The Talos Principle
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2026
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Future archeologists: "What do all those xyz mean"? (xyz = deprecated universe net protocol code, but nobody knows it anymore, because xyz also means a gazillion of other things)
They probably would figure out qr codes. Someone would put text underneath QR codes and relate it to the patterns.
It would be like Rosetta Stone and how it's used to translate Egyptian heiroghlyphs. Future people might be confused as to why we have qr codes when we have writing
QRs are a lot more complex than that, though. It's not a symbol mapping, it's an encoding of a binary string, which then pieces of map to characters. And even if they do figure out how to decode them, they'll just get the urls, which won't mean anything without understanding the internet.
If human civilization loses continuity, we're going to lose so much knowledge in the process. If another civilization proceeds us (either post collapse humans or some new species that goes down the big brain plus societal knowledge), they will truly live in a situation where there were ancients unfathomly advanced. It's possible that some of the things we're capable of now are forever the high point and no life on earth will ever understand that thing the same as we do now or better.
Though a lot of it will require a certain amount of advancement to even understand how advanced it is.
That said, any ink-based QR codes aren't going to last for thousands or even hundreds of years. Engraved ones might, but the ink ones will probably depend on some advanced molecular/chemical methods to even figure out that they were once coloured black and white.
QRs are a lot more complex than that, though. It's not a symbol mapping, it's an encoding of a binary string, which then pieces of map to characters. And even if they do figure out how to decode them, they'll just get the urls, which won't mean anything without understanding the internet.
True. It probably would take them decades since it's complicated. But they probably would associate patterns in the QR code to urls and text that come up a lot and eventually figure out how to decode QR codes. It would be funny that they would get useless url that provides next to no context.
It also interesting that the ink will probably only last few generations and well after the lives of anyone that cared about the deceased.
There are qr codes made from solid material. Like the material is black and the negative space is White
I wonder if, should they understand pieces of the url if they'll think we were obsessed with weird minimalist poetry or something. Though I wouldn't expect them to even get as far as seeing the urls that we see, considering any non-QR code urls will likely also fade away by then.
Looked into if they had enough qr codes they could fit them into categories based of the version patterns. It would be hard for them to figure out the url without URL below it. They probably will think it's like brail like language or minimalist poetry as you say
The more I read about history the more I don't believe people were more or less superstitious than they are today. I think the way they spoke was the only difference
Half of us are OK with destroying the world because we'll be rewarded afterwards.
A graveyard full of dead links. How spooky.
i have one of those already. my bookmarks file on the home pc, which began life ~ early 2001 and has thousands (10s of thousands.. probably) of entries. it's been 'de-duped' a few times over the years, but i've never ran a dead-link checker on them.
I have (unloaded) tabs that are years old and I’ll occasionally click on one and find a dead link. Yeesh
I have one from 10 years ago that's probably half dead. Websites just love changing their path structures and breaking every link and bookmark that pointed to them.
our small biz website is over twenty years old. it's been through numerous designs, several different backends, moved servers five times... url schemes change, site organization and content changes... but every single url that once existed and no longer does today, has a redirect to the relevant existing page. every. single. one. it's an 'automatic'. it's something i've always done dating back to the earliest of early days of http
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Technically, there's nothing stopping them from just putting the full obituary text in the QR code.
But I know they'll just use a link shortener...
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Is the actual obituary encoded into the qr (doesn't it look like it)? Or is it just a link to an ai slop site that will be offline in 3 months?
Edit:
It's a link.
http://www.qr-memories.com/timothytuttiett
Edit 2:
Their pricing is criminal. £200 for just the QR code.
Edit3: This is cringe but obviously something people want. I wonder if there is some way to do this for free/reasonable price in a way that isn't a total scam?
It's absolutely a gimmick markup, but as gimmick markups on gravestones go that's not that expensive. Not because that's reasonable but because there's so much guilting people into spending at least 4 figures while they're grieving.
Anyone could set up a website and point a QR code at it. The issue is one of longevity - what use is a QR code if the site/domain goes down in 5 years? It has to be something which lasts a period of time into the future guaranteed. Or the QR code is just self-describing - 2kb of information about the person.
