This Place Is Not a Place of Honor (1992)
web.archive.org
web.archive.org
EDIT: Makes things hard if the warning sign was a link however, yes. Could just add a published date then, and I'd assume things would be fine.
function wayback_link(url) {
return `https://web.archive.org/web/${url}`;
}
console.log(wayback_link("https://github.com"))You could also do the same with "https://web.archive.org/web/", but "!wayback " is easier for me to remember.
“The idea is to more or less forget it. It’s based on passive safety,” he says. “There aren’t any plans to put any kind of warning signs or anything like that. There won’t be anything.”
Looks like Finland is taking the complete opposite approach.
>We have all become very marker-prone, but shouldn't we nevertheless admit that, in the end, despite all we try to do, the most effective "marker" for any intruders will be a relatively limited amount of sickness and death caused by the radioactive waste? In other words, it is largely a self-correcting process if anyone intrudes without appropriate precautions, and it seems unlikely that intrusion on such buried waste would lead to large-scale disasters. An analysis of the likely number of deaths over 10,000 years due to inadvertent intrusion should be conducted. This cost should be weighted against that of the marker system.
But, I do think that some active process and culture to guard or maintain a waste pile is probably necessary. So, don't fixate on some naive visitor you have to protect from all harm in the distant future. Settle for minimizing the delay and accumulative harm before new visitors figure it out and become the new keepers of the message.
That way we keep this alive in the public consciences and even if the competition dies out, hopefully at least one work will survive 10,000 years.
[0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g78hZIEqONM
For the Level 1 message I suggest a sculpture of two vast and trunkless legs of stone, over a pedestal with the words
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
This is the SL-1 reactor site in Idaho. Reactor destroyed by a steam explosion in 1961. Already, the marker looks dated.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/SL-1Buri...
I used to dream that maybe 2500 years from now the Scientologists and the Mormons would fight it out over Yucca mountain but now it's clear the Scientologists won't last that long.
Good. However, references?
Of course, this presumption of religious axioms also has a history of upsetting people of other religions, and the extensive information-gathering involved often uses borderline unethical methods, such as the various geneology research service websites that are run in one way or another by the LDS Church and include terms of service that let them use the info you piece together however they like.
(Note that despite commenting on this thread and being a Mormon I'm hardly an examplary Mormon in a variety of ways. It's rare that a topic comes up on HN that I know much about though, so may as well contribute some info in the spirit of satisfying intellectual curiosity!)
It would take a crazy man, the kind that would say "the sun does not shine when he sees it", to deny a revelation.
Arguably... Anyone who doesn't believe because they have not seen anything has not sinned. The sin would be, for example, to realize "the Mormons were right!" as you face the gates too paradise and say "I don't believe this. I am an Atheist." As you are staring down the pearly gates.
Basically, knowing you do the wrong things, since you ignore the truth in front of you, and doing it anyway. But you have to see it to really unforgivably sin.
It seems pretty well-specified. It's about internal peace, not external vision.
Someone trying to keep you out of an ancient tomb? Clearly there are valuables in there. An ancient tomb that's locked from the outside? That's creepy.
Going by 20th and 21st century media, there should be lots of Asian tombs with "seals" placed on the outside of them. Reality is probably quite different.
I think perhaps the Finland approach of complete obscurity may be better.
The parallels to this are pretty clear; supposedly, there was a mold in there that ended up killing a few of the archeologists.
Re: the article, and I'm sure I've mentioned this in the previous discussions, they should try and explain radiation as a scientific thing. "This is not a place of honor" is far too vague, and only piques people's interest - like, "well what is it then?", or, "Why would they go through all this trouble?". Either find a way to explain radiation, or - probably preferable - put it in a location that is invisible on the outside and will only become more inaccessible over time, like down a geological fault line.
And then just accept human nature and let the pile slowly grow.
So... yeah. That's the level of being willing to ignore warnings that we have to prepare for.
https://prod-ng.sandia.gov/techlib-noauth/access-control.cgi...
"Landscape of large-stone rubble" describes, among other things, New England, where all of those stone boulders were carefully (or more often carelessly) stacked into stone walls to more-or-less clear the fields for planting or pasturage.
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851871
My proposed solution goes something like this: It is hard to convey that there is nothing of value and only danger within. So what if you just made the site actually dangerous on the surface? Is it possible to build something like a lake of acid that would make the area uninhabitable, dangerous, and impossible to develop?
Or, to keep it more abstract: Maybe the problem is that we're looking for the right symbol. But instead of symbols we should make the fact of the area itself the deterrent.
