Nuclear Semiotics: How to Talk to Future Humans

The nuclear waste we produce will be dangerous for a very long time. We’ve figured out how to safely store it in the earth until it’s no longer a biohazard. Now we just have to figure out how to warn humans 10,000 years in the future to stay away from it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Maine in Greater New England. We're coming to see
you guys in Portland and we can't wait. We would
love to see you there. Yep, we'll be at the
State Theater on August. If you're interested, you can get
tickets and information at s y s K live dot com.
There's some lobster at us. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,

(00:28):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles
W Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and this is
Stuff you should Know, Uh, the podcast. And you're about
to say that the Blank Edition. Yeah, I was, but
I couldn't think of anything. It was literally the blank Edition,
was it? I mean, you couldn't think of anything? You

(00:49):
were blacked. Oh no, that's right, it was the blank Edition.
Oh gosh, it's a terrible start, Chuck. So how about this,
just to uh divert ourselves from that disaster, what was
not a disaster where our live shows we just did.
Oh yeah, we we finally got up on stage everyone
since first time since January kick the Rust off in

(01:10):
Chicago and Toronto, and both of them were we just killed.
They were great. Yeah, everybody were great. Everyone had a
really great time. Yeah, they told us so. They seemed
to be legitimately meaning what they were saying. Yeah, it
was really really great to get back on stage with you,
my friend. And also also also hats off to Chicago
for showing up. They showed up, Like we called you

(01:32):
guys out and you responded, thank you very and thank
you Toronto for not making us call you out. But
there are still tickets remaining for August twenty nine than
Boston at the Wilbur in Portland, Maine. You know, we're
venturing up into the hinterlands of America next after that,
but August thirty, if there are still plenty of great

(01:55):
tickets left there, and then the same can be said
in October and Orlando and October tenth. I think I
said October nine right in Orlando, October tenth in New Orleans. Yep,
that's right, Brooklyn. I'm not worried about that. Already, all
sold out, the whole thing, all three nights. Man, should
we had a fourth, jeez, I don't know. We'll talk

(02:16):
about it anyway. Thanks to everyone who came out. It
was a lot of fun and this is a good one,
so you don't want you don't want to miss it. Yeah,
so come on out, especially Portland, Maine. Let's get with
it all right now, Nuclear Semiotics, which I didn't know
I loved, but I do. Really Do you remember Visible
did a very famous episode on this very topic. I
didn't hear that. I specifically avoided going back and listening

(02:38):
to it because I don't want to be um stunk
upon by its taint. Does that make sense? You don't
want Roman Mars is taint um thinking on you. It's
more like it's just such a classic episode that I
don't want it to like leak in. I don't want
to actually rip it off. Yeah, well we we certainly
can't Invisible this thing, because that is a show that

(02:58):
exists at that hop echelon this industry. Sure so so
so do we Sure we're up there all right? But
if you like this one, if this stuff like floats
your boat and you're like, I want to know more,
go listen to the Visible episode. Yeah, this thing really
triggered a lot of like synapsis firing for me, and
I think, like I think I really enjoy this kind

(03:21):
of thought experiment, problem solving stuff. I think I would
really dig like that. Part of the zombie Apocalypse is
figuring the stuff out as a team. Because the whole
time I was reading this, I was saying, great idea,
terrible idea. They should do this, they shouldn't do that.
Go sit down. Yeah you I like the cut of
your gym. It was really cool. I dug this. I've

(03:43):
never heard of it, so thank you. Oh You're very welcome.
I actually heard of it before Roman Mars made the episode,
so I can't really thank him. But well, not before
he heard of it, because I think it's well known
that Roman's first words were nuclear semiotics. That's true. Yeah,
even before or Mama's um. I could totally believe that. Actually,

(04:05):
uh so, what we're talking about, is, Chuck said a
couple of times, for those of you who don't know,
is nuclear semiotics. And that is a very specialized branch,
interdisciplinary branch of I guess science that involves also basically
any field of research that you can throw at the
wall would probably have some function to play in the

(04:25):
field of nuclear semiotics. And to to make a long
story short, to do the too long, didn't read version
of this TL Semicolon dr um is nuclear semiotics seeks
to figure out how to warn the future humans to
come or whatever is here. Sure, good point. I mean,

(04:47):
why discriminate right to warn the future humans or the
future super intelligent jellyfish whatever to come. Hey, this is
a very dangerous radioactive dump site that we've put here.
Stay away. Yeah, it's that easy. It sounds easy. The
problem is is if you presume that it's easy, you're

(05:07):
making a lot of assumptions that aren't necessarily going to
hold up. Oh yeah, like a lot of times and
are like they should just do And I would even
stop halfway through my thought. It was like, now that
that wouldn't work. It's true because our languages might be
gone by then. Our symbols don't necessarily make sense outside
of the context that we understand them in. Um civilization
might be ridiculously advanced by them. Civilization might be in

(05:31):
a state of collapse by then. We have no idea.
But the point of nuclear semiotics is to figure out
how to come up with a um a message that
is understandable to everybody in any situation in the future.
And the current state of the art is let's figure
out how to speak as far as ten thousand years

(05:51):
into the future. Yeah, I mean, and that's like being generous.
It needs to go beyond that. It does, because the
whole point of nuclear semiotics, the whole porn of warning
the future, is this stuff, this nuclear waste that we're
putting into the ground now, is going to be dangerous
for tens and tens of thousands of years. Plutonium two
thirty nine has a half life of twenty four thousand years.

