This Place Is Not A Place Of Honor
September 19, 2013 6:13 PM Subscribe
So make it look as cool as possible, to deter future curious folk. How about poison darts and a rolling boulder ...
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:23 PM on September 19, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:23 PM on September 19, 2013 [6 favorites]
How do you communicate "hey, the dangerous stuff was supposed to be stored here, but then we defunded the whole thing so now be, like, real careful in a whole bunch of places throughout this continent... man, where did that map go..." to the very far future?
posted by Behemoth at 6:23 PM on September 19, 2013 [11 favorites]
posted by Behemoth at 6:23 PM on September 19, 2013 [11 favorites]
I don't see it linked from the article, but the original report they're discussing came from Sandia National Labs. It was called "Expert Judgement on Markers To Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant", and it was written in 1993; not 'recently' as the article claims, but I suppose on the timescales they are discussing thirteen years is nothing.
If you don't want to read the whole thing - and it's actually fascinating, with pages devoted to why they think this can be made to work at all, why they've chosen the people they have, what their reasoning is behind their decisions - skip to sections 3 and 4, where they start into the basic premises they assume, and what their site design requirements are.
The actual paper is a fraction of what's in that PDF, too. The appendices, describing what human-made structures have endured and why, and proposing different designs for deterrent architecture that last for millennia, are amazing.
posted by mhoye at 6:31 PM on September 19, 2013 [19 favorites]
If you don't want to read the whole thing - and it's actually fascinating, with pages devoted to why they think this can be made to work at all, why they've chosen the people they have, what their reasoning is behind their decisions - skip to sections 3 and 4, where they start into the basic premises they assume, and what their site design requirements are.
The actual paper is a fraction of what's in that PDF, too. The appendices, describing what human-made structures have endured and why, and proposing different designs for deterrent architecture that last for millennia, are amazing.
posted by mhoye at 6:31 PM on September 19, 2013 [19 favorites]
Carve skulls on it. Next question?
posted by Renoroc at 6:34 PM on September 19, 2013 [10 favorites]
posted by Renoroc at 6:34 PM on September 19, 2013 [10 favorites]
"Ooh, what's this? A big hot barrel of 21st century skull honey?"
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:50 PM on September 19, 2013 [17 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:50 PM on September 19, 2013 [17 favorites]
The scarier the things you put on it, the more future Burners it will attract.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:55 PM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:55 PM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]
Even if we come up with pictographs that communicate without language, we'll end up with a "mummy's curse" situation, where people of the future think "Look at all these signs warning us of certain death if we open this door. They must have been hiding something really valuable!"
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 6:56 PM on September 19, 2013 [12 favorites]
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 6:56 PM on September 19, 2013 [12 favorites]
I feel like this is the sort of thing that would respond really well to user testing. Fly in people from vastly different cultures and see what sort of setup makes them not want to explore. Show it to babies and see what shapes they don't like being around.
They address this somewhat in mhoye's PDF: "While certain aspects of marker design such as material decay and symbol recognition can be studied for short periods of time, it is not possible to assess the performance of such a system entirely using these traditional data sources....Further, estimation of the efficacy of markers in deterring human intrusion cannot be done any other way than through expert judgment--experiments cannot provide this type of information"
Not really convinced by those arguments, it sounds like their reasoning was essentially "we have a bunch of experts and they're definitely going to have huge influence on the result, so might as well say that's the strategy."
posted by breath at 7:00 PM on September 19, 2013
They address this somewhat in mhoye's PDF: "While certain aspects of marker design such as material decay and symbol recognition can be studied for short periods of time, it is not possible to assess the performance of such a system entirely using these traditional data sources....Further, estimation of the efficacy of markers in deterring human intrusion cannot be done any other way than through expert judgment--experiments cannot provide this type of information"
Not really convinced by those arguments, it sounds like their reasoning was essentially "we have a bunch of experts and they're definitely going to have huge influence on the result, so might as well say that's the strategy."
posted by breath at 7:00 PM on September 19, 2013
Also previously (and one of my earliest favorite posts!)
