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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's select,

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Speaker 1: I've chosen one of my favorite episodes in honor of

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Speaker 1: the birthday of my favorite person, my dear sweet wife, Yumy,

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Speaker 1: whose birthday is today. Since this episode is so cool

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Speaker 1: and Yumi is too, I figure it was just logical

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Speaker 1: and logical stuff really floats my boat. Plus, what better

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Speaker 1: way to send off a not too bad year, considering everything,

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Speaker 1: especially the last couple of years, than with a real

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Speaker 1: head scratcher. Fascinating, interesting episode. I hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 1: Happy birthday to Yumi, and happy New Year to everybody.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's

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Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. And this

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Speaker 1: is Stuff you should Know. It's a podcast.

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Speaker 2: And you're about to say that the Blank Edition.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was, but I couldn't think of anything.

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Speaker 2: It was literally the blank Edition, was it? I mean,

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Speaker 2: you couldn't think of anything you were playing?

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Speaker 1: No, No, that's right, it was the blank Edition. Oh gosh,

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Speaker 1: it's a terrible start, Chuck.

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Speaker 2: So how about this, just to divert ourselves from that disaster.

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Speaker 2: What was not a disaster were our live shows we

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Speaker 2: just did. Oh yeah, we finally got up on stage

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Speaker 2: everyone since first time since January. Yeah, kick the rust off.

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Speaker 2: Sure in Chicago and Toronto.

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Speaker 1: And both of them were we just killed.

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Speaker 2: They were great. Yeah, every audiences were great.

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Speaker 1: Everyone had a really great time. Yeah, they told us so,

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Speaker 1: uh huh. They seemed to be legitimately meaning what they

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Speaker 1: were saying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really really great to get back on

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Speaker 2: stage with you, my friend.

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Speaker 1: And also also also hats off to Chicago for showing up.

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Speaker 1: They showed up, Like we called you guys out and

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Speaker 1: you responded, yeah, thank you very right, and thank you

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Speaker 1: Toronto for not making us call you out.

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Speaker 2: But there are still tickets remaining for August twenty ninth

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Speaker 2: in Boston, the wilbur and Portland, Maine. You know, we're

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Speaker 2: venturing up into the hinterlands of America right years after that,

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Speaker 2: But August thirtieth, there are still plenty of great tickets

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Speaker 2: left there. And then the same can be said in

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Speaker 2: October and Orlando and October tenth. I think I said

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Speaker 2: October ninth right in Orlando, October tenth and New Orleans Yep,

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Speaker 2: that's right, Brooklyn. I'm not worried about that.

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Speaker 1: That's already all sold out, the whole thing, all three nights.

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Speaker 2: Man, should we add a fourth?

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Speaker 1: Jeez, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: We'll talk about it anyway. Thanks to everyone who came out.

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Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun. And this is a

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Speaker 2: good one. So you don't want you don't want to

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Speaker 2: miss it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so come on out, especially you Portland Maine. Let's

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Speaker 1: get with.

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Speaker 2: It all right now. Nuclear Semiotics, which I didn't know

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Speaker 2: I loved, but I do.

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Speaker 1: Really do you remember ninety nine percent Visible did a

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Speaker 1: very famous episode on this very topic.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't hear that.

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Speaker 1: I specifically avoided going back and listening to it because

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Speaker 1: I don't want to be stunk upon by its taint.

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Speaker 1: Does that make sense?

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Speaker 2: You don't want Roman Mars' taint.

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Speaker 1: It's more like, it's just such a classic episode that

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Speaker 1: I don't wanted to like leak in. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to accidentally rip it off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, we certainly can't ninety nine invisible this thing,

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Speaker 2: because that is a show that exists at the top

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Speaker 2: echelon this industry.

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Speaker 1: Sure so so do we Sure we're up there all right?

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Speaker 1: But if you like this one, if this stuff like

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Speaker 1: floats your bone and you're like, I want to know more,

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Speaker 1: go listen to the ninety nine percent Invisible episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this thing really triggered a lot of like synapsis

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Speaker 2: firing for me, and I think, like, I think I

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Speaker 2: really enjoy this kind of thought experiment, problem solving stuff.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I.

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Speaker 2: Think I would really dig like that. Part of the

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Speaker 2: zombie Apocalypse is figuring the stuff out as a team, right,

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Speaker 2: Because the whole time I was reading this, I was saying,

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Speaker 2: great idea, terrible idea. They should do this, they shouldn't

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Speaker 2: do that.

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Speaker 1: Sit down. Yeah, you I like the cut of your gym.

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Speaker 2: It was really cool. I dug this. I'd never heard

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Speaker 2: of it, so thank you.

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Speaker 1: Oh you're very welcome. I actually heard of it before

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Speaker 1: Roman Mars made the episode, so I can't really thank him.

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Speaker 2: But well, not before he heard of it, because I

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Speaker 2: think it's well known that Roman's first words were nuclear semiotics.

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Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, even before Mama, that's right. I could

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Speaker 1: totally believe that. Actually. Yeah, So what we're talking about

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Speaker 1: is Chuck said a couple of times for those of

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Speaker 1: you who don't know, is nuclear semiotics and that is

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Speaker 1: a very specialized branch, interdisciplinary branch of I guess science

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Speaker 1: that involves all basically any feel of research that you

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Speaker 1: can throw at the wall would probably have some function

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Speaker 1: to play in the field of nuclear semiotics. And to

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Speaker 1: make a long story short, to do the too long,

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Speaker 1: didn't read version of this TL semi colon dr is,

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Speaker 1: nuclear semiotics seeks to figure out how how to warn

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Speaker 1: the future humans to come.

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Speaker 2: Or whatever is here. Sure, let's get on a good point.

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Speaker 1: I mean why discriminate, right, Yeah, to warn the future

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Speaker 1: humans or the future super intelligent jellyfish whatever to come. Hey,

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Speaker 1: this is a very dangerous radioactive dump site that we've

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Speaker 1: put here. Stay away.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that easy.

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Speaker 1: It sounds easy. The problem is is if you presume

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Speaker 1: that it's easy, you're making a lot of assumptions that

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Speaker 1: aren't necessarily going to hold up.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like a lot of times are like they

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Speaker 2: should just do. And I would even stop halfway through

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Speaker 2: my thought because like, no, that wouldn't work.

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Speaker 1: It's true because our languages might be gone by then.

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Speaker 1: Our symbols don't necessarily make sense outside of the context

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Speaker 1: that we understand them in civilization might be ridiculously advanced

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Speaker 1: by them, a civilization might be in a state of

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Speaker 1: collapse by then. We have no idea. But the point

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Speaker 1: of nuclear semiotics is to figure out how to come

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Speaker 1: up with a a message that is understandable to everybody

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Speaker 1: in any situation in the future. And the current state

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Speaker 1: of the art is, let's figure out how to speak

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Speaker 1: as far as ten thousand years into the future.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and that's like being generous. It needs

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Speaker 2: to go beyond that.

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Speaker 1: It does, because the whole point of nuclear semiotis the

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Speaker 1: whole point of warning the future is this stuff, this

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Speaker 1: nuclear waste that we're putting into the ground now, is

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Speaker 1: going to be dangerous for tens and tens of thousands

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Speaker 1: of years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Plutonium two thirty nine has a half life of twenty

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Speaker 1: four thousand years. There's something called technetium ninety nine has

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Speaker 1: a half life of two hundred and eleven thousand years.

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Speaker 1: So another one is like one point seven million year

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Speaker 1: half life. This is the nuclear waste that we're creating

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Speaker 1: now and are putting in the ground.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And Julia Layton, who is one of our writers

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Speaker 2: who does great work for us, she made a lot

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Speaker 2: of great points, which is like the history of an

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Speaker 2: evolution is two hundred thousand years. Yeah, and like we've

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Speaker 2: only been like reading and writing for how long.