(06:14):
There's something called um Technetium ninety nine has a half
life of two hundred and eleven thousand years, So another
one is like one point seven million year half life.
This is the nuclear waste that we're creating now and
are putting in the ground. Yeah. And uh, Julia Layton,
who was one of our writers who does great work

(06:34):
for us, she made a lot of great points, which
is like the history of human evolution is two hundred
thousand years, and like we've only been like reading and
writing for how long about five thousand, less than six
thousand years. Yeah, So it's it sounds like like you said,
it sounds simple. And so many times I thought I
had I thought I had it cracked, only to think

(06:57):
like I was, like, why don't they just uh do
something purely visual and and stage a play of people
at that site digging in and then dying. And it's like,
what what do you do with it? Well, I'll just
put it on a DVD that just plays on a loop.
It's like, how are you gonna power that thing? You
know what happens when everybody's converted to blue ray? Yeah exactly?

(07:20):
Or you know, well, then solar put a solar panel up.
He's got the last forever. But what have it done?
What if there's like a forever nuclear storm or whatever.
But if the sun never shines again on Earth in
eight thousand years, that's could happen. That's the cool thing
about thinking into the deep future is all the things
that will go wrong. Yeah, it makes you realize like

(07:41):
how specific everything you think and know and understand really
is to your current time. Yeah, it's very cool. She
brings up the point about an apple, like when you
see the word apple, you don't see the word apple,
you see visualize the symbol of that is an apple.
So it's like it's almost like the words and very
much of the words will just not have meaning anymore

(08:03):
at some point. Man. Well, let's dig into this stuff.
You're ready, let's do it. So to start, we should
talk about where this all came from. It came from
a new type of nuclear storage solution, nuclear waste storage
solution called UM long term geological repositories, and it is

(08:23):
basically digging into the earth a couple of miles into
the earth, putting our nuclear waste there, again, waste that's
going to be harmful the health for tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of years, and sealing it up and
then covering over the site and then putting a warning
on there. And right now, the general consensus is that

(08:46):
salt beds are the best place to put that nuclear waste.
And there's actually some pretty good reasons why. Yeah, we
could do an episode on nuclear storage. I think I
really want to in and of itself. Yeah, I don't
know if that's a shorty or a long it's probably
a long. But just briefly, the reason salt beds are
preferable is because the fact that they're even there suggests

(09:06):
that there's no water. If they if there was water,
they would have been dissolved long ago. It's really relatively
easy to mine into them. And then what's awesome about
salt is that when you mine a shaft into a
salt bed and you put your deposit there, then you
pull back out, Um, the salt bed actually heals itself over,

(09:28):
like just a few decades, seals itself back up, right, Yes,
So you put a container that's been engineered to hold
the nuclear waste inside for ten thousand years. Yeah, it's
also in a container. You should point that out, right,
You're putting it into a borehole in the salt. The
salt is going to grow back around it and intubate,
perhaps permanently in this salt very strong to right, Yeah,

(09:52):
it is fairly strong. I mean, like if you're mining
using modern mining equipment, it's it's really easy to mine into.
But if you have like a pickaxe or something is
rock to salt. Rock is what it's called. Right. So
there's a lot of reasons why people have figured out
like this is not a bad idea to intomb nuclear waste.
But but here's the thing. We can't just intumbate and

(10:13):
walk away, Like we have a responsibility for those of
us generating this waste today to warn the future. And
it's on the future if they listen to us or not.
That's on them, right, But we have to make them
able to listen to us exactly, Like we have a
responsibility to do that because some people are proposed like, hey,
let's just bury and forget about it. The chances of

(10:34):
somebody actually finding it are pretty slim. Just bury and
forget about it, and that's probably the best, the best
way to go. And people said, it's not a bad idea,
but it's actually pretty bad ideas. He actually, I thought
that one wasn't the worst idea. It's not that was
the behavioral psychologists. He was like, And he wasn't like
just forget about it. He was like, maybe the smartest
thing to do is to leave it unmarked, right because,

(10:55):
as we'll see, attracting attention to something like exactly attracts attention.
It's interesting thought experiment, right. That was that psychologist. By
the way, is Dr Percy Tannenbaum Really no, no wonder
I like that of the East Hampton tenembombs. So we
should point out that there's a couple of a couple
of big times that these um that this has been commissioned, like, hey,

(11:16):
we need to think of something one for a site
that never happened, uh, And one for a site that
has happened, the one that has happened. It's only one
in the United States right now, the only one in
the world as far as they know now, it's number three.
It's the third largest. I didn't see what the other
two were. It must have been the first in the world. Then, yeah,
probably the first in the world. Yeah, which makes sense

(11:36):
because the other two are bigger. But this is in
New Mexico. It's called the Whip the Waist Isolation Pilot Plant,
and this one they are, uh, they're actively guarding for
They've committed the Department of Energy is committed to guarding
it with people for a hundred years. They have hired
Barney five year contract to look over this nuclear for

(11:59):
it least a hundred years. It's not like at the
end of the hundred years are gonna just like put
a padlock on it and walk away. I imagine they
will keep guarding it as long as they feel like
it needs guarding. I don't know if that's something I
don't know, man. I mean, we're talking about a government
run program here. At least a hundred years. We can
at least say that, yes, they agreed to that, so uh,

