"We live in a spectacular time,” says Juan Benet. "We're a century into our computing phase transition. The latest stages have created astonishing powers for individuals, groups, and our species as a whole. We are also faced with accumulating dangers -- the capabilities to end the whole humanity experiment are growing and are ever more accessible. In light of the promethean fire that is computing, we must prevent bad outcomes and lock in good ones to build robust foundations for our knowledge, a...
Aug 15, 2018•1 hr 29 min
An environmental researcher examines perceptions of energy use & conservation and asks how we can inspire behavioral change and policy support in individuals and the public at large. With a background in environmental engineering and training in cognitive science, Dr. Attari searches for the narratives that can help us improve our environmental decision-making. [Shahzeen Attari](https://www.szattari.com/) works on environmental decision-making at the individual level, looking at biases that ...
Aug 15, 2018•1 hr 8 min
Perspective? No one has a longer or better-informed view of world affairs and America's role than George Shultz, now 97. (Henry Kissinger is only 95.) Secretary Shultz was a US Marine Captain in World War II. After becoming an economics professor at MIT and the University of Chicago he served the Nixon administration as Secretary of Labor, then director of the Office of Management and Budget, then Secretary of the Treasury. Back in private life by 1974, he led Bechtel Group as executive vice pre...
Aug 02, 2018•1 hr 3 min
The bad news (not news to most): Many wild species are under severe duress. The good news (total news to most): “Nature is thriving in an age of extinction.” Ecologist and evolutionary biologist Chris Thomas has examined a little-noticed phenomenon around the world, that as an unintentional byproduct of massive human impact, _biodiversity is increasing in pretty much every region of the world_. Evolution has sped up. Wild populations are on the move, sometimes in response to climate change, ofte...
Jun 26, 2018•1 hr 41 min
Civilization is both astonishing and astonishingly various when viewed from slightly above. Not so far above as to be lost in planetary context, but just high enough to see a fascinating thing whole, entire, intensely peculiar and informative. The glory is in the high-resolution details, in the perpetually surprising god’s-eye perspective, and in the shocking patterns that we arrange things in without even knowing it. Revel in a host of such images and the understanding that emerges from them wi...
May 30, 2018•1 hr 22 min
In Kishore Mahbubani’s view, global power is shifting from the West to the Rest—from Europe and North America to Asia and Africa. He argues that changes will be required both in the West and the Rest to manage the shift gracefully for long-term stability. The rest of the world has learned a great deal from the West. Now it is the West’s turn to learn and to dispel some of its myths about the new world order. Singaporean diplomat and scholar Kishore Mahbubani served as his nation’s Ambassador to ...
May 01, 2018•1 hr 31 min
The human quest to understand our world continues. The Director of Stanford’s [Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS)](http://casbs.stanford.edu/) discusses how academics and researchers have organized the study of human action, society, and institutions over time, how they share their findings, and what transformations we need for the future. [Margaret Levi](https://casbs.stanford.edu/margaret-levi) is Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and the Sara Mi...
Apr 18, 2018•1 hr 9 min
## Making the world better **Much of Pinker’s talk** was devoted to showing how most of the things than humans care about (except climate) have been getting drastically better over the last few centuries and decades. The roster includes length of life, health, food, prosperity, education, human rights, freedom from violence and accidents, leisure, and happiness—world wide. That good news is surprising to many and unwelcome to some, who fear it could foster complacent optimism. “While pessimists ...
Mar 20, 2018•1 hr 32 min
Travel the ancient Silk Road with an archaeologist researching a revolutionary idea. Nomadic pastoralists, far from being irrelevant outliers, may have helped shape civilizations at continental scale. Drawing on his exciting field work, Michael Frachetti shows how alternative ways of conceptualizing the very essence of the word “civilization” helps us to recast our understanding of regional political economies through time and discover the unexpected roots and formation of one of the world’s mos...
Mar 09, 2018•1 min
Everything will be connected to the network, even things that shouldn’t be. From automobiles to egg timers, Kuniavsky explains all these devices will try to get our attention and prove their value. They’ll also attempt to predict the future—at least the immediate future of our desires. But they won’t be very good at that for a while. In fact, for every 100 connected devices that are guessing your needs, if they were all right an impressive 99% of the time, there would always be one that’s wrong....