posted by Rhaomi at 7:04 PM on September 19, 2013
posted by Rhaomi at 7:04 PM on September 19, 2013
Maybe the way to deter the mummy's curse message is to make clear that it's trash, by covering it in something that is obviously and forever going to be trash, that no one would even want to mine for valuable materials. Plastic bags? E.T. Atari cartridges? Cat litter?
posted by breath at 7:05 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by breath at 7:05 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
Have the panelists agree to have their worldly remains laid near the entrance to the tomb upon their death. Then inscribe a message: "Look, we couldn't even figure out what to put here to warn you, and look what happened to us!"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:14 PM on September 19, 2013
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:14 PM on September 19, 2013
There is a movie about the Onkolo waste repository in Finland where they discuss this problem - Into Eternity
posted by get off of my cloud at 7:14 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by get off of my cloud at 7:14 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
Carve skulls on it. Next question?
Then they'll just think it's the Tomb of Alice Cooper.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:14 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
Then they'll just think it's the Tomb of Alice Cooper.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:14 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
This post is interesting (thanks for sharing!), but they only focus on the on-site aspects of the communication problem. There are other additional solutions that were considered by the task force described. There's a wonderful article from a 1990 volume of American Archivist by Kenneth Foote, "To remember and forget: Archives, memory, and culture" [paywall, I apologize] that describes this in a lot more detail. He talks specifically about the communications aspect of the problem, and cites a few really interesting reports also not cited in the blog post: Communication Measures to Bridge Ten Millennia and Communication Across 300 Generations: Deterring Human Interference with Waste Deposit Sites. One thing Foote mentions is the idea of having periodic translations of documents about the waste site - having markers just at the site wouldn't be enough, the task force determined, to successfully deter people from messing with the site. He also talks about putting this information on maps and in GIS systems.
posted by k8lin at 7:17 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by k8lin at 7:17 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
I don't normally condone playing fast and loose with people's lives in conversation, but part of me thinks that we aren't giving our successors enough credit:
- If a bunch of people get too near to the waste -- like if they began to settle there -- a lot of them would probably become sick and even die. The others would probably notice. They would probably be able to figure out that the sickness was related to the place and leave, warning others to stay away.
- If the place remains relatively unpopulated, the probability that the danger of the place is remembered is lower. Perhaps smaller groups would be injured or killed by the waste and hence unable to relay their experience to others, meaning it's still just as much of a danger... but these are smaller groups. Again, the bigger ones would probably be able to warn those with a higher chance of survival.
So in the grand scheme of things, whether or not we figure out how to create these super-understandable beacons is not nearly as much of a factor as human's natural long-term group reactions to environmental danger.
I know that at the level and timescales I'm talking about, entire cultures come and go in a blink, which isn't trivial. But then in that case, isn't it more useful to focus on those specific cultures likely to be near the environmental danger, so that they themselves stay away and are able to warn newcomers of the danger? Why waste effort attempting to create a culture-independent message instead of focusing on the actual cultures at risk?
posted by DLWM at 7:20 PM on September 19, 2013
- If a bunch of people get too near to the waste -- like if they began to settle there -- a lot of them would probably become sick and even die. The others would probably notice. They would probably be able to figure out that the sickness was related to the place and leave, warning others to stay away.
- If the place remains relatively unpopulated, the probability that the danger of the place is remembered is lower. Perhaps smaller groups would be injured or killed by the waste and hence unable to relay their experience to others, meaning it's still just as much of a danger... but these are smaller groups. Again, the bigger ones would probably be able to warn those with a higher chance of survival.
So in the grand scheme of things, whether or not we figure out how to create these super-understandable beacons is not nearly as much of a factor as human's natural long-term group reactions to environmental danger.
