There are a few more noble goals than brainstorming about ways to make sure that our descendants are going to be okay.

All of these things come from the ability of the human being to dream and to have faith that the

future is something that can be managed. Reporter Matthew Kieltie and Musician Chad Matheny were both part of a 2014 episode of the 99% invisible podcast called 10,000 years that asked the same question we did

in our talking to the future episode. how do we communicate a warning to humans 10,000 years in the future

when language, symbols, and familiar technologies have all fallen away.

Matt, a producer for Radio Lab, was a contributor to the episode, helping to bring the story of

the long-term nuclear warning messages to a much larger audience.

We were able to catch Chad, aka Emperor X, live from his Torvan, an artist who was asked to create a song about the Raycat, that biologically

edited feline who would turn colors when getting too close to radiation.

He wrote and recorded a folk song with the intention of creating lore around the Ray Cat,

an earworm catchy enough that it could maybe, just maybe, stay stuck in the collective

American head for 10,000 years.

For the 10-year anniversary of this wildly popular episode of 99% invisible, we'll discuss

their experiences with nuclear semiotics, the rise of the Raycat and the associated public response,

as well as how these future-focused thought experiments can be vital to imagining and creating a more hopeful future.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American Hystaria.

I am so excited to have these two guys on our show

to talk about nuclear semiotics and to just see where this

conversation goes because I know Matt you know it's been about 10 years

since the 99% invisible episode came out that you were a part of as well as as you

chat and so we're basically going 10,000 years in the past.

Well now it's 9,990 years in the past. Well not now it's 9,990 years in the future that the

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