
Why Symbols Aren’t Forever - FossilHominid
https://www.sapiens.org/culture/symbols-shifting-culture/
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darz0re
On mobile so can’t really link decent links. But years ago I read a good
fiction book by Stel Pavlou (Decipher) and there was a story in it about how
symbols maintaining their meanings over generations was a pointless exercise
but that creating a religion was the only way to do it. Belief systems etc.
The example given was about radioactive waste being buried.

Pointless comment. The article just reminded me of the book.

Edit: I searched my kindle app. The book referenced the below.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sebeok](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sebeok)

“In the early 1980s, Sebeok composed a report for the US Office of Nuclear
Waste Management titled Communication Measures To Bridge Ten Millennia,[9]
discussing solutions to the problem of nuclear semiotics, a system of signs
aimed at warning future civilizations from entering geographic areas
contaminated by nuclear waste.[10] The report proposed a "folkloric relay
system" and the establishment of an "atomic priesthood" of physicists,
anthropologists, semioticians to preserve the true nature of hazardous
site.[11]”

~~~
gubbrora
If all goes well humanity will be way more advanced in 10k years, to the point
that they will find our warnings laughable.

If we want to put up warnings it should be for whatever remains of a failed
society because they are the only ones who would need one.

A series of increasingly more dangerous traps should make sure only advanced
people can access it. Death is a language all understand.

It's interesting to ponder pyramids from this point of view. With their
preservation of bodies, gifts for the afterlife and traps. Maybe _we_ are
their Gods and they want us to revive them.

~~~
munificent
_> If we want to put up warnings it should be for whatever remains of a failed
society because they are the only ones who would need one._

That was the point of the exercise, yes. It was about trying to protect future
humans from nuclear waste even if continuity of civilization had been
interrupted by nuclear war.

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verisimilitudes
This was an interesting article, but it does seem to be on the side of
excusing things many people dislike, such as the removal of historical
landmarks.

I think a key detail this article failed to follow on was all of the violence
that has occurred to preserve symbols. It only seemed to focus on violence
around destroying symbols, which seems like an implicit suggestion that one
shouldn't try to preserve things.

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davemp
> Removing symbols that have a dark history doesn’t erase past wrongs, but it
> does acknowledge those harms and open the door for a better future: concepts
> that are understood by our local middle schoolers who have pushed to remove
> the name Stapleton from their school.

Oh come on. Removing symbols isn't always as simple as a spray painted
swastika and the average middle schooler most certainly does not grasp the
concept of historical memory.

EDIT: I'm not advocating for the proud display of offense symbols. I just find
the author's implication of her dissenters being less developed than middle
schoolers in bad taste.

Personally I am not a fan of monuments in general, though the modern
minimalist ones such as the Vietnam memorial seem okay. There are better
resources to learn about this topic than the OP. [0]

[0]:
[http://npshistory.com/publications/savage.pdf](http://npshistory.com/publications/savage.pdf)

"History, Memory, and Monuments: An Overview of the Scholarly Literature on
Commemoration" a solid 17 page entry point.

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HNLurker2
Of course you can not mention Trump.