(12:21):
you know, the whole idea arose um before that, though,
what was the other one in Nevada. That's the Yucky
Mountain one. That was the first one, right, that's the
first one that that never happened. But that's when, you know,
in the seventies is when this idea sort of came about.
And I think it was two when it was sort
of codified as an official um I guess science or yeah,

(12:45):
it is. It's a branch. It's an interdisciplinary branch of science.
Nuclear semionics is, and it is. It's because the e
p A came up with a rule in two a law.
Really that's the eighty one. I got that wrong, by
the way, So it's eighty one that they came up
with the law. Uh well, it became a discipline in
nineteen eighty one with that Yucky Mountain Repository project. And

(13:06):
I think from that Yucky Mountain Repository project, because we
were starting to figure out how to deposit the stuff
for for a long time, the e p A came
up with a rule I think it was two that said,
if you're going to create these kind of repositories for
nuclear waste, you also have to figure out how to
come up with a permanent warning sign. And everybody was like,

(13:26):
that's no problem, of course, and then the EPs to
think about it. It's harder than you think. He said,
just slap that, uh, that nuclear waste logo that everyone knows.
And everyone was like, everyone doesn't know that. It's been
around forever. Everyone doesn't know that now, right, much less
in two hundred thousand years. Yeah, did you see the
how that was created? Yeah? It was. It was a

(13:49):
a group doodle. I don't know how that happens. I
think that means they can't ascribe it to one person.
They know there was like five people on one of
those giants like silver spoons, pencils. Yeah, this is an
nineteen six was it at Berkeley? And it was a
group doodle in the science class? And is that a
a band name group dood Wiggles or something? Yeah, I

(14:13):
think it's an album title for sure. So the Wiggles
group doodle. Absolutely, that's probably a real thing. That's our
gift to you, Wiggles. But I saw this was interesting
in the symbol came under consideration for wider use because
at first it was just a group doodle and then
the Brookhaven National Laboratory requested a standardized symbol of standardized

(14:34):
colors for their radiation safety program, and there was more
argument about the colors than the actual symbol um because
at first we're like, you can't use yellow because we
use yellow for a lot of stuff. Yeah, they wanted
to make sure that it didn't get overused so people
would just become kind of blind to because they saw
it so much. And they were like, have you heard
a striper get easy? Yellow and black? They're like, no,

(14:57):
I haven't heard him. And give us forty years. You
have heard of them, believe, and then in forty two
years no one will have heard of them. So I
think the original design was um, it was. I saw
them in concert. We won't even believe it was. Magenta
blades on a blue background was the original design, and
it was chosen because it was uncommon. But then an

(15:18):
oak Ridge, Tennessee at the oak Ridge National Laboratory, they
went with the yellow background in later on in and
I guess it's stuck. That's where the oak Ridge boys
were all scientists, that's right. So it was originally magenta
on blue, right, Yes, And the logo we're talking about
for those of you, I know, it's called the nuclear trefoil.
You know, it's a circle and then three cortial circles

(15:43):
around the blades. And from what I saw, one of
the original group doodlers explained it as um it's supposed
to be an atom with activity around it. Yeah, that's it,
which I never saw it before, but now that I've
read that, I can't unsee it. And that is really
what it looks like. It's a pretty great it will
doodle but it's like you said, that is not a
universally accepted symbol, which is a big problem. And it

(16:07):
doesn't it doesn't evoke like, oh, an atom. Of course,
I know what an atom looks like. I just saw
one go down the street a second ago, and this
looks like an atom. It's a symbolic representation of an atom,
which means that after people stop thinking about what atoms
look like, maybe a thousand years or five thousand years
down the road, if something happens, no one's going to

(16:27):
look at that and be like, oh, it's an atom.
Activity around an atom, that must mean there's radiation here.
Hence this is a dangerous sign that's not going to happen. Uh.
The other thing you would think, is just just put
up in a bunch of languages. Done. Ye, here's the thing.
Languages are disappearing. I'm gonna ask you, actually, what is
your best guess? A language dies out every blank nine

(16:54):
million seconds? Is that right? Did I nail it? Jerk?
I gotta get out of calculator. A language dies out
every fourteen days. I'm pretty sure that's nine millions. Isn't
that staggering? God? What if it was? Are you about
to do that? Yeah? You keep talking. So that's about
twenty five languages per year that die out. And um,

(17:14):
that's really sad, it is, and it is very sad.
And granted these aren't you know, major languages, but they're
important to the people who speak them. Um. But that's
just sort of to uh to to get across the
point that throwing it up in a bunch of languages
there's no guarantee and in fact, in all likelihood and

(17:34):
in fifty thousand years, there won't be English or German
or French, there may not even be humans. That's we
maybe what what's the calculation? Six days? I was a
little lot. Okay there there there, Maybe we may all
be like post biological humans. You know, uploaded our consciousness
onto like the Internet or something, in which point that

(17:56):
really won't matter to tell you the truth. Where the
nuclear waste is buried? But who knows? It could be
an intelligent species, It could be humans who don't know
how to read or write. The fact is is the
stuff that we take for granted changes a lot faster
than you think. UM, And even if it doesn't necessarily
die out, the changes that come along are pretty alarming.

