[darz0re]

On mobile so can’t really link decent links. But years ago I read a good fiction book by Stel Pavlou (Decipher) and there was a story in it about how symbols maintaining their meanings over generations was a pointless exercise but that creating a religion was the only way to do it. Belief systems etc. The example given was about radioactive waste being buried.

Pointless comment. The article just reminded me of the book.

Edit: I searched my kindle app. The book referenced the below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sebeok

“In the early 1980s, Sebeok composed a report for the US Office of Nuclear Waste Management titled Communication Measures To Bridge Ten Millennia,[9] discussing solutions to the problem of nuclear semiotics, a system of signs aimed at warning future civilizations from entering geographic areas contaminated by nuclear waste.[10] The report proposed a "folkloric relay system" and the establishment of an "atomic priesthood" of physicists, anthropologists, semioticians to preserve the true nature of hazardous site.[11]”

[gubbrora]

If all goes well humanity will be way more advanced in 10k years, to the point that they will find our warnings laughable.

If we want to put up warnings it should be for whatever remains of a failed society because they are the only ones who would need one.

A series of increasingly more dangerous traps should make sure only advanced people can access it. Death is a language all understand.

It's interesting to ponder pyramids from this point of view. With their preservation of bodies, gifts for the afterlife and traps. Maybe we are their Gods and they want us to revive them.

[munificent]

> If we want to put up warnings it should be for whatever remains of a failed society because they are the only ones who would need one.

That was the point of the exercise, yes. It was about trying to protect future humans from nuclear waste even if continuity of civilization had been interrupted by nuclear war.

[NikkiA]

> A series of increasingly more dangerous traps should make sure only advanced people can access it. Death is a language all understand.

Congratulations, you've now made it appear that what the traps are guarding is valuable and worth the risk to get to.