I saw an article on how the US plans to handle nuclear waste and was reminded of a decades old discussion I had with someone. Were talking about 10,000 years of storage here. Which is fine, we may find ways to keep stuff sealed for that long. However, if we do, and the stuff will still be really dangerous, how do you warn future generations of people to stay away if the stumble upon the site? Can you imagine how much language will have evolved in 10K years? I can barely read Norwegian thats a few hundred years old, much less what we spoke a thousand years ago. English as its spoken today didnt exist a thousand years ago. 10,000 years ago and we were herding sheep as the peak of civilizational advancement. What warning signs can we put in place that will endure 10,000 years of cultural and linguistic evolution? The swastika took on a pretty damn different meaning in the previous 100 years than its original meaning. The red cross? Comes from crucifiction invented just a couple of thousand years ago; the equivalent today would be putting an electric chair on flags and running around saving people. I doubt that would be what comes to mind. Skull and crossbones? Just a couple of hundred years old and again a vastly different meaning today than originally intended. How can we construct a message to someone 10,000 years from now that conveys a clear message of danger?
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 06:22:06 +0000
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