(18:16):
I found a UM. I've been watching a lot of
Silicon Valley lately. I told you I my UM vocal
delivery sounds a lot like Jared's. It's a currently think
a lot, and I never really put those two together.
We keep an ear out for it. Now and see
what you think I mean? Tell me I'm wrong. I mean,

(18:39):
I would have to dissociate so much because I like
you and Jared is like such a pedantic bureaucrat him.
I mean, he's fun to watch, but I wouldn't say
that he's like the most likable character. Maybe he is,
I don't know. I would say pedantic bureaucrat is not
entirely off for me. Jared needs a girlfriend that's just okay,

(19:01):
So I do not, because I have a fine wife.
Uh So let me give you an example of how
English has changed. This is a quote from Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight. It was written in thirty fifty
years ago. This is in English. The steel of a
stiff staff, the stern hit gripped that was wounded with

(19:22):
iron into the wand's end, and i'll be graven with
green and gravy as works. And you should see it spelled.
Oh yeah, I mean I was an English major. We
had to go through this stuff. It was a slog.
Do you have a guess at what I just said? Yeah,
you said that? He uh, the Green Knights sat down
and watch some Silicon valley. That's right. It's that the
grim man gripped it by its strong handle, which was

(19:44):
wound with iron all the way to the end, engraven
and green with graceful designs. So like, that's English fifty
years ago. English is still around six hundred and fifty years.
We're talking about thousands, tens of thousands of years exactly.
So that's a problem. Languages evolved. Language is die. Symbols
don't quite make sense out of context, so there's a
lot of challenges that face the people who to try

(20:06):
to explain this stuff or figure out how to, um
explain it to future people. I think it's a better
way to put it, that's right. Uh, they have looked
in simio semioticians for people who who really want on
this stuff. Um. I think I'm an amateur simiotician after
reading this. But one thing that they're looking for, because
what you want is ideally is instant recognition and not

(20:29):
something I mean, yeah maybe if you have to figure
it out, but what you want is something that conveys
danger right when you look at it, Like just steer
clear of this place, not come closer and start poking around.
Just go away, that's right. So um. She makes a
great point though that, like it's a double edged sword,
like you're talking about earlier. If you you know, human beings,

(20:51):
if you show an extreme skier or a sign this
is danger, don't ski this way. He's gonna say, bra,
let's do it. Yeah, you know, give me some Hamma
side power drink. So there's a very very fine line
between warning people and enticing people. Yeah, even inadvertently exactly,
you know. I mean, there's um, she she points out

(21:11):
haunted houses because I'm like, yeah, not everybody's like a
red Bull extreme sports person, but people do like it.
Haunted houses too, So that abandoned like scary place is
so creepy. Let's go there for Halloween because maybe Halloween
survived but the English language didn't. Who knows. Um So yeah,
you you you really walk a fine line here between
warning people away and saying I dare you? Right? Yeah,

(21:34):
My whole jam is I think they need to uh
the what will survive if there are humans at all
is emotion, So I think they need to appeal to
human emotions like fear, ah, more than words and symbols. Okay, well,
let's take a break and we'll get back into this
all right, because this is fun. Yes, sorry, all right, Tuck.

(22:21):
So we've kind of talked about how things go away,
languages fall away, symbols don't make sense anyway, it is
it really is, right, um, so what what will last?
What have nuclear semioticians come up with? And should we explain? With?
Semiotics is in general, what is it? I don't even know, oh,

(22:42):
just kind of in shorthand. Semiotics is basically the study
of how and why UM signs have meanings, right, Like
you were saying, earlier. How the word apple doesn't evoke
thoughts of the word apple. It evokes thoughts of the round, shiny,
tasty fruit that grows on a tree. That's a sign
in semiotics, that's right, specifically a cursive sign because it

(23:06):
uses language. So what they've done, um and in many
cases is and this is a great idea for stuff
like this, is to have a competition. UM. They had
one at U c. L A. I think in two
thousand one calls it called the Desert Space Competition. UM.
And what one that year was a cactus, a yucca

(23:29):
cacti glowing blue. And then the idea was plant a
field of these regular green cacti, and then over the
place where you know the waist is the repository. And
then if you see the sign of a glowing blue one,
I mean, I don't think I didn't see the rest
of them, but I didn't think this one was that great.

(23:50):
I'm sorry to the person who came up with it
that I know. I think that something they should do
is go even further back to younger children, because sometimes
like go to like an l entry school and ask
kids or a high school, right, or you just take
each kid out and rub their face in the sand
and be like you see this, you stay out of here. No,
I mean, have the kids like throw out ideas because

(24:11):
I think, oh yeah, I think the like my idea.
I think a lot of times children can cut through
the to the simplicity of something much better than adults
can easily. So that's my idea. Throw it out as
a as a science fair project. Well, I think that's
one of the cool things about nuclear semionics is it's
so inviting to like, anybody can come up with a

(24:32):
great idea. It's just so confounding, but it's also so accessible. Yeah,
we'll get ideas. In fact, we want to hear from you.
If you think you have a cool idea, it's a
good idea. Like, I guarantee you we're gonna get some
good ones. We're not gonna pass them along or anything.
So rather than just like pooh pooing the glowing yucka one,
there's a here's the problem with the glowing yucka idea.

