designing for one million years
December 2nd, 2009 • posts i've written
From BLDBLG, an interview with Abraham Van Luik, a geoscientist with the U.S. Department of Energy, on designing Yucca Mountain, a massive landform created by an extinct supervolcano inside what is now Nellis Air Force Base’s Nevada Test and Training Range, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas – a controversial site chosen by Congress for the storage of nuclear waste.
They did a study with futurists and other people—sociologists and language specialists. They decided to come up with markers in seven languages, basically like a Rosetta Stone, with the idea that there will always be someone in the world who studies ancient languages, even 10,000 years from now, someone who will be able to resurrect what the meanings of these stelae are. They will basically say, “This is not a place of honor, don’t dig here, this is not good material,” etc.
Designing with a distant-future consciousness… reminds me of a similar design problem: NASA’s golden record.
Related posts:
- understanding the system before designing the nudge
- those that live in glass houses shouldn’t roll stones
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