The Order of the Sacred Clock
My longest reaching unintended consequence yet. Can you wait 10,000 years?
For those of you who read science fiction or watch movies of far-flung futures depicting the near destruction of mankind and decayed minimalist societies where survival is the order of the day, this story might be familiar to you. Today we are traveling into the far, far away of 10,000 years beyond our own mortality.
Are you ready?
The Long Far Away
One of the most interesting storylines in science fiction is the depiction of a distant dystopian future where man has become so disconnected from the past that they are incapable of comprehending what you and I did and why we did it. Honestly though, we often have trouble ourselves comprehending why we do what we do today. But that is a different story.
Today’s story goes a bit like this. Around 6,000 years from now, our society begins to decay and falter. Some global cataclysmic event (choose your favorite world-ending festivity) brings about the near demise of mankind shortly thereafter. The planet as a whole survives, but larger plant and animal life barely hangs onto a spark of life.
Mankind is reduced to small groups of survivors scattered around the planet whose only concern for the next few thousand years is just to survive to the next day. With larger plant and animal life all but gone, survival is the only focus of man for thousands of years.
Sounds like fun, eh?
Future History
Our Unintended Consequence kicks in about 3,000 years after the cataclysm and extends for the next 1,000 years. If my math is right, that takes us to 10,000 years after you and I are long gone and forgotten and our dust has turned to dust.
We’ll get to why that specific timeline is important in a few moments. But first…
As with most dystopian futures, history and understanding of pre-cataclysm mankind is largely lost to the survivors as every moment of every day is focused on beating back the darkness of death. Some try to maintain a trickle of memory of the past through stories told in the dark of night or around sparse meals with tall tales meant to distract from the stringy texture of raw or charred rat meat.
Against all odds, some of them were able to maintain a minimal ability to read the ancient words, though few of those words have survived the inevitably destructive nature of time. Even for what they can read, the actual meaning of those words is long forgotten.
The world-spanning civilization we enjoy today is but a vague retelling of a tattered memory. The great wonders of our society are eclipsed by the great wonder of living another day. Most importantly, finally… nobody cares about social media or going viral.
An Ancient Wonder
So, our question for today is…
What if 9,000 years from now a tribe of future man who is almost oblivious to their own history accidentally happens upon something so perplexing and so mystifying that it changes the very nature of their nascent society?
What would it do to their world picture to find something from ancient man (us) that not only still exists, but is STILL ACTIVE AND WORKING?
A few things to remember as we travel forward:
10,000 years from now, very little evidence remains of our once great and powerful civilization.
Whatever survived the cataclysm would have decayed, sank into the sand, or just become consumed by nature and weather.
The survivors corrupted stories and minimal ability to read the ancient language is hampered by the decay of passed-along knowledge. Meaning, intent, and context were corrupted or lost long ago.
However, enough of that memory remained to make this find a worldview changing event.
As our story unfolds, remember the world our survivors live in. Keep yourself focused into the mindset of those far future survivors of humanity with little knowledge of the world, the universe, or an understanding of our time.
Time… A good segue…
The Clock of the Long Now
What is this ancient wonder beyond comprehension that these survivors of mankind found? To put it simply, it is a clock.
But not just any clock. It is a clock buried in a carved-out mountain. A clock built by their ancient forefathers, seemingly engineered by a magician of incredible powers. A god who walked among the men of the time. How could it be any less, for that clock is still keeping time 9,000 years later.
Fiction? Nope, this is real. And it’s being built right now.
For those who haven’t heard of it yet, it is the “10,000-Year Clock” or the “Clock of the Long Now” as it is often called. And Jeff Bezos’s Bezos Expeditions is funding it in part.
Why do this? I imagine everyone involved has different reasons. I guess you could just generalize with “why not?” As to Bezos, when you have billions of dollars, why not build something totally new and different and lasting for the ages. I think this qualifies.
I want to build a clock that ticks once a year. The century hand advances once every one hundred years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium. I want the cuckoo to come out every millennium for the next 10,000 years. If I hurry I should finish the clock in time to see the cuckoo come out for the first time. — Danny Hillis, "The Millennium Clock", Wired Scenarios, 1995
To put it simply, the Clock of the Long Now is a mechanical clock built inside a mountain that is designed to keep accurate time for the next ten millennia. It will play a chime daily, tick once every new year, bong at the turn of each century, and cuckoo at the start of every millennium. It has over 3.5 million unique bell chimes for a different sequence for every single day of the 10,000 years (there will be a test later).
The Clock was first conceived of in 1986 by Danny Hillis. Construction began on a full-scale prototype in Van Horn, Texas in 2009. Once the prototype proves the viability of the design and construction, the actual Clock of the Long Now will be constructed in Mount Washington near Ely, Nevada.
I could go into much more excruciating detail about all the fun facts surrounding this generational machine, but none of that is germane to our actual story of Unintended Consequences. You can learn all you want with a simple search. However, I will leave our tutorial with this video from The Long Now Foundation website at https://longnow.org/clock/.
