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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

#131

Post by scj »

smacktoward wrote: post #99
Tade0 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about actual corpses arranged so that they look as if they died violently? Not the exact message, but definitely should give pause to anybody visiting the place in the far future.

"Somebody made that place super dangerous to get into. There must be something really valuable in there!"

I'd go the other way... Give the impression there was something really valuable in there.

Have a main chamber with a solid pedestal in the center. Then, on walls throughout the complex, depict some golden treasure that never existed resting on said pedestal using wall art.

Imagine a scavenger, with a clear vision in their head of what the chamber looks like, arriving in an empty room: "Someone must have already raided this place."

Meanwhile, the nuclear material is under that chamber.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#132

Post by dsqrt »

EForEndeavour wrote: post #63
dsqrt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't embedding these messages into art defy their very purpose of being a warning?

These messages aren't currently used as warnings, and exhibiting them as art will never diminish the literal message that they convey.

I am just thinking that, if future archeologists discover these warnings / language in frequent association with art, then they will probably not think twice about excavating an actual nuclear disposal site that exhibits them. They will probably think that the warnings were placed there to scare away thieves.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#133

Post by salawat »

Causality1 wrote: post #14

This is an admirable project but realistically speaking, six weeks after it's no longer being visited every day some 4channer is going to hike out, break it with a hammer, and then draw dicks on it.

Funnily enough, I think the underlying key to longevity of the message is simply the art of the meme. The very message "This is not a place of honor .." Has become endemic in many online cultures, and I've talked to others in academic fields about it many times.

The challenge of fulfilling the nerd snipe problem of coming up with a message that can last 10k years may end up being the way in which this idea sticks around.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#134

Post by tonyedgecombe »

mywittyname wrote: post #78
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.

Some future archeologist is going to dig up a cell phone.

More likely lots of toilet bowls.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#135

Post by JudgeWapner »

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…

Why do we care more about people 10k years into the future than we do about the ones alive today? It's ok for pollution and wars to take lives, why isn't it ok to do so in the future?

Also, why do they assume future visitors will enter through the front door? I thought their intention was to bury the entrance and erase all signs it existed.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#136

Post by heelix »

comicjk wrote: post #55
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…

I used this text as an intro to the classic D&D adventure "Tomb of Horrors" - in my reimagining, the ancient evil at the bottom of the tomb was its civilization's version of nuclear waste.

That sphere of Annihilation.... our first 'total party kill'.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#137

Post by rtkwe »

jandrese wrote: post #121
rtkwe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Some things, like the passage of the sun in the sky, should be universal. Literally every civilization on Earth is familiar with the concept of a day. Death is a universal concept too. Of course there is no helping if the future people are especially dismissive of your warnings, but they should suffer from debilitating radiation sickness before they get too far away, so at least the leak would be somewhat contained.…

Yeah time was meant more as just an illustration of how careful we have to be with and pictographic warnings because of how little we can take for granted about the people we are trying to warn.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#138

Post by inawarminister »

zaarn wrote: post #119
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…

I believe a while ago I read a fanfiction where the characters in the story found this place. They didn't understand the warning until they all suffered from ARS.

Was it the MLP fanfiction 'The Writing on the Wall'?[0] I'm not a brony, but it's actually a really good read. It would be better if the finders are real far future preindustrial civilization though, since the ponies have access to magic and should've found out about the danger of radiation BEFORE going in, but eh.

Here's a summary from Tvtropes: >The Writing on the Wall is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic by Horse Voice. Daring Do is asked to help in the excavation of the most ancient tomb known to ponykind - thousands of years older than the oldest known masonry, with incredible craft and skill going into the construction of the impressive edifice. Ancient text in a number of languages, all of them long since lost, is carved into every surface in one of the rooms of the structure nearest to the surface, likely some kind of curse meant to warn away would-be looters. Workers work to breach the walls below, to find the secrets of this ancient place, but perhaps they should have heeded the writing on the wall.

[0] http://www.fimfiction.net/story/42409/the-writing-on-the-wal...

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#139

Post by zaarn »

inawarminister wrote: post #138
zaarn wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe a while ago I read a fanfiction where the characters in the story found this place. They didn't understand the warning until they all suffered from ARS.

Was it the MLP fanfiction 'The Writing on the Wall'?[0] I'm not a brony, but it's actually a really good read. It would be better if the finders are real far future preindustrial civilization though, since the ponies have access to magic and should've found out about the danger of radiation BEFORE going in, but eh. Here's a summary from Tvtropes: >The Writing on the Wall is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfi…

Possibly, yes.

Re: How to build something that lasts 10k years

#140

Post by aetherspawn »

datpiff wrote: post #20
aetherspawn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a really interesting idea. If you plant a tree that lasts for 10,000 years (is there such?), I wonder if you can use its height or the shadow it casts (trunk thickness) to measure time. Of course, someone would just come and kill it. Unless you can make it undesirable to get close to it.. for example fill it with thousands of snakes and spiders.

>If you plant a tree that lasts for 10,000 years (is there such?), I wonder if you can use its height or the shadow it casts (trunk thickness) to measure time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Increment_borer

You need to make some sort of sign that indicates the age of the oldest trees in the forest is the clock. And make it impossible or unprofitable to log the forest for wood, maybe by building hundreds of annoying stone pillars at inconvenient spacings
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