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Kevin Kelly’s plan for the smallest library to restart civilization

Ellsworth Toohey
Jun 29, 2026
∙ Paid

diignat/shutterstock

In the 1950s, while helping invent computers, John Von Neumann was puzzling over the minimum requirements for a self-reproducing machine. Kevin Kelly has been asking the same question about civilization: what is the smallest library that could restart it — one whose contents include instructions for making a copy of itself?

He calls t…

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