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Nuclear Semiotics: How to Talk to Future Humans · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, Maine in Greater New England. We're coming to see
0:03
Speaker 1: you guys in Portland and we can't wait. We would
0:06
Speaker 1: love to see you there. Yep, we'll be at the
0:08
Speaker 1: State Theater on August. If you're interested, you can get
0:11
Speaker 1: tickets and information at s y s K live dot com.
0:15
Speaker 1: There's some lobster at us. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
0:19
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
0:28
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles
0:31
Speaker 1: W Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and this is
0:35
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know, Uh, the podcast. And you're about
0:41
Speaker 1: to say that the Blank Edition. Yeah, I was, but
0:43
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of anything. It was literally the blank Edition,
0:47
Speaker 1: was it? I mean, you couldn't think of anything? You
0:49
Speaker 1: were blacked. Oh no, that's right, it was the blank Edition.
0:51
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, it's a terrible start, Chuck. So how about this,
0:55
Speaker 1: just to uh divert ourselves from that disaster, what was
1:00
Speaker 1: not a disaster where our live shows we just did.
1:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we we finally got up on stage everyone
1:06
Speaker 1: since first time since January kick the Rust off in
1:10
Speaker 1: Chicago and Toronto, and both of them were we just killed.
1:14
Speaker 1: They were great. Yeah, everybody were great. Everyone had a
1:17
Speaker 1: really great time. Yeah, they told us so. They seemed
1:20
Speaker 1: to be legitimately meaning what they were saying. Yeah, it
1:24
Speaker 1: was really really great to get back on stage with you,
1:26
Speaker 1: my friend. And also also also hats off to Chicago
1:29
Speaker 1: for showing up. They showed up, Like we called you
1:32
Speaker 1: guys out and you responded, thank you very and thank
1:36
Speaker 1: you Toronto for not making us call you out. But
1:40
Speaker 1: there are still tickets remaining for August twenty nine than
1:42
Speaker 1: Boston at the Wilbur in Portland, Maine. You know, we're
1:45
Speaker 1: venturing up into the hinterlands of America next after that,
1:51
Speaker 1: but August thirty, if there are still plenty of great
1:55
Speaker 1: tickets left there, and then the same can be said
1:58
Speaker 1: in October and Orlando and October tenth. I think I
2:03
Speaker 1: said October nine right in Orlando, October tenth in New Orleans. Yep,
2:06
Speaker 1: that's right, Brooklyn. I'm not worried about that. Already, all
2:09
Speaker 1: sold out, the whole thing, all three nights. Man, should
2:12
Speaker 1: we had a fourth, jeez, I don't know. We'll talk
2:16
Speaker 1: about it anyway. Thanks to everyone who came out. It
2:18
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun and this is a good one,
2:20
Speaker 1: so you don't want you don't want to miss it. Yeah,
2:22
Speaker 1: so come on out, especially Portland, Maine. Let's get with
2:25
Speaker 1: it all right now, Nuclear Semiotics, which I didn't know
2:28
Speaker 1: I loved, but I do. Really Do you remember Visible
2:32
Speaker 1: did a very famous episode on this very topic. I
2:35
Speaker 1: didn't hear that. I specifically avoided going back and listening
2:38
Speaker 1: to it because I don't want to be um stunk
2:42
Speaker 1: upon by its taint. Does that make sense? You don't
2:44
Speaker 1: want Roman Mars is taint um thinking on you. It's
2:47
Speaker 1: more like it's just such a classic episode that I
2:50
Speaker 1: don't want it to like leak in. I don't want
2:52
Speaker 1: to actually rip it off. Yeah, well we we certainly
2:55
Speaker 1: can't Invisible this thing, because that is a show that
2:58
Speaker 1: exists at that hop echelon this industry. Sure so so
3:02
Speaker 1: so do we Sure we're up there all right? But
3:05
Speaker 1: if you like this one, if this stuff like floats
3:08
Speaker 1: your boat and you're like, I want to know more,
3:09
Speaker 1: go listen to the Visible episode. Yeah, this thing really
3:13
Speaker 1: triggered a lot of like synapsis firing for me, and
3:17
Speaker 1: I think, like I think I really enjoy this kind
3:21
Speaker 1: of thought experiment, problem solving stuff. I think I would
3:26
Speaker 1: really dig like that. Part of the zombie Apocalypse is
3:30
Speaker 1: figuring the stuff out as a team. Because the whole
3:33
Speaker 1: time I was reading this, I was saying, great idea,
3:36
Speaker 1: terrible idea. They should do this, they shouldn't do that.
3:38
Speaker 1: Go sit down. Yeah you I like the cut of
3:40
Speaker 1: your gym. It was really cool. I dug this. I've
3:43
Speaker 1: never heard of it, so thank you. Oh You're very welcome.
3:46
Speaker 1: I actually heard of it before Roman Mars made the episode,
3:50
Speaker 1: so I can't really thank him. But well, not before
3:52
Speaker 1: he heard of it, because I think it's well known
3:54
Speaker 1: that Roman's first words were nuclear semiotics. That's true. Yeah,
3:59
Speaker 1: even before or Mama's um. I could totally believe that. Actually,
4:05
Speaker 1: uh so, what we're talking about, is, Chuck said a
4:07
Speaker 1: couple of times, for those of you who don't know,
4:10
Speaker 1: is nuclear semiotics. And that is a very specialized branch,
4:15
Speaker 1: interdisciplinary branch of I guess science that involves also basically
4:20
Speaker 1: any field of research that you can throw at the
4:22
Speaker 1: wall would probably have some function to play in the
4:25
Speaker 1: field of nuclear semiotics. And to to make a long
4:28
Speaker 1: story short, to do the too long, didn't read version
4:31
Speaker 1: of this TL Semicolon dr um is nuclear semiotics seeks
4:38
Speaker 1: to figure out how to warn the future humans to
4:43
Speaker 1: come or whatever is here. Sure, good point. I mean,
4:47
Speaker 1: why discriminate right to warn the future humans or the
4:50
Speaker 1: future super intelligent jellyfish whatever to come. Hey, this is
4:56
Speaker 1: a very dangerous radioactive dump site that we've put here.
5:00
Speaker 1: Stay away. Yeah, it's that easy. It sounds easy. The
5:03
Speaker 1: problem is is if you presume that it's easy, you're
5:07
Speaker 1: making a lot of assumptions that aren't necessarily going to
5:10
Speaker 1: hold up. Oh yeah, like a lot of times and
5:12
Speaker 1: are like they should just do And I would even
5:14
Speaker 1: stop halfway through my thought. It was like, now that
5:17
Speaker 1: that wouldn't work. It's true because our languages might be
5:20
Speaker 1: gone by then. Our symbols don't necessarily make sense outside
5:24
Speaker 1: of the context that we understand them in. Um civilization
5:27
Speaker 1: might be ridiculously advanced by them. Civilization might be in
5:31
Speaker 1: a state of collapse by then. We have no idea.
5:33
Speaker 1: But the point of nuclear semiotics is to figure out
5:36
Speaker 1: how to come up with a um a message that
5:40
Speaker 1: is understandable to everybody in any situation in the future.
5:45
Speaker 1: And the current state of the art is let's figure
5:48
Speaker 1: out how to speak as far as ten thousand years
5:51
Speaker 1: into the future. Yeah, I mean, and that's like being generous.
5:55
Speaker 1: It needs to go beyond that. It does, because the
5:57
Speaker 1: whole point of nuclear semiotics, the whole porn of warning
6:00
Speaker 1: the future, is this stuff, this nuclear waste that we're
6:03
Speaker 1: putting into the ground now, is going to be dangerous
6:07
Speaker 1: for tens and tens of thousands of years. Plutonium two
6:11
Speaker 1: thirty nine has a half life of twenty four thousand years.
6:14
Speaker 1: There's something called um Technetium ninety nine has a half
6:19
Speaker 1: life of two hundred and eleven thousand years, So another
6:22
Speaker 1: one is like one point seven million year half life.
