FoAM - solemnities

Long Now Brussels meetup - November 02010

christina — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:46:29 +0000

Start: 2010-11-04 19:00 Europe/Brussels

End: 2010-11-04 21:00 Europe/Brussels

Manual for Civilization

Sometimes in the course of human history civilizations suffer cataclysmic breakdown. When this occurs vital knowledge and skills may pass beyond recall. (For an interesting survey of collapsed civilizations see Jared Diamond's book, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed".)

Much that we take for granted today would most likely not be here were it not for the work of ancient monastics and scholars who rescued bits and pieces from the wreckage of earlier societies. During the Cold War humanity narrowly escaped catastrophe on more than one occasion. Our iPhones may not save us. What are we doing for future generations?

Gregory Benford's book, "Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia" (which is unfortunately out of print but readily available secondhand) provides a thought-provoking study of the problem of communicating to far-distant generations.

Time is no friend to information. Books rot, libraries burn, and it's simply impractical to carve every word into stone. One approach - popular in the 20th century - is the time capsule. Basically, the idea is to stick a bunch of stuff that might be useful one day into an air-tight vault, seal it up, and record the location for future generations. (For more info, see the International Time Capsule Society
website: http://snipurl.com/1cf42p)

We've spent the past few decades frenetically storing our information on electronic media. While there may be some chance that 1500 years from now paper books stored in a time capsule may be readable what is the likelihood of people still using Microsoft Office? The information age has given us great freedom and flexibility in many ways but if the power grid goes down future generations are pretty much screwed. Unfortunately, in the case that our civilization were to collapse the power grid would probably be the first thing to go. What would future archaeologists make of our era, if they only had access to our analog artifacts?

As I was thinking about this topic I was reminded of a Long Now blog posting from this past spring. I suggest that you have a look at Alexander Rose's Manual for Civilization post: http://snipurl.com/1cf98z

For the November meetup we will discuss this question: What information would be useful to future generations trying to rebuild and how could we preserve the message?

Please, if you plan to come an RSVP is much appreciated.
RSVP to this Meetup:
http://www.meetup.com/longnowbrussels/calendar/15231628/

The Long Now meetups are facilitated by Trey Darley

sprinckelink_Matteo_man_car

lina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:53:26 +0000

sprinckelink_Matteo_boy

lina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:53:18 +0000

sprinckelink_Matteo_invitation

lina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:47:45 +0000

sprinckelink_kruis_invitation

lina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:46:53 +0000

sprinckelink_gethsemane_forest

lina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:42:43 +0000

sprinckelink_koning_geboren_invitation

lina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:41:47 +0000

sprinckelink_exhibition_egypte_sunset

lina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:38:04 +0000

sprinckelink_bethlehem_invitation

lina — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:37:00 +0000

sprinckelink_bethlehem_invitation

theun — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:03:57 +0000

sprinckelink_Matteo_man_car

theun — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:29:04 +0000

sprinckelink_Matteo_invitation

theun — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:23:53 +0000

In het teken van het kruis

designswarm — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:31:58 +0000

Start: 2008-03-16 16:30 Cuba

End: 2008-03-24 16:30 Cuba

This exhibition by Jan Dietvorst at Foamlab is part of a series named the Solemnities follow the highlights of the Christian calendar.

Gethsemane

designswarm — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:30:36 +0000

Start: 2008-03-07 16:28 Europe/Amsterdam

End: 2008-03-12 16:28 Europe/Amsterdam

This exhibition by Theun Karelse at Foamlab is part of a series named the Solemnities which follow the highlights of the Christian calendar.

Il vangelo secundo di Matteo

designswarm — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:28:34 +0000

Start: 2007-04-01 16:26 GMT

End: 2007-04-22 16:26 GMT

This exhibition by Jan Dietvorst at Foamlab is part of a series named the Solemnities follow the highlights of the Christian calendar.