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Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?

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Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?

#41

Post by melling »

ewretgg wrote: post #13

Chances are, you won't be remembered in 1000 years. And you'll be too dead to enjoy it if you are. Are you sure you have come to terms with that? Lots of people I meet here are obsessed with "making their dent in the universe" and I think some of it is driven by the fear of death. That said, if you just want to better the lives of future generations, there are plenty of things you can do now. Give money to good cause…

Doing something that’s significant in 1000 years and being remembered are two different things.

A few thousand people trying to be Elon Musk, Edison, Ford, Carnegie, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates can definitely do work that will impact the world for generations to come.

If you want to live on long after you’re dead, create a university, or research institution

Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Howard Hughes Medical Institute...

Oxford University is almost 1000 years old.

Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?

#43

Post by Cthulhu_ »

acheron wrote: post #17

Judging by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1018 , the answer is "lead a battle" or "found an abbey".

That does make me wonder how many of the buildings we build today will still be around in 1000 years. How does steel and concrete compare to (frequently restored / repaired) brick and mortar (said abbey) or just brick (the artificial mountains that are the Pyramids)?

Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?

#44

Post by thrav »

ewretgg wrote: post #13

Chances are, you won't be remembered in 1000 years. And you'll be too dead to enjoy it if you are. Are you sure you have come to terms with that? Lots of people I meet here are obsessed with "making their dent in the universe" and I think some of it is driven by the fear of death. That said, if you just want to better the lives of future generations, there are plenty of things you can do now. Give money to good cause…

Genuine question that might result in some interesting discussion.

Is giving money to causes today, the best strategy?

Would it be better to amass wealth in your own name, and then deploy it more strategically later in life?

This has the added advantage of the potential to self-fund an endeavor that might do good and increase your capacity to give down the line?

If you trust yourself not to fall into greed as you grow older, what’s the downside of this, besides missing out on some tax breaks?

I guess the real answer is why not both.

Was thinking of some of the examples of “little old lady makes largest donation to X after a life of saving”.

Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?

#47

Post by Cthulhu_ »

maratd wrote: post #12
boxbag wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a million years?

Focus on leaving a high fidelity fossil.

There's some interesting developments in that area, on the one side about leaving warnings at nuclear waste sites (which probably won't work, archeologists were warned about death and curses and such and still went into Tutanchamun's tomb. IIRC some died from a mold spore active in there), on the other about preserving knowledge for the ages (e.g. sapphire disks, 3d / holographic storage). I don't feel like there's a working solution yet, or at least not a high-tech one - chipping out a granite block and keeping it relatively shielded from the weather still seems like the safest bet.
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