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bingidingi

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yeah it’s a little bleak tbh, the scents are an attempt to influence your memory and make you hungry, and things like magic bands are meant to make you spend as much money as possible by making money more opaque

it might go back to the american superiority complex; african and asian homeless people are different and distant enough to make us feel good about ourselves (poor foreigners), american homeless are “like us” so they shouldn’t have an excuse (just get a job like i did)

Using the green cross for a pharmacy supports the suggested use as a generic symbol for health...

I didn't exclude Asia, I stated that my experience there is more limited than the continents I listed. The US isn't a reliable authority on any international standards.

If you started up a new video game and the health packs had green crosses instead of red ones, would you be confused?

Asking works of fiction to stop using a symbol doesn't seem at all like a moral panic to me. What they're saying is "this symbol has a specific meaning, and it's important to us that it's not diluted."

They're not calling for video games to be banned or even re-labeled, they're just trying to prevent the red cross from losing the intended meaning (which comes with an international treaty intended to protect aid workers)... it seems like the method of applying this mostly consists of asking nicely.

It's about the ubiquity in fiction. If every police box in fiction was a time machine, it stands to reason someone may be confused when encountering a real police box for the first time.

The misuse of the red cross, especially in video games, is rampant to the point that the Red Cross is worried about confusion.

There's additional issue with the fact that video games are very common, but warzones and disaster areas less so. So it's quite possible the fictional association, if overused, could redefine the real-life usage for many people. We already see some of this in the comment section... many people don't understand the difference between "health" as a concept and the red cross as an element protected by international law.

It seems reasonable to try and claw that meaning back.

These are medical units that fall under the protections of the red cross as outlined in the Geneva Conventions.

"Under the Geneva Conventions, the three distinctive emblems of the red cross, red crescent and red crystal are intended to identify and protect medical and relief workers, military and civilian medical facilities, mobile units and hospital ships during armed conflict."

https://www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/atg/PDF_s/Inte... (PDF)

If I start putting the toilet symbol on doors without toilets behind them, eventually you're going to stop expecting toilets behind the door. You don't need an example to know that.

This also isn't about trademark, the red cross is outlined in the Geneva Conventions as a symbol with a specific meaning. That meaning is specific because it's meant to protect aid workers as neutral parties in conflict.

The argument is that diluting the mark can cause confusion, and that confusion can cause death.

"Videogames cause death" feels like a bad-faith oversimplification of the point they're trying to make. It's understandable, as video games are often wrongly attributed as creating violence... but that's not what they're saying.

They don't want video games to stop representing medics, for example... they just don't want the red cross to be synonymous with health, because it's much more specific than that.

Where do you get this confidence that there's no confusion with the green cross?

The continents of Europe, Africa, Australia... I've also seen it used in China but I'm not as familiar with Asia because I haven't lived there.

I'm sorry, but if your only example is the US then you're likely to be wrong about a lot of things.

the monthly premium isn’t even the worst part, deductibles keep getting higher and it’s not uncommon to be surprised with a bill for services that weren’t covered by your plan (and it’s very difficult to ensure you’re 100% covered before receiving services, and nearly impossible in an emergency)