Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/28/civilizational-summary.html
…
2 Likes
Long-term Moon storage. Nice thought, although our Sun will go Red Giant ~8B years from now and pretty much fry the Moon (and Earth, for that matter).
1 Like
Our version of the probe launched in ST:TNG’s “The Inner Light,” just without the forced simulated-50-year-VR experience.
7 Likes
Well I’ll be, Mr. Feynman, they’ve done it!
3 Likes
This thing will be obliterated by a meteor long before the sun consumes it. The surface of the moon doesn’t look like that because it has had an easy life.
4 Likes
Possibly, possibly. Humans may be extinct before the killer meteor though. Man, that would have been an impressive sight too for endgame troglodytes.
A large chunk of that destruction was brought about by the late heavy bombardment ~4b years ago. Since then, the impacts have been considerably less frequent and severe. Not absent, obviously. See: Lack of dinosaurs for the last 64 million years. But probably a pretty damn secure location for the history of the human race should we (as is looking increasingly likely) off ourselves. When the High Overlords return to find we have royally screwed the pooch, at least there will be a record of our pooch screwing.
6 Likes
My gut feeling is that over 8 billion years the majority of the surface of the moon will experience at least one meteor impact. An improbable event spread across an enormous timeline eventually becomes a near certainty.
2 Likes
In 8 billion years it will be immaterial (literally!) but as far as secure spots to stash a comprehensive library, it beats anything on earth, I suspect. You could do better shooting it into interstellar space, or even interplanetary space, but with current tech, this is probably as good as you can get on their budget. I would be interested in how they mark it to draw the High Overlords attention when they get here?
5 Likes
What do they know that we don’t know?
What are they preparing for?
1 Like
They’re including the text of English Wikipedia? Poor future aliens.
In some ways, that’s like putting an “Ebola Virus” label on your leftovers in the office fridge. Future visitors will probably read it and decide we’re better off left alone with our weird little debates.
I wonder what they’ll think of this though?
or this one
5 Likes
It would be interesting to know how much greater the difficulty would be if you wanted a library that was recoverable from earth.
It’s certainly cool to have a cold storage repository on the moon; but, realistically, geographically distributed terrestrial copies have a pretty solid chance of surviving any event that leaves humanity and/or the meta-radroaches with the capacity to go recover something on the moon; as well as quite a few that don’t.
You obviously aren’t going to get a zillion years out of something with sophisticated active components; but I’d be curious to know how long you could keep, say, a radio transmitter audible from earth without terribly heroic measures running.
An overspecced 210Pu RTG, or 241Am, could stretch to some centuries of power; would it still be the weak link or does some other component go faster?
2 Likes
So now, in 2019, we’ll finally be able to say Yes in reply to the question:
Does a BereSheet on the moon?
2 Likes
I believe Marie Kondo’s advice is to get rid of any items in your library that have been sitting around unread for over five billion years.
4 Likes
If they’re just etching them now, how will they catch up with the lander? I know it’s delayed, but that was unexpected.
I want to know what they would think of this.
Theories
Nuclear first strike
As an ideology Posadism supports the potential for Third World revolution, is enthusiastic about nuclear war and space exploration by the former USSR and the People’s Republic of China, and has an esoteric concern for “harmonisation” and “man’s relationship to the earth, to nature and to the cosmos”, based upon an original analysis of working class culture developed by J. Posadas.
Ufology and esotericism
Some detractors have made allegations that the Posadists believe in a New Age doctrine based upon a belief in UFOs coming from a socialist future or alien socialist planet, and that fringe science experiments involving human–dolphin communication and water birth are also popular themes among Posadas’ followers.[ citation needed ] The Colombian section of the Posadist International denies this as an “attempt by the Colombian media to smear us”.[ citation needed ]
Posadas was the author of a number of works with an unconventional slant; he tried to create a synthesis of Trotskyism and Ufology. His most prominent thesis from this perspective was Flying saucers, the process of matter and energy, science, the revolutionary and working-class struggle and the socialist future of mankind (1968). Posadists believed that extra-terrestrials visiting earth in flying saucers must come from a socially and scientifically advanced civilisation to master inter-planetary travel and that the working-class should welcome the alien invaders as their liberators.
2 Likes
It seems like something the Long Now Foundation would do. It makes me happy to see humans care about things like this
3 Likes
Some shit on my car today, whatchu talking about.
6 Likes
Neat. Reminds me of Diaspora by Greg Egan, in which, among a parade of other awesome-sauce, uploaded people attempt to preserve the memory of their civilization against a nearby GRB by etching a record into the surface of a lifeless planet.
Aerial bombardment, or poetic revenge?
3 Likes
Ancient earthlings.
- citation needed.
1 Like