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Speaker 1: About five thousand, less than six thousand years?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's it sounds like like you said, it

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Speaker 2: sounds simple. And so many times I thought I had

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Speaker 2: I thought I had it cracked right, only to think

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Speaker 2: like I was, like, why don't they just do something

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Speaker 2: purely visual and stage a play of people at that

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Speaker 2: site digging in and then dying. And it's like, well,

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Speaker 2: what do you do with it? Well, I'll just put

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Speaker 2: it on a DVD. Sure, that just plays on a loop. Right,

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Speaker 2: It's like, well, how are you going to power that thing?

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Speaker 1: Right? You know what happens when everybody's converted to blu ray?

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Speaker 2: Yeah exactly? Or you know, thought, well, then solar put

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Speaker 2: a solar panel up? Is that a last river? But

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Speaker 2: what have it done? What if there's like a forever

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Speaker 2: nuclear storm or whatever. But if the sun never shines

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Speaker 2: again on Earth in eight thousand years, that's could happen.

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Speaker 1: That's the cool thing about thinking into the deep future

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Speaker 1: is all the things that will go. Yeah. It makes

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Speaker 1: you realize like how specific everything you think and know

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Speaker 1: and understand really is to your current time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very cool. She brings up the point about

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Speaker 2: an apple, Like when you see the word apple, you

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Speaker 2: don't see the word apple, right, You see you visualize

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Speaker 2: the symbol of that is an apple.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: So it's like it's almost like the words very much.

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Speaker 2: The words will just not have meaning anymore at some point, right.

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Speaker 1: Man, Well, let's dig into this stuff. You ready, Let's

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Speaker 1: do it. So to start, we should talk about where

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Speaker 1: this all came from. It came from a new type

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Speaker 1: of nuclear storage solution, nuclear waste storage solution called long

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Speaker 1: term geological repositories, and it is basically digging into the

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Speaker 1: earth a couple of miles into the earth, putting our

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Speaker 1: nuclear waste there again, waste that's going to be harmful

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Speaker 1: to health for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: and sealing it up and then covering over the site

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Speaker 1: and then putting a warning on there. And right now,

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Speaker 1: the general consensus is that salt beds are the best

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Speaker 1: place to put that nuclear waste. And there's actually some

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Speaker 1: pretty good reasons why.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we could do an episode on nuclear storage. I

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Speaker 2: think I really want to in and of itself, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that's a shorty or a long ea.

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Speaker 1: It's probably a longie. Yeah, But just briefly, the reason

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Speaker 1: salt beds are preferable is because the fact that they're

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Speaker 1: even there suggests that there's no water. They if there

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Speaker 1: was water, they would have been dissolved long ago. It's

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Speaker 1: really relatively easy to mine into them. And then what's

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Speaker 1: awesome about salt is that when you mine a shaft

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Speaker 1: into a salt bed and you put your deposit there

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Speaker 1: and then you pull back out, the salt bed actually

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Speaker 1: heals itself over, like just a few.

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Speaker 2: Decades, seals itself back up, right.

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Speaker 1: Yes, so you put a container that's been engineered to

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Speaker 1: hold the nuclear waste inside for ten thousand years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also in a container. I should point that

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Speaker 2: out right.

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Speaker 1: You're putting it into a borehole in the salt. The

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Speaker 1: salt is going to grow back around it and intument

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Speaker 1: perhaps permanently in this salt.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, very strong too, write.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is fairly strong. I mean, like, if you're

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Speaker 1: mining using modern mining equipment, it's really easy to mine into.

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Speaker 1: But if you just have like a pickaxe or something,

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Speaker 1: it's rock too. Salt rock is what it's called. Right,

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of reasons why people have figured

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Speaker 1: out like this is not a bad idea to entomb

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Speaker 1: nuclear waste. But but here's the thing. We can't just

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Speaker 1: entune it and walk away, Like, we have a responsibility

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Speaker 1: for those of us generating this waste today to warn

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Speaker 1: the future. Sure, and it's on the future. If they

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Speaker 1: listen to us or not, that's on them.

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Speaker 2: Right, But we have to make them able to listen.

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Speaker 1: To us, exactly, like, we have a responsibility to do that.

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Speaker 1: Because some people are proposed like, hey, let's just bury

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Speaker 1: and forget about it. The chances of somebody actually finding

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Speaker 1: it are pretty slim. Just bury and forget about it.

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Speaker 1: That's probably the best, the best way to go. And

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Speaker 1: people said it's not a bad idea, but it's actually

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Speaker 1: a pretty bad idea.

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Speaker 2: See, actually I thought that one wasn't the worst idea.

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Speaker 2: It's not that was a behavioral psychologist. He was like,

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Speaker 2: and he wasn't like, just forget about it. He was like,

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Speaker 2: maybe the smartest thing to do is to leave it unmarked.

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Speaker 1: Right, because, as we'll see, attracting attention to something like

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Speaker 1: exactly attracts attention.

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Speaker 2: I know, it's interesting thought experiment, right.

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Speaker 1: That was that psychologist, by the way, was doctor Percy Tenenbaum.

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Speaker 2: No really, no, no wonder I liked it of.

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Speaker 1: The East Hampton ten and baums.

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Speaker 2: So we should point out that there's a couple of

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Speaker 2: a couple of big times that these that this has

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Speaker 2: been commissioned, like, hey, we need to think of something.

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Speaker 2: One for a site that never happened, and one for

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Speaker 2: a site that has happened. The one that has happened.

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Speaker 2: It's only one of the United States right now.

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Speaker 1: The only one in the world as far as I know.

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Speaker 2: No, it's number three. Oh really, it's the third largest. Okay,

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Speaker 2: I didn't see what the other two were.

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Speaker 1: It must have been the first in the world.

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Speaker 2: Then, yeah, probably the first in the world. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 2: which makes sense because the other two are bigger. But

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Speaker 2: this is New Mexico. It's called the WHIP the Waste

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Speaker 2: Isolation Pilot Plant, and this one they are they're actively

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Speaker 2: guarding for. They've committed the Department of Energy is committed

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Speaker 2: to guarding it with people for one hundred years.

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Speaker 1: They've hired Barney Fife into one hundred year contract to

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Speaker 1: look over.

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Speaker 2: This nuclear way for at least one hundred years. It's

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Speaker 2: not like at the end of the hundred years are

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Speaker 2: going to just like put a padlock on it and

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Speaker 2: walk away. I imagine they will keep guarding it as

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Speaker 2: long as they feel like it needs guarding.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the thing. I don't know, man.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about a government run program here.

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Speaker 2: Well, at least one hundred years, we can at least say.

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Speaker 1: That, yes, they agreed to that.

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Speaker 2: So you know, the whole idea arose before that though.

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Speaker 2: What was the other one in Nevada?

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Speaker 1: That's the Yucca Mountain one.

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Speaker 2: That was the first one, right, that's the first one

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Speaker 2: that never happened, right, But that's when, you know, in

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Speaker 2: the seventies is when this idea sort of came about.

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Speaker 2: And I think it was a nineteen eight when it

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Speaker 2: was sort of codified as an official I guess science or.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a brand. It's an interdisciplinary branch of science,

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Speaker 1: nuclear semiotics is. And it's because the EPA came up

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Speaker 1: with a rule in nineteen eighty two, a law.

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Speaker 2: Really that's eighty one. I got that wrong, by the way, So.

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Speaker 1: It's eighty one that they came up with the law.

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Speaker 2: Well, it became a discipline in nineteen eighty one with

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Speaker 2: that Yuck Mountain Repository project.

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Speaker 1: And I think from that yucka Mountain Repository project, because

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Speaker 1: we were starting to figure out how to deposit this

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Speaker 1: stuff for a long time, the EPA came up with

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Speaker 1: a rule I think it was nineteen eighty two that said,

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Speaker 1: if you're going to create these kind of repositories for

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Speaker 1: nuclear waste, you also have to figure out how to

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Speaker 1: come up with a permanent warning sign. And everybody was like,

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Speaker 1: that's no problem, of course, and then the EPs to

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Speaker 1: think about it. It's harder than you think.

