture, to increase awareness of the long-term future, to stimulate long-term thinking. The clock is the foundation’s first project, and it is such a perfect vehicle for conveying what long-term thinking is about. Designing a clock that should last for 10,000 years (the next half of the Long Now) involves so many factors – not just technology and mechanics.

For instance, Hillis’ talk made me think of the Pioneer spacecraft, that has on-board a plaque designed by Carl Sagan, intended as a message from mankind. It’s obvious that for another life form to decode such a message, it must be universal (in the full sense of the word). There are no established conventions to rely on. But which conventions can be relied on for a note to our future selves, ten thousand years from now? Will we, if we’re still here, understand it’s a clock? What will our sense of time be like?

Together, Eno’s and Hillis’ talks convey the breadth and profoundness of long-term thinking – not to mention its urgency.

Note: The sound is crap the first couple of minutes of the Eno talk, but it gets better.