(24:54):
It requires explanation, right somebody, So part of the glowing
yuck is to say, these things have been genetically engineered
so that when there's radiation present, they glow so if
you see this yucka glowing, it means that there's radiation here.
Stay away. If you lose that that additional story that
has to go along with the glowing yucka, then you

(25:16):
just have glowing yucca. And I can't think of a
more attractive thing is going to draw people to a
site than the legendary glowing yucka that only glows and
this one spot on Earth. That's kind of the problem
with it, you know. I like this other idea from
that same year a little better that did not win.
Fields of Asphodel, which is a Eurasian lily. They said,

(25:38):
let's just cover the site with metal blades that screech
when the wind blows. It makes it horrible noise, right,
not bad. Here's the problem with that. Moving parts. Okay,
it's been pretty well established that if you're trying to
convey something to the people into the distant future, you
need to have something that's monolithic and made of one piece,

(25:59):
because if you have multiple parts, that's an opportunity for
weathering to occur through the place where the two parts meet,
or three parts or five parts. And if it's a
moving part, just kiss the movement goodbye. What about this.
I've had the thought earlier today about just a mountain
of razor wire. Okay, here's the problem with that. And

(26:21):
this is the same problem also with the What is
the problem the steel? The steel, stuff that move and everything.
You want to use you I know, but you want
to use stuff that has no value whatsoever, not just financially,
but usefulness because someone will say, I can harvest that
razor wire, Yeah, I can go use that to keep
the cows in in my house next door. Yeah. But
if you have so much of it over time, over

(26:44):
ten thousand years, people like take and take, and I
mean that's why the pyramids are stripped of, like they're
more attractive outer. They used to have like a white
I think limestone shell encasement. It's gone because the locals
were like, oh, I can use that to build a
pizza hut. That's exactly That's what people will do if

(27:04):
you play something of any kind of usefulness Like that
is the beauty of every idea is wrong as a whole.
It's so great, it's pretty great. I love it so
the um One of the most often uh sided bodies
of work is from eighty three, and this was a
call for ideas from the German Journal of Semiotics that

(27:26):
basically said the same thing. It's like, you know, what
are your ideas? This one got a little goofy, to
say the least. Someone suggested an artificial moon as a
storage vessel. There's just a huge flaw on that one.
If you ask me, I mean, you don't even get that. Well,
it was like, how do you make sure that the
information about this site stays protected? Put it into an

(27:49):
artificial moon in orbit around Earth? But it's like, how
do you get to the artificial I didn't get that's
what they meant that that, Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
That's what I think I guess they were. I mean
it said, uh, well, will they be aiming it down
to a TV that won't play? That's a different one. Yeah,
And then I just don't understand this at all. I
don't understand the Radioactive Cats either, even though that's a

(28:10):
decent band name. So there there. That was a big
part of the invisible episode Nuclear Semiotics. They talked about
the ray Cats um and I think they actually hired
a musician to create a song, because just like with
the Glowing Yucka, you have to explain what's going on
when the cats glow, you need to stay away. So
they had somebody come up with a ray cat song

(28:30):
I believe for the episode. Was it Hoodie and the Blowfish?
Yes it was. That was a good guess. Now this
one I thought was had a little I thought it
was interesting at least this SIMI edition named Thomas C.
Bac He said this what has survived more than anything
else religion, religious texts that date back, you know, a

(28:51):
couple of thousand years in the Catholic Church. Not a
bad start. Yeah, the ideas that you hear at Catholic
Mass today are a couple of thousand years old and something.
And if you go back to the original text, which
we can still read fortunately, you can say, yep, this
is what they're talking about. Like those ideas have survived
that long because of the practices they use. So interesting idea.

(29:12):
But it gets a little goofy because he thought, why
don't we almost create a fake religion around this thing?
Um a fearful myth that you can generate appointing an
atomic priesthood two tell people and tell them to tell
future generations. But I mean, I guess the idea is

(29:34):
that it's all false and it's just a big made
up story. Yeah, this the atomic priesthood would know the
truth and they would indoctrinate people, but out in society
around them, it would be a closely guarded secret because
everybody else thinks that whatever, this fake myth about why
you have to stay away from this haunted, evil area

(29:54):
is true, when really the atomic priests are the ones
who know, uh no, actually there's there's radioactive stuff. They're here.
They just came up with this three thousand years ago
to scare everybody away. But initially a decent idea as
far as trying to make it or incorporate like what
religion does. But it just definitely strange. It is to
me though, it is at its base despicable. It's a

(30:17):
despicable idea because it is purposefully introducing fearful, false superstition
into the future, Like we're gonna purposefully introduce fearful false
superstition into the future just to scare people off from radioactivity,
Like what kind of sweeping side effects? What kind of
wars might start over this? Many people will die to

(30:38):
defend this fake thing that they don't realize is fake.
Because Thomas Cebia came up with this idea to keep
people away from a single site in New Mexico. That's crazy.
It didn't fare too well either among his colleagues, and
rightfully so, because again it's a despicable idea. So he
was on the Human Interference task Force. We mentioned them
the Nevada site. That was what was uh what was

(31:01):
launched for that yucka mountain side back in from eighty three.
So whatever cbo original idea was, he had like some
other closely related ideas that were great. Though, Like he's
not like it's a total nut job happened. He's like,
I think it was just a misfire for in an
otherwise illustrious career. I think I don't know that much

(31:23):
about him. But um, one of his other ideas was, Okay,
well let's take the the atomic priesthood away, let's take
the religion and all that stuff away, and let's just
give them like the facts, but let's figure out a
way to make sure that those facts get passed down.
And what he came up with was called the meta message,
where it's a message that says this is this place

(31:46):
has nuclear radiation, it can kill you. You need to
stay away. From it, and we invite you to take
this message and translated into whatever languages you guys have
on earth at the time, assuming you can read this right,
But if you do that often enough, there will always
be somebody who can translate it. And then that way
you form a bridge between now and as far into

