<
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/25/tech-legend-stewart-brand-on-musk-bezos-and-his-extraordinary-life-we-dont-need-to-passively-accept-our-fate>
"Stewart Brand thinks big and long. He thinks on a planetary scale – as
suggested by the title of his celebrated
Whole Earth Catalog – and on the
longest of timeframes, as with his Long Now Foundation, which looks forward to
the next 10,000 years of human civilisation. He has had a lifelong fascination
with the future, and anything that could get us there faster, from space travel
to psychedelic drugs to computing. In fact, he was arguably the bridge between
the San Francisco counterculture of the 60s and present-day Silicon Valley: in
his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs eulogised
the
Whole Earth Catalog and Brand’s philosophy, and echoed its farewell
mantra: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
You could say that Brand has also lived big and long. He is now 87 years old,
in the final chapters of an eventful and adventurous life that has crossed
paths with some of the most consequential events and figures of his era. He has
been a writer, an editor, a publisher, a soldier, a photojournalist, an LSD
evangelist, an events organiser, a future-planning consultant, even a
government adviser (to the California governor Jerry Brown in the late 70s).
“There was a time when people asked me, ‘What do you do?’ I said, ‘I find
things and I found things,’” says Brand, as in he is a founder. He is speaking
from a library where he likes to work in Petaluma, California, not far from his
houseboat in Sausalito. “I’m always searching for good stuff to recommend, and
good people.”
In light of his epic life, Brand’s latest project hinges on what sounds like
the most mundane topic imaginable: maintenance. It is “not automatically an
exciting concept,” Brand readily admits, but once he started thinking about it,
he realised you could view just about everything in terms of it, and a lot
could be revealed by doing so: “Maintenance is what keeps everything going.
It’s what keeps life going.”"
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
