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Civilizational Optioneering
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| With Indy Johar (Founder, Dark Matter Labs), Denise Hearn (Dir. Strategic Initiatives, Long Now Foundation). |
| Fort Mason Center, Pier 2, Cowell Theater, San Francisco |
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Jan 27 (Tue) , 2026 @ 07:00 PM
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/-122.42182159,37.80948257,13,0,0/550x200?access_token=pk.eyJ1IjoiZ2FyeXNndWlkZSIsImEiOiJjamtobmRiYmgwb3gwM3F1a2o2Mmd0YWw3In0.DinA62CR3-OKtf3axa5O7Q)
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| DETAILS |
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Indy Johar proposes that the primary metric for a civilization's longevity is not its stability or efficiency, but its optionality.
The Long Now Foundation welcomes
Indy Johar
Civilizational Optioneering
Attend the Long Now Talks in-person or via our livestream
Mix & mingle over drinks & small bites with other attendees at our pre & post-show gathering in the re-imagined Cowell Theater Lobby!
In this talk, Indy Johar proposes that civilization's longevity depends less on stability or efficiency, & more on optionality.
Entropy drives systems toward homogenization & exhaustion, but life acts as a counterforce, generating new pathways for becoming. Johar argues that our current economic system collapses value into singular metrics like price, which renders our systems brittle & less capable of adaptation & optionality.
To survive the long now, we must transition to an "optioneering" architecture. Our institutions & economic grammar must be redesigned to increase the surface area of future freedom, not foreclose on it. We do this by shifting away from "closed projects" with finite ends, to "open gardens" where success is measured by the system's ability to evolve & surprise us. By valuing adaptation over control, we can build a civilization capable of coherence in motion.
The Q&A for this talk will be hosted by Denise Hearn, Long Now's Director of Strategic Initiatives.
Why This Talk Matters Now
At a moment of climate breakdown & economic fragility, we find our institutions are optimized for short-term efficiency instead of long-term viability. Johar's work offers a systems-level framework for escaping this trap. By exploring new legal & economic pathways, Johar imagines a world outside of the extractive, rivalrous logic of capitalism. His talk addresses the urgent task of rebuilding civilization-scale systems that can evolve, rather than collapse, over the long now.
The Long View
As an architect of planetary governance, Johar's work asks a core Long Now question: how can we design institutions that preserve possibilities across generations? Through experiments in contracts, land governance, & collective ledgers, Johar interrogates how civilization can make generational responsibility more enforceable & relevant in our present moment.
About Indy Johar
Indy Johar is co-founder of Dark Matter Labs & of the RIBA award winning architecture & urban practice Architecture00. He is also a founding director of Open Systems Lab, seeded WikiHouse (open source housing) & Open Desk (open source furniture company). Indy is a non-executive international Director of the BloxHub, the Nordic Hub for sustainable urbanization. He is on the advisory board for the Future Observatory & is part of the committee for the London Festival of Architecture. He is also a fellow of the London Interdisciplinary School.
Indy was 2016-17 Graham Willis Visiting Professorship at Sheffield University. He was Studio Master at the Architectural Association - 2019-2020, UNDP Innovation Facility Advisory Board Member 2016-20 & RIBA Trustee 2017-20. He has taught & lectured at various institutions from the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT & New School. He is currently a professor at RMIT University.
Learn More
LISTEN to Johar in conversation with forthcoming Long Now speaker & Council member Bayo Akomolafe.
EXPLORE the mission of Dark Matter Labs
READ about self-sovereign land in the paper Planetary Civics Inquiry: A New Framework for Planetary Futures
Indy Johar is co-founder of Dark Matter Labs & of the RIBA award winning architecture & urban practice Architecture00. He is also a founding director of Open Systems Lab, seeded WikiHouse (open source housing) & Open Desk (open source furniture company). Indy is a non-executive international Director of the BloxHub, the Nordic Hub for sustainable urbanization. He is on the advisory board for the Future Observatory & is part of the committee for the London Festival of Architecture. He is also a fellow of the London Interdisciplinary School.
Indy was 2016-17 Graham Willis Visiting Professorship at Sheffield University. He was Studio Master at the Architectural Association - 2019-2020, UNDP Innovation Facility Advisory Board Member 2016-20 & RIBA Trustee 2017-20. He has taught & lectured at various institutions from the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT & New School. He is currently a professor at RMIT University.
Our mission at The Long Now Foundation is to foster long-term thinking & responsibility. Through our Long Now Talks series which began in 02003 & features speakers from around the world, we hope to ignite cultural imagination around long-term thinking. The talks are filmed live in San Francisco, & we release podcasts & videos from them which are publicly available online.
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