Our senses are attuned to things that change quickly (like the lottery), but this causes us to miss what is actually going on (gambling means losing). If one is to cut through this illusion to what’s real, one needs to take the long view.
Not only that, the most important changes take a long time. Take climate change for example—changes in CO2 gases took four decades of measurement before noticing the problem. Similarly it will take decades to counter.
See also:
- From The Clock of the Long Now
- Societies live by decades, civilizations by centuries so solving problems at that threaten civilizations requires much greater long term thinking to solve. A 4 year election cycle or quarterly earnings doesn’t get us there.
- Civilization is composed of fast layers and slow layers to absorb shocks, but some of the greatest problems we face (like climate change) are caused by fast layers disrupting the slow layers.