I know that at the level and timescales I'm talking about, entire cultures come and go in a blink, which isn't trivial. But then in that case, isn't it more useful to focus on those specific cultures likely to be near the environmental danger, so that they themselves stay away and are able to warn newcomers of the danger? Why waste effort attempting to create a culture-independent message instead of focusing on the actual cultures at risk?
posted by DLWM at 7:20 PM on September 19, 2013
I find myself pretty squarely on the side of "If we have to do this, we probably shouldn't label it at all. Let the vague rumors of cursed land do the warning for us." All those raised mounds and concrete slabs and spikey things? Man, that's cool! Humans are nothing if not inquisitive and curious critters, and I can't imagine anything that's obviously manmade not becoming a target of extreme curiosity. Imagine if Stonehenge were scrawled all over in texts from multiple long-dead languages. Message of doom or not, there's no way we wouldn't dig it up, just to see what Doom looks like.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:38 PM on September 19, 2013 [9 favorites]
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:38 PM on September 19, 2013 [9 favorites]
The ultimate objective is to stop people hanging around the waste site, right? That being the case, it seems weird to focus on communication. Instead, make the place unpleasant and inconvenient to be in, and build good roads around it.
posted by LogicalDash at 7:38 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by LogicalDash at 7:38 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
I feel like any future civilization with the capability to excavate 650m underground will have technology in place to detect radiation or other dangers. Otherwise, leave some geiger counters. Crash course in radioactivity probably at much lower human cost than we have suffered during it's discovery. Either way, this is the stuff of future parables.
posted by dirtyid at 7:43 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by dirtyid at 7:43 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: This Place Is Not A Place Of Honor.
sorry
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:47 PM on September 19, 2013 [9 favorites]
sorry
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:47 PM on September 19, 2013 [9 favorites]
Like...I'm imagining just paving over the place in aluminum. It's hard to cut, its melting point is too high for it to be practical material for reforging into swords or whatever, you can't drive stakes for a tent into it, and it's reflective, so anyone standing there when the sun's out gets double sunburn.
posted by LogicalDash at 7:47 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by LogicalDash at 7:47 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
Terry Pratchett's take on the problem:
Sign: "Not to be used under any circumstances. This is IMPORTANT."
However, when Modo nailed the door shut he didn't hammer the nails all the way in but left just a bit sticking up so that his pliers would grip later on, when he was told to remove them. He never presumed and he never complained, he just had a good working knowledge of the wizardy mind.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:52 PM on September 19, 2013 [6 favorites]
Sign: "Not to be used under any circumstances. This is IMPORTANT."
However, when Modo nailed the door shut he didn't hammer the nails all the way in but left just a bit sticking up so that his pliers would grip later on, when he was told to remove them. He never presumed and he never complained, he just had a good working knowledge of the wizardy mind.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:52 PM on September 19, 2013 [6 favorites]
They just need to make the site seem totally worthless. Put the waste down a deep mineshaft. Fill the shaft with worthless construction waste: broken glass, broken bricks, chunks of concrete without rebars, and absolutely no metal.
No future society will waste resources excavating junk unless they have technology advanced enough to understand radiation hazards.
posted by monotreme at 8:00 PM on September 19, 2013
No future society will waste resources excavating junk unless they have technology advanced enough to understand radiation hazards.
posted by monotreme at 8:00 PM on September 19, 2013
No future society will [insert obviously stupid, counterproductive or self-annihilating endeavor here]
sir, you underestimate us
posted by prize bull octorok at 8:13 PM on September 19, 2013 [9 favorites]
sir, you underestimate us
posted by prize bull octorok at 8:13 PM on September 19, 2013 [9 favorites]
The highly radioactive stuff might have value for reprocessing in the future. So in the future the site may be seen as extremely valuable.
posted by humanfont at 8:18 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by humanfont at 8:18 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Erm, this is totally a double double.
posted by wilful at 8:19 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by wilful at 8:19 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
All those raised mounds and concrete slabs and spikey things? Man, that's cool!
Rather than polluting the earth and sky by burial and cremation, I suggest we drop all our dead on top of the site. Let it be a vast necropolis. That'll give'em a hint.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:38 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
Rather than polluting the earth and sky by burial and cremation, I suggest we drop all our dead on top of the site. Let it be a vast necropolis. That'll give'em a hint.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:38 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
Wow, free calcium fertilizer!
posted by benzenedream at 8:47 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 8:47 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
I'm quite taken with the landscape of thorns, but I have to admit, I would travel out of my way to look at it like it was some intriguing bit of land art and can easily imagine future humans being equally fascinated by it, so I guess that's not the greatest option. I don't know what it says about modern art that all of the options offered by the paper seem like legitimately interesting pieces of installation art rather than effective DO NOT ENTER signs.
posted by yasaman at 8:50 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by yasaman at 8:50 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
...something that is obviously and forever going to be trash, that no one would even want to mine for valuable materials. Plastic bags? E.T. Atari cartridges? Cat litter?
