this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
919 points (98.3% liked)
Comic Strips
13476 readers
2506 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
How is the nuclear sign in any way universally understandable? It is properly by learning it's meaning.
It's intended to visually represent an atom with radiation emitting away from it.
It's not "univeral" in the sense that anyone could understand it, but in the sense that anyone who knows about what radiation is would have a clue - be them people now, or some far-future civilisation stumbling across a nuclear dump site, or aliens. It's a depiction of what is going on.
The symbol also uses elements of graphic design that make it feel unwelcoming and hostile even if you have no understanding at all. It's a design that clearly telegraphs "this is not a good thing"
Similar for the biohazard sign, which in its strange curves and spines looks almost "mutated"
I respect all the science and research in hostile design, but then I rember the chilli peppers, just trying to keep safe from mamals by simulating the feeling of fire in their mouths...
Evolution doesn't really work that way though. Peppers didn't evolve spiciness to keep animals away, they essentially randomly developed a mutation that made them unpalatable to most animals, and that increased their odds of survival. It's not doing X for Y reason, it's X happening with Y as a consequence.
The design process is actually very interesting to read about and the intentionality (whether you think it’s effective or not) is essentially the scenario that if someone were to stumble across it in 10,000 years they would recognize it is dangerous and leave it alone
That said you are probably right given there already have been a few notable incidents where people have broken into discarded medical equipment and stolen radioactive sources, poisoning dozens of people in the process