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136 Comments
- Lorian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+73"Of course, there's one consolation. If the warning system doesn’t work, none of us will be around to find out."
That's the spirit! - headzoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+67If people 10,000 years from now are anything like us now, then they will spot something like this and say, "Oh, intelligent life must have created this. Let's dig it up!".
- Schug, on 10/12/2007, -7/+45Blatant reply abuse, but this I think this has more info than that article:
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=160 - Evoguy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+40Weren't the pyramids and sealed egyptian tombs supposed to have lots of signals to keep people out too? Curses, boobytraps, glpyhs of certain doom for those who enter, etc? We sure stayed out of there didn't we...
- Blisshead, on 10/12/2007, -2/+39According to the discovery channel Yellowstone is going to blow up as a meteor crashes into the earth while a mega tsunami wipes out the coasts to finish off whats left by the firestorms which were started after the plagues which were released after the solar radiation shut down communications and the nano-tech that went all skynet on us, so it's all a moot point anyway.
- Arkonnan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+40Isn't this wonderful.. Our ancestors have left us a wealth of relics and treasures from ages long past. And what do we have to pass onto our descendants? Cancer.
- trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -7/+36One word, goatse.
- LucasVB, on 10/12/2007, -1/+30@Schug: the "message" on that Damn Interesting article sounds like something out of a HP Lovecraft novel. "Right here lies a great danger that must be left untouched"
I wonder if there will be religious repercussions over this place... I can already imagine the legends: "A thousand years ago, a powerful and ancient civilization trapped a being of pure, evil energy in this place..." - ThomasCJohnson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+29As I went walking, I saw a sign there;
And on the sign there, It said, 'NO TRESPASSING.'
But on the other side, It didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.
Woody Guthrie - jguy584, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27"That's a particular concern, considering that there are probably large reserves of oil and natural gas underneath the waste site. "People are going to want to get to that, and markers are not going to keep them away," says Hancock."
I'll be damned by the devil if we're still scouring the earth for fossil fuels in 10,000 years - WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28I'm leaving a wealth of porn, anime and poorly-translated kung-fu movies... yep, just doin' my part...
- JonnyTrombone, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29If there even *is* life still on Earth in 10,000 years...
- xWintermute, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25They should obviously spend the money on a robot who will sit there with a laser cannon for 10,000 years.
- stormgren, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26@silvercode
English is a language. Languages evolve and change over time. Americans have not "bastardized" English unless you also claim that all of the British people now who don't speak like Shakespeare or even earlier times are doing the same.
Or can you read Old English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_language) without needing translation?
People can still speak and understand Hebrew, which is 6000+ years old, and Latin, which is 2000 years old. I doubt English will "be forgotten as a tool of communication within the next 100 years." - eplawless, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29Maybe this is what Stonehenge is.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+27Interesting, I've never thought of this. Ten thousand years is a long time, hopefully English will still be around.
- Wavey, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Wonder if, in 10,000 years, they'll have bio-engineered some life form that eats radioactive waste and neutralizes it. For all we know, maybe we should be shouting "Yummy!" instead of "Danger!" :)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Agreed. I would sure be curious about the giant spike field...
I think they need some graphic depictions of people suffering from radiation poisoning. - morcheeba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18exactly! And power it from the nuclear waste -- when the blastin' stops, it'll be safe to enter.
- Abennobashi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19Luanching it into space eh? And so we stuff it into a rocket and what do we have? Basically a bomb launch? The only reason we cant do that is because if the slightest thing went wrong, let's just say...we'd need to find a new place for a launch site.
- tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Hey, those pesky ancient Egyptians left us curses, remember?!
- SilverCode, on 10/12/2007, -10/+25Well, America has managed to bastardize the English language within the last 100 or so years, and being one of the worlds Super Powers, it would not surprise me if within the next 100 years English as we know is a forgotten tool for communication. Besides, even if in 10 000 years, they understand the symbols/pictographs/words we put up to convey the warning, it wouldn't matter. Humans are curious by nature, and despite the warning signs (in fact, because of them) we will digg the stuff up, just too see what it is about. When people start dying (well, hopefully by that stage radiation poisoning will be something you can take a pill for), they will say "Oh, that is what that meant. Wow, was nice of them to think of us."
- rm999, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18I wonder how long it will take for technology to be able to take care of nuclear waste. Perhaps we will find a way to convert it to something benign, speed up the breakdown (lower the half-life), or safely ship it into deep space. I predict something will come up in the next 100 years, making this a useless investment.
more blatant reply abuse... - griz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14@Zanky
"... perhaps fuel the sun even more? Or unbalance it and cause the Sun to "blow up". Research could be done."
The scale of material that would be hitting the sun vs the size of the sun itself would be comparable to putting a drop of arsenic into the ocean and thinking it would poison everything in it. - LucasVB, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16No matter! In the future, after a big nuclear war, everyone will be disgusting mutants. The place will actually end up as a very expensive radioactive spa.
- lsdeath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Yeah why leave them any oil. I want it NOOOW.
- Schug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Think about all the warning heiroglyphics on the Egyptian tombs. No matter what is put up, we'll still go in.
- xeeton, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Of course it will "last up to a hundred thousand years" even if the half-life is 10,000 years. I think you are confused.
- EricAnderton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11We're practically there now.
There are some kinds of bacteria that can process Uranium into oxides that aren't as hazardous (not as chemically active, but still radioactive) to the environment. There are also some strains of bacteria, extremophiles really, that thrive in heavily radioactive environments.
Sure that's not neutralizing radioactivity (I don't think that's possible via any biological process), but it's a start. - Dego, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/episodes/TNG/detail/68642.html
Frist thing I thought of was Star Trek. - borsdy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12That's what made the article for me.
