Can someone summarize this page here ? It is too long and I am unable to understand the context.
This is not a place of honor
81–90 of 287 posts
Re: This is not a place of honor
#82What language(s) did the earth speak 10,000 years ago. The concept is electrifying for will English or any other language written or spoken today even exist?
The monument would have to be a "Rosetta Stone(s)" quite obtrusive and large like a pyramid. It would have to be written in multiple present and ancient languages. It would would have to feature math formulas and illustrations etched foot deep into Titanium, carbon fiber, or a material that wouldn't degrade in 10,000 years. Then inside the monument would have to feature even more information. WOW!
Re: This is not a place of honor
#83Honestly, reading this, I kept thinking to myself, "Man, this is just waiting to be turned into science fiction short story." It could go in different directions, future humans discover such a site, humans discover an alien analogue of such a site on $planet, aliens discover such a site crafted by humans on $planet, etc. Either way, there's potential for a good story there.
I think the most interesting thing about this is the underlying assumption that warnings and containment must survive .. the death of our current civilization and States. These researchers are talking the long path .. how do we warn people who make not have any knowledge our civilization exists in its current form? Too many people today think this will last forever; that we're in a golden age that we cannot easily re…
It's a very sobering but realistic thought. Plenty of past human civilizations that were powerful and dominant in their day are now but decayed ruins of varying levels of mysteriousness. I do very much enjoy and benefit from being part of this civilization in this time and place, but I have no delusions that hundreds or thousands of generations from now, assuming the species survives, the works of here and now will similarly be puzzling ruins.
Re: This is not a place of honor
#84It's really interesting to me to see architecture used for its typical antithesis. It is typically used to bring a sense of bring out positive emotions, to inspire, to bring facility to humanity, to sanctify. Here it is being used to desecrate, to decrease utility, to ward away. As a hacker, I'm used to the thought of "what is the worst possible way I can make this UI", but it's cool to see it applied in an entirely…
> It is typically used to bring a sense of bring out positive emotions, to inspire, to bring facility to humanity, to sanctify. Here it is being used to desecrate, to decrease utility, to ward away. Not that uncommon. I have known 2 architects who used architecture against probably what they learned in school or dreamed of building. One was designing casinos. Apparently they did "dark patterns" before computer UI peo…
> Think about open places, to inspire and generate positive emotions and so on, well their guidelines was to entrap, confuse, isolate and promote whatever kept people playing longer.
> She eventually quit and became a housewife.
I think she ended up working for IKEA.
Re: This is not a place of honor
#85[deleted]
Re: This is not a place of honor
#86If their goal was to create a hokey-sounding quasi-spiritual ward that future generations will consider naive and ignore, they've certainly hit the nail on the head. Probably a better approach is to accept the fact that nuclear waste will either be cleaned up or destroy humanity long before ten thousand years comes to pass, and spend the money they spent on this exercise in speculative fiction instead on working towa…
To be fair, the odds that our ancestors will have figured out how to "solve" radioactive waste seems much slimmer than that our ancestors will be digging in the remains of our civilization for scraps to survive. In that case, this is really about taking the bare minimum responsibility to our distant progeny by warning them of the danger.
Re: This is not a place of honor
#87See also Into Eternity, a movie about how the Finns are dealing with this, with a 100,000 year timeframe. http://www.intoeternitythemovie.com/
It is a very good documentary on the subject. For me it really drove home the idea that current nuclear power comes with too expensive externalities in the form of "keep this stuff safe for 100 000 years". We've never come close to doing something like that as a species. I don't think we ever will.
Actually, after a couple of hundred years it's no more dangerous than the ore from which it came. No one worries about putting up signs around natural uranium ore bodies.
Saying that "x has a long half-life" is exactly the same thing as saying "x is not very radioactive". By definition.
Re: This is not a place of honor
#88We should just assume that nuclear waste lasts forever, like a lot of chemical waste does, and then treat it the same as the equivalent class of chemical waste. When someone says "10,000 years", people start thinking about how to wait it out. When someone says "forever", people give up on waiting it out, and start thinking about more realistic safety measures.
I'm curious, what chemical waste can you not safely dispose of? All organic compounds can be incinerated at a high enough temperate to destroy them (even nerve agents). The only thing I can think of would be metal poisons, but even those can be turned into a form that is less toxic.
http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Dioxin
Has a worst case half life of 50 years.
Lists very small quantities as still quite dangerous to reproduction or causing cancer in exposed subjects.
But on a 10,000 year scale I fail to see how it would still be a problem. A few hundred, definitely still risky.
Re: This is not a place of honor
#89Honestly, reading this, I kept thinking to myself, "Man, this is just waiting to be turned into science fiction short story." It could go in different directions, future humans discover such a site, humans discover an alien analogue of such a site on $planet, aliens discover such a site crafted by humans on $planet, etc. Either way, there's potential for a good story there.
In the full report [1], there actually is a sample short story or "scenario" (page F-139, "5.1 Scenario for the marking system (MFK)"). Extract:
> Jo climbed down and walked over, the sand squeaking beneath her boots. She followed Steve’s head around the shape, only to find another shape behind it. The sand had shifted in between the two, but the writing was still clear. She stood next to Steve and looked. There were faces, two of them. And there was writing, in many different forms. “Hey, I think that’s Chinese -- I saw something like it in my ancient history class,” said Steve as he knelt to get a closer look.
> “So send a picture to Cindy in Remote -- you know she likes that old stuff,” shrugged Jo. “What did they want around here? Those faces aren’t scary. That one looks scared and that one looks sick, I’m not impressed. ” She stepped out between the pillars and looked around. They had stopped just before the center. There was nothing there but sand and scrub. She squinted and saw that every passage way was blocked by these little shapes sticking up in the middle. She sighed. All this stuff for... nothing?
[1] http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/1992/92138...
Re: This is not a place of honor
#90Just wanted to say I accidentally fat fingered a downvote while trying to do the opposite. Sorry!
It's annoying that you can't retract your votes. What is the point with that?
Also, I can only upvote. Are you given the power to do the opposite once you're seasoned enough or something?