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

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, Maine and Greater New England. Hello. 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 30th,

and if you're interested, you can get tickets and information at sysklive.com. There's some lobster at us. Welcome to Step You Should Know, a production of iHeart radios, How Stuff Works. Hi. 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, the podcast. You're about to say this, 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 my gosh, that's a terrible start, Chuck. So how about this, just to divert ourselves from that disaster. What was not a disaster were our live shows we just did. Oh yeah.

We finally got up on stage, everyone, since, first time since January, kick the rust off. Sure. In Chicago and Toronto. And both of them were, we just killed. They were great. Yeah, everybody. The audiences were great.

Everyone had a really great time. 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, hats off to Chicago for showing up. They showed up.

Like we called you guys out and you responded. 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. We're venturing up into the hinterlands of America. Right. I mean, what's next after that?

But Canada. August 30th, there are still plenty of great tickets left there. And then the same can be said in October in 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 a 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% Invisible 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 Marz's taint stinking on you. It's more like it's just such a classic episode that 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 what so do we? Sure, we're up there, all right. But if you like this one, if this stuff 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 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 he heard of it, cause I think it's well known that Roman's 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 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 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 semiotics. And to make a long story short, to do the too long, didn't read version of this, TL, semicolon DR, is nuclear semiotics 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? 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 are like,

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 semiotics 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 art 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.

Yeah. 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. In 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? Then I was like, well, what do you do with it?

Well, 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, you know. What happens when everybody's converted to Blu-ray? Yeah, exactly.

Or, you know, well then solar, put a solar panel up. Oh, yeah, that's the good one. Is that a last river? 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? Yeah. In 8,000 years.

Which 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 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, I don't know, very much of the words will just not have meaning anymore at some point. Right. Man.

Well, let's dig in here. 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 longy. That'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 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, the salt bed actually heals itself over just a few decades. Heals itself back up, right? Yes. 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 entomb it, perhaps permanently, in the salt. Yeah, it'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.

Right. But if you just have a pickaxe or something, it's rock, too. Salt rock is what it's called, right? So there's a lot of reasons why people have figured out, this is not a bad idea to entomb nuclear waste. But here's the thing. We can't just entomb it and walk away.

We have a responsibility for those of us generating this waste today to warn the future. Sure. 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. We have a responsibility to do that.

Because some people have 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's probably the best way to go. And people said, 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 attracts attention. I know, it's an interesting thought experiment, right?

That was that psychologist, by the way, was Dr. Percy Tenenbaum. Oh, really? No wonder I liked it. Of the East Hampton Tenenbaum. So we should point out that there's a couple of big times 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 the only one in 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. OK.

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. They've committed, the Department of Energy

is committed to guarding it with people for 100 years. They've hired Barney Fife into a 100-year contract to look over this nuclear waste. For at least 100 years. It's not like at the end of the 100 years, they're going to just 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 100 years, we can at least say that. Yes, they agreed to that. So 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. That's the first one that never happened. But that's when, in the 70s, is when this idea came about. And I think it was in 1982 when it was codified as an official, I guess, science. Yeah, it's an interdisciplinary branch of science, nuclear semiotics. And it's because the EPA came up with a rule in 1982,

the law, really, that said. 81, I got that wrong, by the way. So it's 81 that they came up with the 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 this 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 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, that's no problem, of course. And then the EPA said, think about it. It's harder than you think.

They said, just slap that nuclear waste logo that everyone knows. Sure. And everyone was like, everyone doesn't know that. Well, 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 ascribe it to one person. No, there was like five people in one of those giant, like silver spoons, pencils, or crayola crayola. Yeah, this is in 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. OK, 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 at first they were 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 it because they saw it so much. And they were like, have you heard of Striper? Exactly. Can't use yellow and black?

They were like, no, I haven't heard them. Give us 40 years, you'll have heard of them, believe me. And then in 42 years, no one will have heard of them. So I think the original design was, I saw them in concert. We won't even talk about that. Oh, I believe it. It was Magenta Blades on a blue background was the original design.

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 those of you who don't know, it's called the Nuclear Trefoil. You know it. It's a circle and then three. The color of the blades. Corsche circles around it, blades. 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. 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 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 1,000 years or 5,000 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 going to 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. 9 million seconds.

Is that right? Did I nail it? Jerk. I got to get out of calculator. A language dies out every 14 days. I'm pretty sure that's 9 million seconds. 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. That's really sad. It is. And it is very sad. And granted, these aren't 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.

We may be, what's the calculation? 446 days. That was a little long. Oh, OK. We may all be post-biological humans, uploaded our consciousness onto the internet or something, and at 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, 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 found a, 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 occurred to me a lot. Oh, you think? And I never really put those two together. Well, keep an ear out for it now and see what you think. I mean, tell me I'm wrong.

