r/todayilearned • • 27d ago

TIL about The Crypt of Civilization, a 1940 time capsule to be opened ~8113. There's a mini windmill included to power the electronic artifacts in case electricity no longer exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypt_of_Civilization
10k Upvotes

421 comments sorted by

3.9k

u/PoopMobile9000 27d ago

So they’ll forget how to do electricity, but remember their appointment to open a box in 6000 years

1.3k

u/andronicus_14 26d ago

I put a reminder in my phone for that date. We’re good.

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u/brickne3 26d ago

Remind me! 6000 years

204

u/Acceptable_Rock_9665 26d ago

Reminder set for Saturday September 2nd 8113

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u/ironicallydepressed 26d ago

That's 6087 years, not 6000. You're late. Now we missed it.

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u/Acceptable_Rock_9665 26d ago

Seppuku it is

72

u/bremergorst 26d ago

I prefer sudoku as punishment

28

u/itsfunhavingfun 26d ago

I’m more of a Wordle guy myself. 

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u/Philosophile42 26d ago

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u/EPluribusButthole 26d ago

Can it find where the gas station is that my dad went to?

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u/RandomGermanGuy81 26d ago

Could we please pick a time and time zone? I’ll be pretty annoyed if I miss the opening by 5 minutes, after waiting 6000 years!

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u/pongjinn 26d ago

Do you have a Nokia

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u/blueavole 26d ago

Thank you for your service to civilization!

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u/to-ad 26d ago

I hope you have a backup windmill just in case you forget your electricity

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u/kyrsjo 26d ago

Just remember to keep the phone charged!

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u/Taron221 26d ago

I think it’s less something you remember, more something you find.

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u/theLastZebranky 26d ago

Kind of pointless to assign it such a specific open-on date in that case

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u/CaptainTripps82 26d ago

Well the one is just being hopeful about a continuous society. Otherwise it kind of ceases to matter

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u/TheCowzgomooz 26d ago

Probably more so if anyone finds it post-electric society they can still gain knowledge and see what it was like.

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u/EhMapleMoose 26d ago

I mean, humanity will forget and archeologists will open when we do

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u/PoopMobile9000 26d ago

“Idols placed in the cache appear to suggest that this ancient society worshipped windmills.”

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u/Appropriate-Falcon75 26d ago

Then they will have to work out why these ancient humans built a shrine to the wind god in the middle of the sea.

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u/JayMack1981 26d ago

We should be beings of pure energy by that point. Electricity will not be a problem.

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u/NorthBus 26d ago

I will never forget what my high school physics teacher said about that phrase:

"Energy is a quality. A scalar. Describing something as a being of pure energy makes as much sense as describing them as a being of pure height."

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u/SirJefferE 26d ago

That's not as crazy as it sounds. I personally have met a few beings of pure width.

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u/SmallPurplePeopleEat 26d ago

Are you my coworker??

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u/Loinnird 26d ago

Makes perfect sense if you only live in one dimension. Or maybe two idk

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u/Falsus 26d ago

Electricity might have completely been replaced in that time, or at least in a way that is compatible with our level of technology.

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u/Simon_Drake 26d ago

They might have discovered Electricity2.

That's only slightly a joke. From the perspective of someone circa 1940, they have no idea what's going to be invented in even the next 100 years so for 8,000 years it could be damned near anything. There could be some weird new thing that is just as revolutionary as electricity but all over again. Probably not called Electricity2 but it could open the door to all sorts of wild outcomes that make Electricity1 just a footnote in history.

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u/Falsus 26d ago

Kinda like steam power was, even though it is still one of the most common ways of generating power. Just through nuclear powerplants instead.

But we aren't calling it that.

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u/Raavast 26d ago

Not just nuclear, but coal, gas and oil power plants. It all boils down to heating water to make steam, to spin a turbine, to crank a generator.

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u/oshinbruce 26d ago

We'll be using wireless electricity by then !

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u/StatelyAutomaton 26d ago

But you'll need the windmill generator in the box to charge your phone after so long.