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Speaker 2: They said, just slap that nuclear waste logo that everyone knows, sure,

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Speaker 2: and everyone was like, everyone doesn't know that.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's been around forever.

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Speaker 2: Everyone doesn't know that now, much less in two hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, did you see how that was created?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was a group doodle. I don't

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Speaker 2: know how that happens. I think that means they can't

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Speaker 2: ascribe it to one person.

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Speaker 1: They know there was like five people in one of

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Speaker 1: those giant like silver spoons, pencils or kral cranon.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a nineteen forty six, was it at Berkeley? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and it was a group doodle in this science class.

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Speaker 1: And is that a is that an album or a

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Speaker 1: band name?

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Speaker 2: Group doodle?

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Speaker 1: It's like the Wiggles or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's an album title for.

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Speaker 1: Sure, So the Wiggles group doodle absolutely.

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Speaker 2: Okay, get that's probably a real thing.

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Speaker 1: That's our gift to you, Wiggles.

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Speaker 2: But I saw this was interesting. In nineteen forty eight,

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Speaker 2: the symbol came under consideration for wider use because at

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Speaker 2: first it was just a group doodle and then the

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Speaker 2: Brookhaven National Laboratory requested a standardized symbol of standardized colors

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Speaker 2: for their radiation safety program, and there was more argument

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Speaker 2: about the colors then the actual symbol because at first

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Speaker 2: they are like, you can't use yellow because we use

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Speaker 2: yellow for a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they wanted to make sure that it didn't get overused.

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Speaker 1: So people had just become kind of blind to it

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Speaker 1: because they saw it so much.

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Speaker 2: And they were like, have you heard a striper exactly?

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Speaker 2: They can't use yellow and black.

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Speaker 1: They were like, no, I haven't heard them, and they like,

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Speaker 1: give us forty years, you'll have heard of them, believe me.

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Speaker 2: And then in forty two years, no one will have

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Speaker 2: heard of them. So I think the original design was

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Speaker 2: was I saw them in concert. We weren't even talk.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I believe it.

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Speaker 2: It was magenta blades on a blue background was the

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Speaker 2: original design, and it was chosen because it was uncommon.

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Speaker 2: But then in Oakridge, Tennessee, at the Oakridge National Laboratory,

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Speaker 2: they went with the yellow background in nineteen forty eight.

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Speaker 2: Later on in nineteen forty eight, and I guess it stuck.

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Speaker 1: That's where the Oakridge boys were all scientists. That's right,

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Speaker 1: So it was originally magenta on blue. Right, Yes, And

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Speaker 1: the logo we're talking about, for those of you I know,

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Speaker 1: it's called the nuclear trefoil. It's a circle and then

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Speaker 1: three partial circles around a blade. And from what I saw,

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Speaker 1: one of the original group doodlers explained it as it's

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Speaker 1: supposed to be an atom with activity around it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.

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Speaker 1: Which I never saw it before, but now that I've

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Speaker 1: read that, I can't unsee it. And that is really

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Speaker 1: what it looks like. It's a pretty great little doodle.

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Speaker 1: But it's like you said, that is not a universally

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Speaker 1: accepted symbol, which is a big problem. And it doesn't.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't evoke like, oh, an atom, of course, I

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Speaker 1: know what an atom looks like. I just saw one

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Speaker 1: go down the street a second ago, and this looks

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Speaker 1: like an atom. It's a symbolic representation of an atom,

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Speaker 1: which means that after people stop thinking about what atoms

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Speaker 1: look like, maybe a thousand years or five thousand years

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Speaker 1: down the road, if something happens, no one's going to

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Speaker 1: look at that and be like, oh, it's an atom.

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Speaker 1: Activity around an atom, that must mean there's radiation here.

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Speaker 1: Hence this is a danger sign that's not going to happen.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: The other thing you would think is just just put

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Speaker 2: up in a bunch of languages. Done. Yeah, here's the thing.

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Speaker 2: Languages are disappearing. I'm going to ask you, actually, what

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Speaker 2: is your best guess? A language dies out every blank.

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Speaker 1: Nine million seconds? Is that right? Did I nail it?

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Speaker 2: Jerk? I got to get out of calculator. A language

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Speaker 2: dies out every fourteen days.

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure there's nine million.

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Speaker 2: Isn't that staggering? God? What if it was? Are you

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Speaker 2: about to do that? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: You keep talking.

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Speaker 2: So that's about twenty five languages per year that die

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Speaker 2: out and.

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Speaker 1: That's really sad.

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Speaker 2: It is, and it is very sad. And granted these

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Speaker 2: aren't you know, major languages, but they're important to the

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Speaker 2: people who speak them. Sure, but that's just sort of

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Speaker 2: to to get across the point that throwing it up

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Speaker 2: in a bunch of languages, there's no guarantee. And in fact,

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Speaker 2: in all likelihood, in fifty thousand years, there won't be

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Speaker 2: English or German or French. There may not even be humans.

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Speaker 2: That's a really point. We may be what's the calculation.

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Speaker 1: Four hundred and forty six days. I was a little lot.

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Speaker 1: Okay there there, There may be. We may all be

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Speaker 1: like post biological humans, you know, uploaded our consciousness onto

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Speaker 1: like the Internet or something. And which point that really

378
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Speaker 1: won't matter to tell you the truth. Where the nuclear

379
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Speaker 1: waste is buried? But who knows? It could be an

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Speaker 1: intelligent species, It could be humans who don't know how

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Speaker 1: to read or write. The fact is is the stuff

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Speaker 1: that we take for granted changes a lot faster than

383
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Speaker 1: you think, and even if it doesn't necessarily die out,

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Speaker 1: the changes that come along are pretty alarming. I found

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Speaker 1: a I've been watching a lot of Silicon Valley lately.

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Speaker 2: I told you yeah, great show.

387
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Speaker 1: My vocal delivery sounds a lot like Jared's. It's a

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Speaker 1: curly you think a lot.

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Speaker 2: I never really put those two together.

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Speaker 1: We'll keep an ear out for it now, and see

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Speaker 1: what you think. I mean. Tell me I'm wrong.

392
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Speaker 2: I mean, I would have to dissociate so much because

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Speaker 2: I like you and Jared is like such a pedantic bureaucrat.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I love him.

395
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Speaker 2: I mean he's fun, yeah to watch, But I wouldn't

396
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Speaker 2: say that he's like the most likable character. Maybe he is,

397
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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I would say pedantic bureaucrat is not entirely off for me.

399
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Jared needs a girlfriend, that's his deal.

400
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Speaker 1: Okay, so I do not because I have a fine wife,

401
00:19:24,520 --> 00:19:26,800
Speaker 1: That's right. So let me give you an example of

402
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Speaker 1: how English has changed. This is a quote from Sir

403
00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:31,920
Speaker 1: Gawain and the Green Knight. It was written in thirteen

404
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:35,360
Speaker 1: seventy five, Oh boy, six hundred and fifty years ago.

405
00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:39,159
Speaker 1: All right, this is in English. The steel of a

406
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Speaker 1: stiff staff, the stern hit be gripped, that was wound

407
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Speaker 1: in with iron into the wand's end. And I'll be

408
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:49,640
Speaker 1: graving with green and gravious works. And you should see

409
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Speaker 1: it spelled.

410
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean I was an English major. We

411
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Speaker 2: had to go through this stuff. It was a slog.

412
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Speaker 1: Do you have a guess at what I just said?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you said that. He uh, the green Knight sat

414
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Speaker 2: down and watched some silicon valley.

415
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Speaker 1: That's right. It's that the grim Man gripped it by

416
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Speaker 1: its strong handle, which was wound with iron all the

417
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Speaker 1: way to the end, and graven and green with graceful designs.