As a time traveler from the 23rd century, I have to tell you that cat litter has become the primary means of currency. Nuggets of it are advertised during reruns of the Glenn Beck Show, which have become the primary religious scriptures of three major religions.
posted by XMLicious at 8:59 PM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]
Man the first time this showed up on Metafilter, it was one of my favorite threads " This is not a place of honor." has totally migrated into everyday use.
posted by The Whelk at 9:03 PM on September 19, 2013
posted by The Whelk at 9:03 PM on September 19, 2013
STOP! STOP! READ! THIS IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR!
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:27 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:27 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]
I used to think that the one thing that would make me turn around would be those Forbidden Zone crucified-ape-scarecrows things in Planet of the Apes.
But I think if you could somehow do a pictogram of a face-upturned, screaming agonized adult holding a clearly lifeless child—yep, that would do it.
Since signs probably aren't an option (damn post-apocalyptic CHUDs stealing roadsigns to flair up their P.J.McTooterhoots), I think a big skull(s) would have to be the best idea (skull honey be damned*). Those other examples like huge thorns might make me think "hmm, there are probably some huge berries in there!"
* I recall a teacher once telling our class that the reason the Mr. Yuk logo was established, was that the skull and crossbones made kids think "Mmm, pirate food!" (Wikipedia seems to basically back this up)
posted by blueberry at 9:43 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
But I think if you could somehow do a pictogram of a face-upturned, screaming agonized adult holding a clearly lifeless child—yep, that would do it.
Since signs probably aren't an option (damn post-apocalyptic CHUDs stealing roadsigns to flair up their P.J.McTooterhoots), I think a big skull(s) would have to be the best idea (skull honey be damned*). Those other examples like huge thorns might make me think "hmm, there are probably some huge berries in there!"
* I recall a teacher once telling our class that the reason the Mr. Yuk logo was established, was that the skull and crossbones made kids think "Mmm, pirate food!" (Wikipedia seems to basically back this up)
posted by blueberry at 9:43 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
I vote we just draw stick figures of horribly dead people. That'll get the point across to our illiterate future humanity!
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:44 PM on September 19, 2013
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:44 PM on September 19, 2013
It would be ironic if the warnings were so effective at keeping people away that in 10,000 years Yucca mountain is one of the least polluted places left on Earth.
posted by justkevin at 10:02 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by justkevin at 10:02 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
How's this for a plan: We actually *DO* put a treasure in Yucca Mountain, but we make it clear that the radioactive vault is one of the traps that only the pure of heart can traverse, so like Indiana Jones or the Goonies or whoever will solve a simple riddle and bypass the vault entirely.
posted by Skwirl at 10:14 PM on September 19, 2013
posted by Skwirl at 10:14 PM on September 19, 2013
Maybe it's just my sleep-fogged state, but I found the core statement to be hauntingly poetic:
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.
And this message for a far-future humanity that may have long before poisoned itself to extinction.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:11 PM on September 19, 2013 [13 favorites]
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.
And this message for a far-future humanity that may have long before poisoned itself to extinction.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:11 PM on September 19, 2013 [13 favorites]
Behemoth: So, pretty much the backstory to the Borderlands series, then?
posted by BiggerJ at 11:33 PM on September 19, 2013
posted by BiggerJ at 11:33 PM on September 19, 2013
Thomas Sebeok's Communication Measures to Bridge Ten Millennia, also linked by k8lin, has a more fascinating idea, I think, from a sort of semiotic viewpoint:
That information be launched and artificially passed on into the short-term and long-term future with the supplementary aid of folkloristic devices, in particular a combination of an artificially created and nurtured ritual-and-legend. The most positive aspect of such a procedure is that it need not be geographically localized, or tied to any one language-and-culture.
