I came across this very Long Now quote recently. It is pretty amazing to see this level of optimism from someone who worked on the Manhattan Project.

“We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.”

Richard Feynman (1918 – 1988) [source]