Long Now Clock Advances With Bezos Cash

heptapod writes "Wired has an in-depth article about the 10,000 Year Clock and The Long Now Foundation which has begun moving forward with Jeff Bezos's investment of $42 million. Recently he put up a website with more information." My favorite-yet article about the 10,000 Year Clock appeared on Kevin Kelly's site earlier this month. (Kelly always seems to be involved in interesting projects, and is one of the movers behind this one.)

Re:Cool idea, but...

[icebike]

At no time did civilization collapse.

Societies and governments have collapsed, but civilization persisted, machines still ran, farmers still planted, and clock makers still made clocks. Nothing was un-invented. Various disasters made small localities uninhabitable, often with loss of life, but people moved on, their education (such as it was) and capabilities intact, and civilization always survived. At no time did mankind say you know what, this isn't working, lets all go back to caves and rocks, and rules of behavior, and to hell with this whole mess.

Re:Cool idea, but...

[moortak]

The fall of the roman empire resulted in the loss of a rather large number of inventions for a long time. We may not have gone back to living in caves, but things were lost. The fall of specific societies can set us a species back technologically. Societies are fragile on large time scales.

Re:Art project, not a working 10k clock

[necro81]

If your goal is simply to build a device that can tick off the seconds for 10,000 years, then perhaps your design has merit. But the whole point of building this is to create a human experience, not merely an horologic device. People need to be able to experience the clock and, where possible, interact with it. That experience and interaction, and the reflection about time and civilization that comes with it, is what these people are trying to create. Without the human element, the clock is just an artifact that can be easily lost or forgotten. If you put it far out into orbit, then you completely remove it from humanity, and what value can it then have? Even in this day and age, no one will be able to visit it. If civilization collapses sometime in the next 10,000 years - not inconceivable if you ask me - then no one will even know that it's there. In both cases it may as well not exist. If you build it as you describe and put it here on Earth, radioactive concerns aside, what will visitors see: a big hot ingot connected to a bunch of (possibly) indecipherable equipment, attached to a bunch of indecipherable "chips" (if they'd even be recognized as such) that would be difficult if not impossible to grasp except by someone with 20th+ century knowledge and tools. And that doesn't even begin to dive into maintenance or repair.