6 ms·

This Place is Not a Place of Honor (2006)

31 points by sdfx 17y ago

chaosmachine 17y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=794205 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=794205 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=773137 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=773137
- hegemonicon 17y ago
  And more recently: http://www.slate.com/id/2235504/ http://www.slate.com/id/2235504/
hegemonicon 17y ago
This is a very hard problem to solve, as the very act of marking something signals "Hey, there's something important here!" The natural curiosity of whoever finds it is likely to override any respect they might have for the warnings of a long dead civilization.
- mdemare 17y ago
  Yes, this is the same problem that the Pharaos tried to solve, and look how well that turned out.
  - curtis 17y ago
    If we're using the pharaohs as a guide, then perhaps we should make a massive monument, mark it with the most creative signage we can think of, and then bury the nuclear waste somewhere else.
- dfranke 17y ago
  I think the right thing to do is to make the site look as boring and indistinct as possible until you've dug down to only a little bit above the danger area.
  - roc 17y ago
    And then you still have to solve the problem.
- mynameishere 17y ago
  Seems like saying, "x000 tons of nuclear waste below" would work a little better than being mysterious and vague. Fairly warned, if they want to dig it up, it's their own fault.
  - wmf 17y ago
    The point is to have multiple levels of messages for different potential future recipients. The site will be clearly identified as a nuclear waste dump... to people who know what nuclear waste is. The vague lower-level messages are for people who don't know anything about nuclear science.
kyleburton 17y ago
Come on, have modern humans actively shunned any archeological site? Have we even shunned hostile environments? I think it's the contrary, we're drawn to them. A plaque with all the UN languages is a rosetta stone, something of obvious intrinsic value. The Periodic table too - to any potential future civilization that hasn't already rediscovered those things, it may be a sought after source of knowledge. The site is also attractive to those who would wish to use what's there to their advantage - as a weapon against their enemies, likely w/o really understanding the consequences. Too expensive to launch it into the sun, no other solution (if we're not going to derive the value of reprocessing and actually use it up).
ramanujan 17y ago
Good sci fi. Silly for the government to care about this. I mean, really, 10000 years? If future civilizations are technologically advanced, detecting radiation won't be a problem. If future civilizations have fallen back to the stone age, spatially localized buried nuclear waste is going to be the least of their problems. It would be a rounding error in the annual death rates.
fnid 17y ago
During my work at a utility with lots of nuclear power plants, my boss talked about this very issue. He described the problem and the proposed solution being the tall objects sticking out of the ground. One of the young people on the team quickly thought out loud, "Sounds like Stone Henge!"
byrneseyeview 17y ago
They could have concentric circles of increasingly deadly threats: start with tripwires, end with landmines. If every time you get closer to the nuclear waste, you're more likely to die, you will probably get the idea.
- c3o 17y ago
  But that looks like someone's trying to protect something valuable, which could make it more tempting.
- decode 17y ago
  If you can make tripwires and landmines that still work in 10,000 years, you can probably do better things with nuclear waste than just put it in a cave. Remember: the earliest known writings are less than 6,000 years old. We're talking about planning for almost twice that. This is an incredibly long period of time, in human terms (though not in geological terms, which is what created the problem in the first place).
- SapphireSun 17y ago
  It seems to me that you can't cover all the cases, you just have to figure out how often throughout history they have occured and cover the major fraction of them. In any case, here are some of the ideas I liked: Some of the ideas in the original comment thread from 2006 were nice. Make the area inconspicuous, make it extremely expensive to dig up. Why not make it look like a giant concrete dumping ground? To thwart geological surveys, maybe you could figure out a way to stealth the tunnels or arrange the tunnels in the shape of a warning message. Perhaps you should make the area extremely inconspicuous and just trecherous to get to for the technologically unenabled (build rivers, hills etc). That way you ensure that mostly only hikers get there and hopefully don't notice the concealed enterance. Of course, that plan could be thwarted if a group of people seek shelter there because of wartime persecution.
adw 17y ago
I've been kind of obsessed with WIPP for years. Even if you don't buy the reasoning, it's just... I used to work on science in this area: colleagues were working on Synroc, and I was working on theoretical techniques which you could apply to predicting how well it'd work. So it was on my mind anyway. But there's so much in the WIPP report, the richness and depth of it, that who cares if it actually happens? Seriously, the report's worth your time anyway. I really couldn't get away from this. I used to do a lot of music. Here's a track I made in '05/'06 off my record: (http://www.hiddenmusic.co.uk/releases/symbolic/ http://www.hiddenmusic.co.uk/releases/symbolic/, free download); http://www.last.fm/music/Covert/_/A+Place+of+Honour http://www.last.fm/music/Covert/_/A+Place+of+Honour Like I said; obsessed...
- PebblesRox 17y ago
  Ooh, I like it. I have a design exercise that involves listening to a song for inspiration. This will be perfect! Thank you for sharing. I agree that this is a fascinating idea.
  - adw 17y ago
    Cool! I'd love to see what you come up with.
    - PebblesRox 17y ago
      Here you go! http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/ad42/BucketPebble/NoHonor.jpg http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/ad42/BucketPebble/NoHonor...
astine 17y ago
How about a skull? Pictures of people dying of radiation? I can't see giant monuments doing anything other than enticing people to dig. However, reliefs and images of people dying of radiation poisoning might be less ambiguous.

