#nuclear semiotics

radwolf76:

spitblaze:

A guide for new tumblr users:

1) This place is not a place of honor… no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here. 

2) What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. 

3) The danger is in a particular location… it increases towards a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us. 

4) The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. 

5) The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

6) The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

7) The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Everyone knows about the “this is not a place of honor” nuclear waste site warning. But the one I find really endearing is the other idea to breed cats that change color or glow as a warning (from Wikipedia):

1. French author Françoise Bastide and the Italian semiotician Paolo Fabbri proposed the breeding of so-called "radiation cats" or "ray cats". Cats have a long history of cohabitation with humans, and this approach assumes that their domestication will continue indefinitely. These radiation cats would change significantly in color when they came near radioactive emissions and serve as living indicators of danger. In order to transport the message, the importance of the cats would need to be set in the collective awareness through fairy tales and myths. Those fairy tales and myths in turn could be transmitted through poetry, music and painting. The story of this original project was depicted in the 2016 short documentary “The Ray Cat Solution”.

Can’t stop thinking about the cultural integration just being

“Row, row, row your boat /

Gently down the stream /

Merrily, merrily, merrily /

Its bad when cats turn green!”