Long Now

Episodes page 2 of 6

1. Sean Carroll: The Passage of Time and the Meaning of Life

   2 Mar 2022 · 58 min

   What is time? What is humankind’s role in the universe? What is the meaning of life? For much of human history, these questions have been the province of religion and philosophy. What answers can science provide? In…

2. Neal Stephenson: Termination Shock

   17 Feb 2022 · 45 min

   From the Metaverse in Snow Crash to digital currency in Cryptonomicon, Stephenson's thrilling stories offer uncanny insights into our future. [Neal Stephenson](http://www.nealstephenson.com/)'s fifth Long Now Talk…

3. Geoff Manaugh & Nicola Twilley: Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine

   8 Feb 2022 · 56 min

   **Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley** track the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space—from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean,…

4. David Rooney: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks

   23 Dec 2021 · 52 min

   As with all Long Now Talks, David Rooney’s talk on Thursday, September 9, 02021 began with a few tones from Brian Eno’s January 07003: Bell Studies for The Clock of the Long Now, based on the original algorithm for the…

5. Alexander Rose: Continuity: Discovering the Lessons behind the World’s Longest-lived Organizations

   23 Sep 2021 · 45 min

   One of [Long Now](https://longnow.org/)’s founding premises is that humanity’s most significant challenges require long-term solutions, including institutions that caretake and guide the knowledge and commitment needed…

6. Nathaniel Rich, Ben Novak, & Ryan Phelan: Second Nature: Green Rabbits, Passenger Pigeons, Cloned Ferrets, and the Birth of a New Ecology

   20 Aug 2021 · 43 min

   Reporter and writer Nathaniel Rich delves deep into conversation with [Revive & Restore](https://reviverestore.org/)'s Ryan Phelan and Ben Novak to discuss his newest book [_Second Nature: Scenes from a World…

7. Tim O'Reilly: What’s The Future? It’s Up to Us.

   4 Mar 2021 · 1 h 10 min

   Based on four decades in technology and media, constantly in the eye of innovation, O’Reilly is starting vital conversations about our future. Be ready for keen details on how we got here, a frank assessment of…

8. Peter Leyden: The Transformation: A Future History of the World from 02020 to 02050

   23 Feb 2021 · 1 h 07 min

   A compelling case can be made that we are in the early stages of another tech and economic boom in the next 30 years that will help solve our era’s biggest challenges like climate change, and lead to a societal…

9. Jason Tester: Queering the Future: How LGBTQ Foresight Can Benefit All

   3 Feb 2021 · 52 min

   Jason Tester asks us to see the powerful potential of "queering the future" - how looking at the future through a lens of difference and openness can reveal unexpected solutions to wicked problems, and new angles on…

10. Scurvy Salon: The History & Science of a Persistent Malady

    29 Jan 2021 · 1 h 05 min

    A special night of short talks about the long history and scientific background behind a most persistent malady. And the drinks that can help keep it at bay. Featuring returning Interval speakers James Holland Jones…

11. Rick Prelinger: Bay Area Telecommunications Infrastructure History

    20 Jan 2021 · 1 h 01 min

    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…

12. James Nestor: The Future of Breathing

    22 Dec 2020 · 1 h 09 min

    Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, journalist James Nestor questions the conventional wisdom of what we…

13. Miles Traer: The Geological Reveal: How the Rock Record Shows Our Relationship to the Natural World

    18 Dec 2020 · 1 h 06 min

    Before us, after us, and without our realizing it: geology, ecology, and biology uniquely record human activity. Geoscientist Miles Traer, co-host of the podcast _[Generation Anthropocene](http://www.genanthro.com)_…

14. Nadia Asparouhova: The Making and Maintenance of our Open Source Infrastructure

    10 Dec 2020 · 1 h 10 min

    Nadia Asparouhova is particularly interested in infrastructure, governance, and the economics of the internet - and how the dynamics of these subjects play out in software, online communities and generally living life…

15. Roman Krznaric: Becoming a Better Ancestor

    18 Nov 2020 · 1 h 24 min

    Human beings have an astonishing evolutionary gift: agile imaginations that can shift in an instant from thinking on a scale of seconds to a scale of years or even centuries. The need to draw on our capacity to think…

16. Julia Watson: Design by Radical Indigenism

    6 Oct 2020 · 1 h 00 min

    Responding to climate change by building hard infrastructures and favoring high-tech homogenous design, we are ignoring millennia-old knowledge of how to live in symbiosis with nature. Without implementing soft systems…

17. Scott Kildall: Art Thinking + Technology: A Personal Journey of Expanding Space and Time

    25 Sep 2020 · 1 h 05 min

    What place is there for art in the 21st century world of technology, business, and science? Everywhere. Award-winning cross-disciplinary artist and current [SETI artist-in-residence](http://air.seti.org/) Scott Kildall…