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Speaker 1: So like, that's English six hundred and fifty years ago.

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Speaker 1: English is still around.

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Speaker 2: Six hundred and fifty years. We're talking about thousands, tens

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Speaker 2: of thousands of years exactly.

422
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Speaker 1: So that's a problem. Languages evolve, languages die, Symbols don't

423
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Speaker 1: quite make sense out of context. So there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of challenges that face the people to try to explain

425
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Speaker 1: this stuff, or figure out how to explain it to

426
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Speaker 1: future people, I think is a better way to put it.

427
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:39,400
Speaker 2: That's right. They have looked in semio semiotitians for people

428
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:43,120
Speaker 2: who really want on this stuff. Sure, I think I'm

429
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Speaker 2: an amateur semiutitian after reading this.

430
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Speaker 1: That's great.

431
00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:47,840
Speaker 2: But one thing that they're looking for, because what you

432
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Speaker 2: want is ideally is instant recognition and not something I mean,

433
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:54,199
Speaker 2: yeah maybe if you have to figure it out. But

434
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Speaker 2: what you want is something that conveys danger right when

435
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Speaker 2: you look at.

436
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Speaker 1: It, Like just steer clear of this right place, not

437
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:04,080
Speaker 1: come closer and start poking around. Just go away, That's right.

438
00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 2: So she makes a great point though, that, like it's

439
00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:09,720
Speaker 2: a double edged sword, like you were talking about earlier.

440
00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:12,960
Speaker 2: If you, you know, human beings, if you show an

441
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:15,640
Speaker 2: extreme skier or a sign this is danger, don't ski

442
00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:18,719
Speaker 2: this way. Sure, he's gonna say, bra let's do it.

443
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:21,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, give me some homicide power drink.

444
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:26,320
Speaker 2: So there's a very very fine line between warning people

445
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:27,439
Speaker 2: and enticing people.

446
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, even inadvertently exactly, you know. I mean, there's she

447
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:33,920
Speaker 1: she points out haunted houses because I'm like, yeah, not

448
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 1: everybody's like a red bull extreme sports person, but people

449
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:40,600
Speaker 1: do like it haunted houses too, So that abandoned like

450
00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:43,120
Speaker 1: scary place is so creepy. Let's go there for Halloween,

451
00:21:43,320 --> 00:21:46,359
Speaker 1: right because maybe Halloween survived but the English language didn't.

452
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,840
Speaker 1: Who knows. So yeah, you you you really walk a

453
00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:53,159
Speaker 1: fine line here between warning people away and saying I

454
00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:53,960
Speaker 1: dare you?

455
00:21:54,680 --> 00:22:00,320
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, my whole jam is I think they need to, Uh,

456
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 2: what will survive if there are humans at all is emotion,

457
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:06,679
Speaker 2: So I think they need to appeal to human emotions

458
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:11,280
Speaker 2: like fear, more than words and symbols.

459
00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's take a break and we'll get back

460
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:14,879
Speaker 1: into this, all right, because this is fun.

461
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:32,400
Speaker 4: Yes, any stuffy jaws.

462
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:43,480
Speaker 1: All right, chuck. So we've kind of talked about how

463
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 1: things go away, Languages fall away, symbols don't make sense.

464
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 2: Any any ephemera.

465
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 1: It is, it really is, right, So what what will last?

466
00:22:55,160 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 1: What have nuclear semiutitions come up with? And should we

467
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:00,280
Speaker 1: explain with semiotics? Is in general.

468
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 2: What is it?

469
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 1: I don't even know, oh, just kind of in shorthand.

470
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 1: Semiotics is basically the study of how and why signs

471
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,440
Speaker 1: have meaning. Okay, right, Like you were saying earlier, how

472
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:17,119
Speaker 1: the word apple doesn't evoke thoughts of the word apple.

473
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:20,639
Speaker 1: It evokes thoughts of the round, shiny, tasty fruit that

474
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 1: grows on a tree. That's a sign. In semiotics, that's

475
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 1: specifically a cursive sign because it uses language.

476
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 2: So what they've done in many cases is, and this

477
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 2: is a great idea for stuff like this is to

478
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 2: have a competition. They had one at UCLA, I think

479
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,200
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one called it called the Desert

480
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:49,040
Speaker 2: Space Competition. And what one that year was a cactus,

481
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 2: a yucca cacti glowing blue. And then the idea was

482
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:58,960
Speaker 2: plant a field of these regular green cacti, and then

483
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 2: over the place where you know the waist is the repository,

484
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 2: and then if you see the sign of a glowing

485
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:08,440
Speaker 2: blue one, I mean, I don't think I didn't see

486
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 2: the rest of them, but I didn't think this one

487
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:10,879
Speaker 2: was that great.

488
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to the person who came up with it.

489
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 2: Though I know. I think a bit of something they

490
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:18,879
Speaker 2: should do is go even further back to younger children,

491
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:21,680
Speaker 2: because sometime like go to like an elementary school and

492
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 2: ask kids or a high school.

493
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 1: Right, or you just take each kid out and rub

494
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: their face in the sand and be like you see this,

495
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: you stay out of here.

496
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 2: No, I mean, have the kids like throw out ideas

497
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 2: because I think, oh, oh, I see yeah, I think

498
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:38,440
Speaker 2: the I think a lot of times children can cut

499
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,439
Speaker 2: through the to the simplicity of something much better than

500
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 2: adults can easily. So that's my idea. Throw it out

501
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:46,479
Speaker 2: as a as a science fair project.

502
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's one of the cool things about

503
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: nuclear semionics is it's so inviting to like anybody can

504
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: come up with a great idea. It's just so confounding,

505
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 1: but it's also so accessible.

506
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get ideas. In fact, we want to hear

507
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:02,160
Speaker 2: from you. If you think you have a cool idea,

508
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 2: it's a good idea, Like, I guarantee you we're going

509
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 2: to get some good ones. Yep, We're not going to

510
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:07,080
Speaker 2: pass them along or anything.

511
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,880
Speaker 1: So rather than just like poo pooing the glowing yuka one,

512
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: there's a here's the problem with the glowing yucca idea.

513
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: It requires explanation, right, somebody. So part of the glowing

514
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: yuka is to say, these things have been genetically engineered

515
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:27,119
Speaker 1: so that when there's radiation present, they glow. So if

516
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: you see this yucka glowing, it means that there's radiation here,

517
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: stay away, right. If you lose that that additional story

518
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: that has to go along with the glowing yuka, then

519
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: you just have glowing yucca. And I can't think of

520
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 1: a more attractive thing that's going to draw people to

521
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: a site than the legendary glowing yucca that only glows

522
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 1: in this one. Soster On earth. Yeah, that's kind of

523
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: the problem with it. You know.

524
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,159
Speaker 2: I like this other idea from that same year a

525
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 2: little better that did not win. Fields of Asphodel, which

526
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,879
Speaker 2: is a Eurasian lily. They said, let's just cover the

527
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 2: with metal blades that screech when the wind blows. It

528
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 2: makes it horrible noise, right, not bad.

529
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 1: Here's the problem with that. Okay, Moving parts Okay, sure,

530
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: it's been pretty well established that if you're trying to

531
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: convey something to the people into the distant future, you

532
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: need to have something that's monolithic and made of one piece,

533
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: because if you have multiple parts, that's an opportunity for

534
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 1: weathering to occur through the place where the two parts meet,

535
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: or three parts or five parts. And if it's a

536
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 1: moving part, just kiss the movement goodbye.

537
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 2: What about this? Okay, I've had the thought earlier today

538
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 2: about just a mountain of razor wire.

539
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: Okay, here's the problem with that.

540
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 2: Okay.

541
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:44,679
Speaker 1: And this is the same problem also with the what

542
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: is the problem the steel? The steel stuff that move

543
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: and everything this do you want to use you? I don't,

544
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 1: But you want to use stuff that has no value whatsoever,

545
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 1: not just financially, but usefulness.