Desperate for Meaning
So, to get back to our story, what would happen to a society such as our far future tribe when they run across this amazing, indescribable, and magical wonder that is still ticking off time long after society collapsed? What would our tribe think? What assumptions would they make?
There, my friends, is where our 10,000-year Unintended Consequence finally comes in.
The construction of The Clock of the Long Now and its residence is specifically designed to help future generations understand the purpose of the clock, how it works, and what it will do. It has five anniversary chambers with time-related messages, images, and artifacts. But with a timespan of 10,000 years and the total collapse of society, how much of this will our tribe understand?
Nothing of our society will remain in working order. Computers, cell phones, vehicles, machinery, and even actual watches and clocks would have long ago ceased to exist in any recognizable fashion. Nearly everything from our world would have buried or returned to rust and dust.
But now… Now they have discovered a machine from the unimaginable past that is still running. Still chiming every day with a different sequence of sounds. Our tribe will become consumed with the true meaning of this machine. After all, WHY would our ancestors build such a thing? It couldn’t be just because they could. There had to be some higher meaning. Some message for them.
As they explored the chambers, the writings, the artifacts, and the machine itself, they would inevitably ask many questions.
Is there some hidden meaning in the sequence variance of the daily chimes?
What does the yearly tick portend?
The last Bong was heard a hundred years ago. Will the Bong ring out again?
The last Cuckoo (a lot of study will go into what that sound is) a thousand years ago.
Is this machine just marking time?
Or is it counting down to something?
Is it warning them?
Is it giving them instructions on how to prepare for something big?
Is the world coming to an end again?
Ultimately, they will debate for centuries over why Jeff Bezos did not leave them instructions on how to order food from Amazon.
The Order of the Sacred Clock
For our entire existence, man has lived to find the deeper meaning in everything around us. Our belief that there is “MORE” drives us to fanatical heights. Just look at what past civilizations in our history determined in their searches as “truth”. Civilizations would turn their entire culture around if a higher “truth” was found. Would future man be any different?
For anyone who has read future apocalypse books or watched the movies, the plot is pretty easy to figure out.
The Tribe discovers the great machine.
Leadership assigns the High Priest to determine the purpose of the machine.
The High Priest, trying to save face over his ignorance, makes up a bunch of stuff.
The High Priest sees opportunity to gain more power by claiming only he can speak to and understand what the Sacred Clock is saying with the daily chimes.
An entire religion evolves around the machine and its supposed purpose.
Those who can read a bit of the ancient language will become acolytes and prophets.
Sacrifices to the yearly Ticks of the Sacred Clock are initiated.
Eventually a cleansing of society is needed to appease the century Bong. This cleansing will become known as “The Bonging”.
And inevitably, great battles ensue for stewardship of the Sacred Clock before the millennial Cuckoo sounds.
With no purpose for millennia other than survival, our tribe now has something not related to survival to focus on and distract them from the daily grind. Their society revolves around the Clock for a thousand years. Many tales are told. Many priests make predictions. But no matter what they do, the Amazon order never arrives.
One thing becomes clear from their intense studies. The Clock was designed to last for 10,000 years and count down every moment until that time.
The focus of their society now becomes - what happens on that fateful day at year 10,000? When the Clock chimes, ticks, bongs, and cuckoos to mark the momentous purpose of the great machine, will their lives change? They have been praying for salvation or fearing the answer for a thousand years.
Over those thousand years, the High Priests have promised them:
Access to a new world beyond their imaginations.
A return of the ancients and their incredible science and tools.
The chosen (those who obeyed the priests of course) would rise to be gods.
The secret message of the builders would be revealed.
A revival of the plants and animals would come.
Conversely, many of the priests also threatened them with:
Eternal damnation if the clock is not happy with them.
The High Priest would be elevated to Godhood and they would be his slaves.
The true end of the world would finally come.
The return of social media.
But what happens when the clock… just… keeps… ticking?
My first guess would be that the High Priest would meet an untimely (pun intended) and very painful death. The tribe would believe they had all failed to understand the meaning of the Clock and were unworthy. So, either a renewed interest in worshiping the Clock would emerge or they would commit to the complete destruction of the Clock. I give even odds on those.
A Timeless Consequence
We have seen what the discovery of this 10,000-year clock would do to what has devolved into a primitive culture.
The question now becomes, what would our tribe have been like had Jeff Bezos not invested $42 million dollars into the Sacred Clock that drove their society for 1,000 years? The single act of writing a check 10,000 years ago resulted in the total societal transformation for the tribe. Their future is on an entirely different path than it would have been without The Clock of the Long Now.
I would call that one heck of an Unintended Consequence for the ages.
Jeff Bezos intended to transform our society with Amazon. I don’t imagine he intended to transform society 10,000 years from now with the clock.
I will leave him to answer for that.
David Nemzoff
Author and Consultant
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Author of “Public Speaking for Kids, Tweens, and Teens - Confidence for Life!”
COMING SOON to a bookseller near you, my latest book exploring the crisis in our K-12 Educational System. Is it time for The Great Education Reset?
So basically it’s the SSDD thingy that has plagued humankind for millennia.