6:25
Speaker 1: This is the nuclear waste that we're creating now and
6:28
Speaker 1: are putting in the ground. Yeah. And uh, Julia Layton,
6:32
Speaker 1: who was one of our writers who does great work
6:34
Speaker 1: for us, she made a lot of great points, which
6:37
Speaker 1: is like the history of human evolution is two hundred
6:40
Speaker 1: thousand years, and like we've only been like reading and
6:43
Speaker 1: writing for how long about five thousand, less than six
6:46
Speaker 1: thousand years. Yeah, So it's it sounds like like you said,
6:51
Speaker 1: it sounds simple. And so many times I thought I
6:54
Speaker 1: had I thought I had it cracked, only to think
6:57
Speaker 1: like I was, like, why don't they just uh do
7:00
Speaker 1: something purely visual and and stage a play of people
7:04
Speaker 1: at that site digging in and then dying. And it's like,
7:07
Speaker 1: what what do you do with it? Well, I'll just
7:09
Speaker 1: put it on a DVD that just plays on a loop.
7:14
Speaker 1: It's like, how are you gonna power that thing? You
7:16
Speaker 1: know what happens when everybody's converted to blue ray? Yeah exactly?
7:20
Speaker 1: Or you know, well, then solar put a solar panel up.
7:23
Speaker 1: He's got the last forever. But what have it done?
7:25
Speaker 1: What if there's like a forever nuclear storm or whatever.
7:29
Speaker 1: But if the sun never shines again on Earth in
7:32
Speaker 1: eight thousand years, that's could happen. That's the cool thing
7:35
Speaker 1: about thinking into the deep future is all the things
7:38
Speaker 1: that will go wrong. Yeah, it makes you realize like
7:41
Speaker 1: how specific everything you think and know and understand really
7:45
Speaker 1: is to your current time. Yeah, it's very cool. She
7:48
Speaker 1: brings up the point about an apple, like when you
7:50
Speaker 1: see the word apple, you don't see the word apple,
7:53
Speaker 1: you see visualize the symbol of that is an apple.
7:57
Speaker 1: So it's like it's almost like the words and very
8:00
Speaker 1: much of the words will just not have meaning anymore
8:03
Speaker 1: at some point. Man. Well, let's dig into this stuff.
8:06
Speaker 1: You're ready, let's do it. So to start, we should
8:09
Speaker 1: talk about where this all came from. It came from
8:13
Speaker 1: a new type of nuclear storage solution, nuclear waste storage
8:17
Speaker 1: solution called UM long term geological repositories, and it is
8:23
Speaker 1: basically digging into the earth a couple of miles into
8:27
Speaker 1: the earth, putting our nuclear waste there, again, waste that's
8:31
Speaker 1: going to be harmful the health for tens of thousands,
8:34
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of years, and sealing it up and
8:39
Speaker 1: then covering over the site and then putting a warning
8:41
Speaker 1: on there. And right now, the general consensus is that
8:46
Speaker 1: salt beds are the best place to put that nuclear waste.
8:50
Speaker 1: And there's actually some pretty good reasons why. Yeah, we
8:52
Speaker 1: could do an episode on nuclear storage. I think I
8:55
Speaker 1: really want to in and of itself. Yeah, I don't
8:57
Speaker 1: know if that's a shorty or a long it's probably
8:59
Speaker 1: a long. But just briefly, the reason salt beds are
9:02
Speaker 1: preferable is because the fact that they're even there suggests
9:06
Speaker 1: that there's no water. If they if there was water,
9:09
Speaker 1: they would have been dissolved long ago. It's really relatively
9:12
Speaker 1: easy to mine into them. And then what's awesome about
9:15
Speaker 1: salt is that when you mine a shaft into a
9:19
Speaker 1: salt bed and you put your deposit there, then you
9:23
Speaker 1: pull back out, Um, the salt bed actually heals itself over,
9:28
Speaker 1: like just a few decades, seals itself back up, right, Yes,
9:31
Speaker 1: So you put a container that's been engineered to hold
9:34
Speaker 1: the nuclear waste inside for ten thousand years. Yeah, it's
9:37
Speaker 1: also in a container. You should point that out, right,
9:39
Speaker 1: You're putting it into a borehole in the salt. The
9:44
Speaker 1: salt is going to grow back around it and intubate,
9:48
Speaker 1: perhaps permanently in this salt very strong to right, Yeah,
9:52
Speaker 1: it is fairly strong. I mean, like if you're mining
9:55
Speaker 1: using modern mining equipment, it's it's really easy to mine into.
9:59
Speaker 1: But if you have like a pickaxe or something is
10:01
Speaker 1: rock to salt. Rock is what it's called. Right. So
10:04
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons why people have figured out
10:06
Speaker 1: like this is not a bad idea to intomb nuclear waste.
10:10
Speaker 1: But but here's the thing. We can't just intumbate and
10:13
Speaker 1: walk away, Like we have a responsibility for those of
10:17
Speaker 1: us generating this waste today to warn the future. And
10:21
Speaker 1: it's on the future if they listen to us or not.
10:24
Speaker 1: That's on them, right, But we have to make them
10:27
Speaker 1: able to listen to us exactly, Like we have a
10:29
Speaker 1: responsibility to do that because some people are proposed like, hey,
10:32
Speaker 1: let's just bury and forget about it. The chances of
10:34
Speaker 1: somebody actually finding it are pretty slim. Just bury and
10:38
Speaker 1: forget about it, and that's probably the best, the best
10:40
Speaker 1: way to go. And people said, it's not a bad idea,
10:42
Speaker 1: but it's actually pretty bad ideas. He actually, I thought
10:45
Speaker 1: that one wasn't the worst idea. It's not that was
10:47
Speaker 1: the behavioral psychologists. He was like, And he wasn't like
10:50
Speaker 1: just forget about it. He was like, maybe the smartest
10:52
Speaker 1: thing to do is to leave it unmarked, right because,
10:55
Speaker 1: as we'll see, attracting attention to something like exactly attracts attention.
11:00
Speaker 1: It's interesting thought experiment, right. That was that psychologist. By
11:03
Speaker 1: the way, is Dr Percy Tannenbaum Really no, no wonder
11:06
Speaker 1: I like that of the East Hampton tenembombs. So we
11:09
Speaker 1: should point out that there's a couple of a couple
11:12
Speaker 1: of big times that these um that this has been commissioned, like, hey,
11:16
Speaker 1: we need to think of something one for a site
11:18
Speaker 1: that never happened, uh, And one for a site that
11:21
Speaker 1: has happened, the one that has happened. It's only one
11:23
Speaker 1: in the United States right now, the only one in
11:25
Speaker 1: the world as far as they know now, it's number three.
11:29
Speaker 1: It's the third largest. I didn't see what the other
11:31
Speaker 1: two were. It must have been the first in the world. Then, yeah,
11:34
Speaker 1: probably the first in the world. Yeah, which makes sense
11:36
Speaker 1: because the other two are bigger. But this is in
11:38
Speaker 1: New Mexico. It's called the Whip the Waist Isolation Pilot Plant,
11:43
Speaker 1: and this one they are, uh, they're actively guarding for
11:49
Speaker 1: They've committed the Department of Energy is committed to guarding
11:51
Speaker 1: it with people for a hundred years. They have hired
11:55
Speaker 1: Barney five year contract to look over this nuclear for
11:59
Speaker 1: it least a hundred years. It's not like at the
12:01
Speaker 1: end of the hundred years are gonna just like put
12:03
Speaker 1: a padlock on it and walk away. I imagine they
12:06
Speaker 1: will keep guarding it as long as they feel like
12:08
Speaker 1: it needs guarding. I don't know if that's something I
12:12
Speaker 1: don't know, man. I mean, we're talking about a government
12:14
Speaker 1: run program here. At least a hundred years. We can
12:17
Speaker 1: at least say that, yes, they agreed to that, so uh,
12:21
Speaker 1: you know, the whole idea arose um before that, though,
12:25
Speaker 1: what was the other one in Nevada. That's the Yucky
12:29
Speaker 1: Mountain one. That was the first one, right, that's the
12:31
Speaker 1: first one that that never happened. But that's when, you know,
12:34
Speaker 1: in the seventies is when this idea sort of came about.
12:37
Speaker 1: And I think it was two when it was sort
12:40
Speaker 1: of codified as an official um I guess science or yeah,
12:45
Speaker 1: it is. It's a branch. It's an interdisciplinary branch of science.