546
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 2: Well, because someone will say I can harvest that razor wire.

547
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can go use that to keep the cows

548
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:01,880
Speaker 1: in in my house next door.

549
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 2: Yeah. But if you have so much of it.

550
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: Over time, over ten thousand years, people like take and make.

551
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why the pyramids are stripped of, like

552
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: they're more attractive outer. They used to have like a

553
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: white I think limestone shell encasement. It's gone because the

554
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: locals were like, oh, I can use that to build

555
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: a fine lot pizza hut. That's exactly that's what people

556
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: will do if you place something of any kind of

557
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 1: usefulness of that true like that is the beauty in

558
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: that every idea is wrong.

559
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 2: As a whole. It's so great, it's pretty great.

560
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:37,160
Speaker 1: I love it.

561
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 2: So. One of the most often sided bodies of work

562
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 2: is from nineteen eighty two eighty three, and this was

563
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 2: a call for ideas from the German Journal of Semiotics

564
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 2: that basically said the same thing. It's like, you know,

565
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 2: what are your ideas? This one got a little goofy

566
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 2: to say the least. Someone suggests an artificial moon as

567
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 2: a storage vessel.

568
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: There's just a huge flaw on that one.

569
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:02,119
Speaker 2: If you ask me, I mean I don't even get that.

570
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 1: Well, it was like, how do you make sure that

571
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: the information about this site stays protected? Put it into

572
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 1: an artificial moon in orbit around Earth? But it's like,

573
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:14,680
Speaker 1: how do you get to the artificial.

574
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 2: Don't get that's what they meant that. Yeah, that doesn't

575
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 2: make any sense. That's what I think I guess they were.

576
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 2: I mean it said, oh, well, were they beaming it

577
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,400
Speaker 2: down to a TV that won't play?

578
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: That's a different one. Yeah, and that. I just don't

579
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:27,360
Speaker 1: understand this at all.

580
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 2: I don't understand the Radioactive Cats either, even though that's

581
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 2: a decent band name.

582
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: So there. That was a big part of the ninety

583
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: nine percent Invisible episode. Now Nuclear Semiotics. They talked about

584
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: the ray Cats, and I think they actually hired a

585
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: musician to create a song because just like with the

586
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: glowing Yucca, you have to explain what's going on when

587
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 1: the cats glow, you need to stay away. So they

588
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: had somebody come up with a Raycat song I believe

589
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: for the episode.

590
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 2: Was it Hoody and the Blowfish, Yes, it was.

591
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: That was a good guess.

592
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 2: Now, this one I thought was had a little I

593
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 2: thought it was interesting. This semi Aitian named Thomas Cibioc.

594
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 2: He said, this what has survived more than anything else religion, Right,

595
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:12,959
Speaker 2: religious texts that date back, you know, a couple thousand

596
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 2: years in the Catholic Church. Not a bad start.

597
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, The ideas that you hear at Catholic Mass today

598
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: are a couple thousand years old and something instances. And

599
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: if you go back to the original text, which we

600
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: can still read, fortunately, you can say, yep, this is

601
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. Like those ideas have survived that

602
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 1: long because of the practices they use.

603
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 2: So interesting idea, But it gets a little goofy yeah,

604
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 2: because he thought, why don't we almost create a fake

605
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 2: religion around this thing, a fearful myth that you can generate,

606
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 2: appointing an atomic priesthood to tell people and tell them

607
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 2: to tell future generations. But I mean, I guess the

608
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 2: idea is that it's all false and it's just a

609
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 2: big made up story.

610
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, the comic priesthood would know the truth and they

611
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: would indoctrinate people. But out in society around them, it

612
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 1: would be a closely guarded secret because everybody else thinks

613
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: that whatever this fake myth about, why you have to

614
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: stay away from this haunted, evil area is true when

615
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: really the atomic priests are the ones who know no,

616
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: actually there's radioactive stuff that out here. They just came

617
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: up with this three thousand years ago to scare everybody away.

618
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 2: But initially a decent idea as far as trying to

619
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 2: make it or incorporate like what religion does. But it

620
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 2: just definitely strange.

621
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: It is to me though, it is at its base despicable.

622
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: It's a despicable idea because it is purposefully introducing fearful,

623
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: false superstition into the future, Like we're going to purposefully

624
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: introduce fearful false superstition into the future just to scare

625
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: people off from radioactivity, like what kind of sweeping side effects,

626
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: what kind of wars might start over this time? People

627
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: will die? Then this fake thing that they don't realize

628
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: is fake. Because Thomas Sebiak came up with this idea

629
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: to keep people away from a single site in New Mexico,

630
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: that's crazy.

631
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 2: It didn't fare too well either among his colleagues.

632
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,719
Speaker 1: No, and rightfully so, because again it's a despicable idea.

633
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 2: So he was on the Human Interference Task Force. We

634
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 2: mentioned the Nevada site. That was what was what was

635
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 2: launched for that yucka Mountain site back in eighty one,

636
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 2: from eighty one to eighty three.

637
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: So whatever Cebiac's original idea was, he had like some

638
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 1: other closely related ideas that were great. Though, Yeah, like

639
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: he's not like this a total nut job happened. I

640
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 1: think it was just a misfire for in an otherwise

641
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: illustrious career. I think I don't know that much about him.

642
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: But one of his other ideas was, Okay, well, let's

643
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: take the atomic priesthood away, let's take the religion and

644
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: all that stuff away, and let's just give them like

645
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: the facts, but let's figure out a way to make

646
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 1: sure that those facts get pass down. And what he

647
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: came up with was called a meta message, where it's

648
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: a message that says, this place has nuclear radiation, it

649
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: can kill you. You need to stay away from it.

650
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: And we invite you to take this message and translate

651
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: it into whatever languages you guys have on Earth at.

652
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 2: The time, assuming you can read this right.

653
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: But if you do that often enough, there will always

654
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: be somebody who can translate it. Oh sure, And then

655
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: that way you form a bridge between now and as

656
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: far into the future as people are around to read

657
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 1: and add their own interpretation or their own translation of it.

658
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: But then you want to leave the original so that

659
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: if there's ever like a disagreement about what word meant,

660
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: hopefully somebody can go back language and language language and

661
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 1: connect them so that they can see the original version.

662
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like what if a society develops an isolation

663
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 2: that knows none of these languages.

664
00:32:56,280 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: You're just totally toast. Yeah, that's when the symbols come in.

665
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 2: Right. So what they settled on as a panel though,

666
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 2: and from eighty one to eighty three was what's called

667
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 2: long term communication was going to be the most effective thing,

668
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 2: like kind of what you were just talking about, right,

669
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 2: And they said a system that combines physical markers and

670
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 2: archives that cover the two major forms of this long

671
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 2: term community communicate, direct and successive. Direct utilizes markers, and

672
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 2: successive is humans like you were talking about. I guess

673
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 2: with this meta message, I guess you could write it down,

674
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 2: but it's still humans carrying a message through time.

675
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: Well, it's more like a direct one is like you

676
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: can write an inscription on a monument and that monument

677
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 1: is going to deliver that message directly to people ten

678
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 1: thousand years from now, yeah.

679
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 2: I mean it's a physical thing.

680
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: Right, whereas with successive it's kind of passed along like

681
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 1: a game.

682
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 2: Of telephone exactly. And you know how that goes, right,

683
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 2: It can get a little hinky, that's right, but it's

684
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 2: always fun at a slumber party.

685
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: Sure, So they came up with multiple ones, Like you

686
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:05,160
Speaker 1: were saying, they've settled on a monument that had massive

687
00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: stone structures. Remember, you want monoliths, they're engraved with warnings

688
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 1: in all currently known languages. It's a lot of languages.

689
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:13,719
Speaker 2: You want a.