(32:09):
the future as people are around to read and add
their own interpretation or their own translation of it. But
then you want to leave the original so that if
there's ever like a disagreement about what some what word meant,
hopefully somebody can go back language language language and connect
them so that they can see the original version. Yeah,

(32:29):
but like what if a society develops an isolation that
knows none of these languages, you're just totally toast. Yeah,
that's when the symbols come in. Right. So what they
settled on as a panel though from one to eighty
three was what's called long term communication was going to
be the most effective thing, like kind of what you
were just talking about. And they said, a system that

(32:52):
combines physical markers and archives that cover the two major
forms of this long term communicate direct and successive. Direct
utilizes markers, and uh, successive is humans like you were
talking about I guess with this meta message, I guess
you could write it down, but it's still humans carrying
a message through time. Well, it's more like a direct one,

(33:13):
is that, Like you can write an inscription on a
monument and that monument is going to deliver that message
directly to people ten thousand years from now. Yeah, I
mean it's a physical thing, right, whereas with successive it's
kind of passed along like a game of telephone exactly.
And you know how that goes, right, It can get
a little hinky, that's right, but it's always fun at

(33:34):
a somber party. Sure. So they came up with multiple ones,
like you were saying, um that they settled on a
monument that had um massive stone structures. Remember, you want monoliths,
they're engraved with warnings in all currently known languages. It's
a lot of languages. You want a buried vault that
has all the info you need about radioactivity, about the site,

(33:56):
all that stuff. You want a bunch of barriers around
the site, not necessarily to definitely keep people out, but
enough to basically say, hey, hey, we're trying to impede
progress here. Yeah. I mean, to me, that's one of
the most obvious ones. If like you see a huge
wall again, it might entice you, but it for sure
indicates to any culture that you're like, you're not meant
to come beyond this. And then, um, the last one

(34:21):
is a network of archives basically the same information you
would have in that buried vault, but elsewhere scattered around
the world. So if something happens to the buried vault,
somebody can come across the archives somewhere and be like,
oh wait, wait, we want to stay out of there,
right And along with that, they said, while we're at it,
can we can we at least like all agree around
the world on a nuclear warning symbol, if it's the

(34:41):
trefoil or whatever, let's just all codify that as the thing,
which is not the case right now. Now there's was
a triangle with an arrow pointing down, and then in
the head of the arrow was the Biohezard symbol, which
is not great because you want something that's going to
be so simple that even as people affuse me, I
need to see it. I guess yeah. It's even when

(35:02):
you see it you're like wait what, um, But you
want something simple enough so that as people kind of
create a shorthand version of it. It's still retains its
its meaning rightly, all right. So that stuff was the
Yucca project in the early eighties. They decided not to
do that. They just packed it up, put it away,
and then it all came back again with this new

(35:23):
Mexico plant when the Department of Energy said once again, hey,
we need to think of a sign and a symbol
or or whatever you can, you know, come up with,
and we need the best in the brightest thinking of this.
So call up Carl Sagan, Get me Sagan, give me Sagan,
give me Percy Tannenbaum, stat uh. And this guy named
John Lomberg who's a science writer and space illustrator, and

(35:46):
he had worked in semiotics before for NASA on their
mission to Mars. Sagan was an ill health so he
declined to come, but he sent a message from the present.
I guess that said skull and crossbones done universal. Everyone
knows it. He gave a really good example. He said,
it has um. It's marked the lintels of cannibal dwellings,

(36:08):
the flags of pirates, the insignia of s S divisions,
and motorcycle gangs. Like. He makes a pretty good point.
A lot of people out there see a skull and
crossbones and no, it means like danger problems. Yes, you know,
you'll be a skull. And so the working group for
the whip Um project they said, now that doesn't work.

(36:31):
It's a young Ian archetype. It doesn't really exist outside
of the West. To me, I'm like, no, Segan was
definitely onto something. I think so. I mean, tell me,
if you go to China and hold up a sign
with a skull and crossbones, I would think so, wouldn't they.
I mean, that's a dire warning, isn't it. I think
their point is is that the skull used to be

(36:51):
like a Memento movie where it meant like rebirth and death,
so they could be like, oh, wonderful a skull and
cross bus. But to me, that is the one enduring
symbol that's always going to be around as long as
there are humans, because what happens when you die and
rot what's left your skull. Every human knows that even

(37:14):
humans in the future are going to know that. Even
ones that are in like a post collapse tribes were
running around like and and have lost all of the
languages that are around today, they're gonna know what a
skull looks like or what a skull means, or at
least one of them is going to be like wait,
I don't think this is saying that the rainbow is coming. Um,
I think it means like death or danger. All right,

(37:35):
let's take another break. Yeah, we'll come back and talk
about the the approach that the whip panel took and
what they came up with right after this. Sorry, you know,

(38:10):
I gotta defend Sagan. It's my boy. I love that guy.
Someone should ask U Neil de grass Tyson. Why not.
I bet he's got a good idea or two. I'll
bet they have asked although Atlanta for a show. Oh yeah,
where Fox? I think a cop Energy Center. Oh yeah, yeah,
well I think that's even more seats than the phone. No,

(38:32):
it's less. Oh sorry, I think it's like three thousand people,
which is nothing to you know, put up a stink about.
That's a lot of folks. We have not hit that.
No we're not, No, we haven't. Did you hear the
Star talk I was on? Oh no, it was it good?
It was pretty good. Yeah. If I do say so myself,
if it was supposed to be like rapid fast responses.