The legend-and-ritual, as now envisaged, would be tantamount to laying a "false trail", meaning that the uninitiated will be steered away from the hazardous site for reasons other than the scientific knowledge of the possibility of radiation and its implications; essentially, the reason would be accumulated superstition to shun a certain area permanently.
A ritual annually renewed can be foreseen, with the legend retold year-by-year (with, presumably, slight variations). The actual "truth" would be entrusted exclusively to -- what we might call for dramatic emphasis -- an "atomic priesthood", that is, a commission of knowledgeable physicists, experts in radiation sickness, anthropologists, linguists, psychologists, semioticians, and whatever additional expertise may be called now and in the future. Membership in this "priesthood" would be self-selective over time.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:35 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
That information be launched and artificially passed on into the short-term and long-term future with the supplementary aid of folkloristic devices, in particular a combination of an artificially created and nurtured ritual-and-legend. The most positive aspect of such a procedure is that it need not be geographically localized, or tied to any one language-and-culture.
The legend-and-ritual, as now envisaged, would be tantamount to laying a "false trail", meaning that the uninitiated will be steered away from the hazardous site for reasons other than the scientific knowledge of the possibility of radiation and its implications; essentially, the reason would be accumulated superstition to shun a certain area permanently.
A ritual annually renewed can be foreseen, with the legend retold year-by-year (with, presumably, slight variations). The actual "truth" would be entrusted exclusively to -- what we might call for dramatic emphasis -- an "atomic priesthood", that is, a commission of knowledgeable physicists, experts in radiation sickness, anthropologists, linguists, psychologists, semioticians, and whatever additional expertise may be called now and in the future. Membership in this "priesthood" would be self-selective over time.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:35 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
If Prometheus is anything to go by, there is little point in warning anyone
posted by fistynuts at 1:21 AM on September 20, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by fistynuts at 1:21 AM on September 20, 2013 [5 favorites]
Metafilter: This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
posted by Gordafarin at 3:38 AM on September 20, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by Gordafarin at 3:38 AM on September 20, 2013 [4 favorites]
No future society will waste resources excavating junk unless they have technology advanced enough to understand radiation hazards.
You do know that archaeologists spend a lot of time and effort excavating ancient trash heaps, don't you? They were doing it even before there were Geiger counters.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:32 AM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
You do know that archaeologists spend a lot of time and effort excavating ancient trash heaps, don't you? They were doing it even before there were Geiger counters.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:32 AM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
This is actually a really good design problem, which I have used occasionally back when I was teaching. It condenses all manner of design considerations into a single project. In the end, there really isn't a right answer. The variables are too innumerable.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:59 AM on September 20, 2013
posted by Thorzdad at 4:59 AM on September 20, 2013
I'm imagining just paving over the place in aluminum.
Aluminum was, at one point not very long ago, worth more than gold. I'm not sure that's going to keep people away.
Personally I don't think it's realistic to deter people from going into the area; at some point the most dire warnings are likely to be read as challenges, and people have to do what they're going to do. The best you can really do is explain why the area is poisonous and will make you sick: the more prosaic the explanation, the less likely it's going to be to be attractive.
"You're being poisoned by machine poop, moron" strikes me as a better discouragement than huge playground-of-the-gods engineered structures. IIRC, the actual solution they chose for WIPP is fairly modest, consisting of earthen berms and then a couple of information stations explaining what's buried.
posted by Kadin2048 at 5:57 AM on September 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
Aluminum was, at one point not very long ago, worth more than gold. I'm not sure that's going to keep people away.
Personally I don't think it's realistic to deter people from going into the area; at some point the most dire warnings are likely to be read as challenges, and people have to do what they're going to do. The best you can really do is explain why the area is poisonous and will make you sick: the more prosaic the explanation, the less likely it's going to be to be attractive.