690
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: Buried vault that has all the info you need about radioactivity,

691
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: about the site, all that stuff. Sure, you want a

692
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: bunch of barriers around the site, not necessarily to definitely

693
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: keep people out, but enough to basically say, hey, hey,

694
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:27,399
Speaker 1: we're trying to impede progress here.

695
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to me, that's one of the most

696
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:32,479
Speaker 2: obvious ones. If like you see a huge wall again,

697
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 2: it might entice you, but it for sure indicates to

698
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 2: any culture that you're like, you're not meant to come

699
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:38,839
Speaker 2: beyond this, Right.

700
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: And then the last one is a network of archives

701
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 1: basically the same information you would have in that buried vault, right,

702
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: but elsewhere scattered around the world. So if something happens

703
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: with the buried vault, somebody can come across the archives

704
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: somewhere and be like, oh wait, wait, we want to

705
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: stay out of.

706
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 2: There, right. And along with that, they said, while we're

707
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,879
Speaker 2: at it, can we at least like all agree around

708
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,280
Speaker 2: world on a nuclear warning symbol. If it's the trefoil

709
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 2: or whatever, let's just all codify that as the thing,

710
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 2: which is not the case right now.

711
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: No, there's was a triangle with an arrow pointing down,

712
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: and then in the head of the arrow was the

713
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 1: Biohezard symbol, which is not great because you want something

714
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: that's going to be so simple that even as.

715
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 2: People confuse me, I need to see it. I guess yeah.

716
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:24,399
Speaker 1: It's even when you see it you're like, wait what.

717
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:27,919
Speaker 1: But you want something simple enough so that as people

718
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 1: kind of create a shorthand version of it, it still

719
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:33,320
Speaker 1: retains its meaning right or visually.

720
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:35,279
Speaker 2: All right, So that stuff was the Yaka project. In

721
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,759
Speaker 2: the early eighties, they decided not to do that. They

722
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 2: just packed it up, put it away, and then it

723
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 2: all came back again with this new Mexico plant when

724
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 2: the Department of Energy said once again, hey, we need

725
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 2: to think of a sign and a symbol or whatever

726
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,600
Speaker 2: you can come up with. And we need the best

727
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 2: and the brightest thinking of this. So call up Carl Sagan.

728
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: Get me Sagan, give me Sagan, give me Percy Tannenbaum Stat.

729
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:05,879
Speaker 2: And this guy named John Lomberg who's a science writer

730
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,479
Speaker 2: and space illustrator and he had worked in semiotics before

731
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 2: for NASA on their mission to Mars. Sagan was in

732
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 2: ill health, so he declined to come, but he sent

733
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 2: a message from the president. I guess that said skull

734
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 2: and crossbones. Dude, done. Yeah, universal, everyone knows it.

735
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: He gave a really good example. He said, it has

736
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,840
Speaker 1: it's marked the lintels of cannibal dwellings, the flags of pirates,

737
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 1: the insignia of SS divisions and motorcycle gangs. He makes

738
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,399
Speaker 1: a pretty good point. A lot of people out there

739
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: see a skull and crossbones and no, it means like

740
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: danger problems.

741
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it means this will be you. Yes, you know,

742
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 2: you'll be a skull.

743
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: And so the the working group for the Whip project

744
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: they said, no, that doesn't work. It's a Youngian archetype.

745
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: It doesn't really exist outside of the West. Ye to me,

746
00:36:57,200 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, Sagan was definitely onto something.

747
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:02,280
Speaker 2: Think so. I mean, tell me, if you go to

748
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 2: China and hold up a sign with a skull and crossbunds,

749
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 2: I would think so, wouldn't they. I mean, that's a

750
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 2: dire warning, isn't it.

751
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: I think their point is is that the skull used

752
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 1: to be like a memento moral where it meant like

753
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: rebirth and prepare death.

754
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 2: So they could be like, oh, wonderful a skull and

755
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:19,839
Speaker 2: crossbud Sure, but.

756
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:26,320
Speaker 1: To me, that is the one enduring symbol that's always

757
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 1: going to be around as long as there are humans,

758
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,479
Speaker 1: because what happens when you die and rot what's left

759
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: your skull. Every human knows that. Even humans in the

760
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 1: future are going to know that, even ones that are

761
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: in like a post collapse tribes were running around like

762
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 1: and have lost all of the languages that are around today,

763
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 1: they're going to know what a skull looks like or

764
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: what a skull means, or at least one of them

765
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: is going to be like, wait, I don't think this

766
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,919
Speaker 1: is saying that the rainbow's coming. I think it means

767
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 1: like death or danger.

768
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 2: All right, let's take another break, Yeah, sure, and we'll

769
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 2: come back in talk about the approach that the whip

770
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 2: panel took and what they came up with right after this.

771
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 3: Stuffy the jawsh shot soft you.

772
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:34,280
Speaker 1: You know, I gotta defend Sagan. It's my boy. Sure

773
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:35,360
Speaker 1: love that guy.

774
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,720
Speaker 2: Someone should ask Neil deGrasse Tyson.

775
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 1: Sure, why not.

776
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 2: I bet he's got a good idea or two.

777
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 1: I'll bet they have asked.

778
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 2: He's still no Atlanta for a show?

779
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:47,760
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, where Fox?

780
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 2: I think a cop Energy center.

781
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think that's even more seats than the phone.

782
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 2: No, it's less.

783
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, it's.

784
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 2: Like three thousand people, which is nothing to you know,

785
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 2: put up a stink about. That's a lot of folks.

786
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: We have not hit that.

787
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 2: No we're not.

788
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 1: No, we haven't. Did you hear the Star talk I

789
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: was on?

790
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 2: Oh no, it was it good?

791
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 1: It was pretty good.

792
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 2: Yeah.

793
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 1: If I do say, if it was supposed to be

794
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:16,720
Speaker 1: like rapid fast responses.

795
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:16,880
Speaker 2: Uh huh.

796
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: We got through like four questions in an hour because.

797
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 2: You were like, rapid fast response is not my specialty.

798
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 2: Meal me.

799
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 1: Let me just do a little distracting here.

800
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 2: I'm more deliberate, all right. So, speaking of deliberate, the

801
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:32,399
Speaker 2: Whippanel was very deliberate and methodical. They divided it into

802
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 2: teams and approached it from the two things we were

803
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 2: talking about, direct and successive forms of communication. Debated a lot,

804
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 2: deliberated a lot the recommendations. They had two proposals, and

805
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 2: they did overlap a little bit. What I thought was

806
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 2: pretty smart is they both had a multi leveled approach

807
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:55,360
Speaker 2: from the surface down that got more specific and intense

808
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 2: as you went down.

809
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first one was basically like you, ding Dong,

810
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,399
Speaker 1: this is dan or go away exactly. That's like level one,

811
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: and then level two is like, okay, ding Dong and

812
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: your kind of smart friend explain to ding Dong that

813
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,439
Speaker 1: the reason this is dangerous because there's something buried here

814
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 1: and it's gonna hurt you, all.

815
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 2: Right, should we don't talk about the real things?

816
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: Oh? Sure, I thought I was so group A.

817
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 2: This was theirs. They studded the surface of the site

818
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 2: with what they called menacing earthworks, so a field of

819
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 2: spikes and then a big, massive disc painted to look

820
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,799
Speaker 2: like a black hole. I didn't quite get that part.

821
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: It's so dumb.

822
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 2: I get the spikes.

823
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 1: I think it's the yeah, of course, But the black hole,

824
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to just mean like a void

825
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: or chaos. I don't know. I'm not sure I could

826
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: see how you would think that that was kind of universal,

827
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: like nobody wants to fall into a hole or something,

828
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:50,800
Speaker 1: and maybe it evokes that kind of like stay away

829
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: all right.

830
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 2: Then they have large markers all around the site, which,

831
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 2: like you said, are the really basic messages in the warnings,

832
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 2: including and I thought this is so interesting faces that

833
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 2: invoke Edvard Munch's the scream.

