Today the radiation can even be detected by image sensor in smartphone. The tomorrow's civilization with drones/robots everywhere (and probably not much of pure meat people) would definitely not be caught off-guard by a pile of radioactive material.
A tomorrow like that will probably exist, but I think many people also expect a tomorrow to exist where people have no electricity at all and no memory of ever living in a world with something like the internet. It's especially those people that would require protection.
so, those primitive people see a sign (made by gods?), and the ones who dare to disrespect the sign are misteriosly falling ill and dying. That bound to create a religion/cult and that would probably cause much greater harm to that society.
The idea discussed in the article is how do we make a sign which can even be understood in 10,000 years? They need to understand we are saying "bad, stay away" in order for them to even know if they disrespect it. There is a risk they think we're saying "this is great, come and see!"
> That bound to create a religion/cult and that would probably cause much greater harm to that society.
Sure, it could start something harmful to society. But what if there is no warning at all? They're just as likely to start their own religion which says they should spread this stuff everywhere, far across the planet. Which could render much of Earth uninhabitable. Seems worth the risk of creating a "fear of radiation" religion, to save the Earth and life itself.
They seem to consider the possibility of societal collapse is real. The target audience may be a super futuristic society, or in the worst case, primitive hunter-gatherers.
