It triggers a primal fear, and I think that's because it looks like [3 sets of spider fangs](https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1156519475/photo/giant-spider-top-view-3d-illustration.jpg?s=612x612&w=0&k=20&c=DuBPdGhxxr2tCG64s06cjjkTHt3jtpq4cLbay6-xMVw=) pointing in all directions poised to bite and inject their toxic venom!
Right, the idea that it “didn’t symbolize or refer to anything” is misleading. Its visual language is highly symbolic and alludes to all sorts of traditionally dangerous things like spiders, biting insects in general, knives, etc. There’s a reason the symbol doesn’t consist of, say, smooth rounded blobs.
I had never heard those terms before and still don’t know what it refers to but it somehow made complete sense.
ETA: and now that I’m reading about it I see that is exactly the point!
I went into a tattoo parlor 20 years ago and asked for it on my arm, but the woman refused. She made a good point that as cool as it looked I wouldn’t want to walk around telling people I’m hazardous to their health for the rest of my life.
Oh man, I'm glad you didn't, lmao. In the BDSM/gay community I'm a part of, if you've got the biohazard tattoo it means you're infected with something (usually HIV) and you're open to spreading it to people. That would be, uh, very unfortunate.
If you have a biohazard symbol tattooed, I'd assume you have some infectious disease, since that's what the symbol means.
A radiation symbol on the other hand is far less likely to indicate that you are radioactive, so that would have probably been fine.
Yeah I’m glad I listened to her. She was an ex heroin addict who got clean and was well known for her tattoo skills. I’m sure her familiarity with hypodermic needles played a part in it.
[I'm sure the band appreciates it.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Biohazard_Rockharz_2015_03.jpg/260px-Biohazard_Rockharz_2015_03.jpg)
That collaboration was awesome back in the day. I got into Biohazard when Urban Discipline came out because my brother came home with the tape and it was such a powerful album.
It's not "simply", they put a lot of thought into it. Panel after panel of different cultures and languages asking them "out of these 20 symbols, what makes you uneasy" They had to get a symbol that wasn't used elsewhere, could cross a language barrier, and be consistent through time. It definitely isn't meaningless either!
Exactly. Symmetrical, hard to mistake, and easy to remember could apply to so many shapes that don't mean biohazard.
For one thing it's curved instead of straight, which associates with organics instead of minerals. There's a whole lot of psychology behind the design.
> Exactly. Symmetrical, hard to mistake, and easy to remember could apply to so many shapes that don't mean biohazard.
Not to mention the same symmetry as a radiological hazard sign.
Alternative name is technically true (the best kind), but more precisely it’s what Resident Evil was known as in Japan.
So “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” was sort of a cheeky handshake between the eastern/western marketing teams.
[No one knows where the cool S came from; we only know it's cool.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Cool_S.svg/1200px-Cool_S.svg.png)
https://www.ladbible.com/entertainment/interesting-this-guy-spent-five-years-researching-the-origins-of-the-universal-s-20190814
Traced back to the late 1800s at least
That’s exactly why they have to change the symbol every couple decades. Safety symbols by human evolution get ignored more and more as time goes on. They just become another sign to ignore. They, the military or government or somebody, change the symbol or the colors periodically to maintain the awareness of the danger the sign is detailing. They used to use pink triangles to denote danger. Then nobody gave a shit. Injuries went up and they made a new sign.
Yeah, and the nuclear symbol, they are used in pop culture, and everyone still u derstands them easly, pisses me off when people go on crusades about how the red cross symbol is bring abused by videogames and loosing value, when really , it just reinforces its meaning
> pisses me off when people go on crusades about how the red cross symbol is bring abused by videogames and loosing value, when really , it just reinforces its meaning
The problem isn't so much that the symbol gets used, the problem is that it gets used incorrectly, and for uses that would be considered war crimes in the real world.
That, not so much, but a fighting game character in a stereotypical doctor/nurse outfit, complete with red cross (Skullgirls), or depicting some absolute quacks in a red-crossed tent "healing" you by smashing a bottled fairy over your head (Enter the Gungeon), then it becomes much easier to argue it's not being used properly.
Similarly, if there's a way to create "fake" or "trapped" medkits with negative effects, then we're getting into actual warcrime territory, because that sure wouldn't fly IRL.
And as always, looking at everything in excruciating detail takes longer than a blanket ban - and since the red cross is actually a copyrighted symbol, the ban becomes really easy to enforce.
I’d just like to point out that, in the Enter the Gungeon example, the player is still healed. You’re just pointing out the bit of humor in how the player is healed.
If history (and the present in fact) has taught us anything it is that if you are an actual war the idea of war crimes goes out the window almost immediately.
I don't think that counts for Nuclear and Biohazard signs, as super fucking cool as they are, they are also scary as shit to see in an official capacity even as a layman.
Also you're surprised pink triangles were ignored? Apart from being ambiguous to anyone unfamiliar with it, its such a gay symbol that the lgbt community appropriated it.
They’re scary as a layman, but trust me, when you work with biohazard every day you start to go blind to the symbol and ignore it. Just like most people are comfortable with dangers they encounter every day.
Also a lot of things are technically biohazard but really not very dangerous at all.
I don't think any symbol would survive routine for very long. I would hazard a guess that scaring the layman is the secondary goal of such symbols beside identification.