31 points by sdfx 17y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=794205 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=794205 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=773137 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=773137

hegemonicon 17y ago
And more recently: http://www.slate.com/id/2235504/ http://www.slate.com/id/2235504/

hegemonicon 17y ago

This is a very hard problem to solve, as the very act of marking something signals "Hey, there's something important here!" The natural curiosity of whoever finds it is likely to override any respect they might have for the warnings of a long dead civilization.

mdemare 17y ago
Yes, this is the same problem that the Pharaos tried to solve, and look how well that turned out.
- curtis 17y ago
  If we're using the pharaohs as a guide, then perhaps we should make a massive monument, mark it with the most creative signage we can think of, and then bury the nuclear waste somewhere else.
dfranke 17y ago
I think the right thing to do is to make the site look as boring and indistinct as possible until you've dug down to only a little bit above the danger area.
- roc 17y ago
  And then you still have to solve the problem.
mynameishere 17y ago
Seems like saying, "x000 tons of nuclear waste below" would work a little better than being mysterious and vague. Fairly warned, if they want to dig it up, it's their own fault.
- wmf 17y ago
  The point is to have multiple levels of messages for different potential future recipients. The site will be clearly identified as a nuclear waste dump... to people who know what nuclear waste is. The vague lower-level messages are for people who don't know anything about nuclear science.

kyleburton 17y ago

Come on, have modern humans actively shunned any archeological site? Have we even shunned hostile environments? I think it's the contrary, we're drawn to them. A plaque with all the UN languages is a rosetta stone, something of obvious intrinsic value. The Periodic table too - to any potential future civilization that hasn't already rediscovered those things, it may be a sought after source of knowledge. The site is also attractive to those who would wish to use what's there to their advantage - as a weapon against their enemies, likely w/o really understanding the consequences. Too expensive to launch it into the sun, no other solution (if we're not going to derive the value of reprocessing and actually use it up).

ramanujan 17y ago

Good sci fi. Silly for the government to care about this. I mean, really, 10000 years? If future civilizations are technologically advanced, detecting radiation won't be a problem. If future civilizations have fallen back to the stone age, spatially localized buried nuclear waste is going to be the least of their problems. It would be a rounding error in the annual death rates.

fnid 17y ago

During my work at a utility with lots of nuclear power plants, my boss talked about this very issue. He described the problem and the proposed solution being the tall objects sticking out of the ground. One of the young people on the team quickly thought out loud, "Sounds like Stone Henge!"

byrneseyeview 17y ago

They could have concentric circles of increasingly deadly threats: start with tripwires, end with landmines. If every time you get closer to the nuclear waste, you're more likely to die, you will probably get the idea.

c3o 17y ago
But that looks like someone's trying to protect something valuable, which could make it more tempting.
decode 17y ago
If you can make tripwires and landmines that still work in 10,000 years, you can probably do better things with nuclear waste than just put it in a cave. Remember: the earliest known writings are less than 6,000 years old. We're talking about planning for almost twice that. This is an incredibly long period of time, in human terms (though not in geological terms, which is what created the problem in the first place).
SapphireSun 17y ago
It seems to me that you can't cover all the cases, you just have to figure out how often throughout history they have occured and cover the major fraction of them. In any case, here are some of the ideas I liked: Some of the ideas in the original comment thread from 2006 were nice. Make the area inconspicuous, make it extremely expensive to dig up. Why not make it look like a giant concrete dumping ground? To thwart geological surveys, maybe you could figure out a way to stealth the tunnels or arrange the tunnels in the shape of a warning message. Perhaps you should make the area extremely inconspicuous and just trecherous to get to for the technologically unenabled (build rivers, hills etc). That way you ensure that mostly only hikers get there and hopefully don't notice the concealed enterance. Of course, that plan could be thwarted if a group of people seek shelter there because of wartime persecution.

adw 17y ago

I've been kind of obsessed with WIPP for years. Even if you don't buy the reasoning, it's just... I used to work on science in this area: colleagues were working on Synroc, and I was working on theoretical techniques which you could apply to predicting how well it'd work. So it was on my mind anyway. But there's so much in the WIPP report, the richness and depth of it, that who cares if it actually happens? Seriously, the report's worth your time anyway. I really couldn't get away from this. I used to do a lot of music. Here's a track I made in '05/'06 off my record: (http://www.hiddenmusic.co.uk/releases/symbolic/ http://www.hiddenmusic.co.uk/releases/symbolic/, free download); http://www.last.fm/music/Covert/_/A+Place+of+Honour http://www.last.fm/music/Covert/_/A+Place+of+Honour Like I said; obsessed...

PebblesRox 17y ago
Ooh, I like it. I have a design exercise that involves listening to a song for inspiration. This will be perfect! Thank you for sharing. I agree that this is a fascinating idea.
- adw 17y ago
  Cool! I'd love to see what you come up with.
  - PebblesRox 17y ago
    Here you go! http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/ad42/BucketPebble/NoHonor.jpg http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/ad42/BucketPebble/NoHonor...

astine 17y ago

How about a skull? Pictures of people dying of radiation? I can't see giant monuments doing anything other than enticing people to dig. However, reliefs and images of people dying of radiation poisoning might be less ambiguous.