unearth.wiki

The Long Now

/ðə lɒŋ naʊ/ Deep Time (Brian Eno / Stewart Brand)
Definition A temporal framework, coined by Brian Eno, that extends the concept of "now" from days to 10,000 years. It serves as a counter-force to the "faster/cheaper" ethos of the silicon age, prioritizing responsibility to the deep future.

The Big Here and Long Now

Digital culture suffers from a shrinking of empathy in both time and space. We obsess over the next quarter (financial time) and the next click (dopaminergic time).

The Long Now asks us to expand our temporal empathy. When we build Heirloom systems, we are not building for the next release cycle; we are building for the next century. This changes every engineering decision we make. We choose durability over speed, and legibility over efficiency.

Infrastructure Timeline

Civilization is defined by what it maintains, not just what it innovates. Myceloom adopts the Long Now perspective for infrastructure: a protocol must be robust enough to survive the fall of the platform that built it.

Stratigraphy (Related Concepts)
Abyssal Time Heirloom Petribyte Stewards