Donate your sperm thrice a day for the rest of your life. Pretty sure one of your descendant will have a significant impact in 1000 years.
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?
#12Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#13Chances 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 causes. Get involved in politics. Plant a tree.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#14A good time capsule.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#15 That is an extremely long time line, and the likelihood that anyone reading this will do something that significant, aside from genocide, I don’t think is going to be all that significant then.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#16Pioneering scientific discoveries and engineering new technologies are the only two lasting, positive impacts one can ever have in life. Anything else is either non-impactful or simply cultural changes, which are neutral to our species in the long run. What we can do as a species and what we actually understand about the universe are the two fundamental aspects of humanity that have any significance just ten generati…
Religion and/or morality is a cultural change that has definitely proven to be not neutral to our species in the long run, so far.
I can't tell if you are suggesting Religion has been a positive or a negative. Which I think is the point where there are people making arguments in either direction, suggesting it's mostly a wash.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#17Judging by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1018, the answer is "lead a battle" or "found an abbey".
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#18I've answered this question for myself. I work in support of environmental protection and sustainability. In a thousand years maybe we will still have a habitable Earth with diverse species and people living on it to appreciate our effort to make it endure.
Though I suggest even if you narrow your time horizon to the lives of your children you'll still find some worthy things to do with your life.
Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#19Re: Ask HN: What can you do today that will be significant in 1000 years?
#20Teach a poor child how to read