Long Now

A special night of short talks about the long history and scientific background behind a most persistent malady. And the drinks that can help keep it at bay. Featuring returning Interval speakers James Holland Jones (Stanford), James Nestor (Deep), Kara Platoni (We Have the Technology), The Interval’s Beverage Director: Jennifer Colliau, and more.

Rick Prelinger uncovers the diverse histories of Bay Area telecommunications infrastructure: telephone, radio, television, data, image and sound. A tour of technologies, dead and flourishing, that overlay, underlay and penetrate us all.

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, journalist James Nestor questions the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function, breathing. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary specialists to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. His inquiry leads to the understanding that breathing is in many ways as important as what we eat, how much we exercise, or whatever genes we’ve inherited.

Before us, after us, and without our realizing it: geology, ecology, and biology uniquely record human activity. Geoscientist Miles Traer, co-host of the podcast _[Generation Anthropocene](http://www.genanthro.com)_ uncovers the many “natures" of the San Francisco Bay Area that exist beneath our feet.

Nadia Eghbal is particularly interested in infrastructure, governance, and the economics of the internet - and how the dynamics of these subjects play out in software, online communities and generally living life online. Eghbal, who interviewed hundreds of developers while working to improve their experience at GitHub, argues that modern open source offers us a model through which to understand the challenges faced by online creators. Her new book, [_Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software_](https://press.stripe.com/working-in-public), is about open source developers and what they tell us about the evolution of our online social spaces. Eghbal sees open source code as a form of public infrastructure that requires maintenance, and that offers us a model through which to understand the challenges faced by online creators on all platforms.

Human beings have an astonishing evolutionary gift: agile imaginations that can shift in an instant from thinking on a scale of seconds to a scale of years or even centuries. The need to draw on our capacity to think long-term has never been more urgent, whether in areas such as public health care, to deal with technological risks, or to confront the threats of an ecological crisis. What can we do to overcome the tyranny of the now? The drivers of short-termism threaten to drag us over the edge of civilizational breakdown, while ways to think long-term are drawing us towards a culture of longer time horizons and responsibility for the future of humankind. Creating a cognitive toolkit for challenging our obsession with the here and now offers conceptual scaffolding for answering one of the most important questions of our time: How can we be good ancestors? \---Roman Krznaric Roman Krznaric is a public philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change society. His newest book on the history and future of long-term thinking is [_The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking_](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781615197309). Other books include [_Empathy_](https://smile.amazon.com/Empathy-Why-Matters-How-Get/dp/0399171401/ref=sr_1_3), [_The Wonderbox_](https://smile.amazon.com/Wonderbox-Curious-Histories-How-Live/dp/1846683939/ref=sr_1_1) and [_Carpe Diem Regained_](https://smile.amazon.com/Carpe-Diem-Regained-Vanishing-Seizing/dp/1783524936/ref=sr_1_1), which have been published in more than 20 languages. Krznaric founded the traveling [Empathy Museum](https://www.empathymuseum.com/) and is especially interested in the challenges of how we extend empathy to future generations. Roman Krznaric is also a [Long Now Research Fellow](https://longnow.org/people/associate/).

Responding to climate change by building hard infrastructures and favoring high-tech homogenous design, we are ignoring millennia-old knowledge of how to live in symbiosis with nature. Without implementing soft systems that use biodiversity as a building block, designs remain inherently unsustainable. There is a cumulative body of multigenerational knowledge, practices, and beliefs designed to sustainably work with complex ecosystems. Watson's work reconnects with this sophisticated global body of knowledge. Julia Watson teaches Urban Design at Harvard and Columbia University and is author of [Lo-TEK. Design by Radical Indigenism](https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=Lo-TEK.+Design+by+Radical+Indigenism) (02019). Her work focuses on experiential, landscape, and urban design, with an ethos towards global ecological change.

What place is there for art in the 21st century world of technology, business, and science? Everywhere. Award-winning cross-disciplinary artist and current [SETI artist-in-residence](http://air.seti.org/) Scott Kildall discusses collaborating with scientists, technologists, and others. He shared [his work](http://kildall.com/projects/) and explained the vital role for Art Thinking as a tool that offers perspective in a dynamic, fast-moving world. [Scott Kildall](http://kildall.com/ "Scott Kildall") is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work includes writing algorithms that transform datasets into 3D sculptures and installations. His art often invites public participation through direct interaction. He has been an artist in residence with [the SETI Institute](https://www.seti.org/ "SETI AIR") and [Autodesk](https://www.autodesk.com/pier-9/residency/home "The Pier 9 Residency Program"); and his work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the New York Hall of Science, Transmediale, the Venice Biennale and the San Jose Museum of Art. Besides many other fellowships, residencies, and honors.

Genevieve Bell, an Australian anthropologist and leader of the 3A Institute, delves into the intersection of AI and culture. She emphasizes the need for responsible, sustainable AI development, drawing lessons from Indigenous engineering practices. Bell discusses the historical context of the industrial revolutions, urging proactive design for future cyber-physical systems. She highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the cultural diversity needed in AI, while questioning its impact on our understanding of intelligence and societal structures.

Craig Childs chronicles the last millennia of the Ice Age, the violent oscillations and retreat of glaciers, the clues and traces that document the first encounters of early humans, and the animals whose presence governed the humans chances for survival. With the cadence of his narrative moving from scientific observation to poetry, he reveals how much has changed since the time of mammoth hunters, and how little. Across unexplored landscapes yet to be peopled, readers will see the Ice Age, and their own age, in a whole new light. Craig Childs is a writer, wanderer and contributing editor at _High Country News_ , commentator for NPR's _Morning Edition_ , and teaches writing at University of Alaska and the Mountainview MFA at Southern New Hampshire University. His books include [Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780345806314 ) (02019), [Apocalyptic Planet](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307476814) (02013) and [House of Rain](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316067546) (02008).