But their basic goal as I see it is: "encourag[ing] the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where 'long-term' is measured at least in centuries".
The disk itself is an example of that. The name obviously hearkens back to the Rosetta Stone, which unlocked the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics for us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone
With a copy of the Rosetta Disk, as long as some future finder understands any one language spoken today they'll be able to translate any other materials they find from our era.
Will it survive? Will it be useful? Will it even be necessary? More broadly, what does the future mean to us, and what effect do we want to have on it?
Those are all good questions. And my take is that the real purpose of the Long Now is not to answer them, but to get people asking them. So good work, your post helps fulfill the mission.
You can see what the founders say in their own words here: http://longnow.org/about/
But their basic goal as I see it is: "encourag[ing] the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where 'long-term' is measured at least in centuries".
The disk itself is an example of that. The name obviously hearkens back to the Rosetta Stone, which unlocked the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics for us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone
With a copy of the Rosetta Disk, as long as some future finder understands any one language spoken today they'll be able to translate any other materials they find from our era.
Will it survive? Will it be useful? Will it even be necessary? More broadly, what does the future mean to us, and what effect do we want to have on it?
Those are all good questions. And my take is that the real purpose of the Long Now is not to answer them, but to get people asking them. So good work, your post helps fulfill the mission.