4 ms·

I actually read the paper this article is summarizing, and it's incredibly interesting. I can't find it anymore, but I did find this excerpt: >The panel roughl

I actually read the paper this article is summarizing, and it's incredibly interesting. I can't find it anymore, but I did find this excerpt: >The panel roughly defined the intended message with the following: 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 is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location... it increases toward a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us. The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. The danger is to the body, and it can kill. The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Pirate-of-SV 12y ago
> ...no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. Sounds like a great place to hide a treasure.
- Balgair 12y ago
  or a weapon. Just think of what a Genghis or Cesar would have done with such a thing, especially if he had no idea of what the long term effects were. I think labeling the stuff is too dangerous as well, politicians can get their hands on the stuff. It's better to just bury it, as safely as possible, and then remove all outside traces of existence.
  - krisgee 12y ago
    >It's better to just bury it, as safely as possible, and then remove all outside traces of existence. Seems quite rude to leave unmarked radioactive waste lying around where future people might stumble over it.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      I side with curtis here[0]. If you burry this stuff deep enough in sealed containers, using best tech available, then (barring any massive geological changes) the only way for someone to stumble over it is if they have technological capabilities comparable to ours. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8091034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8091034
      - krisgee 12y ago
        Yes and as a person in a culture with technology comparable to ours it seems like, miners for instance would be pretty ticked off if they were falling into old pits of unmarked radioactive waste all the time.
  - maaku 12y ago
    Worked for Genghis Khan.
  - anon4 12y ago
    They would send a few expendable soldiers and later on observe the effects of radiation sickness. Then they would try using the stuff as a weapon and discover you can't clean up after throwing it at the enemy. A couple of cities would become uninhabitable and everyone will learn that when the sign says "do not touch", we actually mean it.
- cpeterso 12y ago
  ^ And if anyone knows about hiding treasure, it's someone with the handle "Pirate-of-SV". :)
- arrrg 12y ago
  That’s why that is the message, not the actual implementation of the message … This message was never supposed to be written anywhere, in any language. That message is the content. It’s the goal, it’s what is supposed to be delivered. It’s the payload and the panel came together to find a way to transport that payload across time. The goal is not that someone in the future reads exactly that message, the goal is that someone in the future sees the markers and they convey (at least parts of) the message to them so that they honestly believe it. As you can see, just describing the intended message right now, today, can be highly misleading and confusing, even when you are straightforward in describing it. People are quick in assuming fraud and deception, for example. That’s the challenge. But no, no one wanted to put signs with that message up. That would not do. That was always clear. Even if people in 10,000 years would understand English.
jtheory 12y ago
This is great -- I'm planning on burying most of my substantial fortune deep underground in the New Mexico desert, and this looks like just the thing to signpost around the site so people don't mess with it.
logicallee 12y ago
yeah you know what I would do if I read that? Open the damn tomb - I don't care about ancient superstitions. instead of those statements, a few simple scientific demonstrations should be more than sufficient. it should simply show large photographs of what happens with radiation exposure, as well as enough scientific equipment that even a simpleton can realize that this isn't some superstitious gobledegook. seriously. what do you think the egyptians would have said about their tombs? Best left undisturbed, right? Or Ra will come smite your ass. Show, don't tell.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > it should simply show large photographs of what happens with radiation exposure, as well as enough scientific equipment that even a simpleton can realize that this isn't some superstitious gobledegook Well, we don't know how to build required scientific equipment that will remain operational for more than few decades. Actually, the genetically-modified glowcats mentioned in the article is the closest thing I can imagine that could work over the timespan of many millenia. Also, I don't see how future archaeologist would not assume anything they find is a "superstitious gobledegook" in need of verifying, if today we do exactly that.
  - mikro2nd 12y ago
    > the genetically-modified glowcats mentioned in the article is the closest thing I can imagine that could work Except that the proponents seem to have forgotten the small fact of evolution. Species evolve. All the time. Over the course of a 100 century timescale I would expect the glowcats to evolve into quite different species, possibly several such species, or perhaps going extinct. It's anybody's guess, really, and whether they would retain the colour-change genetics is at best nothing more than a rather long-shot hope. Or those genes might evolve to cause the organism respond to other stimuli than radiation. The only certainty, here, is that such creatures will evolve into something different from what they start out as, so, almost certainly, defeating the original objective.
    - Houshalter 12y ago
autokad 12y ago
is that like on the cover of justin beiber's albums or something?
nl 12y ago
This is the full report: http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/10117359 http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/10117359 I read it some years ago, too. It's an intriguing task, as the comments in this thread show. The considered the whole "people will think it is treasure" thing. From memory the solution was to make it an open but unpleasant place to try to avoid people thinking there was something hidden. One idea that stuck in my mind was black concrete pillars on a black concrete surface, in a hot environment to make it extremely hot and oppressive for anyone to enter.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  Concrete would get covered over in sand or dirt most likely. We also can't predict the climate 10k years in the future.