"You're being poisoned by machine poop, moron" strikes me as a better discouragement than huge playground-of-the-gods engineered structures. IIRC, the actual solution they chose for WIPP is fairly modest, consisting of earthen berms and then a couple of information stations explaining what's buried.
posted by Kadin2048 at 5:57 AM on September 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
I think it would be a huge mistake to put anything at all on the surface. Leave it barren, and at some depth, put an impermeable barrier, like 20 feet of concrete, with images of skeletons embossed on it. Put that like 50 feet down - a depth that's deeper than casual construction would reach, but not so deep that you'd get a "We've come this far, and invested so much effort already, let's blast through this thing" reaction.
You put mysterious stuff on the surface, people are going to go all "Stonehenge" on you. Hey, has anybody dug under Stonehenge?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:19 AM on September 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
You put mysterious stuff on the surface, people are going to go all "Stonehenge" on you. Hey, has anybody dug under Stonehenge?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:19 AM on September 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
Hey, has anybody dug under Stonehenge?
There were some people who were planning to, but no one knew who they were or what they were doing.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:49 AM on September 20, 2013 [6 favorites]
There were some people who were planning to, but no one knew who they were or what they were doing.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:49 AM on September 20, 2013 [6 favorites]
So, you need something ugly and dangerous-looking that will discourage future people from visiting a site?
Just have Frank Gehry design it.
My invoice reflecting my hefty (yet frugal by federal standards) consulting fee is in the mail.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:28 AM on September 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
Just have Frank Gehry design it.
My invoice reflecting my hefty (yet frugal by federal standards) consulting fee is in the mail.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:28 AM on September 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
All they need is a door with a a big red button and a sign saying "do not press this button", which changes when the button is pressed to "do not press this button again". That ought to do it.
posted by walrus at 8:45 AM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by walrus at 8:45 AM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
So, here's an admittedly macabre and horrific thought:
this is almost a Spock/Needs-of-the-Many problem. If you believe you must avert harm on a catastrophic scale (drilling, mining, etc) and can't be sure how to communicate "DEADLY, EVIL" in symbols over the timescale required then maybe the answer is to make the area surrounding the access point actually deadly and evil in addition to weird looking and forboding once it's full and sealed.
Make the inner warning monuments radioactive with point sources with the same half-life as the stored waste. The monuments could be lined with lead with an aperture pointing inwards and increase in density as you approach the sealed access point such that closer you get the deadlier the environment is.
Let the people who don't come back or come back sick be your final warning. Cultures or civilizations sophisticated enough to detect and identify the radiation even at an early stage will see what the monuments are doing and perceive that they enforce an exclusion zone somehow related to radioactivity.
I feel bad for even thinking of this. Although I'll put some of the blame on Banks and JMS for the versions of the concept in their scifi.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:50 AM on September 20, 2013 [7 favorites]
this is almost a Spock/Needs-of-the-Many problem. If you believe you must avert harm on a catastrophic scale (drilling, mining, etc) and can't be sure how to communicate "DEADLY, EVIL" in symbols over the timescale required then maybe the answer is to make the area surrounding the access point actually deadly and evil in addition to weird looking and forboding once it's full and sealed.
Make the inner warning monuments radioactive with point sources with the same half-life as the stored waste. The monuments could be lined with lead with an aperture pointing inwards and increase in density as you approach the sealed access point such that closer you get the deadlier the environment is.
Let the people who don't come back or come back sick be your final warning. Cultures or civilizations sophisticated enough to detect and identify the radiation even at an early stage will see what the monuments are doing and perceive that they enforce an exclusion zone somehow related to radioactivity.
I feel bad for even thinking of this. Although I'll put some of the blame on Banks and JMS for the versions of the concept in their scifi.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:50 AM on September 20, 2013 [7 favorites]
Aluminum was, at one point not very long ago, worth more than gold. I'm not sure that's going to keep people away.
It's basically impossible to predict what materials science will find important in three hundred years, much less ten thousand. If you went back in time to medieval Europe or Shogunate Japan and presented the local lord's swordsmith with a bushel of leaf springs from a modern pickup truck's rear assembly, you'd be offered the proverbial king's ransom for something far more valuable and scarce than gold. Silicon, arsenic and gallium used to be just sand, poison and nothing of consequence, respectively, and now they're bedrock infrastructure virtually everything humans do. In the other direction, what's silver worth now that we've stopped shooting film?