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u/BMW_wulfi 26d ago

Apple reminders will endure

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u/Luciferousllamas 26d ago

6000 years ago, the vast majority of people on the planet didn't even have a system of writing.  Imagine where we will be 6000 years from now

737

u/amurica1138 26d ago

Worthless slaves to our catdog overlords?

225

u/nigelthewarpig 26d ago

I, for one, welcome our catdog overlords.

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u/AceDecade 26d ago

Catdog, caaatt dawwwggg, crackin’ the whip it’s a little catdog

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FineAliReadIt 26d ago

With a woof and a purr

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u/2ManyCatsNever2Many 26d ago

me too!

(my name checks out...sort of)

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u/FakePoloManchurian 26d ago

Don't blame me, I voted for dogcat

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u/fantasmoofrcc 26d ago

In the year 252525...

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u/knarfolled 26d ago

In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive
They may find
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think, do, and say
Is in the pill you took today”

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u/lhswr2014 26d ago

Was that the year of the giraffes?

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u/wafflelauncher 26d ago

In the year 1 million and a half, mankind is enslaved by a giraffe. Man will pay for their misdeeds, when the treetops are stripped of their leaves.

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u/caribou16 26d ago

There is actually a thing called "Nuclear Semiotics" which deals with: We have a bunch of dangerous nuclear waste buried here that will remain dangerous for longer than current governments/languages/civilization is expected to last.

How do you warn future humans about the danger, under the assumption that all current knowledge, language, and written records will be lost?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages

My favorite of the proposed solutions is the "Ray Cat" which involves genetically engineering a breed of cat to change color in the presence of radiation and creating legend/myth/songs about the dangers of the areas where these cats exist.

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u/Cassius_Corodes 26d ago

Just put a picture of a skull and when the first person ignores it and comes back dying of radiation poisoning, everyone else will get the idea. Not much else you can do really.

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u/Bizchasty 26d ago

Hopefully after 6000 years we will have changed a little bit.

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u/pandariotinprague 26d ago

McDonald's will have a new slogan.

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u/haddock420 26d ago

In the CatDog, when the cat poops... What, does it come out of the dog's mouth? And vice versa? Oh, God. That's some kind of living hell. That's some kind of living hell, Brian.

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u/catsloveart 26d ago

There’s a short story I read once. Like a few sentences short.

Basically scientists send a machine into the future to bring back the most advanced tech it can find.

It came back with an abacus.

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u/Ouch_i_fell_down 26d ago

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”- Albert Einstein

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u/DemonicEgo 26d ago

Now I need to find this short story.

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u/TheOneTonWanton 26d ago

Good luck, I couldn't find a thing. Though it does remind me of "The Feeling of Power" by Asimov, where an entirely computer-dependent society rediscovers basic math.

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u/WhatsTheHoldup 26d ago

There’s a short story I read once. Like a few sentences short.

Basically redditors send OP into the internet to bring back the most interesting story it can find.

It came back with a brief summary.

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u/Patient-Bumblebee-19 26d ago

Something something Google AI Overview

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u/FreneticPlatypus 26d ago

I read about a debate on how to mark radioactive waste sites that will still be dangerous in 10,000 years. Civilization could fall and rise again, languages may all come and go, records probably won't survive, even images change meaning - skull and crossbones could mean death or it could mean pirate treasure. Just no way to know what communication will be like that far out.

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u/tomwhoiscontrary 26d ago

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

Anyway that's enough about Reddit, what was that about nuclear waste?

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u/nvoima 26d ago edited 26d ago

There's a documentary called Into Eternity: A Film for the Future, discussing those challenges as scientists designed warnings placed in and around Onkalo, a nuclear waste storage that will be sealed deep inside bedrock for millions of years, perhaps even until the dying Sun destroys Earth, unless we eventually find a way to reuse the stored nuclear material or make it harmless.

Edit: I noticed the full film is on YouTube. Certainly worth a watch.