12:48
Speaker 1: Nuclear semionics is, and it is. It's because the e
12:52
Speaker 1: p A came up with a rule in two a law.
12:55
Speaker 1: Really that's the eighty one. I got that wrong, by
12:57
Speaker 1: the way, So it's eighty one that they came up
12:59
Speaker 1: with the law. Uh well, it became a discipline in
13:01
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one with that Yucky Mountain Repository project. And
13:06
Speaker 1: I think from that Yucky Mountain Repository project, because we
13:09
Speaker 1: were starting to figure out how to deposit the stuff
13:11
Speaker 1: for for a long time, the e p A came
13:14
Speaker 1: up with a rule I think it was two that said,
13:16
Speaker 1: if you're going to create these kind of repositories for
13:19
Speaker 1: nuclear waste, you also have to figure out how to
13:22
Speaker 1: come up with a permanent warning sign. And everybody was like,
13:26
Speaker 1: that's no problem, of course, and then the EPs to
13:28
Speaker 1: think about it. It's harder than you think. He said,
13:30
Speaker 1: just slap that, uh, that nuclear waste logo that everyone knows.
13:35
Speaker 1: And everyone was like, everyone doesn't know that. It's been
13:38
Speaker 1: around forever. Everyone doesn't know that now, right, much less
13:42
Speaker 1: in two hundred thousand years. Yeah, did you see the
13:45
Speaker 1: how that was created? Yeah? It was. It was a
13:49
Speaker 1: a group doodle. I don't know how that happens. I
13:51
Speaker 1: think that means they can't ascribe it to one person.
13:53
Speaker 1: They know there was like five people on one of
13:55
Speaker 1: those giants like silver spoons, pencils. Yeah, this is an
14:00
Speaker 1: nineteen six was it at Berkeley? And it was a
14:04
Speaker 1: group doodle in the science class? And is that a
14:08
Speaker 1: a band name group dood Wiggles or something? Yeah, I
14:13
Speaker 1: think it's an album title for sure. So the Wiggles
14:15
Speaker 1: group doodle. Absolutely, that's probably a real thing. That's our
14:19
Speaker 1: gift to you, Wiggles. But I saw this was interesting
14:22
Speaker 1: in the symbol came under consideration for wider use because
14:26
Speaker 1: at first it was just a group doodle and then
14:29
Speaker 1: the Brookhaven National Laboratory requested a standardized symbol of standardized
14:34
Speaker 1: colors for their radiation safety program, and there was more
14:38
Speaker 1: argument about the colors than the actual symbol um because
14:43
Speaker 1: at first we're like, you can't use yellow because we
14:45
Speaker 1: use yellow for a lot of stuff. Yeah, they wanted
14:47
Speaker 1: to make sure that it didn't get overused so people
14:50
Speaker 1: would just become kind of blind to because they saw
14:52
Speaker 1: it so much. And they were like, have you heard
14:53
Speaker 1: a striper get easy? Yellow and black? They're like, no,
14:57
Speaker 1: I haven't heard him. And give us forty years. You
14:59
Speaker 1: have heard of them, believe, and then in forty two
15:01
Speaker 1: years no one will have heard of them. So I
15:04
Speaker 1: think the original design was um, it was. I saw
15:08
Speaker 1: them in concert. We won't even believe it was. Magenta
15:12
Speaker 1: blades on a blue background was the original design, and
15:16
Speaker 1: it was chosen because it was uncommon. But then an
15:18
Speaker 1: oak Ridge, Tennessee at the oak Ridge National Laboratory, they
15:22
Speaker 1: went with the yellow background in later on in and
15:26
Speaker 1: I guess it's stuck. That's where the oak Ridge boys
15:28
Speaker 1: were all scientists, that's right. So it was originally magenta
15:33
Speaker 1: on blue, right, Yes, And the logo we're talking about
15:36
Speaker 1: for those of you, I know, it's called the nuclear trefoil.
15:38
Speaker 1: You know, it's a circle and then three cortial circles
15:43
Speaker 1: around the blades. And from what I saw, one of
15:45
Speaker 1: the original group doodlers explained it as um it's supposed
15:49
Speaker 1: to be an atom with activity around it. Yeah, that's it,
15:53
Speaker 1: which I never saw it before, but now that I've
15:55
Speaker 1: read that, I can't unsee it. And that is really
15:58
Speaker 1: what it looks like. It's a pretty great it will
16:00
Speaker 1: doodle but it's like you said, that is not a
16:03
Speaker 1: universally accepted symbol, which is a big problem. And it
16:07
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't evoke like, oh, an atom. Of course,
16:10
Speaker 1: I know what an atom looks like. I just saw
16:12
Speaker 1: one go down the street a second ago, and this
16:14
Speaker 1: looks like an atom. It's a symbolic representation of an atom,
16:18
Speaker 1: which means that after people stop thinking about what atoms
16:21
Speaker 1: look like, maybe a thousand years or five thousand years
16:25
Speaker 1: down the road, if something happens, no one's going to
16:27
Speaker 1: look at that and be like, oh, it's an atom.
16:30
Speaker 1: Activity around an atom, that must mean there's radiation here.
16:33
Speaker 1: Hence this is a dangerous sign that's not going to happen. Uh.
16:36
Speaker 1: The other thing you would think, is just just put
16:39
Speaker 1: up in a bunch of languages. Done. Ye, here's the thing.
16:42
Speaker 1: Languages are disappearing. I'm gonna ask you, actually, what is
16:46
Speaker 1: your best guess? A language dies out every blank nine
16:54
Speaker 1: million seconds? Is that right? Did I nail it? Jerk?
17:01
Speaker 1: I gotta get out of calculator. A language dies out
17:03
Speaker 1: every fourteen days. I'm pretty sure that's nine millions. Isn't
17:06
Speaker 1: that staggering? God? What if it was? Are you about
17:08
Speaker 1: to do that? Yeah? You keep talking. So that's about
17:11
Speaker 1: twenty five languages per year that die out. And um,
17:14
Speaker 1: that's really sad, it is, and it is very sad.
17:17
Speaker 1: And granted these aren't you know, major languages, but they're
17:20
Speaker 1: important to the people who speak them. Um. But that's
17:23
Speaker 1: just sort of to uh to to get across the
17:27
Speaker 1: point that throwing it up in a bunch of languages
17:30
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee and in fact, in all likelihood and
17:34
Speaker 1: in fifty thousand years, there won't be English or German
17:38
Speaker 1: or French, there may not even be humans. That's we
17:42
Speaker 1: maybe what what's the calculation? Six days? I was a
17:46
Speaker 1: little lot. Okay there there there, Maybe we may all
17:50
Speaker 1: be like post biological humans. You know, uploaded our consciousness
17:53
Speaker 1: onto like the Internet or something, in which point that
17:56
Speaker 1: really won't matter to tell you the truth. Where the
17:58
Speaker 1: nuclear waste is buried? But who knows? It could be
18:00
Speaker 1: an intelligent species, It could be humans who don't know
18:03
Speaker 1: how to read or write. The fact is is the
18:06
Speaker 1: stuff that we take for granted changes a lot faster
18:09
Speaker 1: than you think. UM, And even if it doesn't necessarily
18:12
Speaker 1: die out, the changes that come along are pretty alarming.
18:16
Speaker 1: I found a UM. I've been watching a lot of
18:19
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley lately. I told you I my UM vocal
18:24
Speaker 1: delivery sounds a lot like Jared's. It's a currently think
18:29
Speaker 1: a lot, and I never really put those two together.
18:34
Speaker 1: We keep an ear out for it. Now and see
18:36
Speaker 1: what you think I mean? Tell me I'm wrong. I mean,
18:39
Speaker 1: I would have to dissociate so much because I like
18:42
Speaker 1: you and Jared is like such a pedantic bureaucrat him.
18:47
Speaker 1: I mean, he's fun to watch, but I wouldn't say
18:50
Speaker 1: that he's like the most likable character. Maybe he is,
18:53
Speaker 1: I don't know. I would say pedantic bureaucrat is not
18:56
Speaker 1: entirely off for me. Jared needs a girlfriend that's just okay,
19:01
Speaker 1: So I do not, because I have a fine wife.
