From what I’ve read on Wikipedia, this monument was poorly thought-out, but very well designed and rather badly executed. No major loss, in that case.
They were quite likely put up by folks that believed the same wack job shit as those that destroyed them.
If they were meant to survive nuclear apocalypse, then why did one small non-nuclear bomb bring them down? You’d think they should be better constructed or protected or something.
Elbert County, Georgia. A county with about 20k people in it.
They didn’t need to withstand a direct hit. Just the fallout/nuclear winter that would kill most of humanity.
I see. I guess odds were pretty low that a nuclear bomb would lay waste to a rural town.
As an aside, I wonder why they used so many languages if the nuclear winter survivors would have been rural Georgians like the ones who built the monument. I don’t imagine a Russian survivor would ever find themself in the American Deep South without functional airplanes and such.
Conspiracists attributed nefarious intent on these stones. I learned about them from a podcast that studies conspiratorial thinking. I didn’t realize they’d been destroyed. I kinda think I heard that ep after the time when they were bombed, so maybe that was mentioned and I didn’t internalize it.
Heads-up: conspiracy people are potentially dangerous. They blew up these stones that were probably pretty trivial / harmless. They have shot people for perceived great-replacement bullshit (synagogs). This shit isn’t just amusing and stupid. They’re irrational and they can project and cause harm.
I have mixed feelings on this monument. The parts recommending eugenics is not cool, but some of the messages like living with nature and valuing truth are important. Sadly, it was probably the encouraging of universalism, tempering with reason, and the living with nature that the religious terrorists took issue with.
I can’t say I morn the loss of the monument entirely, but the fact a more or less secular monument was destroyed for religious reasons kinda feels haunting. Kinda reminds me of the Taliban destroying the ancient statues of Buddha in Afghanistan.
