Georgia Guidestones: Instructions for a World After Collapse

On 22 March 1980, four granite slabs more than 4.8 metres tall were raised on a hill in Elbert County, Georgia. A fifth slab rested across them, with a shorter stone at the centre. The monument weighed about 109 tonnes. Ten instructions were carved in eight modern languages on the eight faces of the four upright stones, one language per face: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian. On the explanatory tablet beside the stones, the line "Let these be guidestones to an Age of Reason" sat inside a square bordered by four ancient languages: Babylonian cuneiform, Classical Greek, Sanskrit and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The ten rules were written in the eight modern languages, while the framing message the sponsors left behind used the four ancient ones. The structure became known as the Georgia Guidestones.

The first instruction demanded that humanity be kept below 500 million people and remain in balance with nature. The second called for "guiding reproduction wisely" to improve fitness and diversity. The other lines called for one living language, reason over faith, a world court, a balance between individual rights and social duties, and protection of nature. The ten lines fall into four themes: government and a world court, population and reproduction, humankind's bond with nature, and spiritual life. This was not a family memorial. It was a rulebook written for people who would live after a disaster large enough to erase the society that built it.