19:04
Speaker 1: Uh So let me give you an example of how
19:05
Speaker 1: English has changed. This is a quote from Sir Gawain
19:08
Speaker 1: and the Green Knight. It was written in thirty fifty
19:13
Speaker 1: years ago. This is in English. The steel of a
19:18
Speaker 1: stiff staff, the stern hit gripped that was wounded with
19:22
Speaker 1: iron into the wand's end, and i'll be graven with
19:25
Speaker 1: green and gravy as works. And you should see it spelled.
19:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I was an English major. We
19:30
Speaker 1: had to go through this stuff. It was a slog.
19:32
Speaker 1: Do you have a guess at what I just said? Yeah,
19:35
Speaker 1: you said that? He uh, the Green Knights sat down
19:37
Speaker 1: and watch some Silicon valley. That's right. It's that the
19:41
Speaker 1: grim man gripped it by its strong handle, which was
19:44
Speaker 1: wound with iron all the way to the end, engraven
19:47
Speaker 1: and green with graceful designs. So like, that's English fifty
19:51
Speaker 1: years ago. English is still around six hundred and fifty years.
19:54
Speaker 1: We're talking about thousands, tens of thousands of years exactly.
19:57
Speaker 1: So that's a problem. Languages evolved. Language is die. Symbols
20:01
Speaker 1: don't quite make sense out of context, so there's a
20:03
Speaker 1: lot of challenges that face the people who to try
20:06
Speaker 1: to explain this stuff or figure out how to, um
20:10
Speaker 1: explain it to future people. I think it's a better
20:13
Speaker 1: way to put it, that's right. Uh, they have looked
20:15
Speaker 1: in simio semioticians for people who who really want on
20:20
Speaker 1: this stuff. Um. I think I'm an amateur simiotician after
20:23
Speaker 1: reading this. But one thing that they're looking for, because
20:26
Speaker 1: what you want is ideally is instant recognition and not
20:29
Speaker 1: something I mean, yeah maybe if you have to figure
20:32
Speaker 1: it out, but what you want is something that conveys
20:34
Speaker 1: danger right when you look at it, Like just steer
20:37
Speaker 1: clear of this place, not come closer and start poking around.
20:41
Speaker 1: Just go away, that's right. So um. She makes a
20:44
Speaker 1: great point though that, like it's a double edged sword,
20:47
Speaker 1: like you're talking about earlier. If you you know, human beings,
20:51
Speaker 1: if you show an extreme skier or a sign this
20:53
Speaker 1: is danger, don't ski this way. He's gonna say, bra,
20:56
Speaker 1: let's do it. Yeah, you know, give me some Hamma
21:00
Speaker 1: side power drink. So there's a very very fine line
21:04
Speaker 1: between warning people and enticing people. Yeah, even inadvertently exactly,
21:09
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, there's um, she she points out
21:11
Speaker 1: haunted houses because I'm like, yeah, not everybody's like a
21:13
Speaker 1: red Bull extreme sports person, but people do like it.
21:17
Speaker 1: Haunted houses too, So that abandoned like scary place is
21:20
Speaker 1: so creepy. Let's go there for Halloween because maybe Halloween
21:23
Speaker 1: survived but the English language didn't. Who knows. Um So yeah,
21:27
Speaker 1: you you you really walk a fine line here between
21:30
Speaker 1: warning people away and saying I dare you? Right? Yeah,
21:34
Speaker 1: My whole jam is I think they need to uh
21:38
Speaker 1: the what will survive if there are humans at all
21:41
Speaker 1: is emotion, So I think they need to appeal to
21:44
Speaker 1: human emotions like fear, ah, more than words and symbols. Okay, well,
21:50
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we'll get back into this
21:52
Speaker 1: all right, because this is fun. Yes, sorry, all right, Tuck.
22:21
Speaker 1: So we've kind of talked about how things go away,
22:23
Speaker 1: languages fall away, symbols don't make sense anyway, it is
22:29
Speaker 1: it really is, right, um, so what what will last?
22:34
Speaker 1: What have nuclear semioticians come up with? And should we explain? With?
22:37
Speaker 1: Semiotics is in general, what is it? I don't even know, oh,
22:42
Speaker 1: just kind of in shorthand. Semiotics is basically the study
22:45
Speaker 1: of how and why UM signs have meanings, right, Like
22:51
Speaker 1: you were saying, earlier. How the word apple doesn't evoke
22:54
Speaker 1: thoughts of the word apple. It evokes thoughts of the round, shiny,
22:58
Speaker 1: tasty fruit that grows on a tree. That's a sign
23:02
Speaker 1: in semiotics, that's right, specifically a cursive sign because it
23:06
Speaker 1: uses language. So what they've done, um and in many
23:10
Speaker 1: cases is and this is a great idea for stuff
23:14
Speaker 1: like this, is to have a competition. UM. They had
23:17
Speaker 1: one at U c. L A. I think in two
23:19
Speaker 1: thousand one calls it called the Desert Space Competition. UM.
23:24
Speaker 1: And what one that year was a cactus, a yucca
23:29
Speaker 1: cacti glowing blue. And then the idea was plant a
23:33
Speaker 1: field of these regular green cacti, and then over the
23:38
Speaker 1: place where you know the waist is the repository. And
23:42
Speaker 1: then if you see the sign of a glowing blue one,
23:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think I didn't see the rest
23:47
Speaker 1: of them, but I didn't think this one was that great.
23:50
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to the person who came up with it
23:52
Speaker 1: that I know. I think that something they should do
23:55
Speaker 1: is go even further back to younger children, because sometimes
23:58
Speaker 1: like go to like an l entry school and ask
24:00
Speaker 1: kids or a high school, right, or you just take
24:03
Speaker 1: each kid out and rub their face in the sand
24:06
Speaker 1: and be like you see this, you stay out of here. No,
24:08
Speaker 1: I mean, have the kids like throw out ideas because
24:11
Speaker 1: I think, oh yeah, I think the like my idea.
24:15
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times children can cut through
24:17
Speaker 1: the to the simplicity of something much better than adults
24:20
Speaker 1: can easily. So that's my idea. Throw it out as
24:23
Speaker 1: a as a science fair project. Well, I think that's
24:26
Speaker 1: one of the cool things about nuclear semionics is it's
24:28
Speaker 1: so inviting to like, anybody can come up with a
24:32
Speaker 1: great idea. It's just so confounding, but it's also so accessible. Yeah,
24:36
Speaker 1: we'll get ideas. In fact, we want to hear from you.
24:39
Speaker 1: If you think you have a cool idea, it's a
24:41
Speaker 1: good idea. Like, I guarantee you we're gonna get some
24:43
Speaker 1: good ones. We're not gonna pass them along or anything.
24:46
Speaker 1: So rather than just like pooh pooing the glowing yucka one,
24:50
Speaker 1: there's a here's the problem with the glowing yucka idea.
24:54
Speaker 1: It requires explanation, right somebody, So part of the glowing
24:59
Speaker 1: yuck is to say, these things have been genetically engineered
25:02
Speaker 1: so that when there's radiation present, they glow so if
25:06
Speaker 1: you see this yucka glowing, it means that there's radiation here.
25:09
Speaker 1: Stay away. If you lose that that additional story that
25:13
Speaker 1: has to go along with the glowing yucka, then you
25:16
Speaker 1: just have glowing yucca. And I can't think of a
25:18
Speaker 1: more attractive thing is going to draw people to a
25:20
Speaker 1: site than the legendary glowing yucka that only glows and
25:24
Speaker 1: this one spot on Earth. That's kind of the problem
25:27
Speaker 1: with it, you know. I like this other idea from
25:30
Speaker 1: that same year a little better that did not win.