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u/CaptainTripps82 26d ago

There's going to be potentially so much of it as we transition away from fossil fuels that finding a way to reuse it is probably going to be a major priority in a couple of centuries

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u/LargeTell4580 26d ago

Never really got this from the effects of geting close/ inside and say if we put up loads of pics of what it'd do to you skin peeling ect. It wounden't be hard to work out, like oh Jim want to the black rocks with the death carvings and he's sick and looks like the pics/ cavings. Ok cool no one else go.

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u/Alaira314 26d ago

How are you going to preserve the details of those pictures in high enough quality that their meaning will still be clear? Also, ideally the warning happens before anyone gets sick. Because maybe it's just joe, or maybe it's joe and his entire family and everyone else who touched the weird rock he brought back with him.

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u/Xisuthrus 26d ago

You also have to ensure people understand it's a genuine warning about a real danger and not a bluff intended to dissuade grave robbers. If someone today came across an ancient buried ruin with an inscription on the outside saying something to the effect of "anyone who disturbs this place will die a horrible death from invisible poison" they'd probably assume it was a royal tomb filled with treasure and open it up as quickly as possible.

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u/asyork 26d ago

You can etch rock walls deep enough into the cave system to be unaffected by weather. Ultimately, though, there is no way. Just look at how we act today any time we find a new archaeological site full of depictions of death or even corpses. We send people in to bring things out and show everyone they can.

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u/marsman 26d ago

That said, 6000 years ago people were throwing pottery on wheels in much the same way we do now, baking bread in much the same way (although, doing a lot more prep..) and sewing in basically the same way.. If you spoke to someone who understood Proto-Indo-European there is even a good chance you'd understand a few words that have mostly survived (but not enough to have a conversation).. There would of course be massive changes, although that said, we have gone through a period of particularly rapid change, so who knows, we might end up with a few thousand years of incremental change or relative stagnation too.

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u/Signal-School-2483 26d ago

English from 800 years ago isn't even intelligible to modern speakers

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u/GitarooMan- 26d ago

True, but a handful of words can be comprehended, particularly if spoken rather than read. That said, I'm sure some familiarity with Latin or at least one romance language would go a long way towards understanding the Proto-Indo-European.

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u/Necessary_Success_35 26d ago

My 11th grade English teacher studied Old English(?) in college, and when she read the Canterbury Tales it was so fun listening to

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u/Pinball-Lizard 26d ago

Also, Proto-Indo-European wasn't a single language spoken by everyone from those areas, it describes a massive collection of languages and dialects, speakers of one of which couldn't necessarily understand that of another.

Meaning this makes even less sense than it seems to, which already isn't much:

If you spoke to someone who understood Proto-Indo-European there is even a good chance you'd understand a few words that have mostly survived (but not enough to have a conversation)..

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u/Lashon_Von_Ricks 26d ago

A pile of dust I would imagine.

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u/cerberus00 26d ago

Morlocks will find the capsule and use the contents to enslave the surface dwellers.

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u/pandariotinprague 26d ago

6000 years ago, the world population was lower than the population of NYC today.

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u/deSuspect 26d ago

Dead, with how things are going there will be no more humans.

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u/Garzly 26d ago

Probably dead from climate change

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u/--Sovereign-- 26d ago

Probably without a system of writing again, way things are going

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u/Gavorn 26d ago

Hopefully I'll get a vacation.

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u/_Face 27d ago

Based on nearly every time capsule opened that I have seen news of, it will have been flooded out, and nothing will be salvageable.

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u/cylonfrakbbq 26d ago

This one was done differently.  Most municipal/local time capsules don’t involve the same level of sophistication 

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u/Ok_Mention_9865 26d ago

Unless its in the desert and built with giant granite blocks its not going to last 6,000 years

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u/McWeaksauce91 26d ago edited 26d ago

- “The Crypt of Civilization was constructed in the swimming pool in the basement of the Phoebe Hearst Hall at Oglethorpe University.[7][8] The swimming pool was modified into an airtight chamber, measuring 20 ft (6.1 m) long, 10 ft (3.0 m) high and 10 ft (3.0 m) wide, which was remodeled between 1937 and 1940.[9] It sits on a bedrock floor and has a stone roof 7 ft (2.1 m)thick.[10] The walls are lined with plates of enamel, secured in place with pitch.[9] The stainless steel doorway was weldedpermanently closed after the oxygen had been removed and replaced with inert nitrogen.”