Mar 01, 2018•1 hr 10 min
In _[DEEP: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells us about Ourselves](https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Freediving-Renegade-Science-Ourselves/dp/0547985525)_ James Nestor follows extreme athletes, adventurers, and scientists as they plumb the limits of the ocean's depths and uncover startling discoveries that, in many cases, redefine our understanding of the ocean and ourselves. Freedivers dive without scuba gear, holding their breath longer than had been thought humanly possible, and ...
Feb 01, 2018•56 min
## Two ways to save humanity **Mann titled his talk “The Edge of the Petri Dish.”** He explained, “If you drop a couple protozoa in a Petri dish filled with nutrient goo, they will multiply until they run out of resources or drown in their own wastes.” Humans in the world Petri dish appear to be similarly doomed, judging by our exponential increases in population, energy use, water use, income, and greenhouse gases. How to save humanity? Opposing grand approaches emerged from two remarkable scie...
Jan 29, 2018•1 hr 28 min
Historian Louis Hyman's work focuses on the history of American capitalism. In his book _[Borrow: The American Way of Debt](https://www.amazon.com/Borrow-American-Debt-Vintage-Original/dp/0307741680/)_ , he examines in detail how the evolution of personal debt has not only changed the economics of this country but the culture itself. Capitalism in the short term appears dominant and inevitable. The machinations of markets and capitalist fortunes seem like they always have been; but that's very m...
Jan 02, 2018•1 hr 1 min
As humans increasingly dominate Earth’s natural systems over the coming centuries (“the Anthropocene”), how can we ensure that it becomes a “good Anthopocene”—a world in which nature and humanity prosper together? Ecosystem ecologist Elena Bennett believes that discovering the most effective paths to such a future is a bottom-up process, as countless projects all over the world are exploring how nature and humans can best collaborate. She has collected 500 such examples and assembled them into a...
Dec 29, 2017•1 hr 19 min
The Internet was once seen as a democratizing force, but today social media platforms have become exploitable intermediaries of political discourse. How should governments, institutions and tech companies respond? In the wake of an Internet-mediated and norm-breaking election, we've asked one of the United States' premier election law experts to speak for us about what comes next. Author and Stanford Law professor Nathaniel Persily focuses on the law of democracy, addressing issues such as votin...
Dec 07, 2017•1 hr 7 min
While traditionally social factors have been considered to have primary influence on political behaviors and preferences, more recent research shows that there's also a strong heritable component to ideological attitudes. Rose McDermott, professor of International Relations at Brown University and a 02015-16 Stanford CASBS fellow, discussed her research on the influence of genetic contributions to political and social behavior. McDermott studies the biological influences which interact with envi...
Dec 01, 2017•1 hr 1 min
Genome editing technologies provide the unprecedented ability to modify genetic material in a manner that is targeted, rapid, adaptable, and broadly accessible. Advances in genome editing form the foundation for new transformative applications across all of biology, ranging from highly personalized therapeutics to control of mosquito populations in the wild to reduce vector borne diseases. Extension of these technologies to gene drives and germline editing, which can alter the outcomes of inheri...
Nov 20, 2017•1 hr 21 min
Jason Scott is an activist archiver who preserves artifacts of digital culture for the future. Users today have many ways to create content online, but they often lack the skills, tools or guidance to preserve the media they make. As startups fail, platforms disappear, and technology companies take the short term view, Jason and his cohorts at the [Internet Archive](http://archive.org) and [Archive Team](http://archiveteam.org) are being good ancestors for everyone in the future networked world....
Nov 01, 2017•1 hr 1 min
With a complex and truly global problem like this, we can only scratch the surface in an hour. But we hoped to reframe some aspects and include perspectives not always heard. What's certain is this is a long-term problem that has been ongoing and looks likely to worsen due to both environmental and political displacements. Our speakers and guests in order of appearance: * Hugh Bosely: executive director, ReBootKamp (rebootkamp.org) * Beverly Crawford: professor emerita of political science, UC B...
Oct 01, 2017•1 hr 19 min
## Cognitive planet **Thanks to the growing human domination** of natural systems on Earth, people say we are entering an Anthropocene Epoch, Grinspoon began, but what if the term “epoch” understates the consequence of what is going on? Astrobiologists recently learned that planet formation is the norm in the universe, and now they’re trying to find out if life formation is also the norm. They won’t look for signs of mere geological epochs on other planets; they’re looking for eon-scale transiti...