I don't know. I mean, I would have to dissociate. 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. OK. 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 Night. It was written in 1375. Oh, boy. It was 650 years ago. All right. This is in English. The steel of a stiff staff, the stern hit begripped that was wound in with iron into the wand's end.

And I'll be graven with green and gravious 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 the Green Night 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 graven and green with graceful designs. So that's English 650 years ago. English is still around.

650 years. We're talking about 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 in semioticians for people who really want on this stuff. Sure. I think I'm an amateur semiotician 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. 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 it's a double-edged sword like you were talking about earlier. If you human beings, if you show an extreme skier a sign, this is danger, don't ski this way,

he's going to say, brah, let's do it. Yeah. Give me some homicide power drink. So there's a very fine line between warning people and enticing people. Yeah, even inadvertently. Exactly. I mean, she points out haunted houses.

Because I'm like, yeah, not everybody's like a Red Bull extreme sports person. But people do like haunted houses, too. So uh-oh, that abandoned scary place is 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, I dare you. 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. OK, well let's take a break and we'll get back into this,

all right, because this is fun. Yes. MUSIC On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place,

because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles, stuff you should know. All right, Chuck. So we've kind of talked about how things go away.

Languages fall away. Symbols don't make sense anymore. It's ephemera. It is. It really is. That's right. So what will last? What have nuclear semi-autisticians 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 shorthand, semiotics is basically the study of how and why signs have meaning. OK. 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. It'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 wasn't that great. 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 an elementary school and ask kids, or a high school. 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 throw out ideas, because I think. Oh, I see. Yeah, I think the. I liked my idea.

I think a lot of times children can cut through to the simplicity of something much better than adults can. Easily. So that's my idea. Throw it out as a science fair project. Well, I think that's one of the cool things about nuclear semiotics 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. That's a good idea. Like, I guarantee you we're going to get some good ones. We're not going to pass them along or anything. So rather than just like poo-pooing the glowing yucca one,

here's the problem with the glowing yucca idea. It requires explanation. Right. If 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.

So that's kind of the problem with it, you know? I liked this other 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. OK. Moving parts. OK, 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?

OK. I've had the thought earlier today about just a mountain of razor wire. OK. Here's the problem with that. OK. And this is the same problem also with the. What is the problem?

The steel stuff that move and everything. This doesn't move though. But you want to use stuff that has no value whatsoever, not just financially, but usefulness. Well, because someone will say, I can harvest that razor wire? Yeah, I can go use that to keep the cows in my house next door. Yeah, but if you have so much of it. Over time, over 10,000 years, people take and take and take.

There's going to be no razor wire left. I mean, that's why the pyramids are stripped of their 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 lobster myself. To build a pizza hut. Exactly.

That's what people will do if you place something of any kind of usefulness or value. Like that is the beauty of this. Every idea is wrong. As a whole. 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, 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, well, were they beaming it down to a TV that won't play? That's a different one. Yeah, and 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% Invisible episode on 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 Hootie 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-autician named Thomas Sibiak. He said this, what has survived more than anything else? Religion. 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 in some instances. And if you go back to the original text, which we can still read for, you can say, yep, this is what they're talking about. 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 radioactive stuff right here. They just came up with this 3,000 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 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? How many people will die to defend this fake thing that they don't realize is fake

because Thomas Sibia 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, and 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 Sibia's original idea was, he had like some other closely related ideas that were great though. Like he's not like just a total nut job happening. 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 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 want to 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? Oh, you're just totally toast. Yeah.

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 gonna be the most effective thing, like kind of 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 communication, 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 like 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. It was 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 a slumber party.

Oh, 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 radioactivity, 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 archive 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 at least like all agree around the world on a nuclear warning symbol, if it's the trefoil 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 biohazard 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 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 when the Department of Energy said once again, hey, we need to think of a sign and a symbol

or whatever you can come up with, and we need the best and the brightest thinking of this. So call up Carl Sagan. Get me Sagan, get me Sagan, get me Percy Tannenbaum 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.

Sagan was in ill health, so he declined to come, but he sent a message from the president, I guess, that said, skull and crossbones, done. Yeah. Universal, everyone knows it. He gave a really good example. He said it 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 danger, problems, hang-ups. It means this will be you. Yes. You'll be a skull. And so the working group for the WIP project,

they said, no, that doesn't work. It's a Jungian archetype. It doesn't really exist outside of the West. To me, I'm like, no, Sagan was definitely onto something. I think so. I mean, tell me if you go to China and hold up a sign with the skull and crossbones, they'd go, huh?

I would think so, wouldn't 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 mori, where it meant rebirth and prepare for death. So they could be like, oh, wonderful, a skull and crossbones. 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 humans in the future are going to 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 going to 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. I think it means death or danger. All right, let's take another break. Yeah? Sure. And we'll come back and talk about the approach that the whip panel took and what they came up with right after this.

Hey, dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it.

