Human Interference Task Force

Atomsemiotik is a sense of semiotics, which is the " doctrine of the characters that can be utilized in the context of problems associated with nuclear energy ." In a narrower sense, it is to design the application of semiotics to warn of hazards of nuclear waste to posterity.

The line of research originated in 1981, when in a working group on sustainable security of nuclear waste ( "Human Interference Task Force " ) and the semiotician and linguist Thomas Sebeok was appointed on behalf of the U.S. government and the Bechtel Group. He wrote an entire chapter of the final report. In German-speaking Atomsemiotik became known as the 1982/83 twelve international scientists from East and West asked Roland Posner of the Research Center for Semiotics at the Technical University of Berlin for papers for a theme issue of the Journal of Semiotics, which appeared in 1984. Since then, the issue is taken up both serious as well as a curiosity over again.

Problem

Through the operation of nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities, radioactive substances are produced in such quantities that their health effects can still be deadly for thousands of years. Thus, the nuclear technology leads to ethical responsibility to keep the radioactive material for this long period of humans. But there is no device that is capable of continuously for thousands of years to obtain the necessary knowledge and responsibility to deal with the long-term consequences, because time dimensions exceed the previous human standards. Similar tasks arise to preserve, as in the memory of the Holocaust in other particularly complex technical systems such as genetic engineering, land mines, toxic waste dumps and space debris, but also in the need for information on special events over time. As comparable applies interstellar communication. From the latter, a relationship between the Atomsemiotik and attempts at communication as the Pioneer plaque, the Arecibo message and the Voyager Golden Record is derived.

Three things need to be communicated to posterity:

• That it is at all is a message
• That at a particular location of dangerous substances stored,
• Information about the type of the hazardous substances

The warning must also be credible, lest the addressees indeed understand the content, but not look at him as a warning of the danger, but believe that this valuable treasures to be protected against unauthorized access. Sebeok referred to in the legend of the curse of the pharaoh.

State institutions survive rarely more than a few hundred years. Religions over longer periods exist, but they " are not much older than a few thousand years and have not scientific information, but myths about supplies. " The time horizon for markers to 10,000 years it has been defined for the USA, in Germany, scientists, nuclear power proponents and opponents of nuclear power in the context of analyzes of the Working Group selection Procedure for Repository sites (AkEnd ) determined that nuclear waste be concluded for a period of one million years safely from the biosphere must - that would be about 30,000 (human) generations. On the other hand, the traditional writing of human history until now has just a period of 5,000 years. Possible warnings in cuneiform are those understood by experts in the Indus script by anyone.

History

The problems to monitor nuclear waste in the long term, has already been pointed out in 1972, concrete proposals were made in 1981. In the United States President Jimmy Carter in 1979 was the accident at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Iceland for safety on the concept of a closed circuit with a plutonium fast breeder reactor. The final disposal of nuclear waste and its safety aspects came to the fore. For safety issues the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was enacted.

1980 called for the Bechtel Corporation on behalf of the U.S. government several working groups that dealt a hand with the technical design and safety of nuclear waste disposal facility and the other to the long-term protection of nuclear waste storage against the ingress of people. 1981 determine the members of the second group Human Interference Task Force, that they had to make to communicate over thousands of thoughts and called the semiotician and linguist Thomas Sebeok in the team then thirteen -member.

In the report Sebeoks from the working group of the German semiotician Roland Posner, who headed the Research Center for Semiotics at the Technical University of Berlin responded. He planned a themed issue of the journal, which he edited for Semiotics for which he asked in 1982 twelve international scientists from East and West to posts. They appeared 1984. 1990 published the contributions as well as an update by Posner as a book.