(38:55):
We got to like four questions in an hour because
you're like, rapid fast response is not my specialty. Deal,
let me just do a distracting here, a more deliberate alright. So,
speaking of deliberate, the WHIP panel was very deliberate and methodical.
They divided into teams and um approached it from the
two things we were talking about, direct and successive forms

(39:17):
of communication. Debated a lot, deliberated a lot the recommendations.
They had two proposals, and they did overlap a little bit. Uh.
What I thought was pretty smart is they both had
a multi leveled approach from the surface down that got
more specific and intense as you went down. Yeah, the
first one was basically like you, ding Dong, this is dangerous,

(39:39):
go away exactly. That's like level one, and then level
two is like, okay, ding Dong, and you're kind of smart.
Friend explained to ding Dong that the reason this is
dangerous because there's something buried here and it's gonna hurt you.
All right, we should we should. We don't talk about
the real things. Oh sure, I thought I was. Uh
so Group A this was their's. They studied the face

(40:00):
of the site with what they called menacing earthworks, so
a field of spikes and then a big massive disk
painted to look like a black hole. I didn't quite
get that part. That's so dumb. I get the spikes.
I I think it's the yeah, of course, But the
black hole. I think it's supposed to just mean like
a void or chaos. I don't know. I'm not sure

(40:22):
I could see how you would think that that was
kind of universal, like nobody wants to fall into a
hole or something, and maybe it evokes that kind of
like stay away, all right. Then they have large markers
all around the site, which, like you said, are the
really basic messages and the warnings, including and I thought
this is so interesting, uh faces that invoke Edvard Munch's

(40:43):
The Scream, the ones I saw a word at the scream. Yeah,
like it was a line drawing of the guy from
the people. Yeah, like in great agony and pain. That
to me not bad. It isn't bad. I don't know
there was that more universally understood than a skull and crossbones.
I don't know, or or or if art survives or

(41:03):
people like, Oh, I wonder if that paintings down there, well,
I think what they're saying is and simuticians kind of
feel this way. Is that Edvard Monk so perfectly nailed
the scream that even without the art, like if you
see that, you understand that that person you're seeing is
in agony. Did I say Munch? No, I think you
said monk. Did I say much? You said Monk. I

(41:23):
might have said much. No, you said I think he
said monk. Is it Munch? I think it's probably Monk.
There's no way his name as much. I'm almost positive
you said monk. Jerry, can you rewind for a second. Much?
Oh you did say much. I would have scorned you
said monk. So Group A below the surface, Uh, this
is when they actually start talking about nuclear waste to

(41:45):
what it does to you, the details about the structure
and all that stuff, right where where they teach you
a little bit about radio activity. So group B Uh,
this was they went super informative, and really what they
were light on was that people had a little bit
of knowledge in the future about stuff like this. But
they also trusted that the people didn't have to just

(42:07):
be spooked or scared or something like that. That that
it's like, here is the facts and information. That's why
you want to stay away from that. Yeah, they're big
above groundwork was these big earthen walls in the shape
of the nuclear trafoil. Not bad. I imagine you'd have
to see it from above to even know though what
it was. But that's that's part of the One of
the requirements was that you you wanted to be um

(42:30):
easily visible, not just with human cognition, but like remote
sensing to so like magnetic surveys. They they they said,
we should put some magnets in here, right, not just
from when you walk up to it, right, So, and
you also have to be able to see it from
your flying saucer exactly. Uh. And then inside the walls
they have at various steps have these big markers and

(42:52):
here's where these like symbols and pictographs, uh, all kinds
of languages, writing in different languages and in more human faces,
increasingly contorted in agony. As you go down, it looks
to me like the guy's getting drunker and drunker. Yeah, yeah,

(43:12):
that's what it looks like. Well, maybe that means there's
a happening bar exactly. That's how I would take it
if I were a future human post collapse. Gotta go
gotta go down here. There were also pictograms you're just
like digging through the sand to get to They're also
pictograms that showed like under the ground, like real easy
to understand drawings of the radioactive waste, the water groundwater

(43:36):
flowing through it, taking the radioactive waste up to the plants,
which are then eaten by the humans in the picture,
one of whom dies, which makes sense. You don't need
to understand anything about radioactivity. You don't need to be
able to read anything. It's a really like it makes sense,
especially if some people are sitting there thinking about it's
the final image is skulling crossbones or or a pile

(43:57):
of bones. You know. It was like a person, three
people standing in one of them. The last one was
like dead and I think he might even have excess
for eyes. Well I was about to say, though, I mean,
if you think about twenty years from now, maybe maybe
they're like, oh, this induces a nice nap. Maybe, Like
but to your point though, like the bones is where
you need to end up, right, Yeah, maybe somebody would
be like, oh this these veggies here give you a

(44:19):
great buzz if you grow them on this ground. That
excess for eyes right. Yeah, the bones do make a
lot more sense. I think Sagan was right. That's that
should be a T shirt. Stuff you should know t shirts.
Sagan was right, don't even need to have any context.
We're gonna be an email in a few days from
the guy from the estate of Karl Sagan saying do
not make that T shirt. So what did they go with?
In the end, though, they went with um a earthen work,

(44:45):
earthen berm basically to provide an obstacle um and to
block easy access some granite slabs, monoliths that have warnings
written in seven languages, yeah, Navajo and then the six
languages of the u n So Arabic, Chinese, English, Spanish, French,
and Russian. Um, which makes a lot of sense. But

