The Long Now Foundation

06/04/2026

What an incredible season of Long Now Talks! If you missed one, you can find all full-length episodes on YouTube at https://na2.hubs.ly/H05YDxh0

This season we heard from Melody Jue on ocean memory, Nina Miolane and Claire Isabel Webb on the geometry of consciousness, Eric Ries on incorruptibility, Stefan Sagmeister on optimism, Bayo Akomolafe on new time paradigms, and Indy Johar on planetary consciousness.

We'll return this fall with Art & Science at The Bristlecone Preserve, on Sep 29. See all upcoming events at https://na2.hubs.ly/H05YD670

Thank you to all the Long Now members, you make this programming possible. If you’re not a member, this is your invitation into the world of long-term thinking. Join the community -> https://na2.hubs.ly/H05YDm20

06/04/2026

[Last call: deadline tomorrow] If you are a designer, researcher, writer, or technologist interested in the deep future, Long Now Labs wants to hear from you!

Applications close Friday, June 5th -> https://na2.hubs.ly/H05VFcS0

06/03/2026

For 14 issues beginning in 02020, Warp Records published a Whole Earth Catalog-style “mixtape” of expertly curated art, music, articles, and videos. Here’s how they described it:

“Warp Earth Catalog is a weekly mixtape of ideas to inspire, inform, enable and energize creativity and positivity in a time of global disruption and uncertainty. Based on the classic countercultural guide the Whole Earth Catalog and its credo of ‘access to tools’, these are tools for strength, awareness and thoughtful entertainment. From wherever in the world we are, let’s support each other, make things and help maintain the ecosystem of independent creativity.”

Even years later, these issues remain highly relevant, wide ranging, and absurdly hip. Explore their archive here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H05WHq_0

You can browse original issues of Whole Earth Catalog, created by Long Now cofounder Stewart Brand in 01968, here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H05WF3m0

06/02/2026

We're an official selection at CineGlobe Film Festival in Geneva, Switzerland! 𝘌𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦, our making-of documentary about the Centuries of the Bristlecone art installation, will be premiering at CERN this weekend. We are so thrilled and honored. Stay tuned for on-the-ground updates from the festival.

Watch the 𝘌𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 preview here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H05V9xh0
More about the Centuries of the Bristlecone project here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H05V7sf0

06/01/2026

Eight sophisticated civilizations across the Mediterranean collapsed within decades of 01177 BCE. What happened? Historians are still arguing about it.

Archaeologist Dries Daems explores the question: What if the very interconnectedness that made those societies powerful also made them catastrophically brittle? It’s a pattern worth investigating deeply in 02026.

Read the article on Long Now Ideas:

From ancient empires to the industrialized nation-states of our globally-interconnected world, complexity theory offers a fresh perspective on the past and possible futures of human societies.

05/29/2026

The deadline is approaching to submit your concepts for the first cohort of Long Now Labs. From reimagining deep time to new methods for discerning truth, we want to hear from you!

Build the next generation of applied long-term thinking. Submissions close in one week, on June 5.

Apply here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H05P8Fv0

05/28/2026

"I saw my first Whole Earth Catalog in a bookstore. I opened it up and it was like, ‘This is for me. He's talking to me. This is exactly everything that I'm interested in.'"

Kevin Kelly, Long Now board member and founding editor of Wired magazine, talks to Substack about long-term thinking, technoptimism, and how he helped shape the early internet. Plus, it’s filmed in a beautiful location if we do say so ourselves.

The radical optimist on starting Wired, stories from the early internet, originating 1,000 True Fans, and why the only way to steer technology is to use it

05/28/2026

A molecule too complex to have formed by chance could be a signature of life. This is the assembly theory framework, which could reshape how we search for life beyond Earth.

Researchers Lee Cronin and Sara Imari Walker explain on Long Now Ideas:

Our ability to explain gravity fundamentally changed how we interact with our world. So too might an explanatory framework for life transform our future.

05/27/2026

Could there be a universal geometry of intelligence? Nina Miolane proposes answers in her Long Now Talk with Claire Isabel Webb.

Watch the full episode here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H05LqhV0