834
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 1: The ones I saw were the scream. Yeah, like it

835
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:10,920
Speaker 1: was the line drawing of the guy from the.

836
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 2: Screen people, Yeah, like in great agony and pain. That

837
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:15,800
Speaker 2: to me not bad.

838
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,720
Speaker 1: It isn't bad. I don't know though, is that more

839
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: universally understood than a skull and crossbones?

840
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 2: I don't know, or if art survives or people like, oh,

841
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 2: I wonder if that painting's down there.

842
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: Well, I think what they're saying is and semi autitians

843
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: kind of feel this way. Is that Edvard Monk so

844
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: perfectly nailed the scream that even without the art, like,

845
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: if you see that, you understand that that person you're

846
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: seeing is in agony?

847
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 2: Did I say Munch? No?

848
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:43,399
Speaker 1: I think you said Monk did I say munch.

849
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 2: You said Monk. I might have said Munch.

850
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:48,280
Speaker 1: No, you said I think you said monk. Is it Munch?

851
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: I think it's probably Monk. There's no way his name

852
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:51,439
Speaker 2: is Munch.

853
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,240
Speaker 1: I'm almost positive you said monk. Jerry, can you rewind

854
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:55,240
Speaker 1: for a second.

855
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 2: Much?

856
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: Oh you did say much. I would have sworn you

857
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 1: said munk.

858
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 2: So Group A below the surface this is when they

859
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 2: actually start talking about nuclear waste to what it does

860
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:09,839
Speaker 2: to you, the details about the structure and all that.

861
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 1: Stuff, right, not bad, where they teach a little bit

862
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: about radioactivity.

863
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 2: So Group B this was they went super informative, and

864
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 2: really what they relied on was that people had a

865
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 2: little bit of knowledge in the future about stuff like this.

866
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 1: But they also trusted that the people didn't have to

867
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: just be spooked or scared or something like that. That

868
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: it's like, here is the facts and information is why

869
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: you want to stay away from that.

870
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. Their big above ground work was these big earthen

871
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 2: walls in the shape of the nuclear trifoil not bad.

872
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 2: I imagine you have to see it from above to

873
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:45,880
Speaker 2: even know though.

874
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, was, But that's part of the one of the

875
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: requirements was that you want it to be easily visible,

876
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: not just with human cognition, but like remote sensing too, right,

877
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: so like magnetic surveys. They said, we should put some

878
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:03,479
Speaker 1: magnets in here, right, not just from when you walk

879
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:04,240
Speaker 1: up to it.

880
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 2: Right so, and you outside to be able to see

881
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 2: it from your flying saucer exactly. And then inside the

882
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:13,320
Speaker 2: walls they have at various steps have these big markers,

883
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:17,239
Speaker 2: and here's where these like symbols and pictographs, all kinds

884
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 2: of languages, writing in different languages, and then more human

885
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 2: faces increasingly contorted in agony as you go down.

886
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks to me like the guys getting drunker

887
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: and drunker. Yeah, yeah, that's what it looks like.

888
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 2: Well, maybe that means there's a happening bar exactly.

889
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: That's how I would take it if I were a

890
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: future human post collapse.

891
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:42,959
Speaker 2: Gotta go, gotta go down here.

892
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: There were also pictograms you're just like digging through the

893
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: sand to get to Yeah. There are also pictograms that

894
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: showed like under the ground, like real easy to understand

895
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: drawings of the radioactive waste the water ground water flowing

896
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: through it, taking the radioactive waste up to the plants,

897
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 1: which are then eaten by the humans in the picture,

898
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:07,399
Speaker 1: one of whom dies, which makes sense. You don't need

899
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: to understand anything about radioactivity. You don't need to be

900
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: able to read anything. It's a really like it makes sense,

901
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: especially if some people are sitting there thinking about it.

902
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:18,360
Speaker 2: Was the final image of skull and crossbones or a

903
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 2: pile of bones.

904
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: No, it was like a person, three people standing in

905
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:22,680
Speaker 1: one of them. The last one was like dead, and

906
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: I think he might even have exes for eyes.

907
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:25,879
Speaker 2: Well, I was about to say, though, I mean, if

908
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,879
Speaker 2: you think about twenty thousand years from now, maybe they're like, oh,

909
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 2: this induces a nice nap. Maybe, Like but to your

910
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 2: point though, like the bones is where you need to

911
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 2: end up.

912
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, maybe somebody would be like, oh, these veggies

913
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:41,239
Speaker 1: here give you a great buzz if you grow them

914
00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 1: on this ground. Yeah, exes for eyes, right, Yeah, the

915
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: bones do make a lot more sense. I think Sagan

916
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 1: was right. That's that should be a T shirt. Stuff

917
00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 1: you should know T shirt. Sagan was right, don't even

918
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 1: need to have any context.

919
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,239
Speaker 2: We're gonna give an email in a few days from

920
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 2: the guy.

921
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:57,879
Speaker 1: From the estate of Carl Sagan saying do not make

922
00:44:57,920 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 1: that T shirt.

923
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 2: So what did they go with In the end, though.

924
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: They went with an earth and burm basically to provide

925
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: an obstacle and to block easy access some granite slabs

926
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:19,839
Speaker 1: monoliths that have warnings written in seven languages.

927
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, Navajo and then the six languages of the un.

928
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:27,760
Speaker 1: So Arabic, Chinese, English, Spanish, French, and Russian correct which

929
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. But then they took Thomas

930
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 1: Siebiak up on his idea. They kind of built on

931
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: the earlier religion right exactly, and they left blank spaces

932
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: or they play in their plan. They leave blank spaces

933
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: on these slabs for future generations to add their own

934
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:46,840
Speaker 1: translations of the inscriptions.

935
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 2: It's a great idea, and the faces of humans and

936
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 2: pain and anguish, right that did survive in the end.

937
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: So that was the final report on this whip panel.

938
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good idea, makes a lot of sense

939
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: because it not only so there are two groups that

940
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: they're trying to say stay away, not not really like

941
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: urban explorers or thrill seekers or whatever.

942
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:10,879
Speaker 2: Because they can die.

943
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: They would have they would have virtually no chance of

944
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: getting down to the actual radio act. The material. The

945
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: people they are worried about were technology technological advanced civilizations

946
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: that were drilling for resources, like an accident, like God

947
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: helped this this this this waste disposal site. If salt

948
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 1: becomes incredibly important in the future, right, and then less

949
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: advanced civilizations that could accidentally change the flow of groundwater

950
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: to go through the salt bed through massive like irrigation projects,

951
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 1: it covers all of it.

952
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, My whole thing is just make it inaccessible. Why

953
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 2: is it in New Mexico? Why is it out?

954
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:52,839
Speaker 1: You know, Well, that's I mean, that's pretty inaccessible.

955
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 2: It's not as inaccessible as you know Siberia.

956
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: No, some one of the recommendations for nuclear waste disposals

957
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 1: shooting it into space. Just send it out in the

958
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 1: outer space and forget about it. And if you believe

959
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: in the Fermi paradox that it says we're the only

960
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: intelligent life in the universe, man, more power to you. Yeah,

961
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: that's actually not that bad of an idea. It's a

962
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: horrific idea, but it's actually kind of a good idea.

963
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 2: To Yeah, but then I wonder about the danger and

964
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:23,880
Speaker 2: the risk involved. I mean, we've seen rockets blow up

965
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 2: and space shuttles blow up. That would be bad, like

966
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:27,800
Speaker 2: what if the thing that they're shooting it out there

967
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 2: malfunctioned or something.

968
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 1: That'd be really bad.

969
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:30,399
Speaker 2: That'd be really bad.

970
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: That's a great point.

971
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:34,720
Speaker 2: It's like all of our nuclear waste has just been released, oh.

972
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: Into the atmosphere. Yeah, that's a great, great point, chunk.

