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by dsqrt 2561 days ago
Doesn't embedding these messages into art defy their very purpose of being a warning?
2 comments

That list was never intended to be literally used as a warning - think of it as a set of acceptance criteria against which any plan to mark a nuclear waste disposal site must be judged. It needs to communicate those things, unambiguously, across time and culture, for 10000 years.
These messages aren't currently used as warnings, and exhibiting them as art will never diminish the literal message that they convey.
I am just thinking that, if future archeologists discover these warnings / language in frequent association with art, then they will probably not think twice about excavating an actual nuclear disposal site that exhibits them. They will probably think that the warnings were placed there to scare away thieves.
The warnings will not be in English.