— Brian Eno Cofounder
We believe a world that operates at the timescale of civilization — a world that takes the long-term past and long-term future seriously — would operate very differently.
Its inhabitants would plan differently, decide differently, build differently, and imagine differently. This world would run on a culture of expansive thinking — across timescales, across sectors, and across traditional lines of thinking.
Everyone in this world would find themselves in the middle of the story of civilization.
Everyone in this world would understand themselves as someone else’s ancestor.
Everyone in this world would remember that they are part of something larger than themselves.
Together, they — we — would form a civilization of good ancestors.
Our highest hope is that the next generations will never doubt that we thought of them and built for them.
They will simply see this as normal human behavior.
Will you join us?
— Stewart Brand Cofounder
We bring you civilization-scale ideas from leading long-term thinkers.
Launched by Stewart Brand in 02003, Long Now Talks has invited more than 400 leading thinkers to share their civilization-scale ideas with a live audience on stage in San Francisco and millions more through our podcast and videos.
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We produce audacious projects that ignite cultural imagination around long-term thinking.
The 10,000-year clock is an immense mechanical monument, installed in a mountain, designed to keep accurate time for the next ten millennia.
The Interval is a bar, cafe, and community space in San Francisco featuring craft cocktails and inimitable exhibits on long-term thinking.
Rosetta is a durable archive of over 1,500 human languages, replicated for safekeeping, including offworld copies on a comet and the Moon.
Long Now Ideas is a living library that draws on the ancient past and distant future, providing the civilization-scale context needed to take the long view.
We are a nonprofit cultural institution founded in 01996 by Stewart Brand, Danny Hillis and Brian Eno.
Stewart saw civilization revving itself into a pathologically-short attention span. Danny noticed that “the future” was shrinking by one year per year. Brian found himself surrounded by people who couldn't see the big here or the long now. Together with friends they founded The Long Now Foundation as a counterweight to this civilization-scale short-sightedness.
Today, we are a globally-recognized champion of long-term thinking and responsibility, operating within the context of the next and last 10,000 years — a timespan we call the long now.
— Danny Hillis Cofounder
— Stewart Brand Cofounder
Stewart Brand created the revolutionary do-it-yourself publication The Whole Earth Catalog in 01968. Steve Jobs famously called it “Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google existed.”
Stewart Brand's 01999 book, The Clock of The Long Now, is a kind of founding manifesto for The Long Now Foundation.
We Are As Gods offers a deep dive into the many sides of Stewart Brand —creator of The Whole Earth Catalog, an influential member of Ken Kesey’s “The Merry Pranksters,” founder of the modern environmental movement, and Long Now cofounder.
Eno is a groundbreaking documentary about visionary musician, artist, and Long Now cofounder Brian Eno that reinvents itself with generative algorithms for every screening, creating 52 quintillion possible permutations.
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