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I think a radio equivalent of the "10,000 year clock", placed on the moon, might be a good way to go. Fairly low barrier to read from the thing. Perhaps you c

by jlgreco 14y ago

I think a radio equivalent of the "10,000 year clock", placed on the moon, might be a good way to go. Fairly low barrier to read from the thing. Perhaps you could have it only broadcast just enough data to bootstrap any society that wanted to get to it to read the rest. You would need to bury most of it though, and have a great deal of redundancy. The moon doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it from meteorites.

Houshalter 14y ago
You could do the same thing on Earth probably much cheaper. Bury it in a remote location like Antarctica or something. Just have a manual switch on it that will stop it from broadcasting for 20 years or so. That way it doesn't interfere with any radio traffic in the present, but if something happens to humanity that prevents us from going to it, it resets and starts broadcasting again. Anyone remaining on Earth will be able to listen to it. Even if all humans die out, it would still leave a legacy for (possibly) other intelligent races to find. It wouldn't have to be terribly expensive, though you would want to add things to make sure it would survive such a long time, which would add to the cost. I don't know how you would store information that long though. At least in a way that would be machine readable and not take up a ton of space.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Antarctica would work well for physically isolating the installation from those without some baseline technology, but I imagine it would be harder to build a long-lasting facility there. Less radiation and meteors, but a great deal more moisture, wind, etc. There are some other places on earth that are more "stable", but I don't think most of those places would do a good job of keeping looters and vandals from getting at it. Machine readable yet long lasting is indeed a big problem.
  - caw 14y ago
    Redundant Array of Intelligence Depots :) You'd just have to make multiple copies and put them in various locations. If you're going through the trouble of making 1, you might as make more than 1, in case the primary gets destroyed.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Good point. I think you would have to choose the number of depots carefully though. If you only have a single very famous depot then you can perhaps count on it being remembered in legend, particularly if it is somewhere very unique (the south pole perhaps). More depots increase redundancy but could perhaps reduce the "interesting" factor. After a certain point though you could probably have enough depots that, since they are all over the place and constantly being discovered, they would stay in the minds of humanity.

by jlgreco 14y ago

Houshalter 14y ago

You could do the same thing on Earth probably much cheaper. Bury it in a remote location like Antarctica or something. Just have a manual switch on it that will stop it from broadcasting for 20 years or so. That way it doesn't interfere with any radio traffic in the present, but if something happens to humanity that prevents us from going to it, it resets and starts broadcasting again. Anyone remaining on Earth will be able to listen to it. Even if all humans die out, it would still leave a legacy for (possibly) other intelligent races to find. It wouldn't have to be terribly expensive, though you would want to add things to make sure it would survive such a long time, which would add to the cost. I don't know how you would store information that long though. At least in a way that would be machine readable and not take up a ton of space.

jlgreco 14y ago
Antarctica would work well for physically isolating the installation from those without some baseline technology, but I imagine it would be harder to build a long-lasting facility there. Less radiation and meteors, but a great deal more moisture, wind, etc. There are some other places on earth that are more "stable", but I don't think most of those places would do a good job of keeping looters and vandals from getting at it. Machine readable yet long lasting is indeed a big problem.
- caw 14y ago
  Redundant Array of Intelligence Depots :) You'd just have to make multiple copies and put them in various locations. If you're going through the trouble of making 1, you might as make more than 1, in case the primary gets destroyed.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Good point. I think you would have to choose the number of depots carefully though. If you only have a single very famous depot then you can perhaps count on it being remembered in legend, particularly if it is somewhere very unique (the south pole perhaps). More depots increase redundancy but could perhaps reduce the "interesting" factor. After a certain point though you could probably have enough depots that, since they are all over the place and constantly being discovered, they would stay in the minds of humanity.