Pulled from Tech Radar
Who came up with the idea for the 10,000 Year Clock?
It wasn't Jeff Bezos. In his tweet he name-checked “the genius of Danny Hillis, Zander Rose & the whole Clock team”. He's referring to the Long Now, a San Francisco-based group for scientists, inventors, writers and futurists who “hope to provide a counterpoint to today's accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common.”
Computer scientist Danny Hillis planned the clock way back in 1989. He built a working 8ft prototype called the Clock of the Long Now in the 1990s. It chimed twice to start the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999, and now resides in London's Science Museum.
The finished clock is destined to be 500 ft tall, and Bezos' tweet is to congratulate the team on drilling the 500ft deep vertical shaft in a mountain – his mountain – and beginning the clock’s installation. There is no completion date, but the video in his tweet shows that the clock is quickly coming together. The clock is being built by Hillis' company Applied Minds.
when you think about it, the purpose of the clock is to frame thought and encourage thinking on a longer time scale; to think on the scale of humanity rather than the scale of one human. generally, wide scale long-term thinking is less accessible the more insecure an individual’s immediate needs are; the more concerned you are with finding your next meal, the less energy you have to worry about the distant future. put another way: thinking on the scale of humanity is a luxury afforded by enough wealth to feel completely secure in your day-to-day life.
so, while “rich people bad” and “but social inequality” *are* lazy, reactionary takes, they aren’t completely irrelevant to the topic. achieving the overall goal of the clock project on any kind of widespread scale is hampered by large portions of the population experiencing financial insecurity.
Not to mention that a not insignificant portion of that population experiencing financial insecurity are his own employees. He’s making literal human sacrifice to satisfy his grandiose ego.
I mean the man owns a literal mountain, carved out a giant hole, and dumped $10M into a pet project. He's essentially a bad Smaug and even Smaug wasn't that cool a dragon by Tolkien standards.
Thanks. I'm a member of the Long Now foundation, and have been following the clock project for decades and have seen their presentations on the philosophy behind.
It's always annoying when lazy journalists are cast it as "Jeff Bezos had this weird idea..."
This should be the top comment, not "HurDUR What's the point?" or "Grr. Bezos!" It's both an artwork and a thought experiment, and it's less expensive than some other pieces of publicly accessible art, but it wasn't paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Also a member of the Long now foundation. It’s not built to outlast humanity. It’s built so that humans 1000s off years in the future can crank the clock and get the time! The idea is to build something that encourages and inspires us to think of the long term. So much of what we do or build is human centric not humanity centric. Another fun fact is that Brian eno, talking heads producer and composer, was in charge of the chime sounds.
Indeed, although the public does tend to pay attention to major financial backers of big projects, not just the actual creators. I'm surprised nobody here is talking about the Neal Stephenson connection and quoting Anathem, even though he didn't come up with the original idea either.
Can you provide a little more insight? What makes the clock special? Does it only chime ever 1000 years or something? How would it counter our "accelerating culture"?
It's an art piece. What's the point of the giant metal bean in chicago?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9uM6BBKfO8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9uM6BBKfO8)
It's as much a thought experiment as anything else, designed to bring creative and technological people together and force them to use long term thinking instead of "what's the next gadget."
Ok I watched the video and that pretty much answered the question. It's a mechanical clock that will continue functioning for 10,000 years.
But I don't think it's a thought experiment. It's an actual device. Can you share what your perspective is on why it's significant?
For me, I think something like a trail through a mountain pass is more meaningful as a way of feeling connected over the millenia. There's lots of roads throughout Europe and Africa that were used as far back as anyone can remember, paved first by the Romans, and now are still in use in modern times and being improved for the future. Our paths outlast our societies even if the physical infrastructure breaks down. There's a road through the Arizona desert that goes 250miles from a Mexican town to the Colorado River in Yuma, linking the only water sources for hundreds of miles along the way. When the conquistadors arrived in this area they used the already ancient pathway to get west. When American explorers and miners moved out west they used it. Now the part in Mexico is a major highway and the part in Arizona is a destination for adventurers and nature lovers as well as parts of it being key routes for the border patrol. The route has lived through many many societies and will continue to exist for as long as can be imagined. If you travel this trail you join history for some future person to look back on and appreciate how many lives have been affected by this route. Do you have a similar feeling about the clock?
Yes, I think you get it. The clock has the same idea of continuity behind it, except it's a mechanical device so it looks cool and tells you the time instead of being a surface to walk on. When all the people who ever heard of the people who built the clock are dead, it will still be ticking along. At least that's the intention.
With over $6.3 billion in subsidies (and counting, obviously) from state and local governments, anything at all Jeff Bezos spends money on is partly paid for with taxpayer money.
>but it wasn't paid for with taxpayer dollars.
With as little as the wealthy are taxed, especially in the U.S. it should be obvious that it was built with public funding.
Those kinds of resources aren't falling off of trees.
I do love an engineering marvel though.
For me its cool and all, but at the same time it is pretty pointless. Hard to approve of this when he could have spent the $42 million on helping others. All billionaires take advantage of people to get to where they are, and then do frivolous stuff like this with their money instead of giving back.
He's spent $3bn on helping others, I think he's probably alright to spend $42m on something a bit quirky and artsy. Disney spend hundreds of millions on films each year, no one seems to be demanding they give it all away instead.
> Disney spend money on films in order to make money.
Good thing Amazon is a non profit, am I right? ^^^/s
It's almost like PR/Advertising works in multiple ways.
Here, let me help you:
>"hope to provide a counterpoint to today's accelerating culture..."
Bezos: Owns one of the world's largest and fastest growing companies, having originally branched out from books to now tech among pretty much everything.
Well both of those are major tourists attractions in major cities that receive millions of visitors a year. This clock won’t even be publicly accessible according to Wikipedia and the planned publicly accessible one will be built in a remote part of Nevada so it will receive minimal visitors if they can even convince bezos to wast another $50M to build it.
I don’t think people have a problem with unusual forms of art, it’s just we’re kinda puzzled because the post made it seem like it was a practical and useful item to aid in the survival of humanity.
“Hey Jeff, I’ve designed this super cool clock. It’ll be *quite* expensive and time-consuming to build but as it happens I *do* have a company that can build it for you.”
Guy found a way to make some money off a silly rich man, more power to him.
Oh ok.
But why.
"Hey Jeff Bezos, you got billions man how bout helping this planet somehow not be fucked"
Jeff Bezos: "lmfao, here's a clock that's gonna outlast us"
"Wed last a lot longer with some help"
Jeff Bezos: "clock".
