I just heard about The Long Now Foundation (via this interview about innovation, which in itself is worth reading, via the interviewer).
From the Long Now website:
The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/better” thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.
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The point is to explore whatever may be helpful for thinking, understanding, and acting responsibly over long periods of time.
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[Footnote:] * The Long Now Foundation uses five digit dates, [sic] the extra zero is to solve the deca-millennium bug which will come into effect in about 8,000 years.
The organization’s board members include the illustrious Brian Eno.
I like the idea. Despite everything, hope and an overdeveloped sense of duty to try to make things better are two things that the world probably isn’t going to destroy in me.