{"id":3849,"date":"2011-09-04T14:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-09-04T19:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoreti.ca\/?p=3849"},"modified":"2011-09-04T14:00:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T19:00:28","slug":"how-to-communicate-the-dangers-of-nuclear-waste-to-future-civilizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/?p=3849","title":{"rendered":"How to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste to future civilizations."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theoreti.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/5_menacing-earthworks.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3851 aligncenter\" title=\"5_menacing-earthworks\" src=\"http:\/\/www.theoreti.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/5_menacing-earthworks-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Reading Umberto Eco&#8217;s The Search for the Perfect Language I came across a discussion Thomas Sebeok&#8217;s work for the U.S. Office of Nuclear Waste Management on &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.osti.gov\/bridge\/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6705990\" target=\"_blank\">Communication Measures To Bridge Ten Millennia<\/a>.&#8221; Sebeok was commissioned to figure out how to warn people about nuclear waste in 10,000 years. How do you design a warning system that can survive for tens of thousands of years? He proposed an artificial folklore with a priestly caste to maintain superstitions about the site. He ended up recommending<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>that information be launched and artificially passed on into the short-term and long-term future with the sup- plementary aid of folkloristic devices, in particular a combination of an artificially created and nurtured ritual-and-legend. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The legend-and-ritual, as now envisaged, would be tantamount to laying a &#8220;false trail&#8221;, 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. (p. 24)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Slate Magazine<\/em> has a great story on the issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2235504\/pagenum\/all\/\">Atomic Priesthoods, Thorn Landscapes, and Munchian Pictograms: How to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste to future civilizations<\/a> by Juliet Lapidos (Nov. 16, 2009.) She surveys some of the interesting ideas like &#8220;Menacing Earthworks&#8221; that would warn people off, and talks about a 1993 SANDIA report titled, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wipp.energy.gov\/PICsProg\/Test1\/SAND%2092-1382.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Expert Judgment on Markers To Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion Into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reading Umberto Eco&#8217;s The Search for the Perfect Language I came across a discussion Thomas Sebeok&#8217;s work for the U.S. Office of Nuclear Waste Management on &#8220;Communication Measures To Bridge Ten Millennia.&#8221; Sebeok was commissioned to figure out how to warn people about nuclear waste in 10,000 years. How do you design a warning system &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/?p=3849\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste to future civilizations.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-of-computing-and-multimedia","category-markup-and-text-representation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3849"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3853,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849\/revisions\/3853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}