25:33
Speaker 1: Fields of Asphodel, which is a Eurasian lily. They said,
25:38
Speaker 1: let's just cover the site with metal blades that screech
25:41
Speaker 1: when the wind blows. It makes it horrible noise, right,
25:44
Speaker 1: not bad. Here's the problem with that. Moving parts. Okay,
25:48
Speaker 1: it's been pretty well established that if you're trying to
25:51
Speaker 1: convey something to the people into the distant future, you
25:55
Speaker 1: need to have something that's monolithic and made of one piece,
25:59
Speaker 1: because if you have multiple parts, that's an opportunity for
26:03
Speaker 1: weathering to occur through the place where the two parts meet,
26:06
Speaker 1: or three parts or five parts. And if it's a
26:08
Speaker 1: moving part, just kiss the movement goodbye. What about this.
26:13
Speaker 1: I've had the thought earlier today about just a mountain
26:17
Speaker 1: of razor wire. Okay, here's the problem with that. And
26:21
Speaker 1: this is the same problem also with the What is
26:23
Speaker 1: the problem the steel? The steel, stuff that move and everything.
26:26
Speaker 1: You want to use you I know, but you want
26:28
Speaker 1: to use stuff that has no value whatsoever, not just financially,
26:33
Speaker 1: but usefulness because someone will say, I can harvest that
26:36
Speaker 1: razor wire, Yeah, I can go use that to keep
26:39
Speaker 1: the cows in in my house next door. Yeah. But
26:41
Speaker 1: if you have so much of it over time, over
26:44
Speaker 1: ten thousand years, people like take and take, and I
26:47
Speaker 1: mean that's why the pyramids are stripped of, like they're
26:50
Speaker 1: more attractive outer. They used to have like a white
26:53
Speaker 1: I think limestone shell encasement. It's gone because the locals
26:58
Speaker 1: were like, oh, I can use that to build a
27:00
Speaker 1: pizza hut. That's exactly That's what people will do if
27:04
Speaker 1: you play something of any kind of usefulness Like that
27:08
Speaker 1: is the beauty of every idea is wrong as a whole.
27:13
Speaker 1: It's so great, it's pretty great. I love it so
27:16
Speaker 1: the um One of the most often uh sided bodies
27:19
Speaker 1: of work is from eighty three, and this was a
27:22
Speaker 1: call for ideas from the German Journal of Semiotics that
27:26
Speaker 1: basically said the same thing. It's like, you know, what
27:28
Speaker 1: are your ideas? This one got a little goofy, to
27:31
Speaker 1: say the least. Someone suggested an artificial moon as a
27:35
Speaker 1: storage vessel. There's just a huge flaw on that one.
27:39
Speaker 1: If you ask me, I mean, you don't even get that. Well,
27:41
Speaker 1: it was like, how do you make sure that the
27:44
Speaker 1: information about this site stays protected? Put it into an
27:49
Speaker 1: artificial moon in orbit around Earth? But it's like, how
27:52
Speaker 1: do you get to the artificial I didn't get that's
27:53
Speaker 1: what they meant that that, Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
27:56
Speaker 1: That's what I think I guess they were. I mean
27:58
Speaker 1: it said, uh, well, will they be aiming it down
28:00
Speaker 1: to a TV that won't play? That's a different one. Yeah,
28:03
Speaker 1: And then I just don't understand this at all. I
28:06
Speaker 1: don't understand the Radioactive Cats either, even though that's a
28:10
Speaker 1: decent band name. So there there. That was a big
28:13
Speaker 1: part of the invisible episode Nuclear Semiotics. They talked about
28:17
Speaker 1: the ray Cats um and I think they actually hired
28:20
Speaker 1: a musician to create a song, because just like with
28:23
Speaker 1: the Glowing Yucka, you have to explain what's going on
28:26
Speaker 1: when the cats glow, you need to stay away. So
28:28
Speaker 1: they had somebody come up with a ray cat song
28:30
Speaker 1: I believe for the episode. Was it Hoodie and the Blowfish?
28:33
Speaker 1: Yes it was. That was a good guess. Now this
28:36
Speaker 1: one I thought was had a little I thought it
28:38
Speaker 1: was interesting at least this SIMI edition named Thomas C.
28:42
Speaker 1: Bac He said this what has survived more than anything
28:47
Speaker 1: else religion, religious texts that date back, you know, a
28:51
Speaker 1: couple of thousand years in the Catholic Church. Not a
28:53
Speaker 1: bad start. Yeah, the ideas that you hear at Catholic
28:56
Speaker 1: Mass today are a couple of thousand years old and something.
29:00
Speaker 1: And if you go back to the original text, which
29:02
Speaker 1: we can still read fortunately, you can say, yep, this
29:06
Speaker 1: is what they're talking about. Like those ideas have survived
29:08
Speaker 1: that long because of the practices they use. So interesting idea.
29:12
Speaker 1: But it gets a little goofy because he thought, why
29:15
Speaker 1: don't we almost create a fake religion around this thing?
29:21
Speaker 1: Um a fearful myth that you can generate appointing an
29:25
Speaker 1: atomic priesthood two tell people and tell them to tell
29:30
Speaker 1: future generations. But I mean, I guess the idea is
29:34
Speaker 1: that it's all false and it's just a big made
29:37
Speaker 1: up story. Yeah, this the atomic priesthood would know the
29:40
Speaker 1: truth and they would indoctrinate people, but out in society
29:43
Speaker 1: around them, it would be a closely guarded secret because
29:47
Speaker 1: everybody else thinks that whatever, this fake myth about why
29:50
Speaker 1: you have to stay away from this haunted, evil area
29:54
Speaker 1: is true, when really the atomic priests are the ones
29:57
Speaker 1: who know, uh no, actually there's there's radioactive stuff. They're here.
30:02
Speaker 1: They just came up with this three thousand years ago
30:04
Speaker 1: to scare everybody away. But initially a decent idea as
30:07
Speaker 1: far as trying to make it or incorporate like what
30:10
Speaker 1: religion does. But it just definitely strange. It is to
30:14
Speaker 1: me though, it is at its base despicable. It's a
30:17
Speaker 1: despicable idea because it is purposefully introducing fearful, false superstition
30:24
Speaker 1: into the future, Like we're gonna purposefully introduce fearful false
30:28
Speaker 1: superstition into the future just to scare people off from radioactivity,
30:32
Speaker 1: Like what kind of sweeping side effects? What kind of
30:35
Speaker 1: wars might start over this? Many people will die to
30:38
Speaker 1: defend this fake thing that they don't realize is fake.
30:41
Speaker 1: Because Thomas Cebia came up with this idea to keep
30:44
Speaker 1: people away from a single site in New Mexico. That's crazy.
30:48
Speaker 1: It didn't fare too well either among his colleagues, and
30:51
Speaker 1: rightfully so, because again it's a despicable idea. So he
30:54
Speaker 1: was on the Human Interference task Force. We mentioned them
30:57
Speaker 1: the Nevada site. That was what was uh what was
31:01
Speaker 1: launched for that yucka mountain side back in from eighty three.
31:05
Speaker 1: So whatever cbo original idea was, he had like some
31:10
Speaker 1: other closely related ideas that were great. Though, Like he's
31:15
Speaker 1: not like it's a total nut job happened. He's like,
31:17
Speaker 1: I think it was just a misfire for in an
31:20
Speaker 1: otherwise illustrious career. I think I don't know that much
31:23
Speaker 1: about him. But um, one of his other ideas was, Okay,
31:27
Speaker 1: well let's take the the atomic priesthood away, let's take
31:31
Speaker 1: the religion and all that stuff away, and let's just
31:34
Speaker 1: give them like the facts, but let's figure out a
31:37
Speaker 1: way to make sure that those facts get passed down.