As for this service, it looks like BS. I see no evidence on their website that they will even try to hold the server in perpetuity or even guarantee it will be up a year from now. I expect the service to last as long as they can convince people to fork out £200 for a link, but that's it.
Arweave permaweb link link2 or data hosted directly on ethereum blockchain. You could also use fountain coding to chain multiple qr codes and encode all the data directly in them. It would probably require some crank operated flip book like contraption behind transparent glass.
Edit: Something like this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=auYFM5_akC8
As for the service, it doesn't look very expensive to run, 1 or 2 new clients a year is probably enough to sustain it. I would expect it to run so long as the owner is alive, ironically.
As for the service, it doesn’t look very expensive to run, 1 or 2 new clients a year is probably enough to sustain it. I would expect it to run so long as the owner is alive, ironically.
I doubt blockchain will be permanent either. At least it's distributed I guess which is less fragile than a website. Maybe it would be better if somebody just embedded a (very small) obituary and picture into an RFID or something and epoxied it into the granite.
... and the irony that there would be a dead link on someone's gravestone the moment the company goes out of business... unless someone goes there and peels off the sticker.
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I'm sure funeral homes won't forget to renew the domains. Should have just encoded text.
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I think everyone is missing a key point. They won't last 2000 years, or even 100. Tech aside, nature will wear them off long before then.
We have clay tablets that are 3,000 years old and still readable. Those qr codes aren't etched deep in granite but some will survive through luck.
Granite is astonishingly durable. A marble gravestone from as little as fifty years ago is already losing its edges, whereas I've seen granite stones from 100+ years ago that still look crisp and new.
And data it links to is perfectly safe in the cloud! /s
I think you're missing a key point. Archaeology doesn't look at every single thing from 2,000 years ago. All we have are sparse records of a small fraction of artifacts that happened to be preserved against the odds due to anomalous natural events. Nature could preserve a few long into the future.
A qr code can hold data itself, like 3 kb. Using it for text and pictures is kind of redundant though since you could also just carve the picture and text on the tombstone.
Using it for an URL to be able to store more data seems like a bad idea for other reasons. The oldest still active URL is 35 years. Who knows what happens once the owner dies or just decides to stop maintaining it.
Also, for the relatives. Having to maintain the online page seems like a burden and an obstacle to letting go.
Perhaps the QR code spec defines the maximum to be 3kb but in practice that might not be ideal.
3kb is something like a 155 x 155 grid.
It would still work I guess but it would look ugly and would be harder to scan if it got dirty.
Make the tombstone an access point/server and the qr code the login to the WiFi.
The curse of the modern mummy would be a rootkit.
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I mean, given the different but not random patterns to them, I wouldn't be surprised if someone thought them to be a writing system. They're not entirely far off from one, just one designed for computers.
Yeah this is probably easy to crack, although not sure they'll use the same URL structure, personally I'd put a text not an URL but personally I'd also like my body to be tossed in the trash, or wild, dunno but burial and cremation are either too expensive or I don't like them but again I'd be dead
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A subscription service etched in literal stone targeted at the emotionally vulnerable. Not even death will stop these techbros exploiting corpses for money.
Doesn't have to be a URL. You can encode any data.
No subscription required.
Of course, it'll erode over time.
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Oh, I'm definitely adding a malware code to my tombstone.
At least a link to a jump scare site if nothing else.
I don't know how everyone else missed the obvious solution here.
Simply immortalize your obituary and image as an NFT, linked with the QR code. Not only is it saved forever on the blockchain, but also visitors can dynamically track ownership of your soul.
To be fair, Apple doesn't actually exist. His believers just attack you if you copy His Ideas and refuse to pay the tithe.
I read that Apple is just a successor belief to Samsung and that all the ideas wrapped up in the worship of Apple originated as Samsung worship. Like a pre-cursor dirty, sort of like dual theism to monotheism.
We finally managed to crack the code! It's an ancient dialect that hasn't been spoken for millennia and we don't know what it means, but at least we can decipher the image now!
We believe it was a religious enchantment of sorts. It reads: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
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