This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.

wau

Thought this was gonna be a meta thread.

I can't find a reference on this, but apparently the think tank for this considered the idea that the future would be matriarchal and would instinctively distrust warnings from men.

that IS damn interesting

but i think if we found a similar warning or whatever, we'd still ignore it and investigate

I can't find a reference on this, but apparently the think tank for this considered the idea that the future would be matriarchal and would instinctively distrust warnings from men.

well, if you take the long view, there's hardly any reason to rule that out

(xpost) Or if we saw a warning that said "EXTREME DEADLY DANGER!!! KEEP AWAY!!!", we'd just think "they just want to scare us away because that's where their treasure is hidden"

the concept images here are cool - http://downlode.org/etext/wipp/

http://downlode.org/Etext/WIPP/menace01.gif
http://downlode.org/Etext/WIPP/landscape_of_thorns.jpg

Others predicted the invention of self-guided robotic “mole miners” that would penetrate the site from the side or below. In a scenario set in the year 11991, robotic slaves are infected with a computer virus that compels them to override their safety programming as they compulsively drill and construct mine shafts.

this is all very pynchon to me. i will write a book based on this.

Typical big government project not putting a url in their literature lol

maybe the obelisk in 2001 was radioactive waste

It has been suggested that the Information Center be designed so as to
create a distinctive whistle sound when wind blows through the open
structure, to help draw attention to the building. The desirability of this
warrants investigation and, if determined to be desirable, provisions for
this need to be incorporated into the design.

this had to have been the most fun use of tax payer dollars ever.

besides like parties thrown for defense contractors or whatever

It has been suggested that the Information Center be designed so as to
create a distinctive whistle sound when wind blows through the open
structure, to help draw attention to the building.

Hmmm...:

Even the wind’s burden held a peculiar strain of conscious malignity; and for a second it seemed that the composite sound included a bizarre musical whistling or piping over a wide range as the blast swept in and out of the omnipresent and resonant cave mouths. There was a cloudy note of reminiscent repulsion in this sound, as complex and unplaceable as any of the other dark impressions.

Well done, Ned!

This is way more fun than the Arecibo message.

This is the kind of shit I wish I was paid to do but I don't know the right people in lol academia or lol government.

Yes, THAT'S the problem

Given the right connections, the government would totally be all "hey, let's put the first presentation of modern humanity to robot archaeologists of the distant future in the hands of esteemed noise-board creator 'Catsupppppppppp dude'"

I joke with love, btw

dying

when i read about stuff like this, i just get pissed that i won't be around to see how it plays out.

http://www.holoscience.com/views/img/voyager_plaque.jpg

For a second I thought that was the Death Star...

how it plays out

it's going to be a fucking mess.

I'm interested in how they're putting a star chart in that will allow finders to figure out what our dates mean by determining the date in our calendar.

• Azimuths of the bright stars Vega, Arcturus, Sirius, and Canopus as they
rise above the horizon at the time of WIPP closure, allowing calculation of
the time of closure;

^ aha!

(Ok, I am messing with Jon and all, but I totally would like to see the lost Star Trek episode where they land on a planet whose society is based completely on his relics and teachings.)

(Stuff is totally fascinating and would be no-joke awesome to get to think about and work on, for sure.)

Wouldn't it be like the "Rimmerworld" episode of Red Dwarf?

^^^ How is what you're talking about NOT some kind of fetish porn?

there's a star trek where the society lives in reverence of a copy of the US constitution, but they don't actually read it. kirk reads it to them.

Goole, they try to read it but the pronunciation is different and they have lost all meaning of the words.

"Catsuppppppppppppp is a Yang worship word, you will not speak it"

there's a star trek where the society lives in reverence of a copy of the US constitution, but they don't actually read it. kirk reads it to them.

-- goole, Friday, August 1, 2008 4:45 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

townhall.com?

thumbs up!

our ancient cave-painting ancestors weren't attempting to illustrate complex ideas as far as we know.

http://i37.tinypic.com/15oikaf.gif

30 seconds in mspaint, whaddya reckon?

ok i dunno how the guy at the front got so... excited.

