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

Episode Date: December 30, 2023

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. Find out about our best ideas in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcast. SaveGeorgeBailey.com. Subscribe now. is too, I figure it was just logical. And logical stuff really floats my boat. Plus, what better way to send off a not too bad year considering everything, especially the last couple years, than with a real head scratcher, fascinating, interesting episode. I hope you enjoy it. Happy birthday to you, me, and happy new year to everybody. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey 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, should know to podcast.

You're about to say 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 were blank. No, no, that's right. It was the blank edition.

Oh, gosh, that's a terrible start, Chuck. So how about this just to divert ourselves from that disaster? What was not a disaster? Where are live shows we just did? Oh yeah. We finally got up on stage everyone since first time since January. Yeah. Kick the rust off. Sure. In Chicago and Toronto. In both of them were we just killed. They were great. Yeah, audiences just 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, hats off to Chicago for showing up. They showed up. Like we called you guys out and you responded. Yeah. Thank you very much. And thank you, Toronto, for not making us call you out.

But there are still tickets remaining for August 29th in Boston, at the Wilbur in Portland, Maine. You know, we're venturing up into the hinterlands of America. Right. I'm gonna watch next after that, but can't. August 30th, there are still plenty of great tickets left there. And then the same can be said in October and Orlando. And October 10th, I think I said October 9th,

right in Orlando, October 10th in New Orleans. Yep, that's right. Brooklyn, I'm not worried about that. It's already all sold out. The whole thing? All three nights. Man, should we add it fourth? Jeez.

I don't know, we'll talk 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 to miss it. Yeah, so come on out, especially you, 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 99% visible did a very famous episode on this very topic?

Oh, I didn't hear that. I specifically avoided going back and listening to it because I don't want to be stunk upon by its taint. Does that make sense? You don't want Roman Mars' taint. Stink it on you. It's more like, it's just such a classic episode that I don't want it to leak in.

I don't want to accidentally rip it off. Yeah, well, we certainly can't 99 invisible this thing because that is a show that exists at the top echelon of this industry. Sure. 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 99% invisible episode. Yeah, this thing really triggered a lot of like synapses firing for me. And I think I really enjoy this kind of thought experiment problem solving stuff.

Oh yeah. I think I would really dig like that part of the zombie apocalypse is figuring the stuff out as a team. Right. Because the whole time I was reading this, I was like, 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'd 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 you heard of it,

because I think it's well known that Romans first words were nuclear semiotics. That's true. Yeah, even before Mama. That's right. I could totally believe that actually. Yeah. So what we're talking about is Chuck said a couple 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 all, basically, any field of research that you can throw at the wall would probably have some function to play in the field of nuclear semionics and to make a long story short to do the too long didn't read version of this TL, semi-colon DR, is nuclear semi-autic seeks to figure out how to warn the future humans to come. Or whatever is here. Sure. Let's be honest. Good point. I mean, why discriminate, right? Yeah. 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 making a lot of assumptions that aren't necessarily gonna hold up. Oh yeah, like a lot of times,

so they should just do, and I would even stop halfway through my thought. Cause it's like, no, 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. Civilization might be ridiculously advanced by them. Civilization might be in a state of collapse by then.

We have no idea, but the point of nuclear semionics is to figure out how to come up with a message that is understandable to everybody in any situation in the future. And the current state of the yard is, let's figure out how to speak as far as 10,000 years 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 point 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 239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. There's something called Technetium 99 has a half-life of 211,000 years. So another one is like 1.7 million year half-life. This is the nuclear waste that we're creating now and are putting in the ground. Yeah, and Julia Layton, who is one of our writers who does great work for us, she made a lot of great points, which is like the history of human evolution

is 200,000 years. Yeah. And we've only been reading and writing for how long? About 5,000 less than 6,000 years. Yeah, so it sounds like, like you said, it sounds simple. And so many times I thought I had it cracked. Right.

