Richard Fisher

Journalist, author, speaker and editorial consultant

About

- A Senior Journalist with the BBC in London, writing and commissioning feature-length stories for the website BBC Future.- The author of a non-fiction book called The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time (Wildfire, March 2023).- An Honorary Research Associate at University College London, teaching a module on the MSc Science Communication course.- A freelance editorial consultant and writer (New York Times, The Observer/Guardian, Vox, New Scientist, MIT Tech Review, Big Think)My work spans science, technology, health, history and philosophy, and I am particularly interested in stories and ideas within the themes of long-term thinking and time perception. As a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT from 2019-20, I researched the history and causes of short-termism, the psychology of time, and the long view of humanity and the planet.My book The Long View, published March 2023 (UK & RoW) and September 2023 (US), explores these ideas in depth.I write a newsletter called The Long View: A Field Guide.

• Buy my book: The Long View

Writing & Editing

• The Long View: A Field Guide (Substack)
• Until 3183 A.D., This Public Sculpture Is a Work in Progress (New York Times)
• Time-warped: how modern life shortens our perspectives (The Observer/Guardian)
• Why we’re trapped in short-term thinking and how to take the long view (New Scientist)
• The benefits of 'deep time thinking' (BBC)
• How the long view makes the present meaningful (Vox)
• Existential hope: How we can embrace deep time and create the brightest of futures (Big Think)
• The Norwegian library with unreadable books (BBC)
• Humanity is stuck in short-term thinking. Here’s how we escape (MIT Tech Review)
• The upsides of feeling small (BBC)
• The perils of short-termism: Civilisation's greatest threat (BBC)
• The "Deep Civilisation" season (BBC)
• The atomic bomb marker inside your body (BBC)
• The numbers too big to imagine (BBC)
• The environmental case for buying a coal mine (BBC)
• The mysterious doodles hidden in a 1,300-year-old book (BBC)
• The super-clocks that define what time it is (BBC)
• How the next 'supercontinent' will form (BBC)
• Generational amnesia: The memory loss that harms the planet (BBC)
• The invisible impact of 'slow violence' (BBC)
• The best books to take a longer view of time (Shepherd)

Interviews & talks

• Interview on the New Scientist podcast
• We Can Start Thinking in Centuries (Reasons to be Cheerful)
• ‘We human beings are just flashes of sunlight on a pond’ (The Psychologist)
• How to see the long view in a short-term world (Ours for the Making)
• Long-termism and Our Future (Converging Dialogues)
• Six things that should be better known (Better Known)
• MIT fellowship profile - Knight Science Journalism 19-20
• Global News Toronto on the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine trial
• ABC Future Tense: Our long-term battle with short-term thinking
• Taking Time: The Long Term View

Connect

• Enquiries about The Long View book
• Sign up for my newsletter: The Long View: A Field Guide
• Book agent: Kate Evans - Peters, Fraser + Dunlop

If you have a PR enquiry, please contact me at the BBC

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Praise for The Long View

‘A captivating guide... The Long View is simply crammed with interesting ideas. This is a beautifully turned, calmly persuasive but urgent book.’
     Ian McEwan, novelist and screenwriter’A wise, humane book laced with curiosity and hope. It will open your mind and horizons – and leave you giddy at the prospect of all that we may yet become.’
     Tom Chatfield, author of How to Think'Utterly brilliant. Profoundly thought-provoking, and at times movingly personal, The Long View is a crucial exploration of our relationship with time. Full of lessons from our past and hope for the future, this is the essential roadmap for how we can successfully navigate the coming centuries.'
     Prof. Lewis Dartnell, author of The Knowledge‘Hope-filled and revelatory … Beautifully readable and scholarly, rich and personal, this book shows how, to leave a robust legacy for the future, we need to overcome our bias for the present.’
     Rowan Hooper, author of How to Spend a Trillion Dollars‘A soaring hymn to all that might lie in the future; alongside the diverse and beautiful ways to think about it. Overflowing with wisdom and insight.’
     Thomas Moynihan, author of X-Risk‘Few books can claim to shake your perspective on life, but The Long View does exactly that … a landmark book that could help to build a much brighter future for many generations to come.’
     David Robson, author of The Expectation Effect‘The Long View is a manifesto calling for a radical reconception of our relationship with time. Richard Fisher documents the social, psychological, and economic reasons we have become stranded on the Island of Now – and charts routes for us to get back to the mainland.’
     Marcia Bjornerud, author of Timefulness'A compassionate, beautifully considered meditation on how we think about the future, and why that needs to change.'
     Michael Bond, author of Wayfinding'Urgent and profound. Richard Fisher's The Long View shows how thinking differently about time can change the world. The future begins with how we imagine it. This is essential reading for anyone who wishes to be a good ancestor.'
     David Farrier, author of Footprints'Philosophical, insightful and entertaining. In a world of short sightedness, The Long View is a helpful guide to understand and connect us to the future. In the light of the climate emergency, long term thinking is more urgent than ever.'
     Andri Snær Magnason, author of On Time and Water'A hope-fueled path toward the twenty-third century. Lucidly written, The Long View challenges us to remove our temporal blinkers and embrace a more long-minded awareness of humanity’s future possibilities. An astounding read.'
     Vincent Ialenti, author of Deep Time Reckoning'Some of our greatest powers derive from our ability to think about the future ... a fascinating tour of long-mindedness, and why it matters.'
     Prof. Thomas Suddendorf, co-author of The Invention of Tomorrow'This is a war book. It’s about the struggle for a view of time that gives us a chance of survival. It’s immaculately researched, splendidly written and an antidote to despair.'
     Charles Foster, Literary Review‘The Long View is sprawling in its coverage, but clear throughout, and offers a compelling vision of how so many strands of human thought have come together to support long-term perspectives.’
     Tyler Cowen, TLS'Fisher has poured a decade's worth of thinking [on short-termism] into The Long View. The result is an erudite survey of a subject he believes could decide the fate of humanity ... compelling ... I hope our political class reads and absorbs this book.'
     Josh Glancy, Sunday Times