There’s plenty of food bearing trees that would live that long. Olive, chestnut and monkey puzzle come to mind. Plant a food forest for your ancestors
Because I'm a pedant, I think you meant descendants?
Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
71–80 of 83 posts
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#72We put so much focus on individual achievement. In the long run, it's collective achievement that matters. Why shouldn't we be content being a small cog in a much larger machine?
because everyone wants to be a linchpin
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#73Not a direct answer but some of the things I'm most proud of that will probably affect lives of people not born yet:
Convinced my boss to give the Polish woman who cleaned at the site I worked at a position as IT consultant (in Norway). She married a long time friend of mine a couple of years later (but I luckily had no influence on that except helping her getting her a job worth staying in Norway for.)
Helped one man who did a great job to but lacked formal education to keep his job by leaving a well paid job at the same team very voluntarily (although not as big a sacrifice as it might sound. I found the job extremely boring.)
Recently I also helped my neighbor to get a 50% pay rise.
In between I've made software to simplify life for people organizing work in non profits. (Stupid web page connected to a sms api. Almost had to chase them away from it as better options emerged and I got more and more afraid of getting hacked and leaking a whole lot of data on the Internet.)
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#74Anything that has to do with creating an AI. Pretty much whatever will nudge it in either direction(sooner/later, good/evil, whatever) will have impact, everything else probably won't matter.
It's like imagine an ancient protofish asking "what can we do that will be significant in a million years?" Get out of the water and try walking.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#75Have children. (and hope for plenty of grandchildren, great grandchildren etc) 1,000 years is time for a lot of generations to pass. Sure, your particular DNA might only make up some small amount of someone walking around in 1,000 years, but that is an action you can take in your lifetime that will be significant. Bonus points if you educate them well and give them the resources to be as successful as possible.
I agree, but I think DNA is irrelevant.
Imparting your values on the next generation is the most durable thing an individual can do. The way I see it, it's a multiplier. I can only do so much in one lifetime, but I can raise my children to value the same things as me, and thereby guide the impact that they and their children will have on the world.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#76Be crazy. Do crazy things like Elon Musk does. Everything remembered was not ordinary.
Let's not encourage people to be like Elon...
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#77Become an archivist of the present. Something like Humans of New York where you use photographs and interviews of the heart, to portray the myriad ways life was experienced back when people were mortal, ate meat, and had children.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#78So most responses are things that you might to to be remembered in 1000 years, I'm going to take a different tack, things that will most likely not be undone in that time.
One of the first things we have to throw out is the reliance on people. You can't statistically rely on 10-12 generations of people to do the same thing that you intended today. Also it is very unlikely that any contract you make today will exist and be enforceable in 1000 years. This eliminates setting up trusts, preserves, buying land and doing something with it, or any other long term project. And anyways something like this will take a number of people to be successful, why should you get all of the credit?
Next lets talk about war. Unless the war wipes out a significant portion of the population, I'm talking WAY more then the 3% of the population WW2 killed, most of the damage done will either recover, or change to be mitigated.
So what's left? You could do something that changes maps. The scope of this is VERY large, like build an island large. But there are cases where enough labor has been put in to permanently divert rivers, not just a damn. Or build "natural" structures that wind and rain haven't destroyed yet
You could do something that changes humans place in the universe. Create a viable form of interstellar travel, find a way to represent a life without a body (computer sim?), or maybe change our planet (before we escape it) so it's not habitual for humans as we are now.
For me personally I think it's enough to contribute to science and knowledge as a whole. I recognize that even if I have a profound discovery, given enough time it will be taught to 12th graders, see calculus. It's really the collection of discoveries that lead to profound discoveries that are the real MVPs.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#79Invent immortality tech, live to be 1000 years old.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#80Pretty sure at this point it's "commit global war crimes" or "cure aging". Anything short of that and your odds diminish significantly. Even if you create an art-defining advancement in some field and name it for yourself, anything about you will be lost.