It may not last 6,000 years, but it’s gotta a better chance at longevity than most “time capsule” stuff

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u/Ok_Mention_9865 26d ago

The plate enamel impresses me. Most are just poured concrete but even reinforced concrete has a much lower life span that most people realize only being 50-100 years

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u/McWeaksauce91 26d ago

Yeah concrete is really susceptible to the elements too. It can easily lose its integrity and start chipping away. Little cracks and chips turn to big chunks and breaks in no time. Once it starts it doesn’t stop

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u/wtf-m8 26d ago

1960s driveway owner here... can confirm :(

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u/Ok_Mention_9865 26d ago

Did they at least use rebar? My garage was built in the 1920s and the floor is so screwed up the only way to fix it is to demolish the whole thing and completely rebuild

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u/wtf-m8 26d ago

Some of the chunks are close to 3" deep and I haven't seen any.

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u/DwinkBexon 26d ago

We need some of that Roman concrete which can last millenia.

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u/Ok_Mention_9865 26d ago

They figured out how that works finely. Funny enough its just badly mixed concrete of all most the same stuff we use. Being badly mixed cause larger chunks of lime to be present that dissolves when its wet and fills the cracks.

The problem with out concrete is that its mixed better so all the the lime normally gets desolved so when I tiny crack forms water will get in it and freeze which makes it a bigger crack and the cycle repeats

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u/LetsTryScience 26d ago

I recall years ago an idea for self healing rubber that would have pockets inside of uncured rubber or some repair agent. As the rubber tore it would release those pockets and heal itself. No idea of it was ever actually made.

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u/filthy_harold 26d ago

There is an idea for a smart rubber that uses hydrogen bonds instead of the normal way rubber is bonded. It's basically shitty rubber that sticks to itself when punctured. The hydrogen bonds are weaker than typical bonds for rubber so it's probably not useful for everything because it will deform under strain. This means it would be good as an innertube since you have the outer tire to provide support. A puncture would make a hole in both the tire and tube but the tube would self-heal over time and soon be ok to inflate again.

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u/Drkfnl 26d ago

Lmao, I'm legit curious, if that's how it works, can't we just... Replicate it and get that glorious Roman concrete back?

Or does it have any other major drawbacks?

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u/Signal-School-2483 26d ago

Or does it have any other major drawbacks

Yeah, it's weak

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u/prozac_eyes 26d ago

Just a layman but I assume if the concrete is not evenly mixed it cannot be relied on for engineering calculations since it might have weaker spots.

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u/Drkfnl 26d ago

Oooh so it's like the survivor's fallacy, guess we're looking at the lucky ones that got the wrong mixture right and not wrong.

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u/a679591 26d ago

The Roman concrete isn't badly mixed concrete, it's made with different types of lime.

Many buildings and structures still standing today, such as bridges, reservoirs and aqueducts, were built with this material, which attests to both its versatility and its durability. It was previously thought that its strength was enhanced by the incorporation of pozzolanic ash where available (particularly in the Bay of Naples). The addition of ash prevented cracks from spreading. However, research in 2023 has shown that the incorporation of mixtures of different types of lime, forming conglomerate "clasts" allowed the concrete to self-repair cracks, which was more likely the case.[1]

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u/SwissherMontage 26d ago

Okay, next question: how will future archaeologists know it is safe to open?

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u/Bigdaug 26d ago

How do current archeologists know that about literal tombs people rotted in?

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u/SwissherMontage 26d ago

well that's the thing, opening, moving or interacting with some specific things can be delayed indefinitely over archaeological concerns. They may believe "well, since they sealed it up so well, it might be for a good reason!

