Nuclear semiotics
Over the past decades, man has accumulated tons of radioactive waste, whether it be from bombs, bomb testing, or plants to make bombs, and since radioactive waste can't stop unashamedly showering everything around it with unwanted photons, our descendants will have to face the mistakes of the past, lest they threaten the future. Sadly, we cannot predict what will happen thousands of years into the future, and we cannot be sure whether our descendants can properly deal with the radioactive baggage that their idiotic ancestors have hoarded. As such, nuclear semiotics is needed to warn future humans of the dangers of radioactive waste, and why they should avoid it.
Nuclear semiotics was created in 1981 by a group of "engineers, anthropologists, nuclear physicists, behavior scientists and others" hired by the U.S Department of Energy and Bechtel Corp. The Human Interference Task Force as they were called, were hired to figure out ways to tell of the dangers of radioactive waste to our descendants, and they had to face several problems involved with communicating messages through long time spans. No one can guarantee that any institution would still exist to preserve scientific knowledge of nuclear radiation, and languages and writing spoken today could already be illegible thousands of years into the future; the language of the Sumerians has yet to be fully understood, as it existed many years ago. Three main ideas had to be expressed in the message sent to the future: that it is a message at all, that in a certain location dangerous material is stored, and information about the type of the dangerous substances stored there. The Human Interference Task Force formed several ideas that could be implemented to spread the message of the dangers of nuclear waste depositories, such as...
A Sign!
The first idea thought of, and the most obvious, is to throw up a sign and call it a day. Surely our inept descendants will be dissuaded by a giant "bugger off" sign? Unfortunately, this is almost never the case. Language has evolved over thousands of years, and despite the clamor of condescending pilkunnussija, language will continue to evolve. It would be foolish to assume that the English we speak will be the same as the English our descendants will, or that English will survive at all. Even worse is the subjectivity of symbols and signs in our modern world. We all know what the sign above the intro paragraph means, as these symbols have been constantly hammered in our receptive minds for years, but what of our descendants? A radioactive symbol would look only like a circle surrounded by three trapezoids to our future descendants, nothing more, nothing else. Who today will teach humanity the meaning of these symbols that we use to repel to future humans? Unless someone pioneers a sign that automatically kicks someone in the groin for getting too close, the usage of giant signs will have to be rejected for Nuclear semiotics.
| “ | A hungry scavenger desperately searches for food, water and shelter in the crumbling ruins of an advanced civilization. He scans his environment and smells the air with his freakishly large nose to sense for any danger nearby. Sensing nothing out of the ordinary, he and his equally brutish friends continue to wander the wasteland, studying the horizon for any signs of a safe haven. After many hours, the scavenger almost gives up when a strange shape appears from afar. He and his compatriots decide to walk towards the strange shape, and after awhile, the small dot from afar becomes larger until they realize that the strange shape is actually a door. Unlike other doors, this one is large and metallic, and isn't connected to a building, but to the face of a large mountain. This confuses his primitive mind, and the hungry scavenger grunts and yelps. He realizes that the door isn't an animal or living creature of some sort, as it doesn't respond to his well thought out mating call. Scrutinizing the door, he sees a mysterious symbol. Though faded over many many years, it is still visible, along with some strange markings beneath it.
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The Atomic Priesthood!
One idea proposed by the task force was the Atomic Priesthood. No, it wasn't a crime fighting team of mutated Bishops, but a panel of experts that would tell future generations of the dangers of radiation. Over the years, the experts (or "priests") in the Atomic Priesthood would be replaced by others, passing the knowledge of radiation over many thousands of years. The Priests would gain popularity and prominence for their secrets of the ancient past, and would tell others mythical stories about the dangers of nuclear waste. Religion has existed for thousands of years, and converting radiation safety into a religious magistrate espousing the dangers of gamma rays makes perfect sense as a means of assuring longevity of the message, but not so much as a means of preserving human dignity.
| “ | High Lord Sir Röntgen the Fourth, perched in a balcony, surveyed the crowd as he was preparing to begin the timeless daily ceremony that had been performed for many hundreds of years. A massive crowd had gathered beneath him as he did the ceremonial dance, wildly thrashing his cleansing stick whilst his arms flailed about in a ragdoll fashion. Euphoric, the crowd joined in the elderly man's dance. The worshipers wildly flailed their limbs while the priest performed his daily aerobic exercise routine; he wondered why they always joined him in his exercise, but it mattered little to him at the moment. After much dancing, the priest started the Holy Cleansing ritual. Taking the Holy Stick of Saint Geiger, he waved it around for the whole world to see.