18. Genevieve Bell: The 4th Industrial Revolution: Responsible & Secure AI

    28 Aug 2020 · 1 h 00 min

    >"I have always felt I have an obligation to build the future I want to see. >We know that AI-powered cyber-physical systems (CPS) will scale in society. The challenge we face now is how we do that responsibly and…

19. Craig Childs: Tracking the First People into Ice Age North America

    17 Aug 2020 · 1 h 03 min

    Craig Childs chronicles the last millennia of the Ice Age, the violent oscillations and retreat of glaciers, the clues and traces that document the first encounters of early humans, and the animals whose presence…

20. Peter Calthorpe: Urban Planet

    6 Aug 2020 · 1 h 11 min

    Throughout Peter Calthorpe's decade-spanning career in urban design, planning, and architecture, he has developed and practiced the key principles of [New Urbanism](https://www.cnu.org/resources/what-new-urbanism):…

21. Lonny J Avi Brooks: When is Wakanda: Imagining Afrofutures

    27 Jul 2020 · 1 h 08 min

    "As a forecaster and Afrofuturist who imagines alternative futures from a Black Diaspora perspective, I think about long-term signals that will shape the next 10 to 100 years." ---Dr. Lonny J Avi Brooks Dr. Brooks…

22. Kim Stanley Robinson: Adapting to Sea Level Rise: The Science of New York 2140

    17 Jul 2020 · 1 h 04 min

    Legendary science fiction author [Kim Stanley Robinson](http://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/) returns to The Interval to discuss his just released novel New York 2140. Robinson discussed how starting from the most up to…

23. Brian Fisher: Edible Insects

    15 Jul 2020 · 1 h 01 min

    At the intersection of climate change, biodiversity loss, and food scarcity lies an unexpected and abundant resource: insects. [Brian Fisher](https://www.fisherlab.org/) has spent three decades documenting biodiversity…

24. Annalee Newitz: Science Needs Fiction

    14 Jul 2020 · 1 h 13 min

    Science fiction does more than predict future inventions. Stories are a testbed for exploring the unexpected ways people could incorporate technology into their cultures. Science journalist and novelist [Annalee…

25. Larry Brilliant: Sometimes Brilliant: in Conversation with Stewart Brand

    29 Jun 2020 · 1 h 03 min

    After sitting at the feet of Martin Luther King at the University of Michigan in 1962, Larry Brilliant was swept up into the civil rights movement, marching and protesting across America and Europe. As a radical young…

26. Laurance Doyle: Interspecies Communication and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

    23 Jun 2020 · 1 h 15 min

    Dr. Laurance Doyle is an astrophysicist and principal investigator at SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) with expertise in diverse subjects including extrasolar planets, signal processing and…

27. Rick Doblin: Transformational Psychedelics

    11 Jun 2020 · 1 h 16 min

    Humans have consumed psychedelics for at least the last 10,000 years. The outlawing of psychedelics in most of the world in the 20th century didn’t stop that, but it did put an end to promising research into their…

28. D. Fox Harrell: Coding Ourselves/Coding Others

    11 Jun 2020 · 58 min

    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…

29. Jennifer Granick: Modern Surveillance: Why You Should Care and What You Can Do

    4 May 2020 · 1 h 14 min

    The future of privacy begins with the current state of surveillance. The 21st century practices of US intelligence agencies push the technological, legal and political limits of lawful surveillance. Jennifer Granick is…

30. Renée DiResta: Disinformation Technology: How Online Propaganda Campaigns Are Influencing Us

    6 Apr 2020 · 1 h 12 min

    Clandestine influence campaigns are rampant on social media. Whether pushing Russian agitprop or lies about vaccines, they can impact policy and make us question what is true. A technologist, Wall Street veteran, and…

31. Michael Mikel: The Five Ages of Burning Man

    23 Mar 2020 · 1 h 30 min

    Burning Man co-founder Michael Mikel (aka [ Danger Ranger](https://twitter.com/danger_ranger)), who serves as Director of Advanced Social Systems for the Burning Man Project discussed the history of the event.…

32. Robert McIntyre: Engram Preservation: Early Work Towards Mind Uploading

    3 Mar 2020 · 1 h 07 min

    Is it possible to preserve and read memories after someone has died? Robert McIntyre thinks it is, and that the technology is closer than most people realize. His company [_Nectome_](https://nectome.com/) is working on…

33. Eric Ries: Long-Term Stock Exchange

    3 Mar 2020 · 1 h 21 min

    Companies that operate with a long-term mindset tend to outperform their peers over time. But the pressure to achieve short-term quarterly gains often works against longer-term sustainable growth, and can push even the…

34. Bruce Sterling: How to Be Futuristic

    18 Feb 2020 · 2 h 05 min

    The future is a kind of history that hasn’t happened yet. The past is a kind of future that has already happened. The present moment vanishes before it can be described. Language, a human invention, lacks the power to…