1990 delayed the planned repository at Yucca Mountain, this is the project Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, also in New Mexico as an alternative became clear. Therefore, the Department of Energy of the United States convened a new working group called Future Panel. She got the job on the basis of the work of the Human Interference Task Force to design scenarios, as mankind could develop in the next 10,000 years. This species and probabilities to be derived for an unwanted intrusion into the nuclear waste storage. The report of the working group notions of cultural breakthroughs and technological change have been compiled, including those which have been referred to in the literature as " fantastic ". Geopolitical and linguistic changes, population movements, global disasters were equally discussed as a " Feminist World ", was written down in the "science of the 20th century as a misguided epistemological arrogance of aggressive men ". Markings and warnings on the repository will be ignored " as an example of poor quality, unsuitable and verqueres male thinking." Another scenario involved a world of radical relativism based on Thomas S. Kuhn and Herbert Marcuse. In this world people would consider the warnings as meaningless for their company result of incommensurable perspective. The Future Panel referred in his work on the general weaknesses of local labels whose permanent understanding could not be assumed.

Later in the same year 1990, a marker panel was established. Here explicitly semiotician were again called to design with other disciplines local markings and warnings. Two parallel groups presented their designs in 1991. Both agreed that a hand written messages for the near future from 100 to 500 years would be important, but they could not rely on text alone. Both were also common that they wanted to make the surface above the repository aware to express even by molding the danger. However, they differed significantly in the choice of design.

1994 the Department of Energy decided that none of the proposals would be implemented. Instead, the Ministry singled out only the marks from the more conventional of the two designs, she added to other texts and rejected the large-scale configuration of the surface. This design is to be implemented according to current legal requirement after the WIPP repository is filled and sealed, and have passed another 100 years of " active monitoring ". That will not be the case prior to the year 2133. Therefore, it is not clear whether the design is implemented and if so ever in the form adopted.

Solutions

The principle draw on all approaches since published one of two aspects, or combine them: characters in the broadest sense, which should exist within the configured time period and the placement of their meaning.

The original proposal of the Human Interference Task Force consisted of a large-scale plant at the surface above the repository. The center shall be marked by a monument, consisting of a triangular square of 300 m side length, surrounded by earthen walls. In the middle of the square a bottom plate in the form of logo for biohazard, it three obelisks and three document safes. The obelisks are labeled with warnings in various languages ​​of UN member states, in the vaults of information about the nuclear waste and its hazards are deposited. Within a radius of 1000 meters around the central monument to be erected stelae with warnings in different languages. In the subsequent debate, the proposal came on that later cultures should expand the circle of pillars to the outside and the new warnings should be kept in their latest languages.

The linguist Thomas Sebeok sat in his report is published separately from the rest of the working group on redundancy as a central principle. As the means he suggested linguistic traditions; people should actively remember the camp. For this purpose a " artificially created ritual " for the public should be created, " not tied to specific geographical areas or to any language or culture" should be. In this ritual should be conveyed in the form of a legend that certain places are connected to a deadly threat. The actual background of the risk would be known only to an elite which would be composed of technically educated and determined by co-opting their successors themselves. Sebeok selected for this elite the notion of a "nuclear priesthood" (atomic priesthood ).

The following discussion brought forth proposals that act strange. The majority of respondents suggested various methods, such as nuclear waste storage should be indicated by monumental buildings or other technical means, often associated with methods by which warnings periodically or to change when necessary regarding languages ​​and coding of characters used should be adjusted.

A number of the scientists surveyed complement substantive considerations with concerns regarding the conditions or the question as a whole. So Stanislaw Lem speaks the two basic possibilities in getting characters long periods: Immutable objects, such as in precious metals or biological encodings in genetic material that maintains itself through its own reproduction. In this context falls about the proposal of radiation cats that are targeted by genetic manipulation Show by its coat color, the presence of radioactivity. But Lem rose at the same time concerns about the effectiveness of such methods and speaks to the absence of any international, intentionally addressed to the presence of messages from the past and expresses his skepticism about obtaining the meaning of signs, including as context-free coding.

However, it has also raised fundamental criticism: The proposed solutions are intended authoritarian and fears; they would run out of a split between elites and an uninformed public. Or the thought of Atomsemiotik and protection of nuclear waste from human access would be of secondary importance, as long as no technical means existed to secure nuclear waste at all against natural hazards permanently.

In the updated edition Posner added in 1990 a thematically broader concept added: He hit a democratically elected Zukunftsrat before, the constitutional body should monitor as long-term decisions. Such Zukunftsrat should be formed in every state and at the United Nations. He sees this proposal as a response to the need by the nuclear technology " hitherto unknown degree of planning for the future ", which is only comparable " to the struggle for the control of fire ."