Only to think. Like I was like, why don't they just do something purely visual and stage a play of people at that site digging in and then dying? And I was like, what do you do with it? So I'll just put it on a DVD. Sure. That just plays on a loop.

Right. It's like, well, how are you gonna power that thing? All right. Well, what happens when everybody's converted to blue ray? Yeah. Exactly. Or, you know, well, how are you gonna power that thing? All right, well, you know? Well, happens when everybody's converted to blue ray. Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, well, then solar, but a solar panel up. Oh, yes. He's not a less forever, but what have it done?

What if there's like a forever nuclear storm or whatever? What if the sun never shines again on Earth in 8,000 years? That's good happen. That's the cool thing about thinking into the deep future. There's all the things that will go wrong. Yeah, it makes you realize 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 you visualize the symbol of that is an apple. So it's almost like the words, and very much the words will just not have meaning anymore at some point. Right. Man. Let's dig into it. Love this stuff.

You 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 long-term geological repositories. And it is basically digging into the earth, couple of miles into the earth, putting our nuclear waste there. Again, waste that's going to be harmful to 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 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 really want to. In and of itself. Yeah. I don't know if that's a shorty or a longy. It's probably a longy. Yeah. But just briefly, the reason salt beds are preferable is because the fact that they're even there suggests that there's no water. If they, if there was water, they would have been dissolved long ago.

Sure. 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. The salt bed actually heals itself over like just a few decades. Heels itself back up, right? Yeah. So you put a container that's been engineered to hold the nuclear waste inside for 10,000 years. Yeah, it's also in a container. I 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 into it, perhaps permanently, in the salt. That's very strong, too, right? Yeah, it is fairly strong. I mean, if you're mining using modern mining equipment, it's really easy to mine into. But if you just have like a pickaxe or something, it's rock to you. 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 and to nuclear waste. But here's the thing. We can't just entomb it and 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 somebody actually finding it are pretty slim. Just bury and forget about it. And that of somebody actually finding it are pretty slim, just bury and forget about it, and that's probably the best way to go. And people say it's not a bad idea, but it's actually a pretty bad idea. See, actually, I thought that one wasn't the worst idea. It's not.

That was the behavioral psychologist. 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 as we'll see, attracting attention to something like that. Exactly. Attracts attention to it. I know, it's aned. Right, because as we'll see, attracting attention to something like, exactly. Attracts attention to it. I know, it's interesting thought experiment, right?

That was that psychologist by the way, was Dr. Percy Tenenbaum. No, really. I don't know, I wonder how like that. Of the East Hampton Tenenbaums. So we should point out that there's a couple of big times that these, that this has been commissioned, like, hey, we need to think of something.

One for a site that never happened and one for a site that has happened, the one that has happened. It's only one of the United States right now. Only one in the world as far as I know. No, it's number three. Oh really? It's the third largest.

Okay. 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 because the other two are bigger. But this is in New Mexico. It's called the WIP, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. And this one, they are actively guarding for,

they've committed the Department of Energy, is committed to guarding it with people for 100 years. They have hired Barney Fife into a hundred-year contract to look over this nuclear list. For at least a hundred years, it's not like at the end of the hundred years they're 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 true. 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, you know, the whole idea arose before that though. What was the other one in Nevada?

That's the Yucca Mountain one. That was the first one. Right, that's the first one that never happened. Right. But that's when, you know, in the 70s, is when this idea sort of came about. And I think it was in 1982 when it was sort of codified as an official, I guess, science or... Yeah, it is.

It's an interdisciplinary branch of science, nuclear semiotics, and it is because the EPA came up with a rule in 1982, a law, really. 1981, I got that wrong, by the way. So it's 81 that they came up with a rule in 1982 law, really. That's an 81, I got that wrong, by the way. So it's 81 that they came up with law? Well, it became a discipline in 1981 with that Yucca Mountain repository project. And I think from that Yucca Mountain repository project,

because we were starting to figure out how to deposit the stuff for a long time, the EPA came up with a rule, I think it was 1982 that said, if you're going to create these kinds of repositories for nuclear waste, you also have to figure out how to come up with a permanent warning sign. And everybody was like, that's no problem, of course.