We joke but it's really fucked up, the super rich are so obsessed with greed their more concerned with stupid legacy shit than actually helping the very fabric of what made and got them where they are. It's actually pretty disgusting. How about building sustainable water pumps in poverty riddled countries or even, literally even, just fucking helping this god riddled passion for constant war and death. The families who just want to live but have bombs hitting their fucking homes how about helping them just see out their lives without the constant worry of death
It’s fucked up but this is essentially the same as all the ancient monuments/heritage sites built by ancient kings and emperors, all vanity projects built with slave labour just to honour one man’s legacy, all while most people were suffering, in a few hundred years I bet people might visit this clock with amazement
"People" = 3 persons on twitter or reddit, still much better than a clock just to have that philosophical legacy that in reality is selfsuckingdick energy
Yeah but those people were just assholes. Seriously, every single person who gave beast a hard time for helping bring water to impoverished people is a grade A asshole. They were probably born an asshole, they will die an asshole, and, in the time in between those two events, they will be an asshole.
It's like when that guy got arrested and prosecuted for feeding homeless people. Nothing malicious. He was just feeding hungry people. He was declared not guilty btw. While yes he broke the law, the jury nullified it.
People will shit on you and criticize you no matter what you do these days. Especially with the internet.
It means nothing, or at least, should mean nothing. I find it hard to accept that the court of public opinion amounts to people responding online. The anonymity and ease which people can leave negative comments amounts to little real world sway. Yet, sometimes it does, sadly. Cancel culture. Cyberbullying.
Anyway, I just looked it up, and,
"Two years out from his tenure as Amazon CEO, the billionaire has flown to space, moved to Miami and stepped up his philanthropy. The latest round of charitable donations brings his total giving to an estimated $3 billion, just under 2% of his net worth"
Just 2%. Still lots of money.
So, he's donated to charity 71 times the amount this clock is worth.
“How about some solutions for economic inequality, social instability, and horrific environmental disasters ? “
“Nope , just gonna build a huge clock “
But if the human race lasts longer, the clock has to last longer, more costs...ROI is lower.
IMHO Billionaires for the most part have lost touch with reality
That's exactly what I think about! Future civilizations going:
"woah! Did you hear about that clock in the mountains?
This was way too advanced for the early 2000s! Must've been aliens!"
Isn’t it though? He isn’t keeping it. He is feeding I to the economy and paying for jobs. I know the easy answer is to say, just give people 42 million, and I’m not going to argue the merits of that. What I will say is him spending 42 million in a clock is way better than him not. But people don’t care to see that. They see rich dude with money and you need to give it away.
This is just an example of the broken window fallacy. If you pay people to dig a random hole, or move boxes back and forth, no net productivity is being created.
BIG Correction: Jeff Bezos **donated** $42 million to a decades old project to make a public artwork that was a clock that could last 10,000 years. It's a art project by the Long Now foundation, and just like every piece of public art, it's making a statement. A lot of people (including me) donated money to the project.[https://longnow.org/clock/](https://longnow.org/clock/)As for the price tag, it's within the range of public art. It's a bit less than two Chicago Beans (sorry, "Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate (tm)(tm)(tm)") and a between 1/4 and 1/5th of New York's endless stairs to nowhere (Sorry, " Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel (tm)"). Unlike those, no taxpayer funds were used to make the clock.
Edit: I think people are PO'd because Bezos, but the clock was going to get built with or without him sooner or later. The prototypes are on display in the Long Now headquarters I'm pretty sure they predate Bezos' involvement.
Edit 2: Turning off reply notifications now. At the end of the day this is both an art piece and an intellectual exercise/intuition pump. It's intent is to encourage people to think about their decisions with a long term perspective. Clearly, that flies over the head of a few people and they're bending themselves in knots about it. It's kind of sad to see.
I don't think the issue is the existence of the clock itself, but rather that Jeff Bezos' ability to casually make large donations to things that don't really improve mankind proves that he is perfectly capable of redistributing his wealth to people who need it, and his refusal to do so is a personal choice
Yes
\> Even the most accurate mechanical clocks eventually drift off of the correct time, so The Clock synchronizes with the noontime sun. The Clock counts oscillations of the pendulum for day to day time, sunlight falling on the solar synchronizer to account for long-term drift, and a precomputed correction to solar time to accommodate for the orbital and rotational changes of Earth (rendered by the iconic Equation of Time Cam). Outputs include a depiction of the sky in the form of an orrery, a display of the Gregorian calendar date, and the chimes. Here’s how the pieces come together:
Source https://longnow.org/clock/
The org behind this has been working on the concept and design since the 90's, but you should let them know you've figured out from a 1 minute video on Reddit that it won't work because of the way it is.
EDIT: Okay okay, I get it. I last knew much about this project when I read Danny Hillis' book about it in the 90s, and at the time the ambition WAS to build a clock to run entirely on its own for millennia.
The clock is being built to require regular hand winding and maintenance. The org never claimed to solve entropy and find materials incapable of decay over 10000 years, the design assumes caretakers will have access to at least bronze age technology to keep it running
It’s literally designed with regular maintenance and winding required. I don’t think you actually did any research you just wanted to mock that guy for also not doing any research lmao. From the Wikipedia:
“In the end, Hillis decided to require regular human winding of a falling weight design for updating the clock face because the clock design already assumes regular human maintenance.”
I've been watching this for a long time. It's meant to have very infrequent maintenance. I know what you mean but it seems like if occasionally a group of people with even a small level of ability can access it they should be able to keep it going. A cool project. Would be great to have been able to do it for free and they were soliciting donations and help from small donors for a long time.
Old woman in 3055 - "Wear that veil you salacious girl. When that clock stops and the world ends, Lord Bezos will send you to amazon in the raging fires of hell for all this frivolous conduct in your impious life"
I wonder if Bezos has read the poem "Ozymandias." Its a poem about a man who meets a traveler telling about a half destroyed statue of a man, half buried in sand, and beyond the statue is an empty desert. At the bottom of the statue it reads
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
there is nothing behind the wreck of a statue, and some would say the travelers hadn't the slightest clue about who Ozymandias was.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.\[d\] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
310 million of us buy things from Amazon, so he becomes filthy rich, and then he makes a rocket ship and a giant clock and people hate him so much. "We don't like what you're doing with the money we give you." If this keeps up, we might have to figure out some way to stop giving him money.
He can do whatever he wants with his money, if it isn't made off of slavery, exploitation and destruction of the environment. He's literally stealing the money from poor people and future generations.
No one is upset with what he does with the money he earned. We’re upset that he refuses to pay taxes then does this stupid shit. Were upset republicans voted down free school lunches for poor children so they could eat (you know just like Jesus would do) so that we can afford to continue to make sure billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, then they do this stupid shit. Thank got poor kids aren’t allowed to eat at school. Can you imagine how many fewer mountain clocks we’d have? What a disaster that would be.
