The Clock Of The Long Now: Time And Responsibility

An important figure in the U.S. counterculture, Brand sees the inability to imagine the future in the new millennium as an unwillingness to accept responsibility for it. In this work, he tackles the question of how to make long-term thinking an integral part of our fast-paced lives.

Using the designing and building of the "Clock of the Long Now" as a framework, this is a book about the practical use of long time perspective: how to get it, how to use it, how to keep it in and out of sight. Here are the central questions it inspires: How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare? Discipline in thought allows freedom. One needs the space and reliability to predict continuity to have the confidence not to be afraid of revolutions Taking the time to think of the future is more essential now than ever, as culture accelerates beyond its ability to be measured Probable things are vastly outnumbered by countless near-impossible eventualities. Reality is statistically forced to be extraordinary; fiction is not allowed this freedom This is a potent book that combines the chronicling of fantastic technology with equally visionary philosophical inquiry.