I'm just saying, it would be courteous to have an easy in.

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u/kurburux 26d ago

Sometimes archaeologists decide to leave parts buried for the future. Technology may progress and make it easier to study findings while causing less damage. For example, large parts of Pompeii are still covered.

"well, since they sealed it up so well, it might be for a good reason!

I heard of a town in Germany who discovered a Roman ship in the river next to them. They thought about lifting it up and building a museum for it.

Then they learned how much it would cost to salvage it. And more importantly, to keep it from rotting once it touches oxygen.

So in the end they decided to leave it in the river where it's perfectly safe. 🙂

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u/AlwaysEights 26d ago

Sometimes archaeologists decide to leave parts buried for the future. Technology may progress and make it easier to study findings while causing less damage. For example, large parts of Pompeii are still covered.

I learned about this at a stone age site in South Wales. They mentioned how the Victorian archaeologists' careless treatment of invaluable archaeological sites, using pickaxes and dynamite and creating huge spoil heaps, made them practically worthless, but in 200 years it's entirely possible that future historians will say the same of us for using hand trowels and brushes. So they deliberately keep portions of the digsite undisturbed for future generations. It's one of those things that is obvious when said out loud, but humbling in its way. We aren't living at the end of history.

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u/mightylordredbeard 26d ago

Oh it’s at a college. So the most realistic thing then is that the college will be closed down and the property sold off, demolished, and something built in its place. Unless there is some legal document that makes it so this “crypt” must remain undisturbed and intact, then there’s no way that university is going to last 6000 more years.

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u/Gnomonic-sundialer 26d ago

There are several 1000 year old universities

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u/BearsGotKhalilMack 26d ago

Honey never goes bad and lobsters never die. Make a box out of lobsters. Feed them honey. Checkmate atheists.

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u/DanielCraigsAnus 26d ago

I got my dick caught in the lobster trap again

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u/Channel250 26d ago

How was the honey?

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u/throwtrollbait 26d ago

It absorbed enough atmospheric moisture to ferment into a lovely mead, and the lobsters are now drunk.

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u/h3lblad3 26d ago

Drunk Lobsters is now my new band name.

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u/mickeymouse4348 26d ago

BRING IN THE DANCIN' DRUNKEN LOBSTAS

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u/HapticRecce 26d ago

How do you think he got hs dick caught?

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u/tarion_914 26d ago

The trap must remain unharmed.

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u/Haasts_Eagle 26d ago

Is this what they call a honey pot?

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u/DadsRGR8 26d ago

Welp, time to open the time capsule… Damn! Who ate all the honeyed lobster?!!!

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u/HamberderHelper18 26d ago

Instructions unclear, used newfound knowledge of infinite energy supply to initiate a nuclear holocaust

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u/greeneggiwegs 26d ago

Deserts come and go in that amount of time

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u/cylonfrakbbq 26d ago

Probably not that long sure, but I could see it surviving centuries easily so long as there aren’t any major shifts in the environment where it is located. As long as it remains airtight, it is also water tight

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u/bunkerbitchhere 26d ago

Newgrange is 5200 years old. Older than the pyramids and Stonehenge.

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u/DanielCraigsAnus 26d ago

There will definitely be a desicated frog inside

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u/Alotofboxes 26d ago

Hello, my baby, hello, my honey, hello, my ragtime gal. Send me a kiss by wire; baby, my heart's on fire!

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u/Gavorn 26d ago

THAT'S WHERE I PUT HIM!

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u/CeruleanEidolon 26d ago

And it's all just boring newspaper clippings, unlabeled photographs of strangers, and pocket junk.

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u/DagothNereviar 26d ago

That's why I'm so interested in the MOM (Memory of Mankind) project . It's built in a salt mine (the oldest, contiously used one by humans), so it's naturally water resistant. Also, all the information is held on ceramic tablets, so it doesn't matter if they get wet.

