A long look toward the future

As always when the end of the current solar year approaches, society as a whole from collectives down to the individual look at this starting of the a new cycle generally as a chance for self-reflection and as a look toward some future horizon. In the current culture awash in a foam and fizzy bubbles of the marketing in our current society, this future horizon has slowly started to shift forward. And over the interceding decades has morphed from a look toward the future to the immediacy of the here and now. Satisfaction must be granted immediately, or the hard-work that needs to be put into a long-term project must payoff tomorrow. This immediate for gratification has infected society has down to the marrow of our finances and savings. It is here that people use credit to finance a life-style of the now, then a future self suffers because of the debt and obligation accrued. Maybe now is the time for a little bit of a return to long-term thinking. That a little sacrifice and planning for just a little bit in the long-term will result in a easier time over the long haul.

The Long Now Foundation is a non-profit foundation founded on the principle of looking toward the future. The ultimate of the foundation is to build a time keeping device which would last the length of the long now, their definition for the next 10,000 years, as sort of a living monument to long term thinking. But in addition to keeping with this philosophy of planning toward a long term future other projects of a similar long term nature have also been started in edition to the core project of the construction of a Millennial Clock. The most currently relevant is a digital project that is designed to be as a Rosetta stone, but for file format conversion. So as to prevent the potential loss of information to the ages, by enabling information saved in an archaic unused file formate to be updated into modern standards. But equally important to enable ongoing upkeep of file formats into the future.

This foundation started small, but with a very long view. It is very much how these things come about that small goals with long views end up coming about it a slow, but persistent manner. Maybe that's what we have fail to notice these small and yet persistent changes in any long build up. Culture as it is now is continually racing, but not seeing what many small changes over time can bring.