"AWESOME RAVE GOING ON UNDER THIS ROCK"

There's no good way to do this, given the timetable the designers are considering. The more attention you call to something, regardless of your intent, the more interesting it will be to whoever finds it. And any symbology of warning we devise is likely to mean nothing outside our immediate cultural context. "Landscape of Thorns" is awesome though...

All this "give 8 year olds crayons and see what they come up with" kind of assumes that humans in ten thousand years' time are going to be stupid. If the human race hasn't progressed by then, and actually regressed to the point where they've forgotten what radiation even is, then quite frankly, they deserve to be showered with depleted uranium. Might even get them to pull their finger out. I don't know, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all...

I don't think humanity's going to be around in 10,000 years - at least not in any form we would recognize

"AWESOME RAVE GOING ON UNDER THIS ROCK"

-- and what, Friday, August 1, 2008 5:02 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://facemelt.us/facemelt.gif

I don't think humanity's going to be around in 10,000 years - at least not in any form we would recognize

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, August 1, 2008 5:13 PM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

stfu with your armchair kurzweil bullshit, douchetard.

kurzweil? I can't stand that guy!

Do you happen to have the article criticizing people championing the singularity for theism?

I have no idea what you're talking about. I know Kurzweil's general position is that humanity should welcome being replaced by robots and I'm not entirely down with that.

found it

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=5993

The IEEE Spectrum "special report" on The Singularity makes for interesting reading, but I’d like you to try something as you click through it. When you read these essays and interviews, every time you see the word "Singularity," I want you to replace it in your head with the term "Flying Spaghetti Monster."

oh this - yeah I've heard of this. Not really what I was talking about but thanks for the projection and the namecalling

Stop being so butthurt and tell me what you meant or gfto, mouthbreather.

wanna know how to keep an idiot in suspense?

give him a fake address and tell him it's rachael ray's house?

I don't think humanity's going to be around in 10,000 years - at least not in any form we would recognize

http://megustacasarme.es/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/liza-minelli.jpg

(I'm actually convinced Xenu is behind all this and Tom Cruise is rubbing his hands with glee. Srsly, what about the first poster:

clayton #1 May 17th, 2006 10:49 am
First! interesting indeed

Dude, stfu with your FIRST! post. Keep it for the Perez Hilton sites.)

http://downlode.org/Etext/WIPP/danger.gif

http://mschaut.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/munch_scream.jpg

there's a star trek where the society lives in reverence of a copy of the US constitution, but they don't actually read it. kirk reads it to them.

Read an SF book lately where some bunch of intergalactic outlaws are hoping to steal ancient revered document that will bring peace to the universe, and the surprise twist ending is... oh, I've just ruined it. Anyhow, blugh.

(Can't remember what it was, though I suppose the ending is less ruined if I don't name it anyway, since there's probably a few books which match the first half of the sentence)

I think the best proposal is the one where if you dig you find clusters of progressively greater amounts of the radioactive material on the way down to the main deposit, where the first few are too small a dose to cause lasting damage.

All these symbols and sculptures are awesome (and I'd love to see the list of instructions if future generations are going to add future mutations of English and on into other languages for the next 14 millennia), but are just going to make archaeologists think, "huh, look at the quaint scribblings of these primitives, with the weirdassed shapes they thought passed for pretty, all tryna big up their king dude with pictures of mass death and agony," that being humanity's default opinion of any society more than, oh, 80 years ago.

I learned a new word today: berms.

Viewed from one angle it's a reinforced art project, spanning the centuries, with a perverse aim. How do you make an artwork that discourages investigation? Everything proposed, and especially that beautifully forbidding field of giant spikes, radiates an eerie aesthetic magnetism.

There is something to be said for making the site as innocuous as possible. On the other hand, this kind of thing may be all that survives of our era, and may incorporate more about the aesthetics and meaning of our cuture than we ourselves could possibly grasp.