973
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 2: So here's the thing, is all of this just wasted

974
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 2: effort because I was getting so into the stuff and

975
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 2: then the end of this article was a real like

976
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 2: sad trombone. Yeah, because it seems like it seems like

977
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 2: nobody really even cares the people that matter.

978
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,879
Speaker 1: Well, the first the first group like their whole thing

979
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 1: will will probably never be implemented because yucka mountain project

980
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 1: got shut down, right, But the Whip group may actually

981
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 1: have their plan come to fruition because it is an

982
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: EPA rule that you have to create this kind of marker,

983
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: and they've got until about twenty forty until they estimate

984
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,320
Speaker 1: the place is going to shut down. So it's entirely

985
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: possible that in twenty forty or sometime in the one

986
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: hundred years after twenty forty, when the DOE stops protecting

987
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: the site or the DoD, they may implement this earthen

988
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: works in these sixteen granite slabs and we may live

989
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: to see something like this.

990
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 2: Well, outside of the US, it seems like no one

991
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:36,800
Speaker 2: is super concerned. Sweden in twenty eleven had an application

992
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:42,359
Speaker 2: to build a repository and force mark and in their

993
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:45,799
Speaker 2: literal application they basically said, you know what, we're going

994
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 2: to worry about that later. Yeah, in seventy years, when

995
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 2: this thing's finished.

996
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:51,880
Speaker 1: They said, see this, can we just kicked this seventy

997
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: years down the.

998
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 2: And the Swedish National Archives they consulted on their application,

999
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 2: they said, that's really insufficient. It said, it gives the

1000
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,799
Speaker 2: impression that one intends to postpone important documentation efforts until

1001
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 2: the closure of the repository in seventy years. And it's like,

1002
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 2: it doesn't give the impression. It literally said that, right, So.

1003
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 1: I think they're being ultra polite.

1004
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, well Sweden, right. Good people in the.

1005
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: US, though, don't tell asap Rocky then.

1006
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 2: That don't even know what that means. That's the singer, right, Yeah,

1007
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 2: he's a rapper.

1008
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: He's in prison in Sweden right now.

1009
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 2: I did not know that oh man did what he do.

1010
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: He got into a fight with some Swedish kids and

1011
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 1: it may or may not have been their fall. It

1012
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 1: looks on video like they definitely provoked it. Really, but

1013
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,399
Speaker 1: the King of Sweden is like, sorry, rule of law.

1014
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 1: It applies to everybody, including super famous Americans.

1015
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:41,840
Speaker 2: Well true.

1016
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 1: Donald Trump called him to try to get the thing

1017
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: resolved at the behest of Kanye West. Oh God, and

1018
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 1: apparently it's just made everything worse. And now the King

1019
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:52,400
Speaker 1: of Sweden is like, there's no chance he's getting released early.

1020
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 2: Wow, man, where have I been?

1021
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: This is reality. I know what I just said is

1022
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 1: actual fact that actually happened here in twenty nineteen. Everybody,

1023
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:05,920
Speaker 1: Humans are the far future? Can you believe it?

1024
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 2: Humans of the near John Lomberg, that guy we were

1025
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 2: talking about earlier, who was on that original nineteen ninety

1026
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 2: one whip panel, he told Weiss just a couple of

1027
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:18,320
Speaker 2: years ago, a lot of us had been around the

1028
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:20,319
Speaker 2: block a few times before, because you know, he was

1029
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:22,799
Speaker 2: back then doing the same thing and knew this is

1030
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 2: going to be a report. The government only did and

1031
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:27,439
Speaker 2: this is the US, and we're putting more thought toward

1032
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:28,719
Speaker 2: this than anyone.

1033
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is really surprising.

1034
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,480
Speaker 2: He said they only did this because they needed to

1035
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 2: show compliance. They didn't really care what we said. And

1036
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 2: then and from the nineteen eighty one Human Interference Task

1037
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 2: Force during the competition, they basically said, the most effective

1038
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 2: sign will be the dead bodies of those foolish enough

1039
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 2: to ignore, which makes sense. Whatever sign, So basically like

1040
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 2: who cares, someone will do, someone will get in there,

1041
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 2: and they'll all die, and then that'll be the big morning.

1042
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: Right, which makes sense if humans are in communication around

1043
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: the globe and you've got the same morning. But if

1044
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: they're not, then it's catastrophe, catastrophe, catastrophe. But at least

1045
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 1: we fulfilled our part of the bargain where we really

1046
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 1: tried to warn everybody agreed. You got anything else? Nah,

1047
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 1: if you will indulge me, I would like to plug

1048
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:17,480
Speaker 1: The End of the World with Josh Clark, the what

1049
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 1: the End of the World with Josh Clark? If like

1050
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 1: thinking about things in like far deep time in the

1051
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 1: future of humanity and all that stuff kind of floated

1052
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 1: your boat, I would recommend my little podcast series, The

1053
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: End of the World of Josh Clark.

1054
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 2: For sure. This is right up your alley.

1055
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:35,360
Speaker 1: Thank you, Chuck. And since Chuck said right up your alley,

1056
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail.

1057
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 2: Hey guys, we are strangers, but we aren't. You've been

1058
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 2: with me during the most challenging times of my life.

1059
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:45,879
Speaker 2: I've listened to your show for about seven years. I'm

1060
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:49,359
Speaker 2: an English teacher, and my students retired and making fun

1061
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 2: of me because I always start lessons with So I

1062
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 2: was listening to stuff you should know. I went through

1063
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 2: a huge life change recently. I was in a relationship

1064
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:59,279
Speaker 2: for five years, engage for four of them, and move

1065
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 2: from Phoenix to Charlotte after ending that relationship, which was

1066
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:05,000
Speaker 2: incredibly difficult to do. During the drive, I listened to

1067
00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 2: you guys for the entire thirty four hours.

1068
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:12,440
Speaker 1: Wow, imagine No, I honestly can't.

1069
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:14,760
Speaker 2: No music, just you guys. My heart was so broken.

1070
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:17,560
Speaker 2: I didn't think I would ever be able to recover

1071
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 2: from that trauma, but.

1072
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 1: The trauma of listening to us for thirty four hours.

1073
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 2: But you didn't know that you were able to comfort

1074
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 2: me and calm me down. My brother, who helped me move,

1075
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 2: asked me what I needed to listen to during the drive.

1076
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 2: I told him I wanted to listen to stuff you

1077
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 2: should know. He had never heard of it. But now

1078
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 2: my brother Nick is also a fan, whether he likes

1079
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:38,799
Speaker 2: it or not, and we almost always start our conversations now,

1080
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 2: did you listen to the last Stuff you Should Know?

1081
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: That's cool?

1082
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 2: So I just want to give you guys kudos for

1083
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 2: being incredible. Please give a shout out to Justin, a

1084
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 2: fan that learned about you guys from me, in case

1085
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 2: he didn't hear it the first time. Hello Justin Potter. Wow,

1086
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:56,359
Speaker 2: thanks for giving me calm in times of adversity. I

1087
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 2: know we are strangers, but we are not actually because

1088
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:00,720
Speaker 2: you have been with me during strugg in my life.

1089
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:03,400
Speaker 2: The credit you for getting me through the hardest times,

1090
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:05,800
Speaker 2: and I will be a lifelong fan of you both.

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00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 2: That is from Kate.

1092
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 1: Thanks Kate. I'm really glad we got to play some

1093
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 1: small part in getting you back on the road to happiness.

1094
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. I hope everything's going great for you.

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00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 1: Yeah for real. If you want to get in touch

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00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: with this like Kate did, just to say hi, or

1097
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:22,359
Speaker 1: to say thanks, or to say you guys really screwed up.

1098
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: It's cool. You can go on to Stuff you Should

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00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 1: Know dot com and check out our social links, and

1100
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 1: you can also send us a good old fashioned email

1101
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:38,720
Speaker 1: to stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

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00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 4: You Know Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:44,800
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.