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How to build something that lasts 10k years

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Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#101

Post by beamatronic »

phito wrote: post #39
vincnetas wrote: post #10

Finland is building nuclear waste storage facility which is planned to last for 100.000 years. There are quite few interesting design decisions to be made taking this lifespan in to account, for example if current civilization will be wiped out, what symbols you should put on a door to discourage someone in future to opening the door. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... https://www.youtube…

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages ...pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location... it i…

I find that irresistible. I want to go check it out!

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#102

Post by mattmanser »

mc32 wrote: post #61
mattmanser wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were trying to find a way through the artic from the 16th century, 400 years before the first Geiger–Müller tube was made.

I was thinking more along the lines of burying it deep under an inactive seabed. We’d have a hard time now digging things up. We aren’t even able to do simple floor mining well.

I imagine the sea is extremely hard to work in and salt water is very corrosive.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#103

Post by Someone »

erentz wrote: post #67
modernerd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The project's president has said that no symbols at all might be better than any universal warning symbol they could hope to produce, such as a skull and crossbones. Leaving the site unmarked could be less likely to encourage investigation and disturbance of it in the future. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2012/01/15/general/danger-...

That makes more sense to me. It’s not like these waste canisters are going to somehow float to the surface. The biggest problem would have to be sealing the entrance and descending tunnels in such a way to keep the site hidden. Is that possible? If you could do that then the only danger would be a sufficiently advanced culture for some reason trying to drill or dig in that area. And why would they do that if the geol…

”And why would they do that if the geology of the area isn’t one which would lead them to expect minerals.”

Any significant structure would introduce a gravitational and/or magnetic anomaly. Given that, keeping the structures as small as possible seems the way to go, but of course, you also want to contain the waste for thousands of years.

On the other hand, one could hope that anybody who can detect such anomalies knows about radiation, too.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#104

Post by turk73 »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #57
phito wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages ...pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location... it i…

Funny thing is, if we discovered some ancient tomb or burial site with these messages we'd write it off as superstition and open it up anyway. I'm not sure some future civilization would be any different.

The Pharoah's curse.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#105

Post by tropdrop »

Mirioron wrote: post #85
tropdrop wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99 Percent Invisible has a great episode[1] discussing exactly this kind of facility in New Mexico and the consternation it caused for a committee of some of the greatest minds of the 20th century that was tasked with attempting to write the perfect 10,000 year message. My favorite part: "Bastide and Fabbri came to the conclusion that the most durable thing that humanity has ever made is culture: religion, folklore,…

> Bastide and Fabbri came to the conclusion that the most durable thing that humanity has ever made is culture: religion, folklore, belief systems. I'm not sure if I agree with this. I think that there is a ludicrous amount of survivorship bias at play with culture. How much do we know about ancient Egypt through culture and not the writings and structures that were left behind? How much do we know about some of the…

Here are some examples that make me give the idea a little credence -

To this day, despite over 1000 years of Christianity, Russian people continue to uphold some superstitions (and, in the case of 'Maslenitsa'[1], holidays) that trace their origin to pagan pre-Kievan Rus'. Strange phenomenons that never found an adoption by the Orthodox church, e.g. that each house possesses its own spirit ('Domovoy'[2]), and that you best remember him and ask for good luck and protection when you leave for a long trip by looking in the mirror and sitting still, in silence, for a few minutes right before you depart. Fail to do so and you have no one to blame but yourself when you return to find it burglarized..! (Or so my immediate family sternly lectured me)

Actually, here we have a fairly ancient holiday, too - Valentine's day's origin can trace itself to when the Romans decided to rebrand the fertility festival Lupercalia, keeping the message (a day devoted to romance) the same, but putting a stop to revelers beating each other with skinned dogs and copulating in the streets.[3]

My point is that while we may forget why we do certain rituals or superstitions, our cultural memes are often imprinted onto us for hundreds of years or more (think weddings!), provided that our culture has descendants to carry the tales. So this makes Bastide and Fabbri's idea not so outlandish. However, it's very difficult to control what cultural memes stick and which ones die - sometimes, it's pure randomness. I guess these folks were betting on the slim chance of the song being so ludicrous and catchy, that it will just have to be told over and over for generations...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslenitsa [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domovoy [3] https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/lupercalia

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#106

Post by whatshisface »

jotm wrote: post #83
bambax wrote: post #30

> engineers are building a clock in the Texan desert that will last for 10,000 years Well, we don't know that. There is no way to know. Selling this to rich guys like Bezos is kind of like selling "after the rapture pet care"...

It wont last 10,000 years. Nothing more complicated than scribblings on a tough rock will, and even those will likely be indecipherable. Seed banks are especially funny/sad. They need to constantly produce seeds, which means constant growth of male/female plants, under human supervision. No seeds last more than a few years under ideal conditions. Even DNA is unrecoverable/unusable after a few centuries iiirc.

You maintain a seed bank by constantly buying new seeds, and when you can't buy them, oh I guess they're extinct, time to reintroduce them.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#107

Post by rtkwe »

fencepost wrote: post #81
phito wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages ...pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location... it i…

Are there recognized symbols for vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, weight loss reaching near skeletal stages and finally death? Along with some kind of indicators for passage of time that seems more useful at least for high exposure areas.

The issue with that is we can make 0 assumptions about the culture we are trying to communicate with so pictograms aren't a good medium to begin with but let's set that aside. Consider maybe they don't even read left to right or top to bottom so now without carefully making sure they know how time is represented your message can be interpreted as one of resurrection and healing maybe?

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#108

Post by bullen »

andrewla wrote: post #74

The only way to build something that lasts 10k years is to build hundreds of things designed to last 10k years, and maybe one or two of them will actually last. That's the only technique that's worked in the past.

I agree if it has to be hardware, otherwise you just build software.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#109

Post by asdff »

andrewla wrote: post #74

The only way to build something that lasts 10k years is to build hundreds of things designed to last 10k years, and maybe one or two of them will actually last. That's the only technique that's worked in the past.

The real only way is to maintain what you already have and refuse the urge to raze and rebuild to contemporary taste. Things don't just happen to last, they are actively repaired as needed.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#110

Post by Real_S »

jotm wrote: post #83
bambax wrote: post #30

> engineers are building a clock in the Texan desert that will last for 10,000 years Well, we don't know that. There is no way to know. Selling this to rich guys like Bezos is kind of like selling "after the rapture pet care"...

It wont last 10,000 years. Nothing more complicated than scribblings on a tough rock will, and even those will likely be indecipherable. Seed banks are especially funny/sad. They need to constantly produce seeds, which means constant growth of male/female plants, under human supervision. No seeds last more than a few years under ideal conditions. Even DNA is unrecoverable/unusable after a few centuries iiirc.

DNA can be used as a stable data storage medium for 10k years. I was actually hoping that was the topic of the article when I clicked it...

https://www.wired.com/story/the-rise-of-dna-data-storage/

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