(45:08):
then they took Thomas Cibiak up on his idea. They
kind of built on the earlier right exactly um, and
they left blank spaces or they play in their plan.
They leave blank spaces on these slabs for future generations
to add their own translations of the inscriptions. It's a
great idea. And the faces of humans and pain in

(45:31):
English that did survive in the end. So that was
the final report on this whip panel. It's a pretty
good idea, makes a lot of sense because not only so,
there are two two groups that they're trying to say
stay away, not not really like urban explorers or thrill
seekers or whatever they would have, they would have virtually

(45:52):
no chance of getting down to the actual radio at
the material. The people they were worried about, or technology
technological advanced civilizations that we're drilling for resources like accident
like God help this this um this this waste disposal site.
If salt becomes incredibly important in the future, and then
um less advanced civilizations that could accidentally um change the

(46:17):
flow of groundwater to go through the salt bed through
massive like irrigation projects. It covers all of it. Yeah,
my whole thing is just make it inaccessible. Why is
it in New Mexico? Why is it out you know, well,
that's I mean, that's pretty inaccessible. It's not as access
inaccessible as you know Siberia. No, some one of the

(46:37):
recommendations for nuclear waste disposal shooting it into space. Just
send it out in the outer space and forget about it.
And if you believe in the family paradox that it
says we're the only intelligent life in the universe. Man
more power to That's actually not that bad of an idea.
It's a horrific idea, but it's actually kind of a
good idea. Thing. Yeah, but then I wonder about the

(46:58):
danger and the risk and evolved. I mean, we've seen
rockets blow up and space shuttles blow up. That would
be bad. Like what if the thing that they're shooting
it out there malfunctioned or something that'd be really bad
would be really bad. That's a great points, Like all
of our nuclear waste has just been released, oh into
the atmosphere. Yeah, that's a great, great point. So here's
the thing, is all of this just wasted effort because

(47:21):
I was getting so into the stuff. And then the
end of this article was a real like sad trombone
because it seems like it seems like nobody really even
cares the people that matter. Well, the first the first
group like their whole thing will will probably never be
implemented because yuck, a mountain project got shut down. But
the Whip group may actually have their their plan come

(47:43):
to fruition because it is an ep A rule that
you have to create this kind of marker and they've
got until about forty until they estimate the place is
going to shut down. So it's entirely possible that in
or sometime in the hundred years after, when the d
O E stops protecting the site or the d O
d UM, they may implement this earthen works in the

(48:05):
sixteen granite slabs, and we we may live to see
something like this. Well, outside of the US, it seems
like no one is super concerned. Sweden in two thousand
eleven had an application to build a repository in force
Mark and in their in their literal application, they basically said,
you know what, we're gonna worry about that later in

(48:26):
seventy years, when this thing's finished. They said, see this,
can we just kicked the seventy years down. The ref
and the Swedish National Archives they consulted on their application,
they said, that's really insufficient. It said, it gives the
impression that one intends to postpone important documentation efforts until
the closure of the repository in seventy years. And it's like,

(48:46):
it doesn't give the impression. It literally said that, So, uh,
I think they're being ultrapolite. Yeah, I think, well Sweden, right, good,
people in the US, though, don't tell Asa Brocky that
that don't even know what that means. That's a singer, right, yeah,
he's he's a rapper. He's in prison in Sweden right now.
And I did not know that. Oh man, what would
he do. He got into a fight with some Swedish

(49:09):
kids and it may or may not have been their fault.
It looks on video like they definitely provoked it. But
the King of Sweden is like, sorry, rule of law
applies to everybody, including super famous Americans. Donald Trump called
him to try to get the thing resolved at the
behest of Kanye West God, and apparently I just made
everything worse. And now the King of Sweden is like,

(49:29):
there's no chance he's getting released early. Wow, man, where
have I been? This is reality. What I just said
is actual fact that actually happened here in two thousand nineteen. Everybody.
Humans of the far future? Can you believe it? Humans
of the near John Lomberg, that guy we were talking
about earlier, who was on that original panel, he told

(49:52):
Vice just a couple of years ago. Um, a lot
of us had been around the block a few times before,
because you know, he was back then doing the same
thing and knew this is going to be a report
the government only did and this is the US and
we're putting more thought towards this than anyone. Yeah, which
is really surprising. He said they only did this because
they needed to show compliance. They didn't really care what

(50:13):
we said. And then uh, and from the Human Interference
Task Force during the competition, they basically said, the most
effective sign will be the dead bodies of those foolish
enough to ignore whatever sign. So basically like who cares,
someone will do someone will get in there and they
all die and then that'll be the big morning, right,

(50:34):
which makes sense if if humans are in communication around
the globe and you've got the same morning around. But
if they're not, then it's catastrophe, catastrophe, catastrophe. But at
least we fulfilled our part of the bargain where we
really tried to warn everybody agreed, you got anything else? Yeah,
if you will indulge me, I would like to plug

(50:54):
the end of the world with Josh Clark. What the
end of the world with Josh Clark? If if like
thinking about things in like far deep time in the
future of humanity and all that stuff kind of floated
your boat. I would recommend my little podcast series The
End of the World of Josh Clark for sure. This
is right up your alley. Thank you, Chuck. Uh. And
since Chuck said write up your alley, it's time for

(51:14):
a listener mail. Hey guys, we are strangers, but we aren't.
You've been with me during the most challenging times of
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I'm an English teacher. My students retired and making fun
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But you didn't know that you were able to comfort
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