4 ms·

> inspiring a more long-term view of the world and our place in it I fail to see how that is pertinent. We know the world will still exist in 10,000 years, b

> inspiring a more long-term view of the world and our place in it I fail to see how that is pertinent. We know the world will still exist in 10,000 years, but we have no idea what it will look like. The mere existence of a clock that could potentially still be running then doesn't change anything about that, does it? If anything, celestial objects do exist and provide some kind of a natural long term clock. I really don't get what a mechanical one hidden in a mountain adds to it.

hbosch 9y ago
> but we have no idea what it will look like That’s the point. The point of the clock is to put a frame on a span of nearly unimaginable time and live life now in a way that will be significant in 10,000 years - it is a challenge to do big, great, meaningful things with long term impact. The clock itself as a mechanical object is an expensive monument and nothing more, it likely won’t last the full 10,000 years of course...
- grondilu 9y ago
  > live life now in a way that will be significant in 10,000 years That does not make much sense to me. You can't both admit we have no idea what the world will be like in ten thousands years, and at the same time claim you can do something that will be significant in such time frame. You don't know what will be significant then.
  - ordu 9y ago
    If you do nothing, than you would do nothing significant with 100% probability. If you do anything, than probability of doing nothing significant would be lower. There are one more point. This clock is a signal to a future, and this clock will have some meaning for our ancestors. We do not know what meaning it will be exactly, but we can be sure, that there will be some. It is like the Stonehange. We don't know why ancient people bothered to build Stonehange, but we inspired to think about it.
  - shervinafshar 9y ago
    The way I understand it, long term thinking is neither about the future nor about predicting it or planning something significant for it; it is rather a thought model which tries to extend beyond the timeframes humans might feel at home with cognitively. An off-the-cuff, superficial yet interesting example is the lack of a common word in English language to express units of time longer than 1000. This style of thinking sometimes has its benefits, like gathering together a community to build a mechanical clock, create a manual for restarting a civilization[1], or write a non-fiction book about "earth without people"[2]. It's just an interesting intellectual, cultural endeavor. [1]: http://blog.longnow.org/category/manual-for-civilization/ http://blog.longnow.org/category/manual-for-civilization/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us.

hbosch 9y ago

> but we have no idea what it will look like That’s the point. The point of the clock is to put a frame on a span of nearly unimaginable time and live life now in a way that will be significant in 10,000 years - it is a challenge to do big, great, meaningful things with long term impact. The clock itself as a mechanical object is an expensive monument and nothing more, it likely won’t last the full 10,000 years of course...

grondilu 9y ago
> live life now in a way that will be significant in 10,000 years That does not make much sense to me. You can't both admit we have no idea what the world will be like in ten thousands years, and at the same time claim you can do something that will be significant in such time frame. You don't know what will be significant then.
- ordu 9y ago
  If you do nothing, than you would do nothing significant with 100% probability. If you do anything, than probability of doing nothing significant would be lower. There are one more point. This clock is a signal to a future, and this clock will have some meaning for our ancestors. We do not know what meaning it will be exactly, but we can be sure, that there will be some. It is like the Stonehange. We don't know why ancient people bothered to build Stonehange, but we inspired to think about it.
- shervinafshar 9y ago
  The way I understand it, long term thinking is neither about the future nor about predicting it or planning something significant for it; it is rather a thought model which tries to extend beyond the timeframes humans might feel at home with cognitively. An off-the-cuff, superficial yet interesting example is the lack of a common word in English language to express units of time longer than 1000. This style of thinking sometimes has its benefits, like gathering together a community to build a mechanical clock, create a manual for restarting a civilization[1], or write a non-fiction book about "earth without people"[2]. It's just an interesting intellectual, cultural endeavor. [1]: http://blog.longnow.org/category/manual-for-civilization/ http://blog.longnow.org/category/manual-for-civilization/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us.