I'm pretty sure the only way to keep people out is to hide it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
The solution is simple in my view. Just make it dangerous enough that they can't get it no matter how much they would want to loot it. And if they can outsmart the dangers we face them with they must be smart enough to figure out how to deal with the radio activity.
> We have all become very marker-prone, but shouldn't we nevertheless admit that, in the end, despite all we try to do, the most effective "marker" for any intruders will be a relatively limited amount of sickness and death caused by the radioactive waste? In other words, it is largely a self-correcting process if anyone intrudes without appropriate precautions, and it seems unlikely that intrusion on such buried waste would lead to large-scale disasters. An analysis of the likely number of deaths over 10,000 years due to inadvertent intrusion should be conducted. This cost should be weighted against that of the marker system.
I'm not convinced. I guess there are levels of radiation poisoning that have effects immediate enough to make it obvious from whence they came. There are also many levels which are not, but will still end or ruin lives.
Above all, engineering and use of the site is to be prevented - nobody should dynamite it and release radioactive dust, nobody should lead a river through it or flood the site, nobody should use parts of it to build anything. Immediate proof that the site is dangerous, by people coming in contact with it dieing while not being contaminated with any kind of radioactive dust, may be a safe and universal isolation of it. Even animals may learn to avoid it.
The only problem is that it's probably impossible to have sufficiently high levels of radiation on the outside of the 'Keep' while still keeping the isotopes safe from any kind of disaster or environmental effects.
Given that the site is supposed to be designed to store barrels of nuclear waste, burying them under a lake of acid seems somewhat counterproductive.
They mention not wanting to overstate the danger ("touch this and you die") in case someone touches the rock and does NOT die, putting doubt on the whole message. I think that poisoning the area creates a similar risk.
If you poison the area then you run the risk of a future civilization cleaning up the obvious poison at the surface, thinking that the message refers to only that poison. This would leave them thinking that the area is safe after their cleanup.
[1] Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Time-Humanity-Communicates-Mille...
[2] Seems to be online, albeit poorly formatted, here: https://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/benford.html
If there was a high exposure death area, and a way to easily send an animal into it, the truth and reality of the danger there would be very easy to convey.
Having a visual cue there (I like the jagged pointy structures) would certainly help reinforce that and/or delineate exactly where the radioactive/cursed place actually is.
After a while, when quite a few people have died, and maybe their whole village and all their farmland is contaminated. This is exactly what we are trying to avoid.
See for example the Goiânia accident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
Soon enough, the Curse of the Jagged Land will become part of the local folklore/religion, at which point Mission Accomplished. Worst-case, you might see an uptick in animal and/or human sacrifice at the site to appease the God of Plutonium.
And in the linked example it was highly radioactive, and people fell sick and died within days. More likely is higher rate of cancers, stillborns and different kinds of genetic damages. How long is it going to take before people connect those things to the strange mines?
My point is that only one generation (maybe two) would be impacted, since future generations would have learned from prior generations that "Hey, if you go to this very-ominous-looking place with giant black spikey stones sticking out of the ground you're gonna get really sick and probably die". That sort of thing is the exact sort of thing that gets passed down from generation to generation via oral history.
It's obviously better that people don't die at all, but that's an idealistic goal. If people are going to die, might as well make it as easy as possible to associate that death with the trespassing that preceded it.
> And in the linked example it was highly radioactive, and people fell sick and died within days.
That... only proves my point further. That's even less time between cause and effect, making it easier to associate and connect the two. Especially - again - when it's associated with a place that has a physical appearance that screams "this land is evil; stay the hell away".
> More likely is higher rate of cancers, stillborns and different kinds of genetic damages.
In the example you linked, the rate of incidence for these things among those exposed to the radiation was not higher than the baseline for that locality.
> How long is it going to take before people connect those things to the strange mines?
"within days"
I'm sorry, if you think people that it is acceptable that a lot of people in future generations get sick and die, because of our short term economic gains now, I can't help to consider you as evil.
Oh yes, because the contaminants polluting the Earth from solar panel manufacture are so much better[1]. And let's totally ignore that coal power is actively spewing radioactive soot into our atmosphere and water and food right now at this very moment day in and day out[2]. Who cares about that, right?
Oh, but surely we can bury those byproducts deep in abandoned mines where they're relatively isolated and quarantined... oh... wait... hmm...
If you think that it is acceptable that a lot of people in current and future generations get sick and die, because of our myopic and irrational fear of a power source the harmful byproducts of which are trivial to contain, I can't help to consider you as evil.
----
[1]: https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt... ← In fairness the situation is apparently improving, and future technologies will hopefully make this less of a problem, but this is nonetheless a problem now, and unlike nuclear waste we're doing far less to try to contain these pollutants.
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_co...