It might even generate, in times to come, the familiar myth of the long-gone culture that protects its myserious shrine to its gods with an invisible but poisonous miasma or curse that kills all those who come to explore its secrets. Which, perhaps, is not so far from the truth.

Do you think our era might be seen as the first time that people started really speculating seriously about the future (although maybe not enough to keep from fucking it up)?

I mean obviously wondering about the future is nothing new, but plausible prediction must post-date the scientific revolution.

that this era's predictions are any more plausible than any previous era's is slightly ridiculous, particularly when you're talking about such a massive timespan as 10,000 years

we seem to have a very egotistical opinion of how smart we are, how much we know about the universe, etc. even when we have thousands of years of history all right there to tell us that everything changes, nothing lasts, and nothing is certain.

(well except for radioactivity amirite lolz)

hey i said speculating about the future, not getting it bang otm. but a future technological civilisation would probably take messages from an ancient technological civilisation more seriously than they would messages from a pre-technological one.

whatever - Greek and Mayan societies were technological, how seriously do we take their predictions

world's gonna end in 2012 btw haha

http://i37.tinypic.com/15oikaf.gif
"the standing figure appears to be gloating over the deaths of the others, scorning traditional respect for the dead to say they will be missed by no one"

yeah yeah, define "technological", whatever. is "post scientific revolution" a moveable feast too? xpost

scientific revolution just as likely to be viewed as a catastrophic error in human evolution (future generations: "gee thanks for the combustion engine and radioactivity!") as something worthy of respect

anyway ethan bringing the lolz more of that please

i seem to have a very egotistical opinion of how smart we are, how much we know about the universe, etc.

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, August 1, 2008 6:21 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I'm surprised anyone could take this seriously - the entire premise of the effort is patently ridiculous Star Trek-style silliness (as has been ref'd)

x-post

scientific revolution just as likely to be viewed as a catastrophic error in human evolution (future generations: "gee thanks for the combustion engine and radioactivity!") as something worthy of respect

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, August 1, 2008 6:31 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

this is idiotic

how can we know whats good or bad, maaaan?

http://i37.tinypic.com/15oikaf.gif
Not enough hand-clapping makes a box angry, so get clappin'.

xp I presume he meant something more like A Canticle for Liebowitz, technological and cultural regression after apocalypse.

It means death to behold the box-headed man on a bad hair day.

I'm just sayin - the 20th century's scientific revolution has resulted in a poisonous environment for life on this planet that was heretofore unimaginable. Future generations unlikely to look back on enduring monuments like the miles-wide pile of garbage in the ocean or the millions of tons of radioactive waste in Yucca Mtn as an "accomplishment"

x-post

(that was in response to ethan btw)

better start but taking away my cigarettes

can we take away shakey mo's computer?

the 20th century's scientific revolution has resulted in a poisonous environment for life on this planet that was heretofore unimaginable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_catastrophe

millions of tons of radioactive waste in Yucca Mtn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_mountain

In 2007, the DOE announced it was seeking to double the size of the Yucca Mountain repository to a capacity of 135,000 metric tons

Hey, only off by a factor of 10. I hope you get polio, you smug fuck.

man you have problems

shakey otm :/

future generations: "gosh well at least its only 315,000 metric tons and not a million amirite?" *choke* *gasp* *dies*

lolz 135 I cant tpye

awesome thread

* Landscape of Thorns
* Spike Field
* Spikes Bursting Through Grid
* Leaning Stone Spikes
* Menacing Earthworks
* Forbidding Blocks

These are all awesome names for metal bands.

Forbidding Blocks - Tetris game music played in a metal style

what's weird about this is that partly i get the same vibe as i would reading rpg textbooks as a kid, somehow

"AWESOME RAVE GOING ON UNDER THIS ROCK"

― and what, Friday, August 1, 2008 10:02 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still makes me laugh.

man shakey mo took a lot of bizarre heat in this thread, huh?