

American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse - spatulon
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-05/ff_guidestones

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patrickg-zill
From the guidestone text: "Maintain humanity under 500 million in perpetual
balance with nature" ...

OK, there are 6 billion humans on the planet now. What plan do these do-
gooders intend for the 5.5 B "surplus population"?

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imgabe
If they're meant as instructions for a post-apocalypse society, presumably the
other 5.5B would already have been wiped out.

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anamax
> If they're meant as instructions for a post-apocalypse society, presumably
> the other 5.5B would already have been wiped out.

What if they haven't?

Also, it's unclear why survivors would take such writings seriously. After
all, they were a product of a society that failed massively.

More important, what are the odds that the survivors would be receptive to
such teachings?

The "survivability" of different value systems depends on context. And, in the
event of a rapid collapse, the folks who are most likely to survive are
outliers. I'd expect farmers and ranchers to be far more likely to survive
than urbanists. (Yes, some of the REI crowd will do okay.)

As a crude measure, rural counties will do much better than urban ones. Notice
which are red and which are blue.

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turkishrevenge
"It's unclear why survivors would take such writings seriously. After all,
they were a product of a society that failed massively."

Take a look at <http://downlode.org/Etext/WIPP/>. It contains proposals for a
universal way of saying "Danger! Don't dig / enter here!" to inhabitants of
the future without relying on language. Such markers would be used to warn
against entering contaminated sites like the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage
facility, etc.

Here's what I'd surmise if I encountered a monument of this magnitude in post-
apocalyptic Georgia circa 10000 AD:

1) Unlike some of the proposed designs given for the WIPP above, the monument
does not contain jutting spikes or other hostile/inflammatory looking
structures or colors. This suggests that it is somewhat safe to be near and I
would not be in any immediate danger.

2) Even though I'm not an engineer, I could at gather that the construction of
the monument employed sufficiently advanced technology--technology that
probably doesn't exist anymore, along with said knowledge--in its
construction. The thing is made of multi-ton slabs of granite that are cut at
precise angles. It obviously took a certain degree of sophistication to build.

3) Assuming I cannot read _any_ of the languages on the monument itself, I
could at least deduce that the markings on the slabs are representative of
different languages based on the regularity and placement of the symbols.
Since the creator took the pains of inscribing some message all over the
surface of the slabs, it must have some importance.

Just because the intended audience may not understand the exact content of the
message, it would at least suggest an air of importance about it, and in time,
push for actual study of it.

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anamax
> Since the creator took the pains of inscribing some message all over the
> surface of the slabs, it must have some importance.

That describes the writings on every ancient artifact.

While there is a Rosecrucian Museum in San Jose, I think that it's reasonably
safe to say that few people take the writings in pyramids as a guide to life
today. Sure, they're "important", but ....

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juliend2
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones>