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or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles, stuff you should know. You know I got to defend Sagan. That's my boy. Sure. Love that guy. Someone should ask Neil deGrasse Tyson. Sure.

Why not? I bet he's got a good idea, too. I'll bet they have asked. He's been to Atlanta for a show. Oh, yeah, where? Fox? I think Cobb Energy Center. Oh, yeah, I think that's even more seats than the Fox.

No, it's less. Oh, sorry. I think it's like 3,000 people, which is nothing to 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 a good. It was pretty good, if I do say so myself. So it was supposed to be rapid, fast responses. We got to like four questions in an hour. You're like, rapid, fast response is not my specialty, Neil. Let me just do a little distracting here. I'm more deliberate.

All right, so speaking of deliberate, the WIP panel was very deliberate and methodical. They divided 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. Their 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, OK, ding dong, and you're kind of smart friend. Explain to ding dong that the reason this is dangerous, because there's something buried here, and it's going to hurt you. All right, should we talk about the real things? Oh, sure.

I thought I was. So group A, this was theirs. They studded 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. That's 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 and the warnings, including, and I thought this is so interesting, faces that invoke Edvard Munch's The Scream. The ones I saw were The Scream.

Yeah. Like it was a line drawing of the guy from The Scream. 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 wonder if that painting's down there. Well, I think what they're saying is, and semi-autisticians kind of feel this way, is that Edvard Munch 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 Munch. Did I say Munch? You said Munch. I might have said Munch. No, you said, I think you said Munch. Is it Munch? I think it's probably Munch. There's no way his name is Munch.

I'm almost positive you said Munch. Jerry, can you rewind for a second? Munch. Oh, you did say Munch. I would have sworn you said Munch. 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 teach a little bit about radioactivity. 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 the people didn't have to just be spooked or scared or something

like that, that it's like, here is the facts and information. Here's why you want to stay away from that. Yeah, their big above ground work was these big earthen walls in the shape of the nuclear trefoil, not bad. I imagine you'd have to see it from above to even know, though, 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 remote sensing, too. So magnetic surveys, they said we should put some magnets in here, not just from when you walk up to it. Right, and you also have 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 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 guy's getting drunker and drunker. Yeah.

Yeah, 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-clapse. Got to go. Got to go down here. There were also pictograms, and you're just digging through the sand to get through.

There are also pictograms that showed under the ground, like real easy to understand drawings of the radioactive waste, the groundwater 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, 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 dead, and I think he might even have Xs for eyes. Well, it's about to say, though, if you think about 20,000 years from now, maybe they're like, oh,

this induces a nice nap. Maybe. But to your point, though, 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, Xs for eyes.

Right, yeah, the bones do make a lot more sense. I think Sagan was right. That should be a t-shirt, a stuff you should know t-shirt. Sagan was right. Sagan was right. Don't even need to have any context. We're going to be going to email in a few days from that 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 an 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 Sibiak up on his idea. They kind of built on the earlier people. It's a religion. Right, exactly. And they left blank spaces or they 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 and anguish. 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.

So there are two groups that they're trying to, say, stay away. Not really like urban explorers or thrill-seekers or whatever because they would have virtually no chance of getting down to the actual radioactive material. Two and a half miles. The people they were worried about were technological advanced civilizations

that were drilling for resources. Right, 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 this 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? Well, that's pretty inaccessible. This is not as inaccessible as Siberia. No, 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 bad 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, they're 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. Because it seems like nobody really even cares.

The people that matter. Well, the first group, their whole thing will probably never be implemented, because Yucca Mountain Project got shut down. But the WIP 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 Forsmark. And in their literal application, they basically said, you know what, we're going to worry about that later. In 70 years when this thing's finished. They said, see this can? We just kicked it 70 years down there. 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. I think they're being ultra polite.

Yeah, I think, well, Sweden. Good people. In the US, though, don't tell ASAP Rocky that. Don't even know what that means. That's a singer, right? Yeah, he's a rapper. He's in prison in Sweden right now. I did not know that.

Oh, man. What did he 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, I 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. It actually happened here in 2019, 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 1991 whip panel,

he told Weiss 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 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 whatever sign. So basically, 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 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? Nah. 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 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 with Josh Clark. For sure, and 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. I'm an English teacher, and my students are tired and making fun of me, because I always start lessons with. So I was listening to stuff you should know. I went through a huge life change recently.

I was in a relationship for five years, engaged for four of them, and moved from Phoenix to Charlotte after ending that relationship, which was incredibly difficult to do. During the drive, I listened to you guys for the entire 34 hours. Wow, can you imagine? No, I honestly can't.

No music, just you guys. My heart was so broken. I didn't think I would ever be able to recover from that trauma, but. The trauma of listening to is for 34 hours. But you didn't know that you were able to come for me and calm me down. My brother, who helped me move, asked me what

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Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to, Hey Dude, the 90s called, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say,

bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.