January 31, 2025

Learning

'We hope to help each other be good ancestors. We hope to preserve possibilities for the future.'

The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, aims to foster long-term thinking and responsibility. They publish a great website, host regular gatherings, seminars, and maintain public spaces to promote discussions and share ideas about "slower/better" thinking, expanding time perspectives, and encouraging long-term accountability.

For me, they fulfill the role once played by the Whole Earth Catalog, CoEvolution Quarterly, and Whole Earth Review. This connection is unsurprising, given Stewart Brand’s key involvement in each of these projects.

The inaugural issue of Long Now’s annual print journal is now available. In their words, it "synthesizes the most important learnings of our first quarter-century." I’m savoring every page.

Article: Announcing Pace Layers

Learning

Maybe the smartest thing about us isn’t inside our heads.

FOLLOW THE THREAD

Learning

We can learn how to govern ourselves.

LECTURE: Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems, Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Prize Lecture, 2009

Learning

We know how to make a “we.”

BOOK: Why We Cooperate

Learning

We inherit what others learned.

BOOK: The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter