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This Place is Not a Place of Honor
macnigel writes "DOE tries to find a good warning sign for the nuclear waste dump out in Nevada. This is one of those scary yet true things our government actually does; research into finding what exactly can be interpreted as "dangerous" 10,000 years from now." I was sure we had run a story about this before, but I don't see it in the archives. The report on how to mark the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (complete version in pdf 19.5Mb) makes chilling, yet somehow inspiring reading, and IMHO is much less deserving of mockery than the Salon author makes it out to be.
Maybe i'm missing something but WHO CARES?!?! who gives a shit what will happen to some explorer in 10,000 years. We have enough issues on our planet now, not to be spending $150M on some fucking rocks. People in 10,000 years will probably have far greater technology than us, they will know that its nasty stuff, they will probably have so much technology that they won't need to worry about radiation sickness and poisoning. And, even if we've all de-evolved in 10,000 years and go play with the waste is anyone here going to loose sleep over it? no, we are all sick bustards anyway. I'm not saying we should pollute the world for future generations, but hell, we pollute it already, kill and torture and let people suffer and starve while the US (incidentally the worlds greatest polluter) wastes even more money buying rocks that serve absolutely no use (and lets face it, they are going to spend $10,000 on the rocks and pipe the rest into their weapons program). A sign carved in something, saying "Warning Radioactive Waste" in most of the worlds languages, a scull and cross bones and a diagram of various elements will suffice.
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Yeah, except for that whole "creates mind-bogglingly-toxic waste that is so utterly difficult to get rid of that all we can think of to do is just bury it for 100,000 years and beyond" thing.
Bring me fusion and THEN tell me about the wonders of nuclear power. Fission is DIRTY, LETHAL SHIT. Just because it produces no greenhouse gasses doesn't make it safe, jackass!
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You are a fucked up man living in a fantasy world. Put tons of radioactive waste in a 10acre zone and then leave it unmarked and hope that by obfuscation nobody will find it? Shit you obviously aren't a programmer? If you want to obfuscate it, that's fine, but you don't think various signs, markers etc wouldn't be just a little useful? Fuck if we can put information on satelites that aliens are supposed to understand what makes you think we can't do the same thing for future civilizations? Crushed bodies and tool? I can't believe how stupid you are! Your "nothing is here, nothing is wrong" attitude just sickens me.
You want a solution? Here it is. Make it as difficult as possible to get to the waste (stone, concrete, iron, let engineers call the shots). Then make sure than the place is flooded with signs in various medium (stone, metal, ceramic, you name it), each one depicting the best graphical representation of what danger lies in there....bodies slowly curling up as waves pass through them, animals dead, it's not hard to visualise it. After that if any future civilization is foolish enough to ignore every single sign, and break through all those barriers then those who tresspass deserve what they get for being just as stupid as you are!
I mean for crying out loud! I've seen some stupid stuff posted on Slshdot before, but putting a nuclear bomb at the end of the tunnel and exploding it if anyone passes by? Right next to all those radioactive materials? What kind of moron are you? Holy shit you are dumb! Normally I never rant at this but you deserve a serious kick in the head! What a fucking idiot! Who the hell moded you up??!!!!!
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a lot of unfunny non-humor, contrived anti-government cynicism, and the obligatory stab at George W.
Unfunny humor... you mean like accusing someone of "fuzzy math" and then crippling the budget with tax cuts that will ensure the national debt for decades to come- and then ignoring/denying the inevitable future while taxes are cut again in the face of increased spending? And it is interesting that you say anti-government and George W. Bush in the same sentence, because he is as anti-government as anyone (except, perhaps, that nutjob domestic terrorist from Minnesota).
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Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.