35. Fred Lyon: San Francisco Time: The Photography of Fred Lyon

    12 Feb 2020 · 1 h 16 min

    [Fred Lyon](http://www.fredlyon.com/) is a time traveler with a camera and tales to tell. At 94-years-old, this former LIFE magazine photographer and fourth generation San Franciscan has an eye for the city and stories…

36. Caroline Winterer: The Art and Science of Deep Time: Conceiving the Inconceivable in the 19th Century

    6 Feb 2020 · 1 h 09 min

    The ambition to think on the scale of thousands, millions, even billion of years emerged in the 19th century. Historian and author [Caroline Winterer](https://history.stanford.edu/people/caroline-winterer) chronicles…

37. Tiffany Shlain: 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week

    29 Jan 2020 · 1 h 22 min

    As the world is becoming more technologically connected, finding time for oneself and face-to-face connections is becoming increasingly difficult. Many of our talks at Long Now have aimed to help expand our collective…

38. Bina Venkataraman: Long-Term Thinking in a Distracted World

    29 Jan 2020 · 1 h 27 min

    What does practical long-term thinking look like? Bina Venkataraman’s new book, [_The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age_](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780735219472), brings this abstract…

39. Kelly Wanser: Is Reflecting Sunlight from the Atmosphere a Bridge to the Future?

    15 Jan 2020 · 1 h 27 min

    Recent data shows damage from climate change rapidly increasing. There are many scientifically proposed methods (from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.K. Royal Society, and the American Geophysical Union…

40. Esther Dyson: The Short Now: What Addiction, Day Trading, and Most of Society’s Ills Have in Common

    9 Jan 2020 · 1 h 16 min

    Long Now board member Esther Dyson shares her ongoing work to move communities away from short-term thinking and into health. In conversation with previous Interval speaker [Kara Platoni](http://www.karaplatoni.com/),…

41. Adrienne Mayor: Gods and Robots: Ancient Dreams of Technology

    23 Dec 2019 · 1 h 11 min

    Millennia before engineering or software, robots and artificial intelligence were brought to life in Greek myths. The author of [_Gods and Robots Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of…

42. Annalee Newitz: We're in the Wrong Timeline

    13 Dec 2019 · 1 h 13 min

    [_Annalee Newitz's_](https://www.techsploitation.com/) new novel, [_The Future of Another Timeline_](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765392121), is about time travelers in an edit war over history. But it's also…

43. Jacob Ward: The Loop: Decision Technology and How to Resist It

    4 Dec 2019 · 1 h 17 min

    If we use AI to write our favorite music for us, will we lose the ability to write music ourselves? If an AI coach keeps divorced parents from arguing by text, can they get along without it? If the only novels and…

44. Andrew McAfee: More From Less

    2 Dec 2019 · 1 h 34 min

    Andrew McAfee draws on a wide range of evidence to show that the world is already on the right track toward long-term health when it combines 1) technological progress, 2) capitalism, 3) responsive government, and 4)…

45. Lewis Dartnell: ORIGINS - How Earth’s history shaped human history

    13 Nov 2019 · 1 h 13 min

    From the cultivation of the first crops to the founding of modern states, the human story is the story of environmental forces, from plate tectonics and climate change, to atmospheric circulation and ocean currents.…

46. Brittany Cox: Horological Heritage: Generating bird song, magic, and music through mechanism

    6 Nov 2019 · 1 h 14 min

    From kings and philosophers to craftsmen and inventors, horology has been prized as an extraordinary marriage between art and science. Antiquarian Horologist Brittany Nicole Cox shared her unique experience with…

47. Gurjeet Singh: The Shape Of Data And Things To Come

    28 Oct 2019 · 1 h 15 min

    Big Data promises unparalleled insights, but the larger the data, the harder they are to find. The key to unlocking them was discovered by mathematicians in the 18th century. A modern mathematician explains how to find…

48. Suhanya Raffel: World Art Through The Asian Perspective

    21 Oct 2019 · 1 h 23 min

    Coming to the fore in this century is Asian perspective on everything. A thrilling place to watch the shift is in art. Extraordinary contemporary art from all over the world, especially Asia, has been collected for…

49. Nicola Twilley: Exploring the Artificial Cryosphere

    23 Aug 2019 · 1 h 12 min

    The invisible backbone of our food system is a man-made, distributed, and perpetual winter of refrigeration we've built for our food to live in. It has remade our entire relationship with food, for better and in some…

50. Monica L. Smith: Cities: The First 6,000 Years

    23 Aug 2019 · 1 h 21 min

    “Cities were the first Internet,” says archaeologist Monica Smith, because they were the first permanent places where strangers met in large numbers for entertainment, commerce, and romance. And the function and form…