[ben_w]

I am somewhat sympathetic to your points, but was responding to a comment that seemed to claim it was a non-issue.

I’m only “somewhat” in agreement because humans are terrible at reading warning signs, especially from long-dead people. “Oh,” they say, “that was ages ago. It’s just a primitive superstition. Anyway, we’re special.”

[cm2187]

Agree, but that being said you can walk around in Rome and read signs that were written 2000 years ago. Same characters, similar language than most european languages. English is the modern latin, and I would argue, with even more significance than latin given its global scope. I just can't think of a scenario where our descendants would not know what radiactivity is, and would have forgotten english.

[ben_w]

As a collective culture, I agree with you (assuming we don’t turn the planet into a Dyson swarm in that timeframe, which is surprisingly plausible and I don’t know how to start making forecasts).

Absent scenarios which Isaac Arthur has already made YouTube videos about, I’m more worried about atomic analogs of antivaxxers or homeopaths. Or “Traditional Chinese Medicine”. Or… well, you get the idea.