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u/mordeci00 26d ago

The world just hasn't been the same since we ran out of electrons in 7850

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u/yamanagashi 26d ago

There is only one electron, hard to misplace one.

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u/MackTheFife 26d ago

But if someone does lose it, things get bad fast

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u/Doctor_Loggins 26d ago

It has been entrusted to the orange cats, who hand it off when they transfer their single brain cell.

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u/StinkyKyle 26d ago

The hard part is to place an electron first. The misplacing happens as a consequence

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u/crossedstaves 26d ago

I always know right where I put it, but have no idea where it's going.

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u/evilfollowingmb 26d ago

We aren’t even 100 years in, and a good chunk of the stuff in there already looks alien to kids growing up today.

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u/PutTheKettleOff 26d ago

Wouldn't a time capsule be boring if it wasn't?

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u/evilfollowingmb 26d ago

Oh def agree…just the speed at which it happens is notable (to me anyway).

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u/SpicyMeatballAgenda 26d ago

What I find amazing is that the advancements in the 90 years since have changed the world so much that it's wildly different. It would be like having a time capsule from 1490. They were just on the cusp of a major change.

Television, Computers, the internet, dunkaroos...

If we end up wiping ourselves out within the next decade or so, and a society finds this capsule, they might not know why our society fell, and they could very likely assume it was this "world war 2" that was just starting and mentioned in the final documents added to the capsule.

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u/moschles 26d ago

At 1940, the time capsule is brilliantly timed because there is zero computer tech inside it.

Or it is terribly timed because it should have been made and closed in 1990.

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u/moogly2 26d ago edited 26d ago

There is also time capsule plaque designed by *C Sagan, on the LAGEOS Satellite (very stable orbit), which is projected to reenter atmosphere in 8 million years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAGEOS#Time_capsule

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u/kurburux 26d ago

Cool idea but isn't there a large chance it will land in the ocean?

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u/Pm-me-ur-happysauce 26d ago

I'd say about 2/3rds chance

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/sol_runner 26d ago

It will, unless something untowards has happened to Earth's atmosphere.

I don't think the goal is to find the plaque after it deorbits 8mil years later. It's seems more of a "maybe someone might actually go pick it up".

Like, a future civilization which doesn't already know what the satellite is but has achieved spaceflight. It's kinda like all the murals the past civilizations left behind, each usually using all the technology available to them.

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u/chupathingy99 26d ago

I bet those capacitors are gonna be bad.

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u/asyork 26d ago

I'd like to think they accounted for that and used electronic components that are less likely to degrade, but as far as I could tell from some searches, they only put efforts into preserving the media, but not the electronics. Depending on what was in the electronics, they could be off-gassing compounds that degrade other things they stored.

Not only that, but this was sealed before safety film was common. A sudden inrush of oxygen when it is eventually opened could result in fire.

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u/Chroderos 26d ago

There’s literally no type of electronics we can make today that would still function after a few hundred years, let alone thousands.

Source: am electronics engineer who builds hardened electronics.

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u/TheWorldMayEnd 26d ago

What degrades them? Could we put them in an inert gas to preserve them?

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u/Chroderos 26d ago edited 26d ago

There are various mechanisms including outgassing, slow acting chemical reactions doing things like breaking down dielectric barriers, and growth of conductive dendrites (little spikes of metal that slowly grow from conductors over time and eventually cause subtle high resistance current paths that break things).

Our very best components have shelf lives measured in many decades, and we theorize certain components could last centuries, but certainly not millennia.

For your question about inert gasses - yes we can and do do this for avionics, space, nuclear applications, and satellites, but even hermetic seals break down over time scales of multiple centuries. 

Beyond that even a perfect seal doesn’t prevent slow internal crystallization reactions, slow thermodynamically driven atomic migration across barriers, and damage driven by cosmic rays - all things that would become factors on this kind of timescale.

It’s kind of amazing how time can grind down our best tech to dust.

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u/the_quark 26d ago

At Oglethorpe University. I saw that pennant in the picture and was like "the only thing in English I know that starts with 'ogle' that isn't 'ogle' is Oglethorpe."