Pirate-of-SV 12y ago

> ...no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. Sounds like a great place to hide a treasure.

Balgair 12y ago
or a weapon. Just think of what a Genghis or Cesar would have done with such a thing, especially if he had no idea of what the long term effects were. I think labeling the stuff is too dangerous as well, politicians can get their hands on the stuff. It's better to just bury it, as safely as possible, and then remove all outside traces of existence.
- krisgee 12y ago
  >It's better to just bury it, as safely as possible, and then remove all outside traces of existence. Seems quite rude to leave unmarked radioactive waste lying around where future people might stumble over it.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I side with curtis here[0]. If you burry this stuff deep enough in sealed containers, using best tech available, then (barring any massive geological changes) the only way for someone to stumble over it is if they have technological capabilities comparable to ours. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8091034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8091034
    - krisgee 12y ago
      Yes and as a person in a culture with technology comparable to ours it seems like, miners for instance would be pretty ticked off if they were falling into old pits of unmarked radioactive waste all the time.
- maaku 12y ago
  Worked for Genghis Khan.
- anon4 12y ago
  They would send a few expendable soldiers and later on observe the effects of radiation sickness. Then they would try using the stuff as a weapon and discover you can't clean up after throwing it at the enemy. A couple of cities would become uninhabitable and everyone will learn that when the sign says "do not touch", we actually mean it.
cpeterso 12y ago
^ And if anyone knows about hiding treasure, it's someone with the handle "Pirate-of-SV". :)
arrrg 12y ago
That’s why that is the message, not the actual implementation of the message … This message was never supposed to be written anywhere, in any language. That message is the content. It’s the goal, it’s what is supposed to be delivered. It’s the payload and the panel came together to find a way to transport that payload across time. The goal is not that someone in the future reads exactly that message, the goal is that someone in the future sees the markers and they convey (at least parts of) the message to them so that they honestly believe it. As you can see, just describing the intended message right now, today, can be highly misleading and confusing, even when you are straightforward in describing it. People are quick in assuming fraud and deception, for example. That’s the challenge. But no, no one wanted to put signs with that message up. That would not do. That was always clear. Even if people in 10,000 years would understand English.

jtheory 12y ago

This is great -- I'm planning on burying most of my substantial fortune deep underground in the New Mexico desert, and this looks like just the thing to signpost around the site so people don't mess with it.

logicallee 12y ago

yeah you know what I would do if I read that? Open the damn tomb - I don't care about ancient superstitions. instead of those statements, a few simple scientific demonstrations should be more than sufficient. it should simply show large photographs of what happens with radiation exposure, as well as enough scientific equipment that even a simpleton can realize that this isn't some superstitious gobledegook. seriously. what do you think the egyptians would have said about their tombs? Best left undisturbed, right? Or Ra will come smite your ass. Show, don't tell.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> it should simply show large photographs of what happens with radiation exposure, as well as enough scientific equipment that even a simpleton can realize that this isn't some superstitious gobledegook Well, we don't know how to build required scientific equipment that will remain operational for more than few decades. Actually, the genetically-modified glowcats mentioned in the article is the closest thing I can imagine that could work over the timespan of many millenia. Also, I don't see how future archaeologist would not assume anything they find is a "superstitious gobledegook" in need of verifying, if today we do exactly that.
- mikro2nd 12y ago
  > the genetically-modified glowcats mentioned in the article is the closest thing I can imagine that could work Except that the proponents seem to have forgotten the small fact of evolution. Species evolve. All the time. Over the course of a 100 century timescale I would expect the glowcats to evolve into quite different species, possibly several such species, or perhaps going extinct. It's anybody's guess, really, and whether they would retain the colour-change genetics is at best nothing more than a rather long-shot hope. Or those genes might evolve to cause the organism respond to other stimuli than radiation. The only certainty, here, is that such creatures will evolve into something different from what they start out as, so, almost certainly, defeating the original objective.
  - Houshalter 12y ago

autokad 12y ago

is that like on the cover of justin beiber's albums or something?

nl 12y ago

This is the full report: http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/10117359 http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/10117359 I read it some years ago, too. It's an intriguing task, as the comments in this thread show. The considered the whole "people will think it is treasure" thing. From memory the solution was to make it an open but unpleasant place to try to avoid people thinking there was something hidden. One idea that stuck in my mind was black concrete pillars on a black concrete surface, in a hot environment to make it extremely hot and oppressive for anyone to enter.

Houshalter 12y ago
Concrete would get covered over in sand or dirt most likely. We also can't predict the climate 10k years in the future.