31:40
Speaker 1: And what he came up with was called the meta message,
31:42
Speaker 1: where it's a message that says this is this place
31:46
Speaker 1: has nuclear radiation, it can kill you. You need to
31:49
Speaker 1: stay away. From it, and we invite you to take
31:52
Speaker 1: this message and translated into whatever languages you guys have
31:56
Speaker 1: on earth at the time, assuming you can read this right,
31:59
Speaker 1: But if you do that often enough, there will always
32:02
Speaker 1: be somebody who can translate it. And then that way
32:06
Speaker 1: you form a bridge between now and as far into
32:09
Speaker 1: the future as people are around to read and add
32:12
Speaker 1: their own interpretation or their own translation of it. But
32:15
Speaker 1: then you want to leave the original so that if
32:17
Speaker 1: there's ever like a disagreement about what some what word meant,
32:21
Speaker 1: hopefully somebody can go back language language language and connect
32:25
Speaker 1: them so that they can see the original version. Yeah,
32:29
Speaker 1: but like what if a society develops an isolation that
32:33
Speaker 1: knows none of these languages, you're just totally toast. Yeah,
32:37
Speaker 1: that's when the symbols come in. Right. So what they
32:40
Speaker 1: settled on as a panel though from one to eighty
32:43
Speaker 1: three was what's called long term communication was going to
32:47
Speaker 1: be the most effective thing, like kind of what you
32:49
Speaker 1: were just talking about. And they said, a system that
32:52
Speaker 1: combines physical markers and archives that cover the two major
32:55
Speaker 1: forms of this long term communicate direct and successive. Direct
33:00
Speaker 1: utilizes markers, and uh, successive is humans like you were
33:06
Speaker 1: talking about I guess with this meta message, I guess
33:08
Speaker 1: you could write it down, but it's still humans carrying
33:11
Speaker 1: a message through time. Well, it's more like a direct one,
33:13
Speaker 1: is that, Like you can write an inscription on a
33:16
Speaker 1: monument and that monument is going to deliver that message
33:20
Speaker 1: directly to people ten thousand years from now. Yeah, I
33:23
Speaker 1: mean it's a physical thing, right, whereas with successive it's
33:26
Speaker 1: kind of passed along like a game of telephone exactly.
33:29
Speaker 1: And you know how that goes, right, It can get
33:31
Speaker 1: a little hinky, that's right, but it's always fun at
33:34
Speaker 1: a somber party. Sure. So they came up with multiple ones,
33:38
Speaker 1: like you were saying, um that they settled on a
33:41
Speaker 1: monument that had um massive stone structures. Remember, you want monoliths,
33:46
Speaker 1: they're engraved with warnings in all currently known languages. It's
33:50
Speaker 1: a lot of languages. You want a buried vault that
33:53
Speaker 1: has all the info you need about radioactivity, about the site,
33:56
Speaker 1: all that stuff. You want a bunch of barriers around
33:59
Speaker 1: the site, not necessarily to definitely keep people out, but
34:03
Speaker 1: enough to basically say, hey, hey, we're trying to impede
34:05
Speaker 1: progress here. Yeah. I mean, to me, that's one of
34:07
Speaker 1: the most obvious ones. If like you see a huge
34:10
Speaker 1: wall again, it might entice you, but it for sure
34:13
Speaker 1: indicates to any culture that you're like, you're not meant
34:15
Speaker 1: to come beyond this. And then, um, the last one
34:21
Speaker 1: is a network of archives basically the same information you
34:24
Speaker 1: would have in that buried vault, but elsewhere scattered around
34:27
Speaker 1: the world. So if something happens to the buried vault,
34:29
Speaker 1: somebody can come across the archives somewhere and be like,
34:32
Speaker 1: oh wait, wait, we want to stay out of there,
34:34
Speaker 1: right And along with that, they said, while we're at it,
34:36
Speaker 1: can we can we at least like all agree around
34:38
Speaker 1: the world on a nuclear warning symbol, if it's the
34:41
Speaker 1: trefoil or whatever, let's just all codify that as the thing,
34:46
Speaker 1: which is not the case right now. Now there's was
34:49
Speaker 1: a triangle with an arrow pointing down, and then in
34:52
Speaker 1: the head of the arrow was the Biohezard symbol, which
34:55
Speaker 1: is not great because you want something that's going to
34:57
Speaker 1: be so simple that even as people affuse me, I
35:00
Speaker 1: need to see it. I guess yeah. It's even when
35:02
Speaker 1: you see it you're like wait what, um, But you
35:04
Speaker 1: want something simple enough so that as people kind of
35:07
Speaker 1: create a shorthand version of it. It's still retains its
35:09
Speaker 1: its meaning rightly, all right. So that stuff was the
35:13
Speaker 1: Yucca project in the early eighties. They decided not to
35:16
Speaker 1: do that. They just packed it up, put it away,
35:21
Speaker 1: and then it all came back again with this new
35:23
Speaker 1: Mexico plant when the Department of Energy said once again, hey,
35:28
Speaker 1: we need to think of a sign and a symbol
35:30
Speaker 1: or or whatever you can, you know, come up with,
35:33
Speaker 1: and we need the best in the brightest thinking of this.
35:36
Speaker 1: So call up Carl Sagan, Get me Sagan, give me Sagan,
35:40
Speaker 1: give me Percy Tannenbaum, stat uh. And this guy named
35:43
Speaker 1: John Lomberg who's a science writer and space illustrator, and
35:46
Speaker 1: he had worked in semiotics before for NASA on their
35:49
Speaker 1: mission to Mars. Sagan was an ill health so he
35:52
Speaker 1: declined to come, but he sent a message from the present.
35:56
Speaker 1: I guess that said skull and crossbones done universal. Everyone
36:02
Speaker 1: knows it. He gave a really good example. He said,
36:04
Speaker 1: it has um. It's marked the lintels of cannibal dwellings,
36:08
Speaker 1: the flags of pirates, the insignia of s S divisions,
36:11
Speaker 1: and motorcycle gangs. Like. He makes a pretty good point.
36:15
Speaker 1: A lot of people out there see a skull and
36:17
Speaker 1: crossbones and no, it means like danger problems. Yes, you know,
36:23
Speaker 1: you'll be a skull. And so the working group for
36:27
Speaker 1: the whip Um project they said, now that doesn't work.
36:31
Speaker 1: It's a young Ian archetype. It doesn't really exist outside
36:34
Speaker 1: of the West. To me, I'm like, no, Segan was
36:37
Speaker 1: definitely onto something. I think so. I mean, tell me,
36:40
Speaker 1: if you go to China and hold up a sign
36:43
Speaker 1: with a skull and crossbones, I would think so, wouldn't they.
36:47
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a dire warning, isn't it. I think
36:49
Speaker 1: their point is is that the skull used to be
36:51
Speaker 1: like a Memento movie where it meant like rebirth and death,
36:55
Speaker 1: so they could be like, oh, wonderful a skull and
36:57
Speaker 1: cross bus. But to me, that is the one enduring
37:04
Speaker 1: symbol that's always going to be around as long as
37:07
Speaker 1: there are humans, because what happens when you die and
37:10
Speaker 1: rot what's left your skull. Every human knows that even
37:14
Speaker 1: humans in the future are going to know that. Even
37:16
Speaker 1: ones that are in like a post collapse tribes were
37:21
Speaker 1: running around like and and have lost all of the
37:23
Speaker 1: languages that are around today, they're gonna know what a
37:25
Speaker 1: skull looks like or what a skull means, or at
37:28
Speaker 1: least one of them is going to be like wait,
37:29
Speaker 1: I don't think this is saying that the rainbow is coming. Um,
37:33
Speaker 1: I think it means like death or danger. All right,
37:35
Speaker 1: let's take another break. Yeah, we'll come back and talk
37:39
Speaker 1: about the the approach that the whip panel took and
37:42
Speaker 1: what they came up with right after this. Sorry, you know,
38:10
Speaker 1: I gotta defend Sagan. It's my boy. I love that guy.
38:14
Speaker 1: Someone should ask U Neil de grass Tyson. Why not.
38:19
Speaker 1: I bet he's got a good idea or two. I'll
38:22
Speaker 1: bet they have asked although Atlanta for a show. Oh yeah,
38:25
Speaker 1: where Fox? I think a cop Energy Center. Oh yeah, yeah,
38:30
Speaker 1: well I think that's even more seats than the phone. No,
38:32
Speaker 1: it's less. Oh sorry, I think it's like three thousand people,
38:36
Speaker 1: which is nothing to you know, put up a stink about.
38:40
Speaker 1: That's a lot of folks. We have not hit that.
38:43
Speaker 1: No we're not, No, we haven't. Did you hear the
38:45
Speaker 1: Star talk I was on? Oh no, it was it good?
38:48
Speaker 1: It was pretty good. Yeah. If I do say so myself,
38:50
Speaker 1: if it was supposed to be like rapid fast responses.
