Iqbal Quadir: Technology Empowers the Poorest
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - May 21, 2008
Linking new technology with the boundless resourcefulness of the poor drives innovation in surprising directions at surprising speed.
John Rendon: Long-term Policy to Make the War on Terror Short
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - July 14, 2006
John Rendon, head of The Rendon Group, is a senior communications consultant to 5 White House administrations and the Departments of Defense. His subject in this talk is how to replace tactical, reactive response to terror with long-term strategic initative.
Philip Rosedale: Second Life: What Do We Learn If We Digitize Everything?
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - November 30, 2006
What is real life coming to owe digital life? After a couple years in the flat part of exponential growth, the steep part is now arriving for the massive multi-player online world construction kit called "Second Life."
Paul Saffo: China Thinks Long-term, But Can It Relearn to Act Long-term?
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - January 11, 2008
The most quoted futurist alive, Paul Saffo specializes in the history and future of technology. In this talk, he spells out the secrets of his trade.
Orville Schell: China Thinks Long-term, But Can It Relearn to Act Long-term?
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - September 22, 2006
"China is the most unresolved nation of consequence in the world," Orville Schell began. It is defined by its massive contradictions.
Peter Schwartz and Ralph Cavanaugh: Nuclear Power, Climate Change and the Next 10,000 Years
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - January 13, 2006
Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network and Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Counsel examine whether the "abrupt climate change" should lead to new emphasis on nuclear power.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - February 4, 2008
Skeptical empiricist and author of
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable has bracing things to say about the future.
Philip Tetlock: Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters Than Hedgehogs
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - January 26, 2007
From his perspective as a psychology researcher, Philip Tetlock watched political advisors on the left and the right make bizarre rationalizations about their wrong predictions at the time of the rise of Gorbachev in the 1980s and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
Craig Venter: Vision: Joining 3.5 Billion Years of Microbial Invention
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - February 25, 2008
With his current series of breakthroughs in synthetic biology Craig Venter and his team are not so much creating life as joining life. Reverse-engineering evolution's long-refined tricks and subtleties at the molecular level is building humanity's most powerful toolkit yet.
Vernor Vinge: What If the Singularity Does Not Happen?
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - February 15, 2007
Vernor Vinge began by declaring that he still believes that a Singularity event in the next few decades is the most likely outcome — meaning that self-accelerating technologies will speed up to the point of so profound a transformation that the other side of it is unknowable.
Jimmy Wales: Vision: Wikipedia and the Future of Free Culture
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - April 14, 2006
Jimmy Wales, founder and president of the all-embracing online encyclopedia Wikipedia, examines how vision drives and defines that project and its strategy — and how it fits into the even larger world and prospects of "free culture."
Alex Wright: Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - Aug. 17, 2007
Alex Wright is a writer and information architect who currently works for
The New York Times. His first book,
Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages is an impressive survey on how societies have dealt with information overload through time.
Will Wright and Brian Eno: Playing with Time
DVD : Long Now Foundation : Release Date - June 26, 2006
In a dazzling duet Will Wright and Brian Eno gave an intense clinic on the joys and techniques of "generative" creation.