The Long Now Foundation

How will AI shape our understanding of ourselves? Join us next week for a Long Now Talk from K Allado-McDowell on Neural Media, February 25, 7 PM at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center. K's work as a technologist, writer, and musician has explored how our technocultural media regimes shape our creativity and self-perception. Against the backdrop of climate change and mass extinction, neural media like AI present unique challenges and opportunities. K has pioneered neural media, founding the Artists + Machine Intelligence Program at Google and writing books and composing operas in collaboration with non-human agents. Their work has tested the limits and potentials of these new technological forces. K Allado-McDowell’s work confronts those opportunities with deep engagement, forging a path ahead to a merging of planetary, computational, and human perspectives. Learn more: https://hubs.ly/Q037Dc5D0

In an age of turbulence—with over 180 violent conflicts globally, climate change accelerating past thresholds, and authoritarianism on the rise—our international governance systems are proving dangerously inadequate. The institutions designed for the mid-20th century cannot address the complex challenges of the 21st. This is why Stephen Heintz's "A Logic for the Future: International Relations in the Age of Turbulence" published by the The Long Now Foundation represents essential reading for anyone concerned with global governance and collective action. As Peter Drucker noted, "The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence itself; rather, it is acting with yesterday's logic." Heintz builds on this insight to analyze how we might update our approach to international relations through 10 building blocks for a new global framework. What makes this article valuable is its balance of pragmatism and vision. It acknowledges which elements of our current system remain relevant, which require revision, and which must be reimagined. The vision includes: 1. Co-creating a more equitable system that genuinely includes the "global majority" (6.5 billion people across Africa, Asia, and Latin America) 2. Remaking the United Nations through democratic reforms while supplementing it with nimble networks and polylateral arrangements 3. Evolving the nation-state model by devolving authority to local governments while strengthening planetary governance 4. Prioritizing diplomacy through investment in a new generation of diplomats trained in cooperative problem-solving 5. Reforming trade and investment to prioritize global public goods 6. Strengthening democracy as the cornerstone of effective governance 7. Establishing a U.S.-China Secretariat to manage the century's most consequential bilateral relationship 8. Codifying rights of nature and future generations 9. Transforming U.S. global leadership from dominance to partnership 10. Building institutional ecosystems capable of addressing existential threats For those working on open-source solutions for global public goods, this article provides invaluable context. It reinforces why decentralized, collaborative approaches to global challenges are not just desirable but necessary in a multi-polar world where power is increasingly diffused. While some may dismiss these ideas as idealistic, the alternative—continuing with systems we know are failing—represents the greater folly. As Heintz writes, "Our legacy must not be one of inattention to the rising tides of crisis. Our children deserve to inherit a world structured with a logic that is relevant to their futures." We encourage you to read the article and consider how its insights might inform your own work. The challenges before us demand nothing less than reinvention of our global governance systems—and that process begins with expanding our imagination of what's possible. https://lnkd.in/dThfMyrj

At a time when there is greater capacity for stretch in our conceptions of global relations and thinking about the international system, join The Long Now Foundation for a conversation with science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson and Rockefeller Brothers Fund CEO Stephen Heintz on imagining—and realizing—solutions to urgent planetary challenges.

"Our legacy must not be one of inattention to the rising tides of crisis. Our children deserve to inherit a world structured with a logic that is relevant to their futures." To confront the intersecting crises of our time — climate change, geopolitical tension, and the potential risks of new technology — we need a new logic for the future: a complete and coherent worldview as adapted to our present moment as the post-01945 international order was for its own. Long Now Talks speaker Stephen Heintz offers a vision for this logic. https://hubs.ly/Q039R4YV0

Was Jesus a magic mushroom? The answer is, perhaps surprisingly, a longer and more complex story than it may first appear. In Long Now Ideas, John P. Last goes deep into the intertwined histories of psychedelics and spirituality. https://hubs.ly/Q038Ty-t0

Happening Now: K Allado McDowell's Long Now Talk on how AI will reshape our understandings of our creativity and ourselves. Watch the livestream: https://lnkd.in/gyWuV6yC

I have found K Allado-McDowell to be one of the most fascinating contemporary creative philosophers at the intersection of AI, creativity, and ecology. Join me and The Long Now Foundation for their Long Now Talk, “On Neural Media,” next Tuesday, Feb. 25th at 7 PM PT at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco. TICKETS BELOW, and afterparty to follow at The Interval — let me know if you can make it, and feel free to invite friends! ??

So excited to see and hear Ahmed Best, my fellow co-founder of the AfroRithm Futures Group and forever Brother, talk and definitely engage with Lisa Solomon of the Long Now Foundation and with us at the Herbst theater in SF next Friday February 14th@7pm to Feel the Future!!! Are you ready to Feel the Future?

“Our survival on this planet depends on creating nimble responses to accelerating scales, scopes, and speeds of change. By creating containers for collective imagination of what the future can bring, speculative futures help us create those responses together….” Super belated on this one but thrilled to have those lines of mine and the larger piece they belong to in the inaugural issue of The Long Now Foundation 's new annual print journal, Pace Layers. https://lnkd.in/gvJsbthQ Given the dark tenor shaping much of recent news, the title of the piece — ‘’What If the Best Times Are Still to Come?” —strikes a different kind of chord. In the 2.5 years since I wrote it, a lot has happened in the world, from ecological extinctions and political destabilization, to accelerating economic inequities and increasingly deadly natural hazards. I still believe in the power of speculative futures to navigate the polycrises we face. I still believe they offer a valuable frame for navigating mounting scales and scopes of uncertainty. Yet it’s ever more apparent that imagining alternative futures alone is not enough. Without strategies that tether speculation to tangible action, the space between fantasy and reality risks becoming more intellectual and artistic refuge than trajectory for transformation. Uncertainty is where possibility lies as well as where despair-based inaction grows. The challenge is not just envisioning what’s possible but ensuring that those visions translate into systems capable of sustained, equitable adaptation. Speculative futures offer sites of radical potential when they cultivate not just open-ended imagination but actionable pathways for structural change. They foster hope not just by expanding conceptions of what’s possible but through clear-eyed confrontation of systemic obstacles. Assuming that devastation is the entirety of what’s ahead is dangerous limited thinking. Oversight of the ways in which the inertia of status quo conditions can push default trajectories toward further crisis is as well. So I’d like to take the occasion of the piece’s re-publication to tweak the title. The question is not only “What if the best times are still to come?” but “How do we ensure they arrive—and for whom?” I’m working on new tactics for the how part. Would love to hear how you are too ?? #speculativefutures #scifiprototyping #urbanfutures #polycrisis?

I've had the privilege of becoming increasingly involved with the The Long Now Foundation over my years in the Bay Area, and I recently joined the BoD to support the transition into the Long Q2 (25 years in Long Now parlance), alongside Michael Costigan, Lisa Kay Solomon, and new board President, Patrick Dowd. Thank you to Katherine Fulton, rockstar ED Rebecca Lendl and the entire Q1 leadership (Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly, Peter Schwartz, Danny Hillis, et al!) And please join me in supporting the Long Now this Valentine's Day with Lisa and Ahmed Best at the Herbst Theatre in SF - details below!