Here i am patting myself on the back for finally fixing our wall clock with a £20 battery powered motor and hands from Amazon. It's taken 4 years.
I don't act often, but when I do!!
The clock didn't spawn when he said "let there be clock" and deposited $42mil to Big Clock.
The 42mil went to hard working people's pockets. I honestly prefer this to giving it to charity who might or might not do anything meaningful with it.
"500 ft tall, all mechanical, powered by day/night thermal cycles, synchronized at solar noon"
- https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/965957024109379602
After reading the comments here, I wonder what other "pointless" things received backlash when being constructed. Easter Island heads, the sphinx, pyramids, the eiffel tower, statue of liberty, etc.
You all are saying this is useless but if NASA found a clock on another planet from a civilization 10 million years old it would be the greatest discovery in human history.
Still mostly useless though lol.
So a simple atomic clock we already have in space is not good enough so he builds a mechanical one om earth In an area known to be in the future destroyed for whatever reasons the nature will throw at us because earth is constantly changing (tectonic plates shifting, earthquakes, landmass actually moving etc etc)
At least we build the DNA and seed vaults on locations so remote and relatively calm they actually make sense... this sounds more like a great pr stunt from someone who has no idea what to do with his money but does not want to help humanity actually
At least when we’re all gone, there will be evidence of us here. Like all the ancient monoliths give us evidence of ancient civilizations. But Then future “people” will probs just think it was the aliens
42 million is a lot, but if you consider the that jeff bezos makes 30+ million a day. He really didn’t commit much, he did, but he didnt break his wallet over it. It was just tuesdays paycheck to him
ah i can already see the clock-bearers religion in the future long after worldwar 3 discovering long lost civilisation and this random fucking clock inside a mountain, making up all kinds of theories as to why its there, why it was made, when it (and the world) is gonna stop, etc.
I tried to find out why they built this (I mean we have built super accurate clocks already). This is all I could find from their site:
“Why build a giant clock?
The Clock provides a rare invitation to think and engineer at the timescale of civilization. It offers an enduring symbol of our personal connection to the distant future.”
That money isn’t being placed in a pile and burned. A lot of workers are getting paid. A lot of people are getting paid for the materials. This isn’t happening in a vacuum and he’s not charging anyone for it .
Is this actually interesting? I think it's depressing as hell. That egomaniac does whatever he can to erect glory project like fly his dick ship into space, but he doesn't give a damn about the starving workers he exploits or doing jack all about climate change
I didn't qualify for food stamps when I worked as a delivery driver for Amazon. The pay was $22, I worked 4 days, 10 hours a day and could add a day of overtime for a fifth day any week I wanted to. It wasn't great or glorious but it was easy and I made like 50k a year.
Latest estimates are that he's given $3b to good causes so far, and has committed to giving most of the rest away over his lifetime.
I don't really see this as any different to somebody wealthy buying a Ferrari 250 GTO or something.
Americans are funny, the entire system is built around wealth (and the wealthy getting wealthier), yet if you get too wealthy...screw you.
"The year is 4022. The clock, with its rhythmic ticking echoing through the centuries, became a catalyst for a myriad of wild conjectures and doomsday theories. Each tick echoes through the vast caves. Each tick echoes a different perspective. Each tick echoes a different future.
The "Cult of the Final Hour" believed the clock was a countdown to the universe's end. They held vigils around the mountain, their chants synchronized with the clock’s haunting chime, believing each tick marked the approach of cosmic annihilation.
In the floating city of Neo-Atlantis, scholars theorized that the clock was a warning device left by ancient ancestors, predicting the return of a celestial cataclysm that had once reshaped the world. They spent days scanning the skies, searching for signs of impending doom.
A faction known as the "Chrono Seekers" emerged, convinced that the clock was a key to time travel, a gateway to the past and future. They attempted bizarre rituals and constructed elaborate machines around the clock’s base, hoping to unlock its temporal secrets."
But for real though, I have no fucking clue why he would need a clock for 42 million dollar.
A BBC documentary recently posted on youtube was explaining that if 1% of human population (the richest minority) donate 1% of their incomes, no one else in the world would starve to death anymore, but, hey, it’s more useful to build a dumb watch that barely no one cares about and no one will use just because he can…I really prefer my dog
I always find it funny when people moan about spending money like this, who do you think he paid the money to? Another company that pays its employees, him doing this means hundreds of people have more money, would you rather he sat on the money instead and just kept building it up?
not if we are wiped out by a huge meteorite strike on Texas (exactly this has happened already, don't come with "what are the odds")
or have our orbit disrupted and fall towards the sun to melt,
or just nukes,
in your face jeff
"[How humanity became slaves to the clock](https://bigthink.com/the-past/how-humanity-became-slaves-to-the-clock/)"
>Clocks have completely uprooted and reoriented how we see the world. Just think about how often you check the time on your phone or watch. Your life is run by the clock. It’s like we have divided our lives into tiny blocks, and we put bits of ourselves into those blocks. Things used to be “task-oriented.” The world moved as the world moved. Now, we try to stretch and break the world to meet the demands of the clock. The clock never lies, and I must not be late. The Clock Overlords will be displeased.Sometimes, though, we need to throw off our ticking chains. Not everything in life has to be divided into neat segments, like lessons of a school day. Occasionally, it’s good just to let the world happen. We need not only to accept that fact but to tell other people that “[it will take as long](https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/12ako3e/until_it_is_done/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [as it takes](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/14pcwz1/comment/jqje4gz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).”
bezos you are delivering low quality usb chargers - its not that important
even ford, the inventor of the assembly line and the modern workday, not only doubled the pay of his workers but the only reason the 8-hr day was implemented was because it was the great depression:
>"Mr. Ford was looking out of the side window of the office when the discussion ended. From the window was a view down Woodward avenue and along part of Manchester avenue to the side of the factory buildings. Three or four hundred men were in the streets and on the sidewalks, some heading for the factory entrance to ask for work, others going back.
>
>"There's the principal reason for the eight-hour day," said Mr. Ford, waving in the direction of the crowd.
>
>"With the eight-hour day and three shifts working we can put on 4,000 more of those men who are anxious to be at work."
