this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
769 points (98.9% liked)
Funny
12998 readers
1212 users here now
General rules:
- Be kind.
- All posts must make an attempt to be funny.
- Obey the general sh.itjust.works instance rules.
- No politics or political figures. There are plenty of other politics communities to choose from.
- Don't post anything grotesque or potentially illegal. Examples include pornography, gore, animal cruelty, inappropriate jokes involving kids, etc.
Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yes, and do you realize that not everyone in a nuclear-capable society wanders around with a geiger counter? If an archaeologist digs up a plate with an atomic diagram of a radioactive isotope, they would at least know "hey, maybe I should get a geiger counter before digging any further."
Dude, when humans die, they decompose, leaving behind a skull and bones. I'm not making any assumptions based on "pirate media." Pirates used the symbol because it's universally recognizably as implying "death" or "danger." It's highly arrogant and insulting for you to think any other culture wouldn't be capable of drawing that connection.
And modern society, particularly in scientifically-minded sectors, already view that as archaic superstition. How are you going to convince enough nuclear engineers to join your cult in order to maintain an unbroken apostolic succession for millennia?
Name one religion that has survived its original language dying off. Reconstructions such as neopaganism don't count, and neither do languages that can still be translated.
Also, if the nuclear radiation cult's mythology gets "remixed" by a new religion, then it loses the intent of preserving a warning for future generations. Do you honestly believe modern christianity has maintained the same intent as the original?
Yep. And what happens with those remains? They get buried, often with valuables - treasure! This must be a grave, let's dig it up!
Whoops, your "universal sign of danger" just attracts people.
Oh, how lucky are we to have you in our midst, who - without any research or evidence - just happened to know much better than people who have researched this.
Your arrogance is showing. It's embarrassing for you that you don't see it.
"i'Ve ReSeArChEd ThIs, trust me bro" oh yeah, and I suppose that means you've encountered a culture that doesn't understand the meaning of the skull and crossbones, since you're sooo confident they would think it means treasure?
By the way, pirates didn't mark their treasure with the symbol; that would be stupid. They displayed it on their ships to instill fear in their victims before boarding.
I haven't researched this, scientists have.
I don't think it's possible for me to communicate with you. You're literally too dense to understand that other people don't have the same cultural background and could interpret symbols differently.
And you're too dense to understand that literally every human being who's ever lived or ever will is capable of drawing the inherent connection between the skull and crossbones and death, due to the inherent relationship between them.
Literally Carl Sagan even proposed using the symbol. Is he too dense to understand too?