nik newark

Bet! Bet! Bet!

Forget the Grand National. Forget the Football. Forget any short term sporting nonsense. You should be thinking about betting on eventualities that may or may not happen in the distant future, and you should be placing your bets at http://www.longbets.org/. Longbets appears to be connected with the Long Now foundation, whose purposes are to get people thinking on a long term basis.

It works like this : for $50, you can make a prediction (e.g. by the year 2050 (or 02050, as Long Now people would say, to avoid the year 10K problem) there will no longer be naturally occuring grassland in the UK), and make your argument for it. If someone disagrees with your prediction, they can take you up on a bet - each participant then argues their own side of the debate (and puts up a sum of money, which goes into a low risk investment fund). Come 2050 (or whenever), the winner is decided, and the money goes to the charity of the winner's choice. As an example of “long now thinking”, it is best to specify your charity of choice beforehand, as it is likely that you may expire before your bet does.

More seriously, there are a number of problems which demand Long Now thinking. For example, the Bush Administration are quite keen on storing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. The trouble is, that this will remain highly radioactive for many thousands of years. Even assuming that we don't wipe ourselves out over the next 100 years, what is the appropriate way to signal to any cultures / beings in 10,000 years time that perhaps they ought to avoid Yucca Mountain?

One of the original projects of the Long Now foundation is the Clock of the Long Now. This is a clock that is designed to still be operating in 10,000 years time. You can see a picture of the design below. Part of the plan is to design something that needs minimal maintenance, and any maintenance that is required doesn't demand any specific technology, or technical knowledge. Perhaps it could even be maintained by, say, a monkey from Crawford.