And then the EPA is to think about it. It's harder than you think. They said just slap that nuclear waste logo that everyone knows. Sure. And everyone is like, everyone doesn't know that. It's been around forever. Everyone doesn't know that now,

much less in 200,000 years. Yeah, did you see how that was created? Yeah, it was a group doodle. I don't know how that happens. I think that means they can't describe it to one person. They know there's like five people in one of those giant like silver spoons pencils. They're crazy, Oh, yeah. This is a 1946. Was it at Berkeley? Yeah. And it was a group

doodle in the science class. Is that an album name or a band name? Group doodle. It's like the wiggles or something? Yeah, I think it's an album title for sure. So the wiggles group doodle. Absolutely. Okay, good. That's probably a real thing. That's our gift to you Wiggles. But I saw this was interesting. In 1948, 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 colors for their radiation safety program. And there was more argument about the colors than the actual symbol Because they're at first. They'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 just become kind of blind to it because they saw it so much and they're like have you heard a striper? Get easy yellow and black. They're like, no, I haven't heard them. And like, give us 40 years. You'll have heard of them.

Believe me. And then in 42 years, no one will have heard of them. That's right. So I think the original design was, I saw them in concert. We weren't even talking about the ball either. It was magenta blades on a blue background. Was the original design. Yeah.

And it was chosen because it was uncommon, but then in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they went with the yellow background in 1948, later on in 1948, and I guess it 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 this view, I know it's called the nuclear trough oil. You know, it's a circle and then three carceral circles around a blade. And from what I saw, one of the original group doodlers explained it as it's supposed to be an atom with activity around it.

Yeah, that's it. Which I'd 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 little doodle. But it's like you said, that is not a universally accepted symbol, which is a big problem. And 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 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 danger sign. That's not gonna happen. Right. The other thing you would think is just put up in a bunch of languages. Done. Yeah. Here's the thing. Languages are disappearing. I'm going to ask you actually, what is your best guess? A language dies out every blank. Nine million seconds.

Is that right? Did I nail it? You jerk. I got to get out of calculator. A language dies out every 14 days. I'm pretty sure that's 9 million. Isn't that staggering? God, what if it was? Are you about to do that? Yeah, you keep talking. So that's about 25 languages per year that die out and That's really sad. It is and it is very sad sad. And granted, these aren't, you know, major languages, but they're important to the people who speak them. Sure.

But that's just sort of to get across the point that throwing it up in a bunch of languages, there's no guarantee, and in fact, in all likelihood, in 50,000 years, there won't be English or German or French. There may not even be humans. That's a really good point, man. That's a really good point, man. We may be, what's the calculation?

446 days, that was a little long. Oh, okay. We may all be post-biological humans, uploaded our consciousness onto the internet or something, in which point that 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, the stuff that we take for granted changes a lot faster than you think.

And even if it doesn't necessarily die out, the changes that come along are pretty alarming. I've been watching a lot of Silicon Valley lately, I told you. Yeah, great show. My vocal delivery sounds a lot like Jared's. It's a curvy thing. Oh, you think?

A lot. And I never really put those two together. We'll keep an ear out for it now and see what you think. I mean, tell me I'm wrong. I don't know. I don't know. I would have to ear out for it now and see what you think. I mean, tell me I'm wrong. I don't know. I would have to disassociate so much because I like you and Jared is like such a pedantic bureaucrat.

Oh, I love 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. No. Jared needs a girlfriend, that's his deal. Okay.

So I do not, because I have a fine wife. That's right. So let me give you an example of how English has changed. This is a quote from Sir Gawain in the Green Knight. It was written in 1375. Oh boy. I was a little English. 650 years ago.