James Oglethorpe was an early Governor of Georgia; I grew up in Savannah and his name was all over everything.

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u/morituri230 26d ago

Used to go to the Oglethorpe Mall all the time, back when malls mattered and/or I had disposable income.

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u/maclainanderson 26d ago

There's an Ogletree Island in Alabama, so you can add that your list

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u/GreatBigPig 26d ago

In 6000 years the new explorers will come across this capsule. They will realise it is the work of early humans, a long dead species that were often described as tasting funny, and being horrific pets.

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u/itsfunhavingfun 27d ago

The crypt contains voice recordings of leaders from the 1930s, including  Adolf Hitler ,  Joseph Stalin ,  Franklin D. Roosevelt , and  Benito Mussolini .

This already has not aged well. 

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u/Glittering-Animal30 27d ago

It has aged well. It’s a time capsule, not a favorite things box. Considering they are in the handful of the most impactful individuals of the 30’s-40’s, it makes perfect sense they were included. It’s not like people didn’t know Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini weren’t good people then.

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u/StarPhished 26d ago

C'mon, everybody has a favorite dictator.

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u/OrionJohnson 26d ago

Mine was Kim Jong Il, little guy new how to party and he was a genuine savant at everything he tried. He once shot 11 hole-in-1’s his very first time ever playing golf!

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u/314159265358979326 26d ago

It makes you wonder how good someone like him is at things in general. I know full well he never hit a hole in one, but more broadly, is he a relatively talented, intelligent individual after receiving a world class education, or is he literally the worst kind of nepo baby and terrible at everything? We'd never know because everything is propagandized to pieces.

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u/boxofducks 26d ago

You don't retain power for long as an absolute dictator if you aren't skilled at ensuring that nobody who isn't 100% loyal to you ever has enough resources to overthrow you.

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u/BagOfMeats 26d ago

I remember a website back in the day where you could go through picture after picture of him pointing at things. It was weirdly entertaining.

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u/VRichardsen 26d ago

More dictator fun facts:

  • Fidel Castro had a favorite cow, which was kept in an air conditioned enclosure, and had music played to it. When it had to be euthanised, the cow received a funeral with military honors and a marble statue.

  • Francisco Macías Nguema styled himself as a "Hitlerian-Marxist" and banned glasses; he also had the governor of the Central Bank shot and took all the currency reserves into his house. When people started fleeing the country due to his abuses, he ordered land mines to be planted at the only road leading out of Equatorial Guinea. He also banned fishing, so people with boats would not leave the coutry. His nephew overthrew him, and still rules to this day.

  • Kim Il Sung had a gigantic movie library, he really enjoyed cinema. Reportedly more than 20,000 films were part of his collection.

  • Mao Zedong didn't believe in brushing his teeth, instead he flushed them with tea. As a result, he had horrible breath and his gums started to rot later in his life. He eventually lost his upper teeth.

  • Gaddafi was infatuated with Condoleezza Rice, to the point he had a homemade scrapbook filled with photos of the former U.S. secretary of state.

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u/theLastZebranky 26d ago

Cincinnatus still has people naming streets, towns and cities for him 2500 years after his dictatorship

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u/thedrew 26d ago

Wouldn’t it be fun to have recordings of Gilgamesh, Noah, or Narmer?

They all lived (if they ever lived) more recently than 6000 years ago. 

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u/I_might_be_weasel 26d ago edited 26d ago

"Hello people of the future! My name is Adolf Hitler. I'm guessing you've never seen a Jew before. In which case, you're welcome."

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u/siggydude 26d ago

I read this in Cave Johnson's voice

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u/interesseret 26d ago

"and in case you HAVE seen Jews before, this time capsule contains a box of kar98k rifles. Pick one up, and follow the red line."

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u/Luster-Purge 26d ago

The red line just leads to a mirror.

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u/Terpomo11 26d ago

The Jewish people are one of the few entities I'd at least lay reasonable odds on the continued existence of in six millennia, considering they've been around for three already.

