Long Now

Scientific computation expert Coco Krumme dives into the history and consequences of optimization. She highlights the limitations and risks of streamlined systems, exploring their impact on resilience and perspectives. Krumme questions the societal bargains made in the name of optimization and urges us to consider alternatives.

Author Bette Adriaanse, Chelsea T. Hicks, Brian Eno, and Aqui Thami discuss property, sharing, and making lasting positive change in how we share the world. They explore contracts, trust, and embedded ideas in our laws, address wealth inequality and past injustices, and explore different approaches for individuals and communities to take responsibility for addressing inequality. They also discuss the connection between land and humanity, rematuation, and reconnecting to indigenous beliefs.

**Story & Performance Credits:** **Dodging the Apocalypse** story by Mark Alpert | Actor: Stuart Briggs | Video: Ruda Virginio | Score: Tristan de Liège **Victory Condition** story by Eliot Peper | Actor: Marilyn Pittman | Video: Back Pocket Media and Ruda Virgini | Found footage by: Chris Lange, Oscar Osbo, Robert Pullum, Sean Kirmani, Matt Trainor, Billy Bjork, Loren Hamilton, Panorama International Productions, Living with Fire_ The USGS Southern California Wildfire Risk Project | Score: Tristan de Liège **Glacial Elevation Operations** story by Kim Stanley Robinson | Actor: Conrad Cecil | Video: Alborz Kamalizad | Score: Tristan de Liège

How can we turn the tide on species loss and help biodiversity and bioabundance flourish for millennia to come? Ryan Phelan is Executive Director of [Revive & Restore](https://reviverestore.org); the leading wildlife conservation organization promoting the incorporation of biotechnologies into standard conservation practice. Phelan shared the new Genetic Rescue Toolkit for conservation – a suite of biotechnology tools and conservation applications that offer hope and a path to recovery for threatened species. In this talk, Phelan presented examples of the toolkit in action, including corals that better withstand rising ocean temperatures, trees that withstand a fungal blight, and the genetic rescue of the black-footed ferret, once thought to be extinct. Revive & Restore brings biotechnologies to conservation in responsible ways; from engaging local communities where ecological restorations are underway, to connecting stakeholders in disciplines like biotech, bioethics, conservation organizations and government agencies. Together, they are forging new paths to bioabundance in our changing world. Ryan Phelan was joined by forecaster and Long Now Board Member [Paul Saffo](https://longnow.org/people/paul-saffo/) for the Q&A; to discuss long-term outcomes and the Intended Consequences framing used by Revive & Restore.

Join Becky Chambers and Annalee Newitz as they discuss resisting dystopia, embracing coziness in fiction, respecting AI workers, and the power of small actions in building a better world. Dive into their immersive worlds filled with non-human persons, peace, and hope, exploring new futures through storytelling and collective efforts.

Jenny Odell describes _Saving Time_, her second book and the inspiration for her first Long Now Talk, as a “panoramic assault on nihilism.” The particular nihilism that Odell confronts is rooted in what she calls “Clock Time.” While the rigid, regular progression of clock time may feel like a universal truth to those of us raised under its regime, Odell argues that it is merely one among many ways of keeping time found across societies and ecosystems. Told loosely as a road trip around the San Francisco Bay Area — from the bustling port of Oakland to the beachside cliffs of Pacifica — Odell’s tale of temporal dissonance and harmony weaved together a story of time and modernity. Her core thesis: our lives have become rigid and contorted by the demands of profit-maximizing industrial clock time, but they do not have to stay that way. In order to make that case, she told a narrative that stretches across epochs and topics, stringing together stories from European imperialism, scenes from Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, and contemporary anecdotes from online communities of working mothers and disabled activists. The principle uniting all of these threads is a dogged pursuit of the capricious nature of time, with each new facet or mode of timekeeping challenging the monolith of industrial clock time. In both her talk and in her book, Odell refrained from offering prescriptive solutions, whether on the scale of individual change or revolutionary upheaval. Her approach is neither that of a self-help book nor a manifesto, but something weirder and more ambiguous. As she concluded her remarks to Long Now, Odell invoked the language of cultivation — both metaphorically, in terms of nurturing an intergenerational web of friends and allies, and literally, as she discussed how the temporal rhythms of growing beans and observing garden life can teach us about the latent chronodiversity of the world around us.

An expert in psychedelics, Ismail Ali, explores the history and potential future of psychedelics in our society. Topics include the current crossroads in the use of psychedelics, the personal journey of Ismail Ali, the flaws in the medical system, the intersection of religious freedom and entheogens, the dark side of psychedelics, and the efforts to legalize and medicalize psychedelics.

How would someone fare if they were dropped into a randomly chosen period in history? Would they have any relevant knowledge to share, or ability to invent crucial technologies given the period's constraints? Ryan North uses these hypothetical questions to explore the technological and implicit knowledge underpinning modern civilization, offering a practical guide of how one could rebuild civilization from the ground up.

Tracing an arc from the earliest humans to our digitized, synthesized present and future, Adam Rogers shows the expansive human quest for the understanding, creation and use of color. We meet our ancestors mashing charcoal in caves, Silk Road merchants competing for the best ceramics, and textile artists cracking the centuries-old mystery of how colors mix, before shooting to the modern era for high-stakes corporate espionage and the digital revolution that’s rewriting the rules of color forever. This journey has required millennia of remarkable innovation and a fascinating exchange of ideas between science and craft that’s allowed for the most luminous manifestations of our built and adorned world. Adam Rogers is the author of [_Full Spectrum: How the Science of Color Made Us Modern_](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781328518903) and [_Proof: The Science of Booze_](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780547897967/). He is a deputy editor at Wired, and was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT and a writer covering science and technology for Newsweek.

The map of humanity isn’t settled -- not now, not ever. In the 60,000 years since people began spreading across the continents, a recurring feature of human civilization has been mobility—the ever-constant search for resources, stability and opportunity. Driven by global events from conflicts, famine, repression and changing climates - to opportunities for trade, social advancement and freedom of thought - humans have relocated around the globe for millennia. But what happens when billions of people are on the move? As climate change tips toward full-blown crisis, economies collapse, governments destabilize, and technology disrupts, we’re entering a new age of mass migrations. Futurist Parag Khanna discusses the deep trends that are shaping the most likely scenarios for our future and asks what map of human geography will emerge.