All right. This is in English. The steel of a stiff staff, the stern hit, be gripped that was wound in with iron into the wands end. And I'll be graven with green and gravious works. And you should see it spelled. Oh yeah, I mean, I was in 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, the green knight sat down and watched some Silicon Valley. That's right. It's that the grim man gripped it by its strong handle, which was wound with iron all the way to the end and gravening green with graceful designs.

So like, that's English, 650 years ago. English is still around. 650 years. We're talking about thousands, tens of thousands of years. Exactly. So that's a problem. Languages evolve, languages die. Symbols don't quite make sense out of context. So there's a lot of challenges that face the people who try to explain this stuff or figure out how to

explain it to future people, I think is a better way to put it. That's right. They have looked at semiotitions for people who really want on this stuff. I think I'm an amateur semiotition after reading this. That's great. But one thing that they're looking for, because what you want is ideally is instant recognition and not 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 she makes a great point though that like it's a double-edged sword, like you were talking about earlier, if you, you know, human beings, if you show a extreme skier or a sign, this is danger. Don't ski this way.

Sure. You're going to say bra. Let's do it. Yeah. You know? Give me some homicide power drink. So there's a very fine line between warning people and enticing people. Yeah, even inadvertently.

You're right, exactly. You know, I mean, there's, she points out haunted houses. Cause I'm like, yeah, not everybody's like a red bull extreme sports person. But people do like haunted houses too. So what, oh, that abandoned scary place is so creepy. But people do like it haunted houses too. So what about abandoned scary places? So creepy, let's go there for Halloween.

Because maybe Halloween survived, but the English language didn't, who knows? So yeah, you really walk a fine line here between warning people away and saying, dare you, right? Yeah, my whole jam is, I think they need to, what will survive if there are humans at all is emotion. So I think they need to appeal to human emotions

like fear, 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. ["The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The changing figure. That night he was deciding whether or not to allow Starlink to be enabled to allow a sneak attack on Crimea. What he got was a subject who also soared chaos and conspiracy. I'm thinking it's idiotic to buy Twitter because he doesn't have a fingertip feel for social emotional networks. And when I sat down with Isaacs in five weeks ago,

he told me how he captured it all. They had Kansas spray paint and they're just putting big axes on machines and it's almost like kids playing on the playground, just choose them up left, right, and center. And then like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he doesn't even remember it, getting the bars, done and excused being a total f***. But I want the reader to see it in action. My name is Evan Ratliffe and this is on Musk with Walter Isaacson. Join us in this four part series as Isaacson breaks down how he captured a vivid portrait

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Alright, Chuck, so we've kind of talked about how things go away. Languages fall away, symbols don't make sense anymore. It's the femura. It is. It really is. That's right. So what will last? What have nuclear semi-atitians come up with?

And should we explain what semiotics is in general? What is it, I don't even know. Oh, just kind of, in short-hand, semiotics is basically the study of how and why signs have meaning. 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 specifically a cursive sign because it uses language. So what they've done in many cases is, and this is a great idea for stuff like this, is to have a competition. They had one at UCLA, I think, in 2001, called the Desert Space Competition.

And what won that year was a cactus, a yucca cacti, glowing blue. And then the idea was plant a field of these regular green cacti, and then over the place where the waste 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. It was, I'm sorry to the didn't see the rest of them, but I didn't think this one was that great. It wasn't like.

I'm sorry to the person who came up with it though. I know. I think something they should do is go even further back to younger children. Because sometimes like go to like an elementary school and ask kids or a high school. Right, or you just take each kid out, 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 I think. Oh You stay out of here. No, I mean have the kids like throw out ideas because I think oh, oh, I see yeah, I think the I liked my eyes Yeah, 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 science-fear project. Well, I think this one of the cool things about nuclear semionics is it's so inviting to like anybody can come up with a 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 going to get some good ones. Yeah. We're not going to pass them along or anything. So rather than just like poo-pooing the glowing yucca one, there's a, here's the problem with the glowing yucca idea. It requires explanation. Right.