38:55
Speaker 1: We got to like four questions in an hour because
38:58
Speaker 1: you're like, rapid fast response is not my specialty. Deal,
39:02
Speaker 1: let me just do a distracting here, a more deliberate alright. So,
39:07
Speaker 1: speaking of deliberate, the WHIP panel was very deliberate and methodical.
39:10
Speaker 1: They divided into teams and um approached it from the
39:14
Speaker 1: two things we were talking about, direct and successive forms
39:17
Speaker 1: of communication. Debated a lot, deliberated a lot the recommendations.
39:22
Speaker 1: They had two proposals, and they did overlap a little bit. Uh.
39:26
Speaker 1: What I thought was pretty smart is they both had
39:28
Speaker 1: a multi leveled approach from the surface down that got
39:32
Speaker 1: more specific and intense as you went down. Yeah, the
39:35
Speaker 1: first one was basically like you, ding Dong, this is dangerous,
39:39
Speaker 1: go away exactly. That's like level one, and then level
39:42
Speaker 1: two is like, okay, ding Dong, and you're kind of smart.
39:45
Speaker 1: Friend explained to ding Dong that the reason this is
39:47
Speaker 1: dangerous because there's something buried here and it's gonna hurt you.
39:50
Speaker 1: All right, we should we should. We don't talk about
39:52
Speaker 1: the real things. Oh sure, I thought I was. Uh
39:55
Speaker 1: so Group A this was their's. They studied the face
40:00
Speaker 1: of the site with what they called menacing earthworks, so
40:04
Speaker 1: a field of spikes and then a big massive disk
40:08
Speaker 1: painted to look like a black hole. I didn't quite
40:11
Speaker 1: get that part. That's so dumb. I get the spikes.
40:14
Speaker 1: I I think it's the yeah, of course, But the
40:17
Speaker 1: black hole. I think it's supposed to just mean like
40:19
Speaker 1: a void or chaos. I don't know. I'm not sure
40:22
Speaker 1: I could see how you would think that that was
40:24
Speaker 1: kind of universal, like nobody wants to fall into a
40:26
Speaker 1: hole or something, and maybe it evokes that kind of
40:29
Speaker 1: like stay away, all right. Then they have large markers
40:32
Speaker 1: all around the site, which, like you said, are the
40:34
Speaker 1: really basic messages and the warnings, including and I thought
40:38
Speaker 1: this is so interesting, uh faces that invoke Edvard Munch's
40:43
Speaker 1: The Scream, the ones I saw a word at the scream. Yeah,
40:48
Speaker 1: like it was a line drawing of the guy from
40:49
Speaker 1: the people. Yeah, like in great agony and pain. That
40:53
Speaker 1: to me not bad. It isn't bad. I don't know
40:56
Speaker 1: there was that more universally understood than a skull and crossbones.
41:01
Speaker 1: I don't know, or or or if art survives or
41:03
Speaker 1: people like, Oh, I wonder if that paintings down there, well,
41:05
Speaker 1: I think what they're saying is and simuticians kind of
41:08
Speaker 1: feel this way. Is that Edvard Monk so perfectly nailed
41:12
Speaker 1: the scream that even without the art, like if you
41:14
Speaker 1: see that, you understand that that person you're seeing is
41:17
Speaker 1: in agony. Did I say Munch? No, I think you
41:20
Speaker 1: said monk. Did I say much? You said Monk. I
41:23
Speaker 1: might have said much. No, you said I think he
41:25
Speaker 1: said monk. Is it Munch? I think it's probably Monk.
41:29
Speaker 1: There's no way his name as much. I'm almost positive
41:31
Speaker 1: you said monk. Jerry, can you rewind for a second. Much?
41:36
Speaker 1: Oh you did say much. I would have scorned you
41:38
Speaker 1: said monk. So Group A below the surface, Uh, this
41:42
Speaker 1: is when they actually start talking about nuclear waste to
41:45
Speaker 1: what it does to you, the details about the structure
41:48
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, right where where they teach you
41:52
Speaker 1: a little bit about radio activity. So group B Uh,
41:55
Speaker 1: this was they went super informative, and really what they
41:59
Speaker 1: were light on was that people had a little bit
42:02
Speaker 1: of knowledge in the future about stuff like this. But
42:04
Speaker 1: they also trusted that the people didn't have to just
42:07
Speaker 1: be spooked or scared or something like that. That that
42:10
Speaker 1: it's like, here is the facts and information. That's why
42:13
Speaker 1: you want to stay away from that. Yeah, they're big
42:15
Speaker 1: above groundwork was these big earthen walls in the shape
42:20
Speaker 1: of the nuclear trafoil. Not bad. I imagine you'd have
42:23
Speaker 1: to see it from above to even know though what
42:25
Speaker 1: it was. But that's that's part of the One of
42:27
Speaker 1: the requirements was that you you wanted to be um
42:30
Speaker 1: easily visible, not just with human cognition, but like remote
42:34
Speaker 1: sensing to so like magnetic surveys. They they they said,
42:38
Speaker 1: we should put some magnets in here, right, not just
42:41
Speaker 1: from when you walk up to it, right, So, and
42:43
Speaker 1: you also have to be able to see it from
42:45
Speaker 1: your flying saucer exactly. Uh. And then inside the walls
42:49
Speaker 1: they have at various steps have these big markers and
42:52
Speaker 1: here's where these like symbols and pictographs, uh, all kinds
42:56
Speaker 1: of languages, writing in different languages and in more human faces,
43:02
Speaker 1: increasingly contorted in agony. As you go down, it looks
43:07
Speaker 1: to me like the guy's getting drunker and drunker. Yeah, yeah,
43:12
Speaker 1: that's what it looks like. Well, maybe that means there's
43:14
Speaker 1: a happening bar exactly. That's how I would take it
43:17
Speaker 1: if I were a future human post collapse. Gotta go
43:20
Speaker 1: gotta go down here. There were also pictograms you're just
43:24
Speaker 1: like digging through the sand to get to They're also
43:26
Speaker 1: pictograms that showed like under the ground, like real easy
43:31
Speaker 1: to understand drawings of the radioactive waste, the water groundwater
43:36
Speaker 1: flowing through it, taking the radioactive waste up to the plants,
43:39
Speaker 1: which are then eaten by the humans in the picture,
43:42
Speaker 1: one of whom dies, which makes sense. You don't need
43:46
Speaker 1: to understand anything about radioactivity. You don't need to be
43:49
Speaker 1: able to read anything. It's a really like it makes sense,
43:52
Speaker 1: especially if some people are sitting there thinking about it's
43:55
Speaker 1: the final image is skulling crossbones or or a pile
43:57
Speaker 1: of bones. You know. It was like a person, three
43:59
Speaker 1: people standing in one of them. The last one was
44:01
Speaker 1: like dead and I think he might even have excess
44:03
Speaker 1: for eyes. Well I was about to say, though, I mean,
44:04
Speaker 1: if you think about twenty years from now, maybe maybe
44:07
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, this induces a nice nap. Maybe, Like
44:11
Speaker 1: but to your point though, like the bones is where
44:14
Speaker 1: you need to end up, right, Yeah, maybe somebody would
44:17
Speaker 1: be like, oh this these veggies here give you a
44:19
Speaker 1: great buzz if you grow them on this ground. That
44:21
Speaker 1: excess for eyes right. Yeah, the bones do make a
44:23
Speaker 1: lot more sense. I think Sagan was right. That's that
44:26
Speaker 1: should be a T shirt. Stuff you should know t shirts.
44:28
Speaker 1: Sagan was right, don't even need to have any context.
44:32
Speaker 1: We're gonna be an email in a few days from
44:34
Speaker 1: the guy from the estate of Karl Sagan saying do
44:36
Speaker 1: not make that T shirt. So what did they go with?
44:38
Speaker 1: In the end, though, they went with um a earthen work,
44:45
Speaker 1: earthen berm basically to provide an obstacle um and to
44:50
Speaker 1: block easy access some granite slabs, monoliths that have warnings
44:55
Speaker 1: written in seven languages, yeah, Navajo and then the six
45:00
Speaker 1: languages of the u n So Arabic, Chinese, English, Spanish, French,
45:04
Speaker 1: and Russian. Um, which makes a lot of sense. But
45:08
Speaker 1: then they took Thomas Cibiak up on his idea. They
45:11
Speaker 1: kind of built on the earlier right exactly um, and
45:15
Speaker 1: they left blank spaces or they play in their plan.
