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This is not a place of honor

wipp.energy.gov

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Re: This is not a place of honor

#281

Post by hexane360 »

These parts stood out to me:

"We decided against simple "Keep Out" messages with scary faces. Museums and private collections abound with such guardian figures removed from burial sites. These earlier warning messages did not work because the intruder knew that the burial goods were valuable. We did decide to include faces portraying horror and sickness (see Sections 3.3 and 4.5.1). Such faces would relate to the potential intruder wishing to protect himself or herself, rather than to protect a valued resource from thievery."

"We must inform potential intruders what lies below and the consequences of disturbing the waste. If they decide that the value of the metal component of the waste far outweighs the risks of recovering the metal, the decision is their responsibility, not ours."

Interesting how much stock they put in both the rationality and irrationality of any future individuals. Appeal to their emotional side and appeal to their logical side.

Re: This is not a place of honor

#282

Post by antihero »

lsaferite wrote: post #200
antihero wrote: post #158

Surely written warnings, if some future society discovers them, they might be curious enough to have decrypted at least one of our present day languages/methods of communication. Just have the same concepts relayed in as many languages/ways as possible, and then make the site sufficiently difficult to infiltrate that it would take a sufficiently advanced civilisation to break into it. You could even tier the messages…

And then some far future warlord-in-making sees "The things here make death" and stops reading and starts digging.

And the problem solves itself.

Re: This is not a place of honor

#283

Post by antihero »

andreasvc wrote: post #181
Bromskloss wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> THE THINGS HERE MAKE DEATH. I wouldn't be sure what that meant. They make death what? Great again?

It sounds like a powerful weapon, actually.

So the person who reads the statement with the predilection for violence, is killed by their own bloodlust.

Re: This is not a place of honor

#284

Post by jbandela1 »

mhink wrote: post #262
SCHiM wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But reading from left to right/top to bottom is definitely not universal. How will you make sure that the figures are read in the correct order? Perhaps a future culture will read the signs to mean that they should bring old and dying people to the stone to resurrect them?

Look at the tree. In the pictures, it gets larger from top to bottom, marking the passage of time.

Og says

"Look, if we sacrifice a virgin in this spot, we will have abundant crops. See how the tree is getting bigger as the person dies"

Re: This is not a place of honor

#285

Post by justin66 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #205

I worry an elaborate structure will attract unwanted attention. Think about it - would you be interested in visiting it? Aren't you already interested? Why would future-people be any different. I know, the average shmoe would hear about this thing in the desert and think "Whatever" and go back to eating cheetohs and screwing. But what about an architect? A philosopher? An engineer? A historian? An artist? Pretty much…

The goal with something like this is to build a series of deterrents, such that you have to be smarter and more capable (and therefore more able to interpret a warning) as you get closer to the real threat.

Re: This is not a place of honor

#286

Post by bronson »

refurb wrote: post #280
bronson wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when you heat it. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755212/ Also, cost must be a factor. Turning materials back into ore is extremely expensive.

Well I guess nothing is truly non-toxic. If you heat water high enough it could create hydrogen and suffocate you.

It takes some serious equipment to heat water anywhere near that high. For cinnabar you just need fire. This is not an artificial distinction.

If you still don't see it, maybe picture yourself standing near a burning warehouse full of water versus standing near a burning warehouse full of cinnabar?

Re: This is not a place of honor

#287

Post by xanthopan »

felipeerias wrote: post #173
tinco wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not thinking on the 10.000 year timescale. So you hide it, after 1000 years someone starts digging there and finds it anyway, they see the messages and stop, and then the site is left unhidden for the next 9000 years, what should it look like? Also even if poisoning people was ethical, how would the poison last 10,000 years? And how would you prevent people from using the poison as the potent weapon it clearly…

We still haven't opened the tomb of the first emperor of China, which has been closed for more than two millennia. One of the main reasons is the presence of enormous amounts of mercury. Whole rivers of it, according to tradition. There's your poison.

From my understanding, the reason it hasn't been opened yet is to preserve whatever's inside, not so much out of fear for mercury poisoning. For instance, the terracotta army was actually painted before it was excavated [1], but the paint curled and flaked off within minutes of opening the mausoleum, leaving us with a sea of drab stone statues. I think they're just waiting until they have the tech to properly preserve the interior.

[1] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-09/09/content_112783...

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