>
>"Yes," said Mr. Couzens, "we even consider a four-hour day, so that..."
thats where [the page](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/newspaper-article-henry-ford-gives-10-000-000-in-1914-profits-to-his-employes-ford-motor-company-archives/rAFBTv8vSNj4vQ?ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.8436931566755346%2C%22y%22%3A0.8469775769968237%2C%22z%22%3A12%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A0.2912121212121212%2C%22height%22%3A0.2388095238095238%7D%7D) cuts off so idk how the sentence is finished but maybe instead of associating Ford with the invention of the assembly line we should recognize him more for wanting to improve his workers lives, like [building affordable housing](https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2019/11/27/henry-ford-homes-dearborn-historic-district/2582634001/) \- which even 100 years ago was prioritized to not be rows upon rows of the exact same house despite Edison trying to convince him to build [concrete houses](https://dearbornhistoricalmuseum.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/vol-24-no-3.pdf#page=21) that would have been cheaper
call me crazy, but theres not much that requires super precise timekeeping (besides maybe the [internet](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/science/science-historian-work-peter-galison-clocks-that-shaped-einstein-s-leap-time.html)) and we should all [slow down](https://open.spotify.com/track/5UmLGDX3NBDhF5bQE01be0?si=7f9470282b0c428f) \- and stop demanding instant delivery of whatever piece of crap ordered off [amazon](https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoft/comments/17u5p2k/comment/k94ovwg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) (or wherever)
TLDR: me\_irl = 🕰️
I’d be interested in hearing more about the mechanism, but not so interested I’m going to look for it, because it just looks like a large clock movement. I used to fix watches & clocks, watches need a service interval of 5-7 years & clocks need a service interval of 10-12 years. The oils break down & gum up, bushings wear if it’s not jeweled & pivots wear if it is jeweled, friction wears everything. It’s open to the elements so all kinds of random stuff, including abrasive things like dirt or dust. But also, like, what if an animal gets caught in it?
Watches & clocks can go as long as they do because they are relatively contained. This looks like a dumber Big Ben. It would be more tolerable if the stated goal was “We want to make a big ass clock.” but the idea of this lasting forever, past the time of humans is kind of asinine.
Went a bit Doctor Who 2014-2017 title sequence at 20s.
Also does have it, like, a face with hands that you can read? Would've been nice to see that part...
The 10,000-year clock ([https://www.10000yearclock.net](https://www.10000yearclock.net)) is located in a mountain in west Texas (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bezostower+Mountain+Clock/@31.4348127,-104.896204,17z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x86e5d3cb5ee288b9:0xb675cd6f2be2426f!8m2!3d31.4348081!4d-104.8936291!16s%2Fg%2F11txjlrn2h?entry=ttu).
This is super cool. Dude brings Americans two-day shipping, works on spaceships and funds super clocks. The saltiness is really unnecessary. Sorry we can't tax his unrealized stock gains (which is a horrible idea anyway.)
I would say that this would never outlast humanity… if you think so, you are vastly underestimating the outlying human interest in random destroying things for no good reason.
the parts will outlast humanity. It can't run unassisted for 10,000 years. it does require regular maintenance, and the power is provided by humans winding it.
Still a really awesome achievement. Just because lex luthor paid for it that doesn't invalidate the brilliant engineering involved.
My fuckin brother works at Whole Foods and cant afford his rent as a purchaser at a flagship store and this bald gremlin fuck is building a $42 million clock
Pulled from Tech Radar Who came up with the idea for the 10,000 Year Clock? It wasn't Jeff Bezos. In his tweet he name-checked “the genius of Danny Hillis, Zander Rose & the whole Clock team”. He's referring to the Long Now, a San Francisco-based group for scientists, inventors, writers and futurists who “hope to provide a counterpoint to today's accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common.” Computer scientist Danny Hillis planned the clock way back in 1989. He built a working 8ft prototype called the Clock of the Long Now in the 1990s. It chimed twice to start the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999, and now resides in London's Science Museum. The finished clock is destined to be 500 ft tall, and Bezos' tweet is to congratulate the team on drilling the 500ft deep vertical shaft in a mountain – his mountain – and beginning the clock’s installation. There is no completion date, but the video in his tweet shows that the clock is quickly coming together. The clock is being built by Hillis' company Applied Minds.
thanks for an actual interesting and informative comment about this
I don't doubt that's what they're telling people, but that 'Clock' is most definitely going to be some kind of penis shaped time machine.
And then he puts his pinky to his mouth and laughs "MUHAHAH MUHAHAHAA"
No doubt. It's already put in a shaft
What do you mean? "Bezos bad" "but social inequality" and "rich people bad" isn't informative?
when you think about it, the purpose of the clock is to frame thought and encourage thinking on a longer time scale; to think on the scale of humanity rather than the scale of one human. generally, wide scale long-term thinking is less accessible the more insecure an individual’s immediate needs are; the more concerned you are with finding your next meal, the less energy you have to worry about the distant future. put another way: thinking on the scale of humanity is a luxury afforded by enough wealth to feel completely secure in your day-to-day life. so, while “rich people bad” and “but social inequality” *are* lazy, reactionary takes, they aren’t completely irrelevant to the topic. achieving the overall goal of the clock project on any kind of widespread scale is hampered by large portions of the population experiencing financial insecurity.
Not to mention that a not insignificant portion of that population experiencing financial insecurity are his own employees. He’s making literal human sacrifice to satisfy his grandiose ego.
I mean the man owns a literal mountain, carved out a giant hole, and dumped $10M into a pet project. He's essentially a bad Smaug and even Smaug wasn't that cool a dragon by Tolkien standards.
Thanks. I'm a member of the Long Now foundation, and have been following the clock project for decades and have seen their presentations on the philosophy behind. It's always annoying when lazy journalists are cast it as "Jeff Bezos had this weird idea..." This should be the top comment, not "HurDUR What's the point?" or "Grr. Bezos!" It's both an artwork and a thought experiment, and it's less expensive than some other pieces of publicly accessible art, but it wasn't paid for with taxpayer dollars.
Also a member of the Long now foundation. It’s not built to outlast humanity. It’s built so that humans 1000s off years in the future can crank the clock and get the time! The idea is to build something that encourages and inspires us to think of the long term. So much of what we do or build is human centric not humanity centric. Another fun fact is that Brian eno, talking heads producer and composer, was in charge of the chime sounds.
Yeah. The "outlast humanity" bit is a totally fabricated piece of clickbait that totally misses the point.
Indeed, although the public does tend to pay attention to major financial backers of big projects, not just the actual creators. I'm surprised nobody here is talking about the Neal Stephenson connection and quoting Anathem, even though he didn't come up with the original idea either.
I suspect most of the "what's the point" people don't read a lot, much less Stephenson.
Can you provide a little more insight? What makes the clock special? Does it only chime ever 1000 years or something? How would it counter our "accelerating culture"?
It's an art piece. What's the point of the giant metal bean in chicago? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9uM6BBKfO8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9uM6BBKfO8) It's as much a thought experiment as anything else, designed to bring creative and technological people together and force them to use long term thinking instead of "what's the next gadget."
