The now next-to-newest Long Now Seminar is by Jesse Schell, “Visions of the Gamepocalypse.”(Look under “downloads.”) He believes that we will soon be playing internet games 24 hours a day. Literally. He says “The 21st century will be a war for the attention of humanity,” fought between four groups: the Persuaders, corporate/advertising types trying to make money, Fulfillers, who are trying to satisfy people’s wishes, Artists, who are trying to push the envelope of their medium, and Humanitarians, who want to make people’s lives better. And he reminds us of the golden rule, “He who has the gold makes the rules.”

Here’s a YouTube clip of him doing the beginning of his spiel. He takes a few minutes to get warmed up, but it’s good. (The Long Now version is much better, but an hour and a half long.)

I kind of like the automatic tracking thing. I do a lot of tracking of my own life and it would be cool to have all of that stuff just show up in a handy stats program. But the idea of corporations and the government recording every movement of every part of my body is just creepy. Not worth it.

He even presents a plausible idea about putting commercials in our dreams and why we will love it.