Creating our 10,000 Year Legacy

This past weekend, our Airbnb guests had come to town for the Mechanicrawl 02011 event hosted by the Long Now Foundation, whose mission is balancing “faster/cheaper” thinking with its “slower/better” counterpart. It prompted me to take another look at my copy of their book which I’d picked up at one of their monthly events here in San Francisco a few years ago, to refresh my own thinking with their core ideas.

For those unfamiliar, one of Long Now’s foundational projects is the 10,000-year clock – which when complete will tick once each year, and whose "big hand" will advance one step each 100 years. Every millennium, a cuckoo will emerge. Whenever it achieves an extra burst of energy, whether from a human or on its own - the bells of the clock will chime a once-only unique melody.

A Walk Through Time (which measures time in MYA, or "millions of years ago") reminds us that 10,000 years is but a blip on the planetary radar, even though it seems enormous for even the biggest minds of humanity. The Long Now Foundation’s own way of thinking about 10,000 years:

“Ten thousand years is about the age of civilization, so a 10K-year Clock would measure out a future of civilization equal to its past. That assumes we are in the middle of whatever journey we are on – an implicit statement of optimism.”

Building a 10-millenium clock prompts a design brief that challenges the mind. Among the questions raised:

what materials will withstand time, the elements, and 10,000 years of gear movement?
what energy forms will reliably provide power for 10,000 years?
where will the clock (clocks?) reside?
who will visit it? who will maintain it?
how will our descendants regard it? in the next millennium? In five millennia? In ten milliennia?
what happens along the way?
what happens next?

I am keeping my eyes on circa 02111, when my great-grandchildren will witness the Long Now Clock as its "big hand" advances one step – the first great motion of the 10,000 year Legacy that we are creating today.