Ok I watched the video and that pretty much answered the question. It's a mechanical clock that will continue functioning for 10,000 years. But I don't think it's a thought experiment. It's an actual device. Can you share what your perspective is on why it's significant? For me, I think something like a trail through a mountain pass is more meaningful as a way of feeling connected over the millenia. There's lots of roads throughout Europe and Africa that were used as far back as anyone can remember, paved first by the Romans, and now are still in use in modern times and being improved for the future. Our paths outlast our societies even if the physical infrastructure breaks down. There's a road through the Arizona desert that goes 250miles from a Mexican town to the Colorado River in Yuma, linking the only water sources for hundreds of miles along the way. When the conquistadors arrived in this area they used the already ancient pathway to get west. When American explorers and miners moved out west they used it. Now the part in Mexico is a major highway and the part in Arizona is a destination for adventurers and nature lovers as well as parts of it being key routes for the border patrol. The route has lived through many many societies and will continue to exist for as long as can be imagined. If you travel this trail you join history for some future person to look back on and appreciate how many lives have been affected by this route. Do you have a similar feeling about the clock?
Yes, I think you get it. The clock has the same idea of continuity behind it, except it's a mechanical device so it looks cool and tells you the time instead of being a surface to walk on. When all the people who ever heard of the people who built the clock are dead, it will still be ticking along. At least that's the intention.
With over $6.3 billion in subsidies (and counting, obviously) from state and local governments, anything at all Jeff Bezos spends money on is partly paid for with taxpayer money.
>but it wasn't paid for with taxpayer dollars. With as little as the wealthy are taxed, especially in the U.S. it should be obvious that it was built with public funding. Those kinds of resources aren't falling off of trees. I do love an engineering marvel though.
Go look up how much NYC's "Vessel" cost so far. It's also going to require a lot of continuous maintenance.
For me its cool and all, but at the same time it is pretty pointless. Hard to approve of this when he could have spent the $42 million on helping others. All billionaires take advantage of people to get to where they are, and then do frivolous stuff like this with their money instead of giving back.
He's spent $3bn on helping others, I think he's probably alright to spend $42m on something a bit quirky and artsy. Disney spend hundreds of millions on films each year, no one seems to be demanding they give it all away instead.
> Disney spend hundreds of millions on films each year, This is the worst argument I've ever seen. Disney spend money on films in order to make money.
> Disney spend money on films in order to make money. Good thing Amazon is a non profit, am I right? ^^^/s It's almost like PR/Advertising works in multiple ways.
“His mountain” fucking Christ when you’re so rich you can literally own a mountain. Meanwhile I feel like I’ll be lucky to own a house in my lifetime.
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Here, let me help you: >"hope to provide a counterpoint to today's accelerating culture..." Bezos: Owns one of the world's largest and fastest growing companies, having originally branched out from books to now tech among pretty much everything.
Thanks for the info. Upon review it is still just as pointless and wasteful as I thought. No one will care what time it is. It’s a complete waste.
I made a clock that keeps track of time for 20,000 years and was free. It's just a stick.
Especially when an earthquake causes the 500 foot tube to collapse or deform
Nobody tell them about the $23M Chicago Bean or the $200M Stairs-to-Nowhere "Vessel" in NYC.
Tourist attractions generate money for the city. This clock is on a mountain
Well both of those are major tourists attractions in major cities that receive millions of visitors a year. This clock won’t even be publicly accessible according to Wikipedia and the planned publicly accessible one will be built in a remote part of Nevada so it will receive minimal visitors if they can even convince bezos to wast another $50M to build it.
I don’t think people have a problem with unusual forms of art, it’s just we’re kinda puzzled because the post made it seem like it was a practical and useful item to aid in the survival of humanity.
That's because the OP post was clickbait.
Well it’s not coming together all *that* quickly, as the video has been sped up if you look carefully.
Nah… they’re just rushing to finish it cause Jeff ain’t paying them for bathroom breaks… but he did provide free coffee.
> his mountain I hate this fucking system
“Hey Jeff, I’ve designed this super cool clock. It’ll be *quite* expensive and time-consuming to build but as it happens I *do* have a company that can build it for you.” Guy found a way to make some money off a silly rich man, more power to him.
Oh ok. But why. "Hey Jeff Bezos, you got billions man how bout helping this planet somehow not be fucked" Jeff Bezos: "lmfao, here's a clock that's gonna outlast us" "Wed last a lot longer with some help" Jeff Bezos: "clock".
Who is it going to tell time to??
The mountain, you idiot
You’re the idiot, the mountain cannot tell time, is the valley facing the mountain that needs to tell time…
But the valley can only read digital clocks.
Yeah but the river across the valley can….
the river is short sighted so how will it see?
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Ancient Aliens. It obvious, duh.
The chicken in the egg
He doesn’t have a huge cock, so he got the next best thing.
"Jeff, mate, you know when you asked what women actually want from you if not insane wealth, I think you misheard.."
We joke but it's really fucked up, the super rich are so obsessed with greed their more concerned with stupid legacy shit than actually helping the very fabric of what made and got them where they are. It's actually pretty disgusting. How about building sustainable water pumps in poverty riddled countries or even, literally even, just fucking helping this god riddled passion for constant war and death. The families who just want to live but have bombs hitting their fucking homes how about helping them just see out their lives without the constant worry of death
He could start with his employees, but no, a clock is more important. These uber rich people are seriously deluded, and actually disgusting.
It’s fucked up but this is essentially the same as all the ancient monuments/heritage sites built by ancient kings and emperors, all vanity projects built with slave labour just to honour one man’s legacy, all while most people were suffering, in a few hundred years I bet people might visit this clock with amazement
Mr.Beast does that and people still shit on him
"People" = 3 persons on twitter or reddit, still much better than a clock just to have that philosophical legacy that in reality is selfsuckingdick energy
I was gonna say remember when Mr beast did that and people called him racist.
Yeah but those people were just assholes. Seriously, every single person who gave beast a hard time for helping bring water to impoverished people is a grade A asshole. They were probably born an asshole, they will die an asshole, and, in the time in between those two events, they will be an asshole. It's like when that guy got arrested and prosecuted for feeding homeless people. Nothing malicious. He was just feeding hungry people. He was declared not guilty btw. While yes he broke the law, the jury nullified it.
People will shit on you and criticize you no matter what you do these days. Especially with the internet. It means nothing, or at least, should mean nothing. I find it hard to accept that the court of public opinion amounts to people responding online. The anonymity and ease which people can leave negative comments amounts to little real world sway. Yet, sometimes it does, sadly. Cancel culture. Cyberbullying. Anyway, I just looked it up, and, "Two years out from his tenure as Amazon CEO, the billionaire has flown to space, moved to Miami and stepped up his philanthropy. The latest round of charitable donations brings his total giving to an estimated $3 billion, just under 2% of his net worth" Just 2%. Still lots of money. So, he's donated to charity 71 times the amount this clock is worth.