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Green, Glowing Cats!
Cats have been humans' no.2 animal companion for hundreds of years, and hopefully for many more hundreds of years to come. Excluding a disastrous cat pandemic which causes a massive cat genocide, these furry felines will be with humanity in future generations. Another idea (which uses the species' longevity) proposed by the Human Interference Task Force is to use the humble cat as a means to spread knowledge of dangerous radiation, rather than just annoying ticks. Other than the possibility of recreating a feline version of A Boy and his Dog, cats also have the startling advantage of being cute, cuddly, and genetically modifiable. The cats' DNA could be changed to glow when near radiation, and act as a sort of living Geiger counter. Mimicking Egyptian mythology, the "powers" of the cat would be revered through rituals, myths, songs, and carefully orchestrated dance.
| “ | Mr. Cuddlesworth always followed his master, Al, wherever she went. Every adventure, tragedy, and journey Al endured, her faithful cat Mr. Cuddlesworth was sure to be by her side. Ever since the village chief gave Al her cat during the coming-of-age ceremony, the two had been inseparable, facing the new world with wide hopes and a curious glint in their eyes. Cuddles was (yet again) with Al, this time on a daily visit to the local water pump, which has always been inconveniently infested with giant, mutated spider-crabs. Though this journey was fraught with danger, Cuddlesworth and Al weren't afraid, for they knew they had each other, and their High-Powered Overcharged Laser Phasers. Today seemed like any other as they traversed the bug-infested wasteland, when Al spotted a strange structure about a mile away from them. She always noticed the unusual structure in the horizon every time he traveled this route, but she wasn't allowed to venture there; this only made her curious nature grow ever more unsatisfied. Seeing another opportunity to blindly loot food and ammo, and ignoring every warning from the village chief, Al diverge from her path and headed straight towards the building. Reluctant, Mr. Cuddlesworth followed his owner, but not without complaining. The cat started to glow a bright shade of green
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Atomic Flowers!
Since man discovered he could grow plants without using the spilled blood of wanton sacrificing, flowers have remained in humanity's heart as a symbol for whatever he sees fit at the moment. In different cultures, flowers represent life, death, fertility, the ideal Japanese woman, birth, enlightenment, girl power, private parts, unrequited love, or anything else that has little to nothing to do with actual flowers. Exploiting the flower's penchant for unnecessary symbolism, we can stuff even more meaning into the humble flower using genetic engineering. Genetically modified Flowers would be planted around nuclear waste sites, and their DNA would contain encoded data about the location and the dangers of radiation. The flowers would reproduce and multiply, as would its message trapped deep inside its genome. Or, you could hang a sign. Much less complicated than arranging codons to code for a protein that when deciphered says "go away".
| “ | Flowers have always looked pretty to me. I look at them all the time, with all their colors in an otherwise bleak world. Always shades of brown or gray or gray-brown, never any saturation. I wonder what secrets these resistant little creatures have for us to share. Maybe they could tell me what lies beyond my little compound. Grandfather says never to leave, and I have believed in him. He says that the world outside is just cold and gone. "Forever gone it will be" he says. "Forever gone". He also tells me a lot of the old world people, how they watched moving pictures on tiny big screens, how they wandered the face of the Earth just to look at pretty places, how they did blow themselves up with great weapons of mass destruction. Sometimes I don't believe what he says, they always seem so exotic, but he's my grandpa, and he is one of the few who knows of the old times. Maybe if I could take a peek out of this sanctuary, maybe I could be satisfied. Become a scavenger like some of the guys do. Me, I'll probably get stuck doing agricultural stuff instead of exploring.
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In Conclusion!
Through the years, as man advanced technologically and sociologically, the dangers of his creations have still lingered below the ground. Humanity, great and triumphant our species may be, is still foolish when examining its history. Countless wars and decades of brutal violence have ravaged our planet, yet what do we have to show for this? Toxic sludge held underneath the Earth? A landfill of the consequences of human error? Perhaps, nuclear semiotics could be a way for us to warn our future selves of our errors, or maybe just a way to redeem ourselves in the eyes of our hopefully more enlightened successors. The radioactive graves we have made could at least signal a simple "we fucked up your world, don't make our mistakes". Either way, we must protect our descendants from the blunders of the past, yet trying to do so is going to take some time; we don't have much of an idea of a way to communicate to our future descendants that isn't batshit insane, as you probably already know. But, if you think of it in a very cynical manner, we have till the end of the world to find out. Thank you for your time.
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