cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4711771
At least some of the signs were desgined by Anders Sandberg:
I found the image on Bruce Sterling’s Tumblr.
The source is from u/FuckMyHeart’s (reddit user) comment, which has a bit more info:
From the same comment and user:
Important context: it’s a mix of things that do and don’t exist which all have a certain cachet with junk science. Tesla coils are definitely real, for example. It’s just that junk/fringe science may use them to make their flimflam theory seem more exciting.
Maybe “science fiction buzzwords” is a better descriptor then, because I started at antmatter and I was like “how is that ‘fringe’?”
Same here, I was very confused about that.
I similarly thought this was supposed to be a list meant to help you identify when someone is deploying fringe science. But in the context of the community (sciencefiction) and some of the other comments, I’ve realized that I think it’s meant to be sample signs you could use in a story like at a lab where that kind of “science” was being done.
AFAIK all of them are fake warning signs but, as you said, some of them reference real stuff.
I didn’t add any indication that they are fake because I assumed it was implied by posting in science fiction communities. If not, I will add a warning.