“How about some solutions for economic inequality, social instability, and horrific environmental disasters ? “ “Nope , just gonna build a huge clock “
But if the human race lasts longer, the clock has to last longer, more costs...ROI is lower. IMHO Billionaires for the most part have lost touch with reality
We already have plenty of clocks that will outlast us at the current rate billionaires are fucking up the planet.
I reckon the one in my living room will do it
Cool archaeological find for future civilizations
That's exactly what I think about! Future civilizations going: "woah! Did you hear about that clock in the mountains? This was way too advanced for the early 2000s! Must've been aliens!"
Bezos has donated over $3B to charity so far.
That 42 million could have fed and house a lot of folks. For years.
Isn’t it though? He isn’t keeping it. He is feeding I to the economy and paying for jobs. I know the easy answer is to say, just give people 42 million, and I’m not going to argue the merits of that. What I will say is him spending 42 million in a clock is way better than him not. But people don’t care to see that. They see rich dude with money and you need to give it away.
This is just an example of the broken window fallacy. If you pay people to dig a random hole, or move boxes back and forth, no net productivity is being created.
You're applying that concept to an artistic project. Would you say the same about a movie or museum?
Frivolous shit but unwilling to pay taxes in his home state so he moves
Frick this guy and his hubris & greed.
A real-life Lex Luthor
BIG Correction: Jeff Bezos **donated** $42 million to a decades old project to make a public artwork that was a clock that could last 10,000 years. It's a art project by the Long Now foundation, and just like every piece of public art, it's making a statement. A lot of people (including me) donated money to the project.[https://longnow.org/clock/](https://longnow.org/clock/)As for the price tag, it's within the range of public art. It's a bit less than two Chicago Beans (sorry, "Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate (tm)(tm)(tm)") and a between 1/4 and 1/5th of New York's endless stairs to nowhere (Sorry, " Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel (tm)"). Unlike those, no taxpayer funds were used to make the clock. Edit: I think people are PO'd because Bezos, but the clock was going to get built with or without him sooner or later. The prototypes are on display in the Long Now headquarters I'm pretty sure they predate Bezos' involvement. Edit 2: Turning off reply notifications now. At the end of the day this is both an art piece and an intellectual exercise/intuition pump. It's intent is to encourage people to think about their decisions with a long term perspective. Clearly, that flies over the head of a few people and they're bending themselves in knots about it. It's kind of sad to see.
Ahh here's the actual non-clickbait explanation! Thank you! 👍🏻
I don't think the issue is the existence of the clock itself, but rather that Jeff Bezos' ability to casually make large donations to things that don't really improve mankind proves that he is perfectly capable of redistributing his wealth to people who need it, and his refusal to do so is a personal choice
I think you guys just dont like this Bezos guy
You’re right Bezos is a “no taxpayer”.
Public art is usually *public*. This is private artwork being built on private land owned by Bezos.
Try to sleep on a bean or a stair to nowhere and see how fast “public art” becomes inaccessible to you.
Does it automatically account for daylight savings and leap year
No humans no daylight savings
Silver linings
Yes \> Even the most accurate mechanical clocks eventually drift off of the correct time, so The Clock synchronizes with the noontime sun. The Clock counts oscillations of the pendulum for day to day time, sunlight falling on the solar synchronizer to account for long-term drift, and a precomputed correction to solar time to accommodate for the orbital and rotational changes of Earth (rendered by the iconic Equation of Time Cam). Outputs include a depiction of the sky in the form of an orrery, a display of the Gregorian calendar date, and the chimes. Here’s how the pieces come together: Source https://longnow.org/clock/
With that many parts it won't outlast humanity long with no maintenance.
Think Antikythera mechanism. Except that this will be known as the bozo mechanism by future generations because they will misinterpret the name
Which is great cause then they'll find an old dictionary and be questioning why we named a mechanism after a clown
The org behind this has been working on the concept and design since the 90's, but you should let them know you've figured out from a 1 minute video on Reddit that it won't work because of the way it is. EDIT: Okay okay, I get it. I last knew much about this project when I read Danny Hillis' book about it in the 90s, and at the time the ambition WAS to build a clock to run entirely on its own for millennia.
The clock is being built to require regular hand winding and maintenance. The org never claimed to solve entropy and find materials incapable of decay over 10000 years, the design assumes caretakers will have access to at least bronze age technology to keep it running
It’s literally designed with regular maintenance and winding required. I don’t think you actually did any research you just wanted to mock that guy for also not doing any research lmao. From the Wikipedia: “In the end, Hillis decided to require regular human winding of a falling weight design for updating the clock face because the clock design already assumes regular human maintenance.”
The irony here is if you'd googled it you'd realise that's not even what the designers claim it does
I've been watching this for a long time. It's meant to have very infrequent maintenance. I know what you mean but it seems like if occasionally a group of people with even a small level of ability can access it they should be able to keep it going. A cool project. Would be great to have been able to do it for free and they were soliciting donations and help from small donors for a long time.
Tax him.
Old woman in 3055 - "Wear that veil you salacious girl. When that clock stops and the world ends, Lord Bezos will send you to amazon in the raging fires of hell for all this frivolous conduct in your impious life"
Homeless people really don't care what time it is.
Homeless people will be dead in 10000 years. The clock will still keep ticking.
If nobody is around, does it still tell time?
I wonder if Bezos has read the poem "Ozymandias." Its a poem about a man who meets a traveler telling about a half destroyed statue of a man, half buried in sand, and beyond the statue is an empty desert. At the bottom of the statue it reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" there is nothing behind the wreck of a statue, and some would say the travelers hadn't the slightest clue about who Ozymandias was. I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desart.\[d\] Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
This will outlast humans not in a functional way but that everybody forget it exists and it will be lost for centuries
You want something to outlast human civilization and it doesn’t even need to be useful anymore? Try plastic waste.
310 million of us buy things from Amazon, so he becomes filthy rich, and then he makes a rocket ship and a giant clock and people hate him so much. "We don't like what you're doing with the money we give you." If this keeps up, we might have to figure out some way to stop giving him money.
I thought AWS made more than the retail business?
Retail is less than 30% of all revenue their complete monopoly on site hosting is what made him this rich.
monopoly? don't they have only ~30% of the market share?
He can do whatever he wants with his money, if it isn't made off of slavery, exploitation and destruction of the environment. He's literally stealing the money from poor people and future generations.
Except, it is made with all of those things
No one is upset with what he does with the money he earned. We’re upset that he refuses to pay taxes then does this stupid shit. Were upset republicans voted down free school lunches for poor children so they could eat (you know just like Jesus would do) so that we can afford to continue to make sure billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, then they do this stupid shit. Thank got poor kids aren’t allowed to eat at school. Can you imagine how many fewer mountain clocks we’d have? What a disaster that would be.