The hitherto most concrete proposals elaborated the two groups of marker panels in 1991 for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

The first team proposed a four-level message. The first message are large-scale earthworks, which should have either the shape of the traditional, three-rayed Radioactivity symbol or the shape of a skull. They convey that it is a message that the sender keep the message is important and gave himself for powerful. They also have the goal to mark the place as negative and dangerous. To the symbol is a ring would be built of monoliths on which messages further steps are appropriate. The second stage is a brief written warning associated with symbols of two faces with strongly negative expression: A face that is inspired by Edvard Munch's The Scream image, as well as a symbolic face that Irenaeus Eibl- Eibesfeldt designed as an expression of nausea. The next two stages are more detailed and contain detailed texts on the nature of the danger associated with highly complex symbols and diagrams, to convey a developed civilization even without a common language information about the risk of losing their place and its duration. The designers was important that in their design, the center would remain empty: " For people making a center is (we are here), the first act of arranging in chaos. A center has always been a highly valued place [ ... ] In this project we want to reverse this symbolic meaning and convey that this center is not a place of privilege, honor, or value, but its opposite. " [ This center is ] " uninhabited, despised, a void, a hole, a non-place. "

The second team wanted to put one hand on social practices that should be established in the vicinity of the repository. Among the excitation of a permanent Fellowship, visit with every 25 years, a young scientist, the deposit and assess the hazard scenarios was new was to .. On the other hand, the danger was yet to be directly expressed by the shape of the bearing. The working group suggested a thicket of huge spikes that protrude far beyond the dimensions of a human being also. Alternatively, a large smooth, black surface would have come into question. In the center of a structure to be built, should convey the details of the threat posed by the repository in the pictograms, texts, charts, and scientific illustrations.

In France, the Centre de la Manche stock for low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste in 1994 was closed. The supervisory authority ANDRA maintains the bearing further and operates a program for the permanent preservation of the documentation of the device. The agency also conducts since 2006 a research program for long-term memory.

2004 rejected the Department of Energy, the previous designs and chose only the system of monoliths from the first to use the more conventional of the two designs, as well as its high -artificial symbols to replace conventional texts and pictograms. The document envisages 32 monoliths, forming a square, include 16 other monoliths in the interior of 3 km long earthen walls. On these available in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, Arabic and a local language, is provided for the Navajo: " This is dangerous radioactive waste. Under no circumstances dig or drill. " In the center of more detailed information are provided together with cartoon -like illustrations, once on the ground, even in an underground chamber. The warning system is to be installed only if the repository full and a hundred years of decay time has passed under control of the U.S. Department of Energy, according to which the bearing is to be sealed. This is meant to last about 2133. Therefore, it is unclear whether this plan will be implemented.

A new proposal was published in 2012: A Swiss geologist and social scientists suggested for labeling nuclear waste repositories ago, tens to hundreds of thousands of pottery shards scatter with warning symbols in the area and superficial to bury. " The material may not be valuable, as it will otherwise stolen. " In addition, the residents of the region should be incorporated into the tradition. However, as symbols, he suggested the known skulls or radiation sign, without referring to the previous considerations to Atomsemiotik. In the same year commissioned the Swedish nuclear authority archaeologists to design a system of long term traditions. The project at the Linnaeus University in Kalmar runs until 2014.

Reception

The Atomsemiotik is generally considered a strange or unsuitable handling of serious and unresolved problem. It is associated with " popular science fiction ideas of the eighties " in conjunction. Sebeok himself named years later the appointment of its experts as a nuclear priesthood an error because both the scientists involved as the scientific community regarded the notion as absurd and neither took his suggestions seriously the problem. Umberto Eco found it " curious " that in Sebeoks analysis at the end of a narrative type left stick, which repeat the thousand-year - old human history: After the disappearance of the Egyptians, their texts were preserved as a myth, they would have the interest kept alive until they could be deciphered.

The concrete designs for the WIPP repository are negative:

" The WIPP project contains an admission that it can not fulfill its purpose. It is not possible to secure the waste for the predetermined period of time. He is just too long. But we have a plan that looks like a solution, although he admits that there can be no solution. "