Somebody, so part of the glowing yucca is to say, these things have been genetically engineered so that when there's radiation present, they glow. So if you see this yucca glowing, it means that there's radiation here, stay away. Right. If you lose that additional story that has to go along with the glowing yucca, then you just have glowing yucca. And I can't think of a more attractive thing that's going to draw people to a site than the legendary glowing yucca that only glows in this one spot on Earth.

Yeah. That's kind of the problem with it, you know? I like to have another idea from that same year, a little better that did not win. Fields of Asphodel, which is a Eurasian lily, they said, let's just cover the site with metal blades that screech when the wind blows. It makes a horrible noise. Right. Not bad. Here's the problem with that.

Okay. Moving parts. Okay, sure. 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. 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? Okay. I had the thought earlier today about just a mountain of razor wire. Okay. Here's the problem with that. Okay. And this is the same problem also with the... What is the problem?

The steel stuff that move and everything. This doesn't matter. You want to use, I know, but you want to use stuff that has no value whatsoever, not just financially, but usefulness. Like, as 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 10,000 years, people like take and take and take and take. Take and take. 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 fine wall. To build a fine wall. To build a fine wall. That's exactly what people will do if you place something of any kind of usefulness of our view. That is the beauty of this. Every idea is wrong.

It's a whole, yeah. It's so great. It's pretty great. I love it. So, one of the most often cited bodies of work is from 1982-83. And this was a call for ideas from the German journal of semiotics that 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 in that one, if you ask me. I mean, I 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 artificial moon

and orbit around Earth, but it's like, how do you get to the artificial moon? I didn't get that's what they meant. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. That's what I think. I guess they were, I mean, it said, oh, were they beaming 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 decent band name. So that was a big part of the 99% visible episode, nuclear semiotics, they talked about the ray cats. And I think they actually hired a musician to create a song because just like with the glowing yucca, 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, I believe, for the episode. Was it Hoody 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 semi-attition name Thomas C.B.Oc. He said this, what has survived more than anything else? Religion. Right. Religious texts that date back a couple thousand years in the Catholic church, not a bad start. Yeah, the ideas that you hear at Catholic Mass today are a couple thousand years old and some instances.

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, but it gets a little goofy because he thought, why don't we almost create a fake religion around this thing.

A fearful myth that you can generate, appointing an atomic priesthood to tell people and tell them to tell future generations. But I mean, I guess the idea is that it's all false and it's just a big made up story. Yeah, 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 is true when really the atomic priests are the ones who know No actually there's there's radioactive stuff in here. They just came up with this 3000 years ago to scare everybody away But initially a decent idea as far as trying to make it or incorporate what religion does, but it just definitely strange. It is. To me though, it is at its base despicable.

It's a despicable idea because it is purposefully introducing fearful false superstition into the future. Like we're going to purposefully introduce fearful fall 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? How many people will die to defend this fake thing that they don't realize is fake? Because Thomas C.B. I 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. No, I'm rightfully so, because again, it's a despicable idea.

So he was on the human interference task force. We mentioned the Nevada site. That was what was launched for that Yucca Mountain site back in 81 from 81 to 83. So whatever CBOX 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, had it and I think it was just a misfire in an otherwise illustrious career. I think, I don't know that much about him.

But one of his other ideas was, okay, well, let's take 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 a meta message, where it's a message that says, this is place has nuclear radiation, it can kill you, you need to stay away from it, and we invite you to take this message and translate it 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. Oh, sure. And then that way you form a bridge between now and as far into the future as people are around

to read and add their own interpretation or their own translation of it. But then you wanna leave the original so that if there's ever like a disagreement about what word meant, hopefully somebody can go back language, language, language and connect them so that they can see the original version.

