Re: infotainment: LANGUAGE EXPERTS SPEAK TO THE FUTURE

Quoth on Tue, 13 Jun 2000, Jonathan Chang:

>    Thousands of years from now, granite obelisks will stand above the desert
>landscape of southeast New Mexico to warn visitors of radioactive toxins
>buried nearly one-half mile deep.
>[...]
>    Their task was to communicate to strangers - to convey clear messages to
>all visitors who stumble upon the site within the next 10,000 years.
They'll probably think it's some damn temple or grave and dig it up.

_Obviously_ some person of great importance is buried there, what with
all the impressive writing, which obviously relates the decedant's
impressive resume of sackage and slaughter. Of course, there's also
the curious mumification process, which involves burying the decedant
in deep chambers surrounded by tons of radioactive materials. Must
have been some kind of religious superstition wherein the Ancients
thought that a dead person would come into some kind of afterlife if
nuked over a period of time.

Archaeologists won't wait to get the bottom of that kind of mystery.

>    "If we're going to communicate with another civilization, we have to show
>that we're an advanced civilization. The first impression could make a big
>difference."
Too late for that! Barring ftl communications or travel, anyway. Once
they see what kind of crap our television signals are polluting the
universe with, they'll not want to stop!

Padraic.