45:18
Speaker 1: They leave blank spaces on these slabs for future generations
45:22
Speaker 1: to add their own translations of the inscriptions. It's a
45:26
Speaker 1: great idea. And the faces of humans and pain in
45:31
Speaker 1: English that did survive in the end. So that was
45:34
Speaker 1: the final report on this whip panel. It's a pretty
45:38
Speaker 1: good idea, makes a lot of sense because not only so,
45:41
Speaker 1: there are two two groups that they're trying to say
45:44
Speaker 1: stay away, not not really like urban explorers or thrill
45:48
Speaker 1: seekers or whatever they would have, they would have virtually
45:52
Speaker 1: no chance of getting down to the actual radio at
45:55
Speaker 1: the material. The people they were worried about, or technology
45:57
Speaker 1: technological advanced civilizations that we're drilling for resources like accident
46:03
Speaker 1: like God help this this um this this waste disposal site.
46:07
Speaker 1: If salt becomes incredibly important in the future, and then
46:11
Speaker 1: um less advanced civilizations that could accidentally um change the
46:17
Speaker 1: flow of groundwater to go through the salt bed through
46:20
Speaker 1: massive like irrigation projects. It covers all of it. Yeah,
46:23
Speaker 1: my whole thing is just make it inaccessible. Why is
46:26
Speaker 1: it in New Mexico? Why is it out you know, well,
46:29
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's pretty inaccessible. It's not as access
46:33
Speaker 1: inaccessible as you know Siberia. No, some one of the
46:37
Speaker 1: recommendations for nuclear waste disposal shooting it into space. Just
46:41
Speaker 1: send it out in the outer space and forget about it.
46:44
Speaker 1: And if you believe in the family paradox that it
46:46
Speaker 1: says we're the only intelligent life in the universe. Man
46:50
Speaker 1: more power to That's actually not that bad of an idea.
46:54
Speaker 1: It's a horrific idea, but it's actually kind of a
46:56
Speaker 1: good idea. Thing. Yeah, but then I wonder about the
46:58
Speaker 1: danger and the risk and evolved. I mean, we've seen
47:02
Speaker 1: rockets blow up and space shuttles blow up. That would
47:04
Speaker 1: be bad. Like what if the thing that they're shooting
47:06
Speaker 1: it out there malfunctioned or something that'd be really bad
47:08
Speaker 1: would be really bad. That's a great points, Like all
47:10
Speaker 1: of our nuclear waste has just been released, oh into
47:13
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. Yeah, that's a great, great point. So here's
47:18
Speaker 1: the thing, is all of this just wasted effort because
47:21
Speaker 1: I was getting so into the stuff. And then the
47:23
Speaker 1: end of this article was a real like sad trombone
47:27
Speaker 1: because it seems like it seems like nobody really even
47:30
Speaker 1: cares the people that matter. Well, the first the first
47:33
Speaker 1: group like their whole thing will will probably never be
47:36
Speaker 1: implemented because yuck, a mountain project got shut down. But
47:39
Speaker 1: the Whip group may actually have their their plan come
47:43
Speaker 1: to fruition because it is an ep A rule that
47:46
Speaker 1: you have to create this kind of marker and they've
47:49
Speaker 1: got until about forty until they estimate the place is
47:52
Speaker 1: going to shut down. So it's entirely possible that in
47:56
Speaker 1: or sometime in the hundred years after, when the d
47:59
Speaker 1: O E stops protecting the site or the d O
48:01
Speaker 1: d UM, they may implement this earthen works in the
48:05
Speaker 1: sixteen granite slabs, and we we may live to see
48:08
Speaker 1: something like this. Well, outside of the US, it seems
48:11
Speaker 1: like no one is super concerned. Sweden in two thousand
48:14
Speaker 1: eleven had an application to build a repository in force
48:18
Speaker 1: Mark and in their in their literal application, they basically said,
48:24
Speaker 1: you know what, we're gonna worry about that later in
48:26
Speaker 1: seventy years, when this thing's finished. They said, see this,
48:29
Speaker 1: can we just kicked the seventy years down. The ref
48:32
Speaker 1: and the Swedish National Archives they consulted on their application,
48:36
Speaker 1: they said, that's really insufficient. It said, it gives the
48:39
Speaker 1: impression that one intends to postpone important documentation efforts until
48:43
Speaker 1: the closure of the repository in seventy years. And it's like,
48:46
Speaker 1: it doesn't give the impression. It literally said that, So, uh,
48:51
Speaker 1: I think they're being ultrapolite. Yeah, I think, well Sweden, right, good,
48:55
Speaker 1: people in the US, though, don't tell Asa Brocky that
48:58
Speaker 1: that don't even know what that means. That's a singer, right, yeah,
49:02
Speaker 1: he's he's a rapper. He's in prison in Sweden right now.
49:04
Speaker 1: And I did not know that. Oh man, what would
49:06
Speaker 1: he do. He got into a fight with some Swedish
49:09
Speaker 1: kids and it may or may not have been their fault.
49:11
Speaker 1: It looks on video like they definitely provoked it. But
49:13
Speaker 1: the King of Sweden is like, sorry, rule of law
49:16
Speaker 1: applies to everybody, including super famous Americans. Donald Trump called
49:21
Speaker 1: him to try to get the thing resolved at the
49:23
Speaker 1: behest of Kanye West God, and apparently I just made
49:27
Speaker 1: everything worse. And now the King of Sweden is like,
49:29
Speaker 1: there's no chance he's getting released early. Wow, man, where
49:33
Speaker 1: have I been? This is reality. What I just said
49:37
Speaker 1: is actual fact that actually happened here in two thousand nineteen. Everybody.
49:41
Speaker 1: Humans of the far future? Can you believe it? Humans
49:46
Speaker 1: of the near John Lomberg, that guy we were talking
49:49
Speaker 1: about earlier, who was on that original panel, he told
49:52
Speaker 1: Vice just a couple of years ago. Um, a lot
49:56
Speaker 1: of us had been around the block a few times before,
49:58
Speaker 1: because you know, he was back then doing the same
50:00
Speaker 1: thing and knew this is going to be a report
50:02
Speaker 1: the government only did and this is the US and
50:05
Speaker 1: we're putting more thought towards this than anyone. Yeah, which
50:08
Speaker 1: is really surprising. He said they only did this because
50:10
Speaker 1: they needed to show compliance. They didn't really care what
50:13
Speaker 1: we said. And then uh, and from the Human Interference
50:17
Speaker 1: Task Force during the competition, they basically said, the most
50:21
Speaker 1: effective sign will be the dead bodies of those foolish
50:23
Speaker 1: enough to ignore whatever sign. So basically like who cares,
50:29
Speaker 1: someone will do someone will get in there and they
50:31
Speaker 1: all die and then that'll be the big morning, right,
50:34
Speaker 1: which makes sense if if humans are in communication around
50:37
Speaker 1: the globe and you've got the same morning around. But
50:39
Speaker 1: if they're not, then it's catastrophe, catastrophe, catastrophe. But at
50:43
Speaker 1: least we fulfilled our part of the bargain where we
50:45
Speaker 1: really tried to warn everybody agreed, you got anything else? Yeah,
50:50
Speaker 1: if you will indulge me, I would like to plug
50:54
Speaker 1: the end of the world with Josh Clark. What the
50:57
Speaker 1: end of the world with Josh Clark? If if like
50:59
Speaker 1: thinking about things in like far deep time in the
51:02
Speaker 1: future of humanity and all that stuff kind of floated
51:04
Speaker 1: your boat. I would recommend my little podcast series The
51:07
Speaker 1: End of the World of Josh Clark for sure. This
51:09
Speaker 1: is right up your alley. Thank you, Chuck. Uh. And
51:12
Speaker 1: since Chuck said write up your alley, it's time for
51:14
Speaker 1: a listener mail. Hey guys, we are strangers, but we aren't.
51:20
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51:24
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51:28
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