J.R. Johnson

Here’s an interesting puzzle: How Do You Send a Warning 1,000 Years into the Future? – Now I Know

Think back to what the Earth was like a thousand years ago — the year 1,015. Almost everything would be foreign to modern eyes and ears — even the language would be incomprehensible. For all intents and purposes, humanity from a millennium ago may as well be an alien species (culturally, at least) with similar DNA, which simply happens to have lived on the same planet we do now.

How do we communicate with people so far removed from our own language, culture, and assumptions? It’s a great question, whether you’re thinking about the safest approach to nuclear waste disposal or contacting aliens.

In order to keep the people of the future safe from the radioactive goop created today, we need a way to tell them to watch out. And more likely than not, very few aspects of today’s society will be around to do that. Even a sign warning travelers of potential dangers would be insufficient — who among us could translate runes from the Middle Ages?

(My mom, that’s who, but point taken.)

What particularly interests me about these proposed solutions (an Atomic Priesthood dedicated to perpetuating knowledge through myth? color-changing cats?!) is that they seem to have skipped over the most obvious approach. How to conjure the fear of death, to warn people away, and to alert the future not to what is there, but what will happen if it is disturbed?*

This is a plague panel from the early 17th century. If you saw this on a house, would you go in or turn and run the other way?

In the end, the U.S. Department of Energy plan opted to go with warning signs in multiple languages illustrated with images of people in pain. Still, I wondered, what’s wrong with the classics?

Another odd writer thought, brought to you by an odd writer.

* Also, the real problem seems to be the gap between exposure and untimely demise. If you break into a tomb and die immediately, that sends a pretty strong message. And no one has to tell people not to build on an active lava flow, but a peaceful-looking mountain with fertile soil close to the bustling port of Naples and the dynamic town of Pompeii (circa 78 AD)? What’s not to like?

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