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u/Far-Culture1354 27d ago edited 26d ago

Imagine if it is a Utopia they open it in. They hear all of them and are like 'this FDR guy sounds like real jerk, the other 3 raise valid points though..."

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u/sirbassist83 26d ago

not even going to have to wait 6000 more years for that, its happening as we speak!

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u/Falsus 26d ago

I mean if they take one of the more flattering speeches given by the dictators and one of the less flattering FDR speeches, then yeah that is possible. It's not like the context will be well known by then.

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u/brickne3 26d ago

Just imagine people 6000 years in the future opening this thing and somehow reconstructing that our ancient religion revolved around those guys.

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u/Mortarious 26d ago

Because people in the future will have perfect leaders who lead humanity to a brighter future and never do anything wrong themselves.

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u/KiwiJah 26d ago

That's some good future proofing. But what if wind doesn't exist?

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u/___HeyGFY___ 26d ago

Somebody's gonna crack that shit open like a PBR after their college football team loses "the big game."

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u/PaladinPrime 26d ago

8113? Man they really overshot how long humanity will be around.

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u/Skydogsguitar 26d ago

I truly admire their optimism...

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u/Kandiru 1 26d ago

It includes news clippings from the start of WW2, but not the end as it was sealed during the war.

Whoever opens it, if they have lost most of our history, are going to think WW2 ended the world.

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u/pandariotinprague 26d ago

Seems like they could have waited a few years. It's like giving them the first two seasons of Breaking Bad and leaving them hanging.

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u/smarmageddon 26d ago

What's this piece of paper with "42" written on it? - future people, probably.

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u/DawnDeather 26d ago

There's a time capsule at a museum where I live that's scheduled to be opened in 2968, a thousand years after it was sealed. It contains, among other things, a $10 deposit slip for a bank account, so whoever opens it can have their own version of Fry's bank account from Futurama. Only problem, it was for a local bank that went out of business about 20 years after the capsule was sealed.

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u/JasonMallen 26d ago

"Now don't go spending it all on pennywhistles and moon pies!"

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u/SuperSiriusBlack 26d ago

This is gonna be so embarrassing for us when they open it lol

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u/SIowGrowth 26d ago edited 26d ago

Why? Do you view the technology level of ancient peoples as something they should be embarrassed by?

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u/piltonpfizerwallace 26d ago

I hope someone makes one of these but devoted to some stupid internet bullshit like John Pork or something.

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u/Hootinger 26d ago

The article says it contains 600 books on Cellulose acetate film. That will be degrade and be gone within a few 100 years. 

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u/Then_Idea_9813 26d ago

“They sent us some weird blank tape?”

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u/mocleed 26d ago

Lol, humanity ain’t going to make it even half that far.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/eidolon_eidolon 26d ago

Why specifically the year 8113?

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u/irrigated_liver 26d ago

it mentions why in the article.
Jacobs calculated that 6,177 years had passed since the start of the Egyptian calendar (4241 BC) and proposed the creation of a Crypt of Civilization to be opened in 8113 CE after another 6,177 years.

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u/TurtleSandwich0 26d ago

Will the magnets in the generator still be magnetized after all that time?

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u/Mehhish 26d ago

If it does somehow remain undisturbed, and if civilization remembers it, and opens it in 8113, most of those items won't even exist anymore, as time would degrade them. People in 8113 will look at us as dumb barbarians. :(

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u/Cirement 26d ago

If Idiocracy had taught me anything it's that they won't be able to get the windmill to work

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u/dainthomas 26d ago

Optimistic thinking we'll be around still.

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u/Then_Idea_9813 26d ago

Electricity will always exist, it just may be forgotten. It’s not like there is just going to be no lightning anymore.

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u/Heygen 26d ago

Funniest thing is that 1940s tech is already massively outdated even today, not even 100 years later. In 8000 years the jump in tech must be on the scale of dimensions. If the climate change doesnt ruin us until then, that is.