Sep 20, 2017•1 hr 32 min
### How to finesse complexity **HE BEGAN, “Hi, I’m Nicky Case, and I explain complex systems in a visual, tangible, and playful way.”** He did exactly that with 207 brilliant slides and clear terminology. What system engineers call “negative feedback,” for example, Case calls “balancing loops.” They maintain a value. Likewise “positive feedback” he calls “reinforcing loops.” They increase a value Using examples and stories such as the viciousness of the board game Monopoly and the miracle of sel...
Aug 17, 2017•1 hr 19 min
## Life nearby **If we find, anywhere in the universe, one more instance of life** besides what evolved on Earth, then we are bound to conclude that life is common throughout the vastness of this galaxy and the 200 billion other galaxies. The discovery would change how we think about everything. Most of the search for life beyond Earth, Porco explained, is the search for habitats. They don’t have to look comfy, since we know that our own extremophile organisms can survive temperatures up to 250°...
Aug 10, 2017•1 hr 25 min
Humanity’s adaptation to climate change will require novel, global cooperation and societal evolution. The award-winning science fiction author of _2312_ , the _Mars_ Trilogy, and _Aurora_ shares his vision for how the world must change in advance of his 02017 novel _New York 2140_. Hosted by Stewart Brand. From May 02016. [Kim Stanley Robinson](http://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/) is an American novelist, widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction. His work has b...
Aug 01, 2017•1 hr 3 min
Kara Platoni, author and journalism professor at UC-Berkeley, set out to find the sensory pioneers who are changing the way we experience the world. Her boot-strapped and crowd-sourced quest led her to laboratories and workshops around the world. In her book _[We Have The Technology](http://www.amazon.com/Have-Technology-Biohackers-Physicians-Transforming/dp/0465089976)_ she reports back from the intersection of curiosity, science and technology. Her book goes beyond the five basic senses to exa...
Jul 03, 2017•58 min
## Time travel is time research **Gleick began with H.G. Wells’s 1895 book _The Time Machine_** , which created the idea of time travel. It soon became a hugely popular genre that shows no sign of abating more than a century later. “Science fiction is a way of working out ideas,” Gleick said. Wells thought of himself as a futurist, and like many at the end of the 19th century he was riveted by the idea of progress, so his fictional traveler headed toward the far future. Other authors soon explor...
Jun 26, 2017•1 hr 21 min
The co-founder of Because We Can, the architecture/design firm that designed The Interval at Long Now, discusses the future of building: automation, communication, and whether "robots" will change everything. An informed and realistic overview of how architects and builders use automation today and how they may use it tomorrow. From February 02015.
Jun 09, 2017•57 min
The first salon talk took place before The Interval was officially opened, when the back bar and much of our signature decor weren’t fully installed. It was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed: the launch of the first book by Adam Rogers, articles editor at Wired; Proof: The Science of Booze is the 10,000 year history of alcohol. And so, as William Faulkner says: 'Civilization begins with distillation.' The subject was perfect for our new Long Now bar; but the talk was even more fitting becau...
Jun 09, 2017•1 hr
Before Andy Weir's self-published novel _The Martian_ became a _New York Times_ bestseller and a blockbuster film, it began as a series of blog posts. Those posts, and the online conversation they sparked, reflect Andy's lifelong love of space and his detailed research into how humans could survive a journey to the fourth planet in our Solar System. In October of 02015, in his talk at The Interval, Andy skipped the fiction and discussed the details of how a real world mission to colonize Mars wo...
Jun 09, 2017•1 hr 10 min
Memory technologies from papyrus to print have given humans a unique survival advantage: allowing us to accumulate knowledge. These technologies shape our perception of history, time, and personal and cultural identity. The capacity of our brains to remember lags far behind our capacity to generate information. Digital technology gives us an abundance of information, but creates a scarcity of attention that makes it hard for us to grasp what is important before it slips away. Unless we learn how...
Jun 09, 2017•1 hr 3 min
In 1999 “Pace Layers” made its debut in the book [The Clock of Long Now](http://www.amazon.com/Clock-Long-Now-Responsibility-Computer/dp/0465007805/lono0a20) by Stewart Brand. It appeared as a deceptively simple diagram with the caption: "The order of civilization. The fast layers innovate; the slow layers stabilize. The whole combines learning with continuity." The six Pace Layer levels in descending order from the highest & fastest to the lowest & slowest are **Fashion, Commerce, Infra...
Jun 09, 2017•58 min
