Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by aeneasmackenzie | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

aeneasmackenzie

1. Dig a hole

2. Put a fence around the hole

3. Put a sign on the fence saying "if you cross this fence you will die"

4. Put radioactive waste in the hole

5. Cover the hole

It's not a complicated problem.

View on HN

"We cannot guarantee that any simple or complex message, even when recognized and correctly interpreted, will deter a human being from inappropriate action."

From https://prod-ng.sandia.gov/techlib-noauth/access-control.cgi...

Unless humanity reverts to a pre industrial state, future inhabitants should have tech to detect radioactive material —just as we can now. If we fall to a pre industrial state, it’s doubtful we’d be able to get to the buried waste material like Yucca mountain.

> I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Albert Einstein, in an interview with Alfred Werner, Liberal Judaism 16 (April-May 1949), Einstein Archive 30-1104, as sourced in The New Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2005), p. 173

Just add Geiger sensors to phones. If it goes beyond a certain level, you lose data connection. Then watch the people flock away.

The sign wasn't kidding. Leave any skeletons from people who thought it was in place and that will be warning enough.

I hate water tables too.

And yet it still hasn't been done. Why do you think that is?

It's already done. What makes you think it wasn't done?

How do you prevent it from raining on the fenced off area?

The way around this is to put the waste in an old salt mine. Salt deposits accumulated there in the first place because it's been dry for thousands of years due to geological features like an impermeable rock dome overhead.

The real problem is that nobody wants this waste dump in their state. The Yucca Mountain complex is pretty much perfect for this application but politicians killed it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com