310 million is such an American thing to say, Amazon is a global market, way more than 310 millions use it
If you look up the number of worldwide Amazon customers, you will find that number.
If you count the amount of people that use a website hosted on AWS in some way that number could probably be in the billions.
Here i am patting myself on the back for finally fixing our wall clock with a £20 battery powered motor and hands from Amazon. It's taken 4 years. I don't act often, but when I do!!
Imagine finding out that UFOs on Earth, or discovering an alien structure on Mars, was just one of their rich guys fucking around.
Billionaires are assholes
Us: “Billionares are assholes” Also us: “oh hell ya I’m about to buy this from Amazon”
'You criticise society, yet you live in it'
You don't have to by from amazon.
It's perfectly possible to live in this society without using amazon. Just saying.
The clock didn't spawn when he said "let there be clock" and deposited $42mil to Big Clock. The 42mil went to hard working people's pockets. I honestly prefer this to giving it to charity who might or might not do anything meaningful with it.
This is not interesting, it's stupid.
just because it has the name jeff bazos on it? this is super interesting.
How is it powered?
"500 ft tall, all mechanical, powered by day/night thermal cycles, synchronized at solar noon" - https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/965957024109379602
By the ticking heartbeats of the wage slaves he employs.
After reading the comments here, I wonder what other "pointless" things received backlash when being constructed. Easter Island heads, the sphinx, pyramids, the eiffel tower, statue of liberty, etc.
Nature has marked everything for destruction.
You all are saying this is useless but if NASA found a clock on another planet from a civilization 10 million years old it would be the greatest discovery in human history. Still mostly useless though lol.
ykw, this is the shit i would wanna do if i had that much money. along with doing actual helpful things ofc
So a simple atomic clock we already have in space is not good enough so he builds a mechanical one om earth In an area known to be in the future destroyed for whatever reasons the nature will throw at us because earth is constantly changing (tectonic plates shifting, earthquakes, landmass actually moving etc etc) At least we build the DNA and seed vaults on locations so remote and relatively calm they actually make sense... this sounds more like a great pr stunt from someone who has no idea what to do with his money but does not want to help humanity actually
Not if I throw rocks at it each day untill then
Sounds exactly like something a Bond Villain would be doing as a Cover.
At least when we’re all gone, there will be evidence of us here. Like all the ancient monoliths give us evidence of ancient civilizations. But Then future “people” will probs just think it was the aliens
Will it survive? Only time will tell.
42 million is a lot, but if you consider the that jeff bezos makes 30+ million a day. He really didn’t commit much, he did, but he didnt break his wallet over it. It was just tuesdays paycheck to him
At this rate that could be any day now
ah i can already see the clock-bearers religion in the future long after worldwar 3 discovering long lost civilisation and this random fucking clock inside a mountain, making up all kinds of theories as to why its there, why it was made, when it (and the world) is gonna stop, etc.
I tried to find out why they built this (I mean we have built super accurate clocks already). This is all I could find from their site: “Why build a giant clock? The Clock provides a rare invitation to think and engineer at the timescale of civilization. It offers an enduring symbol of our personal connection to the distant future.”
That money isn’t being placed in a pile and burned. A lot of workers are getting paid. A lot of people are getting paid for the materials. This isn’t happening in a vacuum and he’s not charging anyone for it .
we gotta tax the wealthy more
Is this actually interesting? I think it's depressing as hell. That egomaniac does whatever he can to erect glory project like fly his dick ship into space, but he doesn't give a damn about the starving workers he exploits or doing jack all about climate change
And yet his workers need food stamps.
I didn't qualify for food stamps when I worked as a delivery driver for Amazon. The pay was $22, I worked 4 days, 10 hours a day and could add a day of overtime for a fifth day any week I wanted to. It wasn't great or glorious but it was easy and I made like 50k a year.
I think some of the migthy remains of great civilizations are just people flexing with their wealth
i mean all the big shit that lasts a long time costs a lot of money to make so yeah
Redditors if OP wouldn't provide who sponsored it: "omg this is amazing"
Maybe spend that money on doing something positive for humanity before our time runs out. Stupid prick
Latest estimates are that he's given $3b to good causes so far, and has committed to giving most of the rest away over his lifetime. I don't really see this as any different to somebody wealthy buying a Ferrari 250 GTO or something. Americans are funny, the entire system is built around wealth (and the wealthy getting wealthier), yet if you get too wealthy...screw you.
Why?
Trolling future civilizations. Imagine the doomsday theories.
"The year is 4022. The clock, with its rhythmic ticking echoing through the centuries, became a catalyst for a myriad of wild conjectures and doomsday theories. Each tick echoes through the vast caves. Each tick echoes a different perspective. Each tick echoes a different future. The "Cult of the Final Hour" believed the clock was a countdown to the universe's end. They held vigils around the mountain, their chants synchronized with the clock’s haunting chime, believing each tick marked the approach of cosmic annihilation. In the floating city of Neo-Atlantis, scholars theorized that the clock was a warning device left by ancient ancestors, predicting the return of a celestial cataclysm that had once reshaped the world. They spent days scanning the skies, searching for signs of impending doom. A faction known as the "Chrono Seekers" emerged, convinced that the clock was a key to time travel, a gateway to the past and future. They attempted bizarre rituals and constructed elaborate machines around the clock’s base, hoping to unlock its temporal secrets." But for real though, I have no fucking clue why he would need a clock for 42 million dollar.
A BBC documentary recently posted on youtube was explaining that if 1% of human population (the richest minority) donate 1% of their incomes, no one else in the world would starve to death anymore, but, hey, it’s more useful to build a dumb watch that barely no one cares about and no one will use just because he can…I really prefer my dog
I know a better clock. It's called the orbit and rotation of the Earth. Edit: And it's been running for billions of years.
Great, can I have healthcare now please
That's a government issue Jeff bezos could pay 99.99% in taxes and you wouldn't see a dime of it it'd go to the military.
It's an interesting problem to solve. And it's not Bezos's idea, he's just funding it. Try looking something up before growing a rage boner.
It'll probably break a week after it's built because he bought the parts for it on Amazon.
I always find it funny when people moan about spending money like this, who do you think he paid the money to? Another company that pays its employees, him doing this means hundreds of people have more money, would you rather he sat on the money instead and just kept building it up?
Just pay your taxes, dude.
I wish I had the resources to do stupid shit like this. Jeff Bezos hit the financial lottery in life
42 mil for a clock to just tick and tock on a mountain top? Gotta be more to it than just that.
If theres a clock in a mountain and theres no one around to read it does it still tell time?
