The Church of the Long Now

Posted by MacDood
July 02004 I believe that the folks over at the Long Now project are onto something, although they don't seem to quite realize it. They point out that civilization has a "pathologically short attention span" and are addressing this problem by building a 10,000 year clock that "ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium". They have a charming way of prepending a zero onto the date (so that 2004, for example, becomes 02004) to emphasize this point of view. Their goal is an admirable one - to focus humanity's attention on timescales that extend beyond a single life, but they don't seem to have thought very deeply about the underlying philosophy. I propose that the Long Now has profound implications for our species - implications that range from the mundane to the practical to the spiritual. What better way to organize and direct such implications than to form a new religion? All rational thinkers, hear me: Welcome to the Church of the Long Now. [Kuro5hin.org]