[HN Gopher] The 10,000 Year Clock
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The 10,000 Year Clock
Author : dfgdghdf
Score : 40 points
Date : 2020-09-07 08:47 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (longnow.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (longnow.org)
| divbzero wrote:
| The 10,000 Year Clock was part of Neal Stephenson's inspiration
| for _Anathem_. [1]
|
| [1]: https://www.nealstephenson.com/anathem.html
| dang wrote:
| Here's an attempt to collect all the interesting previous
| discussions. Can anybody find one I missed? (Note: this is just
| for curiosity. Reposts are fine on HN after a year or so:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
|
| 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16210106
|
| 2015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8875319
|
| 2014 (a bit): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8555122
|
| 2014 (a bit): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7979761
|
| 2013 (a bit): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155469
|
| 2011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2665380
|
| 2011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2983359
|
| 2011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2691452
|
| 2011 (a bit): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3197789
|
| Starting off 2020 with a nasty bit:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22184282
| M4v3R wrote:
| While reading one of the 2011 threads I came across this
| incredible comment by Eliezer (who I didn't know about before)
| replying to someone else:
|
| > > In 100 years I hope to have grandchildren who knew me still
| living.
|
| > > In 1000 years it's a stretch that there will still be an
| accurate note of my existence.
|
| > > In 10000 there may not even be a myth about the existence
| of any of us here.
|
| > 10,000 years from now, I'm going to remind you that you said
| that, and we'll both think it was pretty funny.
|
| The thought of this for some reason captured my imagination, so
| I clicked on the username, and then his website, which led me
| to the AI-Box Experiment and oh boy... what a journey this was.
| Highly recommend reading about this.
| dgellow wrote:
| AI Box experiment: https://yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox/
| RichardHeart wrote:
| I'd trade it for a better chance of personally seeing New Year's
| eve in 2200.
| tempsolution wrote:
| > If you have a Clock ticking for 10,000 years what kinds of
| generational-scale questions and projects will it suggest?
|
| Like... None? This seems like a complete waste of resources. It's
| probably a life-like toy from someone with too much money? The
| world needs more 10,000 year clocks, we don't have any other
| problems...
|
| If you want a 10,000 clock, you bury a radioactive rock with a
| note about the decay pattern at the time of creation and future
| radiologist will know how long it's been "ticking". Problem
| solved.
| ricree wrote:
| Another project from the Long Now Foundation that people might
| find interesting is Long Bets (https://longbets.org/), a site for
| charitable wagers based around longer term predictions of the
| future. With the site approaching 20 years old now, we're
| starting to see many of the medium term bets coming up for
| settlement, and it's interesting to look back and see what people
| were predicting around the turn of the century.
|
| Some of the ones I found particularly interesting that are/will
| be settled this decade:
|
| Bet 12 (https://longbets.org/12/) - No one will win a Nobel Prize
| for string theory by 2020
|
| Bet 1 (https://longbets.org/1/) - The Turing test will not be
| passed by 2029
|
| Bet 4 (https://longbets.org/4/) - Pilotless passenger planes will
| be routine by the end of the decade.
|
| Bet 712 (https://longbets.org/712/) - A commercial driverless car
| service will be available (in Las Vegas)
|
| The site was also somewhat notable for the "million dollar bet"
| (https://longbets.org/362/) between Warren Buffet and Protege
| Partners about whether a curated portfolio of hedge funds would
| outperform the S&P500 over a ten year span.
| theodpHN wrote:
| On April 15th (Tax Day), the Long Now Foundation was approved as
| a recipient of a "$150,000-350,000" Paycheck Protection Program
| (PPP) loan, allowing it to retain 21 jobs.
|
| https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?...
|
| Even without the PPP loan, it's doubtful that the Clock of The
| Long Now was in jeopardy -- Bezos' wealth soared to $200 billion
| during the pandemic, a new record for the world's richest person.
| wburglett wrote:
| One of my favorite ideas for how to address this kind of problem
| is to build a 'clock' based on continuous performance that serves
| as its own explanation. The best example I can think of is the
| Halberstadt performance of John Cage's ASLSP
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Slow_as_Possible#Performanc...)
| Animats wrote:
| It's _still_ not finished? They 've been working on that, and
| collecting money, for over 20 years now. The one in Van Horn is
| just the prototype, too.
| WJW wrote:
| What a few decades in construction when it's supposed to last
| for multiple millennia? The society of the Long Now probably
| even considers it an advantage, in some sort of symbolic way.
| Most cathedrals are also built for eternity and some take
| centuries to complete.
| arethuza wrote:
| There are probably too many distraction from the outside
| world - best to build a wall round the area and let those
| within focus on their work. Perhaps there could be gates in
| the wall that open at suitable time periods...
| WJW wrote:
| Maybe have concentric rings with gates that open at 1, 10,
| 100 and 1000 year intervals to keep things simple?
| prox wrote:
| This project / foundation is called the long now, doesn't sound
| they care for a few years more or less.
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(page generated 2020-09-07 23:00 UTC)