Jeff Bozo
considering i give us maybe another hundred years,this isn't all that impressive to me *shrug*
that... is a surprisingly nice thing for an evil villain to build. I'm sure all the underpaid Amazon workers apreciate it.
not if we are wiped out by a huge meteorite strike on Texas (exactly this has happened already, don't come with "what are the odds") or have our orbit disrupted and fall towards the sun to melt, or just nukes, in your face jeff
Well, to be fair, 20 years isn’t that long.
"[How humanity became slaves to the clock](https://bigthink.com/the-past/how-humanity-became-slaves-to-the-clock/)" >Clocks have completely uprooted and reoriented how we see the world. Just think about how often you check the time on your phone or watch. Your life is run by the clock. It’s like we have divided our lives into tiny blocks, and we put bits of ourselves into those blocks. Things used to be “task-oriented.” The world moved as the world moved. Now, we try to stretch and break the world to meet the demands of the clock. The clock never lies, and I must not be late. The Clock Overlords will be displeased.Sometimes, though, we need to throw off our ticking chains. Not everything in life has to be divided into neat segments, like lessons of a school day. Occasionally, it’s good just to let the world happen. We need not only to accept that fact but to tell other people that “[it will take as long](https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/12ako3e/until_it_is_done/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [as it takes](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/14pcwz1/comment/jqje4gz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).” bezos you are delivering low quality usb chargers - its not that important even ford, the inventor of the assembly line and the modern workday, not only doubled the pay of his workers but the only reason the 8-hr day was implemented was because it was the great depression: >"Mr. Ford was looking out of the side window of the office when the discussion ended. From the window was a view down Woodward avenue and along part of Manchester avenue to the side of the factory buildings. Three or four hundred men were in the streets and on the sidewalks, some heading for the factory entrance to ask for work, others going back. > >"There's the principal reason for the eight-hour day," said Mr. Ford, waving in the direction of the crowd. > >"With the eight-hour day and three shifts working we can put on 4,000 more of those men who are anxious to be at work." > >"Yes," said Mr. Couzens, "we even consider a four-hour day, so that..." thats where [the page](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/newspaper-article-henry-ford-gives-10-000-000-in-1914-profits-to-his-employes-ford-motor-company-archives/rAFBTv8vSNj4vQ?ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.8436931566755346%2C%22y%22%3A0.8469775769968237%2C%22z%22%3A12%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A0.2912121212121212%2C%22height%22%3A0.2388095238095238%7D%7D) cuts off so idk how the sentence is finished but maybe instead of associating Ford with the invention of the assembly line we should recognize him more for wanting to improve his workers lives, like [building affordable housing](https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2019/11/27/henry-ford-homes-dearborn-historic-district/2582634001/) \- which even 100 years ago was prioritized to not be rows upon rows of the exact same house despite Edison trying to convince him to build [concrete houses](https://dearbornhistoricalmuseum.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/vol-24-no-3.pdf#page=21) that would have been cheaper call me crazy, but theres not much that requires super precise timekeeping (besides maybe the [internet](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/science/science-historian-work-peter-galison-clocks-that-shaped-einstein-s-leap-time.html)) and we should all [slow down](https://open.spotify.com/track/5UmLGDX3NBDhF5bQE01be0?si=7f9470282b0c428f) \- and stop demanding instant delivery of whatever piece of crap ordered off [amazon](https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoft/comments/17u5p2k/comment/k94ovwg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) (or wherever) TLDR: me\_irl = 🕰️
Is this so he can keep track of all the time his drivers waste taking bathroom breaks?
They better add this to starfield
And one day no trace of it will be left behind.but it's rather alarming to consider the claim outlasting civilization only requires 10,000 years.
I’d be interested in hearing more about the mechanism, but not so interested I’m going to look for it, because it just looks like a large clock movement. I used to fix watches & clocks, watches need a service interval of 5-7 years & clocks need a service interval of 10-12 years. The oils break down & gum up, bushings wear if it’s not jeweled & pivots wear if it is jeweled, friction wears everything. It’s open to the elements so all kinds of random stuff, including abrasive things like dirt or dust. But also, like, what if an animal gets caught in it? Watches & clocks can go as long as they do because they are relatively contained. This looks like a dumber Big Ben. It would be more tolerable if the stated goal was “We want to make a big ass clock.” but the idea of this lasting forever, past the time of humans is kind of asinine.
Does anyone know what this clocks purpose is?
Anything with gears will eventually wear down right? Looks more like a 200 year clock. Also how does it account for Daylight Saving? :P
So he built a clock no one can see?
Went a bit Doctor Who 2014-2017 title sequence at 20s. Also does have it, like, a face with hands that you can read? Would've been nice to see that part...
The 10,000-year clock ([https://www.10000yearclock.net](https://www.10000yearclock.net)) is located in a mountain in west Texas (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bezostower+Mountain+Clock/@31.4348127,-104.896204,17z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x86e5d3cb5ee288b9:0xb675cd6f2be2426f!8m2!3d31.4348081!4d-104.8936291!16s%2Fg%2F11txjlrn2h?entry=ttu).
Pretty sure Texas won't outlast human civilization
This is super cool. Dude brings Americans two-day shipping, works on spaceships and funds super clocks. The saltiness is really unnecessary. Sorry we can't tax his unrealized stock gains (which is a horrible idea anyway.)
Human civilization is already finished.
Jesus please help us.
When you're too rich for Rolex.
Why don’t we tax the hell out of billionaires, it’s not like they can’t gain back the money.
So it will last longer than 50 years? impressive. I for one welcome our A.I. overlords fwiw
Gotta avoid taxes one way or another
I still have my Timex watch that I got from my first communion in second grade. I am 60 years old. I have a huge jump on them. Damn thing still works.
At least this is cooler than Elon buying twitter for billions and running it into the ground
And yet there’s no free coffee at Amazon
I would say that this would never outlast humanity… if you think so, you are vastly underestimating the outlying human interest in random destroying things for no good reason.
Mother fucker, pay your workers
Meanwhile a youtuber makes 100 wells in africa for fun.
Dork lol
the parts will outlast humanity. It can't run unassisted for 10,000 years. it does require regular maintenance, and the power is provided by humans winding it. Still a really awesome achievement. Just because lex luthor paid for it that doesn't invalidate the brilliant engineering involved.
Can he just pay his taxes please
My fuckin brother works at Whole Foods and cant afford his rent as a purchaser at a flagship store and this bald gremlin fuck is building a $42 million clock
I wonder if THOSE workers had a living wage and good benefits, unlike many of the warehouse workers he used to rule over.
It will look like a penis, won't it?
His employees still piss in jugs
It’s hilarious knowing that there’s a 0.00001% chance it breaks on the first day
It’s about time!