This is a capital-H, capital-P Hard Problem, and anyone who says differently hasn't thought very much about it.
posted by mhoye at 9:00 AM on September 20, 2013
It's basically impossible to predict what materials science will find important in three hundred years, much less ten thousand. If you went back in time to medieval Europe or Shogunate Japan and presented the local lord's swordsmith with a bushel of leaf springs from a modern pickup truck's rear assembly, you'd be offered the proverbial king's ransom for something far more valuable and scarce than gold. Silicon, arsenic and gallium used to be just sand, poison and nothing of consequence, respectively, and now they're bedrock infrastructure virtually everything humans do. In the other direction, what's silver worth now that we've stopped shooting film?
This is a capital-H, capital-P Hard Problem, and anyone who says differently hasn't thought very much about it.
posted by mhoye at 9:00 AM on September 20, 2013
Even without film, silver has important uses such as being a placebo investment for the gullible.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:35 AM on September 20, 2013
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:35 AM on September 20, 2013
I wonder if there's any natural gas we can get to before it's sealed...
posted by Chuffy at 2:52 PM on September 20, 2013
posted by Chuffy at 2:52 PM on September 20, 2013
Silver makes very fine shoes, I've heard.
And a fine, refreshing drink!
posted by entropicamericana at 6:18 PM on September 20, 2013
And a fine, refreshing drink!
posted by entropicamericana at 6:18 PM on September 20, 2013
How about a series of statues of a human form. Each cardinal and intercardinal direction, starting from the waste site, of course, there's a line of statues. The statues begin standing upright, but as you get closer to the epicenter, the statues begin to falter, double over, and eventually collapse. Also, much like those thorns, it would make a good prog rock album cover.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 7:05 PM on September 20, 2013 [7 favorites]
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 7:05 PM on September 20, 2013 [7 favorites]
I think that if we intend to bury it en masse, we do so out of terrestrial access, in bore holes under several miles of ocean water, where it can be pretty much guaranteed that only a society as technologically advanced as ours can possibly "recover" any of it. Otherwise, dilute it as much as possible, and bury 100 grams of the diluted stuff, by law, with every dead body we stick into dirt from here on. You know, as kind of a night light, into eternal night.
posted by paulsc at 10:00 PM on September 20, 2013
posted by paulsc at 10:00 PM on September 20, 2013
I can't remember if this is a quote from the article, but it resonated with me from the last time it showed up here: our museums are filled with the warning signs of past cultures.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 12:03 AM on September 21, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by aeschenkarnos at 12:03 AM on September 21, 2013 [5 favorites]
Hey, has anybody dug under Stonehenge?
No need to dig. There's already a huge room under there. It's where the Pandorica is kept.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:54 PM on September 21, 2013
No need to dig. There's already a huge room under there. It's where the Pandorica is kept.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:54 PM on September 21, 2013
Well, poop is and always has been considered waste. Have signs with pictures of poop on them and people will get the idea. Include the phrase "hazardous waste" in several prominent languages.
posted by Sleeper at 10:03 PM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Sleeper at 10:03 PM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Hmm, do we have some chemical that would continue to smell terrible for thousands of years?
posted by LogicalDash at 10:19 AM on September 22, 2013
posted by LogicalDash at 10:19 AM on September 22, 2013
Wow, free calcium fertilizer!
The stuff that is wanted from that is Phosphorous. Searching on Peak Phosphorous will get you all the education you need.
Well, poop is and always has been considered waste.
See Edo Japan - topic Night Soil.
posted by rough ashlar at 12:48 PM on October 1, 2013
The stuff that is wanted from that is Phosphorous. Searching on Peak Phosphorous will get you all the education you need.
Well, poop is and always has been considered waste.
See Edo Japan - topic Night Soil.
posted by rough ashlar at 12:48 PM on October 1, 2013
« Older TPS: Tuna Pickle Sandwich | Why Don't I Give Money to Poor People? Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Zalzidrax at 6:20 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]