Just imagine your own grief and rage if it was your own children who got sick and died because someone else in a distant past just didn't care about what they did to your local environment.
I consider it one of the greatest problem we as humanity has right now that so many seem to be incapable to sympathise with people just because they are distant (in time or space). A death of a child or a spouse hurts as much in the Middle East or in thousand years (most likely) as it does in the US in 2019.
“ATTENTION DO NOT PUSH RED BUTTON UNLESS IT IS AN EMERGENCY”
It took every ounce of my will power not to push the damn button.
Every time this is posted, many comments on this topic echo comments made in the past. This is reassuring, because many people throughout the years will independently arrive at some of the same critiques, as diverse as those critiques may be. There's concerns about the longevity of the artifacts intended to communicate the message, there's concerns about whether the symbolism will be understood to signify danger, and there's concerns about whether the message of danger will be heeded. There's also the argument that drawing overt attention to the site is more risky than concealing its location, and that avoiding the circulation of information about it is wiser than publicizing it and risk it becoming a legend that some may someday seek.
While it's difficult to design a message that transcends time, culture, and biology, and conveys the authority of the writers and the gravity of the warning, violence against intruders conveys the danger to those who value their existence. It won't necessarily protect against malevolence of someone seeking to unearth a weapon, or the arrogance of individuals willing to compel or force others to put themselves in danger in their stead, but the properties of nuclear waste in particular may enable a design that proves fatal to anyone who may enter the protected chamber, such that once they're through, they can never leave. Technology and telecommunications could still be used to extract material from the site, but only the most dedicated adversaries would be able to proceed.
Thinking on this, the obscurity argument is compelling. It relies on the vastness of the planet to approximate random chance, and force dedicated adversaries to devote time and resources in spacetime (in an analogue to cryptography and keyspace), while clearly marking a location aids those are intrigued by it and lets them skip to planning on how to exploit it. In times when a trustworthy defense force may protect the site from adversaries, the public location is hard to exploit, but in times when no such force exists, the obscurity forces an adversary to expend more work than if the location were known.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force
I think their best work has to be the ray-cats.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/27476/ray-cats-artificial-moo...
Radioactive "waste" is rare material, full of energy. It is dangerous and we may not know what to do with it now but it may turn out valuable in the future.
Just describe precisely what's inside.
I like the idea of using fake rattlesnake sounds near the structures - I'm thinking about rigging something up.
This whole thing is an offshoot of antinuclear FUD. If civilization collapses to the point where people no longer realize that radiation is dangerous, then so many people have already died that a few more people dying early from radiation is just background noise.
In addition, knowing human nature and our propensity for conspiracy theories, there will be people in the future who think all those signs were put there to dissuade people from finding a massive buried treasure. After all, the phrasing is pretty much what you would expect if someone had buried a treasure and wanted to scare people from digging for it.
I have to agree with this. What if in 1955 America we had discovered the equivalent of these warnings, and hints of a huge artificially constructed underground tunnel complex in the same location as Yucca Mountain, and we thought it was buried artifacts from some more technologically advanced precursor or alien civilization?
Dozens of billions of dollars would have been made available to excavate the site, damn the cost and damn the consequences.
The 10,000 year warning is an interesting thought experiment, but if there is anyone who claims it is relevant to the acceptance of nuclear power they are simply not very imaginative about all the things that can go wrong over 10,000 years. A civilisation-level mind blank on where the garbage dump is doesn't rate at any meaningful level.
The half life of lead is 1.53×10^7 years. It is a nasty toxic substance; it has killed people. We still use it. It is objectively a bigger threat on a longer time scale than nuclear waste. As usual, nuclear power is special because we could conceivably manage the damage. Most industrial processes cause damage at a scale so large the cost of a no-harm policy would be prohibitive. With nuclear the cost is simply a bit high.
This precisely had me thinking about a science fiction plot, along those lines: human colonists discover a massively booby trapped monument left behind by some long extinct alien civilization, and make great sacrifice to penetrate into its depths, only to realize in the end that nothing was hidden underneath except radioactive waste.
Edit: walrus01 beat me to it!
The strange spikes and so on are just one possible approach. Simply hiding the stuff a mile under some salt can work and at least one site does that. I think you're going to see a ton of stuff hidden that way just because it's the path of least resistance once the regulatory permissions are secured (which is hard enough). I think this approach has been written about in the NY Times and so on.
> An analysis of the likely number of deaths over 10,000 years due to inadvertent intrusion should be conducted. This cost should be weighted against that of the marker system.
i'm curious re: where you're coming from with "ignoring the possibility that Earth may not be hospitable to humans within two generations" – I feel like that's outside the scope of this document. also, couldn't the same be said about any plan with a long enough timeline?