Yeah, but like what if a society develops an isolation that knows none of these languages? You just totally toast. That's when the symbols come in. Right. So what they settled on as a panel though, from 81 to 83, was what's called long-term communication was going to be the most effective thing, like what you were just talking about.

And they said a system that combines physical markers and archives that cover the two major forms of this long-term community, communicate direct and successive direct utilizes markers. And 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, is that you can write an inscription on a monument, and that monument is gonna deliver that message directly to people 10,000 years from now. Yeah, I mean, it's a physical thing. Right. Whereas with success if 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 a slumber party. For sure. So they came up with multiple ones, like you were saying, that they settled on a monument that had 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 radio activity, about the site, 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 not meant to come beyond this. Right. And then the last one 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 wanna stay out of there. Right, and along with that, they said, while we're at it, can we at least like all agree around the world on a nuclear warning symbol? Right. If it's the trfoil or whatever, let's just all codify that as the thing,

which is not the case right now. No, there's was a triangle with an arrow pointing down, and then in the head of the arrow was the bio-heathered symbol, which is not great because you want something that's going to be so simple that even as people... That confused me, I need to see it, I guess. Yeah, it's even when you see it, you're like, wait, what? But you want something simple enough so that as people kind of create a shorthand version of it, it still retains its meaning.

Right. Or visually. All right, so that stuff was the Yucca project in the early 80s. They decided not to do that. They just packed it up, put it away. And then it all came back again with this new Mexico plant. Right. 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 and the brightest thinking of this. So call up Carl Sagan. Get me, say, and get me, say, and get me Percy Tenenbaum, stat. And this guy named John Lomburg, who's a science writer and space illustrator. And he had worked in semiotics before for NASA on their mission to Mars.

Segen was in ill health, so he declined to come. But he sent a message from the president, I guess, that said, skull and crossbones. Dude, done. Yeah. Universal, everyone knows it. He gave a really good example. He said it has marked the lentils of cannibal dwellings,

the flags of pirates, the insignia of SS divisions and motorcycle gangs. He makes a pretty good point. A lot of people out there see a skull and crossbones and know it means like danger problems. It means this thing to you. Yes, you'll be a skull. And so the working group for the Whip project, they said, no now that doesn't work. It's a young Ian archetype

It doesn't really exist outside of the West. Yeah, to me. I'm like no, Seagan was definitely on to something I think so. I mean tell me if you go to to China and Hold up a sign with a skull and crossbone Say I would think so when they I mean that's a dire warning isn't it or not I think their point is that the skull used to be like a memento. Right. Where it meant like rebirth and prepare for death. So they could be like, Oh, wonderful, the skull and crossbones. Sure. But to me, that is the one enduring symbol that's always going to be around as long

as there are humans. Yeah. Because what happens when you die and rot? What's left? Your skull. Every human knows that. Even humans in the future are gonna know that. Even ones that are in post-collapse tribes who are running around 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's gonna be like, wait, I don't think this is saying that the rainbow is coming. I think it means death or danger. All right, let's take another break. Yeah? Sure.

We'll come back and talk about the approach that the whip panel took and what they came up with right after this. When Walter Isaacson set out to write his biography of Elon Musk, he believed he was taking on a world-changing figure. That night he was deciding whether or not to allow Starlink to be enabled to allow a sneak attack on Crimea. What he got was a subject who also soared chaos and conspiracy. I'm thinking it's idiotic to buy Twitter because he doesn't have a fingertip feel for social emotional networks. And when I sat down with Isaacson five weeks ago, he told me how he captured it all. They had Kansas spray paint

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Everhood of it. Call celebrity book club, giddy or bane, delectable pattern. If the pattern isn't delectable, honey, it isn't pattern. The New York Times. Excuse me? Says it's like Eve's dropping on two best friends as they share a bottle of wine.

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It's my boy. Sure. Love that guy. Someone should ask Neil the Grass Tyson. Sure. Why not? I bet he's got a good idea or two. I bet they have asked.

