5 ms·

“What does “this is not a place of honor” refer to?”

by notbeuller 3y ago

ggm 3y ago
Some 20th century hazing ritual, involving massive amounts of plutonium.
- gonzo41 3y ago
  Pretty hopeful that humans make it back with reading and writing in just 200 years after a big nuclear war.
- whoopdedo 3y ago
  Clearly the ancients worshiped plutonium.
boppo1 3y ago
Nuclear waste storage site.
- asah 3y ago
  Social media. /S
Tao3300 3y ago
"What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us... Wow they must have hid the really good stuff here!"
notbeuller 3y ago
It was from a study of how to mark a nuclear waste disposal site so that it would be understandable in 10k years. That was one of the sentiments they were trying to express - through symbols, earthworks, multiple languages.
- gizajob 3y ago
  I keep thinking that if you didn't want outsiders to dishonour your place of honour, that's what you'd write at the perimeter...
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    It's not about writing, this isn't like "Hey if we write in big letters surely they can read it" because there is no reason to think people will have English or even writing at such a distance in time. These are NON-LINGUISTIC messages. Their expression as written text is for our convenience in assessing the project, which is to deliver that message without language. "This place is best shunned and left uninhabited" isn't a useful thing to write, but it's a useful sentiment to evoke for this purpose. Construction of deliberately hostile landscapes was one potential implementation. If I can live anywhere, why would I choose to live on the vast, too hot, practically indestructible black rock the ancients have inexplicably built here ? One of the potential options for this project was very brutal. Just deliberately leave the surface of the site slightly radioactive. People who try to live there will discover they get cancer and die, it doesn't matter whether they go "Oh, it's radioactive here, that's not good" or "The ancient curse, don't live there because the Ancients have cursed that place" it has the same functional effect which is they stop living there and don't return.
    - gizajob 3y ago
      Yeah, I have a master's in philosophy and semiology, I know exactly what they're getting at, but at the same time almost any kind of message of warning is going to be misconstrued and inverted anyway. One may as well write: "Extremely radioactive waste" in English and a few other languages - the future culture will either be able understand that because they're still at our level, or they won't at all and have to work it out for themselves. Virtually everything we've found with an ancient curse we've completely disregarded, same for dynamiting our way into the Great Pyramid, and also "honour" isn't what it used to be, and as a concept regarded wholly differently by almost every society on earth, even between individuals in the same society, so I wouldn't even bother invoking a concept like that in a warning. The idea of poisoning the perimeter a radioactive site with radiation is similarly bizarre. If there's been some kind of catastrophic "fall of man" then we may as well leave them to it. If they're approaching our level, then their (reinvented) Geiger counters will tell them what they need to know.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  The message sent would be "here's a plutonium mine!"

“What does “this is not a place of honor” refer to?”

ggm 3y ago

Some 20th century hazing ritual, involving massive amounts of plutonium.

gonzo41 3y ago
Pretty hopeful that humans make it back with reading and writing in just 200 years after a big nuclear war.
whoopdedo 3y ago
Clearly the ancients worshiped plutonium.

boppo1 3y ago

Nuclear waste storage site.

asah 3y ago
Social media. /S

Tao3300 3y ago

"What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us... Wow they must have hid the really good stuff here!"

notbeuller 3y ago

It was from a study of how to mark a nuclear waste disposal site so that it would be understandable in 10k years. That was one of the sentiments they were trying to express - through symbols, earthworks, multiple languages.

gizajob 3y ago
I keep thinking that if you didn't want outsiders to dishonour your place of honour, that's what you'd write at the perimeter...
- tialaramex 3y ago
  It's not about writing, this isn't like "Hey if we write in big letters surely they can read it" because there is no reason to think people will have English or even writing at such a distance in time. These are NON-LINGUISTIC messages. Their expression as written text is for our convenience in assessing the project, which is to deliver that message without language. "This place is best shunned and left uninhabited" isn't a useful thing to write, but it's a useful sentiment to evoke for this purpose. Construction of deliberately hostile landscapes was one potential implementation. If I can live anywhere, why would I choose to live on the vast, too hot, practically indestructible black rock the ancients have inexplicably built here ? One of the potential options for this project was very brutal. Just deliberately leave the surface of the site slightly radioactive. People who try to live there will discover they get cancer and die, it doesn't matter whether they go "Oh, it's radioactive here, that's not good" or "The ancient curse, don't live there because the Ancients have cursed that place" it has the same functional effect which is they stop living there and don't return.
  - gizajob 3y ago
    Yeah, I have a master's in philosophy and semiology, I know exactly what they're getting at, but at the same time almost any kind of message of warning is going to be misconstrued and inverted anyway. One may as well write: "Extremely radioactive waste" in English and a few other languages - the future culture will either be able understand that because they're still at our level, or they won't at all and have to work it out for themselves. Virtually everything we've found with an ancient curse we've completely disregarded, same for dynamiting our way into the Great Pyramid, and also "honour" isn't what it used to be, and as a concept regarded wholly differently by almost every society on earth, even between individuals in the same society, so I wouldn't even bother invoking a concept like that in a warning. The idea of poisoning the perimeter a radioactive site with radiation is similarly bizarre. If there's been some kind of catastrophic "fall of man" then we may as well leave them to it. If they're approaching our level, then their (reinvented) Geiger counters will tell them what they need to know.
pfdietz 3y ago
The message sent would be "here's a plutonium mine!"