- siouxmoux, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Stick A Picture of the G4tv Logo on any Dangerous Nuclear Waste Dump Will be enough Warning to Scare away any human being or Alien Race from that Hazard!!!
- sickfreq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Why not just plan to update the message every hundred years or so? Have some scientists drop in, compare present day languages to the warning sign, apply any necessary changes to keep the message current and repeat. Language will not change so significantly in 100 years, and it would be much easier than predicting the future.
- djhifisi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10If people are still around in ten thousand years I'm guessing they are going to be much more advanced than we are now, don't you think they will be able to work out for themselves that it's a radioactive dump site?
- Poco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I just want to know what the Apes would do with these markers?
Dr Zaius would make forbidden for anyone to go there, knowing the history but keeping it to himself.
Cornelius would try to dig it up as it was an interesting historical site that was clearly made by an intelligent society of the past.
General Ursus would try to blow it up. - wesb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Not only a new launch site, potentially a new continent. Nothing like having literally millions of fragments of nuclear waste raining down on your whole nation!
- Shorties, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Boy, the Indiana Jones of the future is going to be disappointed that after he scaled the large walls and spikes, his reward is not a large gold ridden tomb but a nice and painful death thanks to radiation poisoning. So that's why no one returned from the tomb alive.
- rushiku, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I've said it before and I'll say it again: "the 'unmarked grave' approach is the best way make sure no ever finds it, disturbs it, or otherwise messes with it".
There, I did it for free and didn't require a large sum of money in the form of a government grant to think of it either...maybe that was the point. (...I could use a new car...) - Garda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@ZaNkY
hahahahahahaha The sun exploding; that's the funniest thing I've heard all day
The sun is hardly delicate. You know what happens if you throw all the nuclear waste into the sun: ***** all. :)
The magnitude of the forces and the amount of material in the sun is so large that you could probably throw the entire earth in there and it wouldn't notice, no exaggeration, absolutely nothing would happen.
The only reason why we don't send our nuclear waste out to space is that uranium and plutonium are among the most dense materials on earth. The amount of rocket fuel that you would need to regularly keep sending shipments in to space is absolutely huge and would probably cost many times more than what NASA gets in its budget. Nuclear waste simply has too much mass and so sending it away is just not an option. - dkcronin184, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13@mrASSMAN
The reason people dig down comments is because they can't stand anything that even slightly offends them, or is contrary to their opinion, humorous or serious. Sites like this are mob rule; if you dissent from the society of the site then you are shouted down and your view point, juvenile or not, is made irrelevant. This is not a place of open discussion, it is a place for people of a common mindset to gather and agree with each other while they nullify all other opinions. - tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7This is one of the most interesting things I've read for a while. It's something that's never crossed my mind - how *would* you leave a message for people 1000 years into the future? That sounds like a mega-interesting project to be able to work on - but also kind of sucky, since you'll never know if it worked.
I kinda imagine the ancient Egyptians sitting around saying 'so how can we make sure people 5000 years into the future can't get in here?' - carguy84, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14Wouldn't it just make more sense to create something now and pass on the meaning from generation to generation instead of trying to come up with a present day reference that says "Danger" in all languages? Create a new symbol and spread it's meaning.
1 Billion dollars, sheesh. I am so through with paying taxes it's not even funny. - Adoozie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Launching nuclear waste into space is a BAD idea because there is no guarantee it would actually make it there. Imagine a rocket full of radioactive waste that explodes in the Earth's atmosphere. It would be one of the most catastrophic accidents in history. Even assuming that such a rocket could be made 100% safe, it still costs a truckload of Franklins just to move that much weight into space.
- rushiku, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Good, but doesn't cover the 'near extinction' vector. eg: The human race is nearly wiped out by [ nuclear war | asteriods | giant, nuclear-mutated lizards | super-flu | global warming | global cooling | alien invasion | your choice ] but somehow survives and reclaims the surface of the earth...only to be done in, again, by the unupdated 'Mystery Mound'.
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@carguy
They could write a book and have it handed down from generation to generation.
And Nixon begat Ford, and Ford Begat, and Carter Begat Reagan. And so a foul plauge was wreaked upon the planet as the demons of war doth create a magical force to deform men into beasts of three arms and no eyes. - jasmin888, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Well, pretty important they get those figures right. Imagine they prepare for only 10.000 years and should have prepared for 20.000 years - think of all those creatures who are unaware of the dangers for 10.000 years? :D
- bsummersett, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I don't think we give our society enough credit if we're to believe we'll all miraculously forget about a huge nuclear waste site while in the information age (and onwards).
Unless of course there was a huge nuclear war... But then finding this wouldn't be much of problem anyway. - YourTechSupport, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6They're betting on the post-apocalypse thing here. Planet Of The Apes style.
"You maniacs....!" - beatmonger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I remember reading the Damn Interesting article posted further up a couple months ago. It said what they're really trying to convey is that the site isn't a "place of honor" but where they stored their dangerous waste products.
Still makes it sound a little exciting but I'm optimistic. There must be an ideal way to convey that without piquing a future civilization's curiosity. - Yashu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I think the best way to keep people from digging down... is to draw all attention to the surface. The spike field is interesting... if I saw it, my first reaction would not be to dig, but to explore the surface.
I think a massive monolith, or something that will keep people from thinking "dig down". Take the pyramids... they are huge and interesting, yet we have never tried to move them aside to dig under. The waste is over a half mile down... so I think as long as you keep the interest on the surface (because no matter how menacing, it will still be interesting) things will be ok. -
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