He's been doing Atlanta for a show. Oh yeah, where? Fox. I think a Cobb Energy Center. Oh yeah, I think that's even more seats than the phone. No, it's less. Oh, sorry. I think it's like 3000 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 have. Did you hear the start talk I was on? Oh, no, it was good. It was pretty good. If I do say so myself, it was supposed to be rapid, fast responses.

We got to like four questions in an hour. Because it would be like, rapid, fast responses, not my specialty meal. Let me just do a little distracting here. I'm more deliberate. All right, so speaking of deliberate, the Whip panel was very deliberate and methodical. They divided it into teams and approached it from the two things we were talking about,

direct and successive forms of communication, debated a lot, deliberated a lot, the recommendations, they had two proposals and they did overlap a little bit. 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, 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. So group A, this was theirs. They studied the surface of the site with what they called menacing earthworks.

So a field of spikes and then a big, massive disc painted to look like a black hole. I didn't quite get that part. It is so dumb. I get the spikes. 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. 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 in the warnings, including, and I thought this is so interesting.

Faces that invoke Edward Munch's the scream. The ones I saw were the scream. Yeah. Like it was a line drawing of the guy from the scream. A people, yeah, like in great agony and pain. That to me is not bad. It isn't bad. I don't know though, is that more universally understood than a skull and crossbones? I don't know or if art survives or people like, oh, I'm wondering if that painting's down there. Well, I think what they're saying is and semi-attitions 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 an agony. Did I say much? No, I think he said Monk. Did I say much? You said Monk. I might have said Monch. No, you said, I think he said Monk.

Is it Monch? I think it's probably Monk. There's no way his name is munch. I'm almost positive you said monk. Jerry, can you rewind for a second? It works. Munch. Oh, you did say munch.

I would as foreign you said monk. So group A below the surface, this is when they actually start talking about nuclear waste, what it does to you, the details about the structure and all that stuff. Right. Where they add. Where they teach you a the details about the structure and all that stuff. Right. Not bad. They teach you a little bit about radio activity. So group B, they went super informative and really what they relied on was that people

had a little bit of knowledge in the future about stuff like this. But they also trusted that people didn't have to just be spooked or scared or something like that. That it's like, here is the facts and information that is why you wanna stay away from that. Yeah, their big above ground work was these big earthen walls in the shape

of the nuclear trfoil, not bad. I imagine you'd have to see it from above to even know that what that was. Yeah, but that's part of one of the requirements was that you want it to be Easily visible not just with human cognition, but like remote sensing to right so like magnetic surveys They they said we should put some magnets in here. Yeah, not just from when you walk up to it Right, so you and y'all start to be able to see it from your flying saucer exactly And then inside the walls they have

At various steps have these big markers and here's where they use like symbols and pictographs flying saucer. Exactly. And then inside the walls, they have at various steps, have these big markers. And here's where they use like symbols and pictographs, all kinds of languages, writing in different languages. And then more human faces increasingly contorted in agony as you go down. Yeah. It looks to me like the guys getting drunker and drunker. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it looks like. Well, maybe that means there's a happen in bar. Exactly. That's how I would take it if I were a future human post-clamps. Gotta go. Gotta go down here. There were also pictograms, you're just like digging through the sand to get to. Yeah. There are also pictograms

that showed like under the ground, like, real easy to understand drawings of the radioactive waste, the ground water 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. Was the final image of skull and crossbones, or pile of bones? No, it was like a person, three people standing, and one of them, the last one was like dead, and I think he might even have X's for eyes. Well, it was about to say though, I mean, if you think about 20,000 years from now,

maybe they're like, oh, this induces a nice nap. Maybe. Like, but to your now, maybe they're like, oh, this induce 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, these veggies here give you a great buzz if you grow them on this ground.

Yeah, X's 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-shirt. Sagan was right. Sagan was right. Don't even need to have any context. We're gonna make an email in a few days. From the guy. From the estate of Carl Sagan saying, do not make that t-shirt. So what did they go with in the end though?

They went with a Earthen work, Earthen berm, basically to provide an obstacle earthen berm, basically to provide an obstacle 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 UN. So Arabic, Chinese, English, Spanish, French, and Russian. Correct. Which makes a lot of sense.

But then they took Thomas C. Biak up on his idea. They kind of built on the earlier people. They said religion. Right, exactly. 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. That's a good idea. It's a great idea. And the faces of humans and pain in English. Right. 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 it 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 can die. They would have they would have virtually no chance of getting down to the actual radioactim material.

Two and a half miles. The people they were worried about were technological advanced civilizations that were drilling for resources. Like an accident. Like God help this waste disposal site if salt becomes incredibly important in the future. Right. And then less advanced civilizations that could accidentally change the flow of groundwater to go through the salt bed through massive 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. This is not as inaccessible as, you know, Siberia. No, some, one of the recommendations for nuclear waste disposal is shooting it into space, just send it out in the outer space and forget about it. And if you believe in the Fermi paradox that it says, we're the only intelligent life in the universe. Man, more power to you.

That's actually not that vet of an idea. It's a horrific idea, but it's actually kind of a good idea. Yeah, but then I wonder about the danger and the risk involved. 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. That'd be really bad. That's a great point. It's like all of our nuclear waste has just been released. Oh, into the atmosphere. Yeah, no good. That's a great point, Chuck. So here's the thing.

Is all of this just wasted effort because I was getting so into this stuff and then the end of this article was a real sad trombone. Yeah. Because it seems like nobody really even cares the people that matter. Well, the first group, like their whole thing, will probably never be implemented because the Yucca Mountain Project got shut down.

Right. But the Whip Group may actually have their plan come to fruition because it is an EPA rule that you have to create this kind of marker and they've got until about 2040 until they estimate the place is going to shut down. So it's entirely possible that in 2040, or sometime in the 100 years after 2040, when the DOE stops protecting the site or the DOD, they may implement this earthen works and these 16 granite slabs, and we may live to see something like this. Well outside of the US, it seems like no one is super concerned.

Sweden in 2011 had an application to build a repository in force mark. And in their literal application they basically said, you know what, we're going to worry about that later. Yeah. In 70 years when this thing's finished. They said, see this can? We just kicked the 70 years down the road. 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 70 years. And it's like, it doesn't give the impression. It literally said that. Right.

So I think they're being ultra polite Yeah, I think well Sweden right good people in the US though don't tell a saprocchia that Don't even know what that means. That's a singer right. Yeah, it's a rapper. He's in prison in Sweden right now No, I did not know that. Oh man. What do we do? He got into a fight with some Swedish kids and it may or may not have been their fault. It looks on video like they definitely provoked it. Really? But the King of Sweden is like, sorry, rule of law.

It applies to everybody including super famous Americans. Well, true. Donald Trump called them to try to get the thing resolved at the behest of Kanye West. Oh God. And apparently it just made everything worse and now the King of Sweden is like, 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 2019, everybody. Humans of the far future, can you believe it? Humans of the near. John Lomburg, that guy we were talking about earlier, who was on that original 1991 whip panel. He told Vice just a couple of years ago. A lot of us had been around the block a few times before because 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 toward 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 we said. And then, and from the 1981, 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. Which makes sense.

Whatever sign. So basically, like, who cares? Someone will get in there, and they'll all die and then that'll be the big warning. Right, which makes sense if humans are in communication around the globe and you've got the same warning. 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

the end of the world with Josh Clark. The what? The end of the world with Josh Clark. If thinking about things in far deep time and 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,. For sure, this is right up your alley. Thank you, Chuck. And since Chuck said right up your alley, it's time for Listener Mail. Hey guys, we are strangers, but we aren't. You've been with me during the most challenging times of my life. I've listened to your show for about seven years.

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