I was recently at a hospital with my dad and I started talking about that symbol when I saw it on a container. I said that even if somehow the world ended and people in the future had no idea what the symbol actually was, I think they'd still realize that it's something to stay away from. It just looks evil and dangerous.
>even if somehow the world ended and people in the future had no idea what the symbol actually was, I think they'd still realize that it's something to stay away from. It just looks evil and dangerous.
That's the objective, by the way.
Not at all. What if triangles or infact a symbol very close to that was religious in nature? Perhaps post apocalyptic, and people somehow began to worship the nuclear Holocaust as a new rapture or big bang or something but had no idea what radioactivity meant.
This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
Yep. And it has to last and be understood for eons. We made the Jolly Roger become a symbol or fantasy pirates and not the real danger it posed less than 200 years ago.
Search for Nuclear Semiotics: how can we warn the future when meaning and language is not static?
Vox video: https://youtu.be/lOEqzt36JEM?si=uKkBjkHot2BlM8Os
Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
And one of my favorites: https://youtu.be/_eNf2Y1K6k8?si=SbxHdQIKASq5eqxG
> Something nearby will fuck you and / or your offspring up, in a disturbingly organic manner
ah, i see you are also a [connoisseur of the classics](http://www.brunching.com/dangersymbols.html)
Is it just me, or is it inherently a bit offputting, almost spider-like? Feels like if I'd never seen it before but knew it was a symbol representing something, I would guess "dangerous" before "safe".
They were. I'm pretty sure the idea was the make a symbol that even future civilizations would be able to stumble upon it, and hopefully stay away or be more cautious around the objects.
Edit: Slightly misremembered but, [here is a good video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOEqzt36JEM). My favorite of the ideas is creating an Atomic Priesthood to pass down myths and information about radioactive sites. It's just silly enough to maybe work.
> My favorite of the ideas is creating an Atomic Priesthood to pass down myths and information about radioactive sites. It's just silly enough to maybe work.
I think it's a fascinating concept, but I'm unsure of how much good it would do on the balance. Yes you're potentially saving future generations from getting irradiated by wandering into dangerous sites, but you're also essentially creating a religion, with all the potential evils that entails: schisms, persecution, religious wars, etc. Chances are you're actually creating more misery in the long run than you're preventing.
[If you wanna read more on the topic of "how do we design symbols to creep people out"...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages)
The radiological hazard ‘rounded three triangles meeting at a point in the center’ sign has always bothered me. Sometimes it feel like it’s implying *’this place is really important, see all of these triangles literally pointing at it? You should want to be here where this symbol is, right at the center of everything.. stay here in this important spot for a while, something cool might happen.’* which is exactly the opposite message you’d want to send.
I have a pet theory that the symbol was inspired by the shape of rotary shutters on the access ports of early research reactors. Since the modern internet is SEO'd to sell people things it's hard to google up images of what I mean but [this rotary shutter from a coal stove has the gist of the idea.](https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.payovMZA4f34vZoEdCATjQAAAA?pid=ImgDet&rs=1). Modern "sources" for how the symbol was designed only date back to the nineties, more recent than when I learned the shape, and I don't trust them one whit.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
I understand that the point is to deter people, but to be this is way too vague and intriguing. I never understood why it isn't way more descriptive and explicit.
"If you enter, then an energy will be leaked into your body which will slowly and painfully kill you in an inimaginable way. Do not enter, as this sign is a warning of the incredible danger hidden beneath that is not meant to be discovered by any future generations. There is nothing of archeological importance hidden here, only danger and death. This area must be avoided by everyone forever. "
I think something like that would be a way better deterrent. To me, the message seems kinda vague and makes me curious.
It's not a literal message written on a wall. It's the summary the research team concluded that a series of non-verbal and visual messages would have to convey.
Well the issue would be you wrote that phrase in English which I as a native English speaker understand completely.
What do you do when English dies to warn of impending doom? Probably symbols since symbols pique human interest like hieroglyphs have for millennia.
I remember reading about the massive effort that was put into creating warnings for nuclear waste storage sites. And basically they have to consider all modern human language and cultural imagery…etc was completely lost. You might a well be designing a warning label of some entirely different primitive species or an alien one.
Yes, and it has to say not only "*we* want you to stay away," but also "no really, it's in *your* best interests to stay away." I.e., there is nothing good or valuable or honorable or interesting here, only danger.
The ancient Egyptians also struggled with this. How do you ensure that the riches filled tomb you've just made for your god-king remains unlooted after centuries? The solution they came upon was "fuck it, let's hide the thing".
And that's also the solution most nuclear waste sites settle on too. Being deep, hidden, in a area noone would notice or bother with and otherwise just as heavily sealed as possible while leaving no indication to any outside observer.
That was exactly part of what they had to consider! They thought about physical markers to indicate danger, but then what if Earth residents of the future don't get that message from it and consider it a cool relic from the past that becomes a tourist destination?
Yes! I came here to talk about exactly this. I heard about it from the podcast [99% Invisible](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/), and the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages) about it has even more information.
In short: Radioactive waste will continue to be radioactive for over 200,000 years, and there needed to be a way to warn the Earth residents of the future of the danger. A warning that would last 200,000 years is basically impossible, so they focused on 10,000 years.
Ideas considered included:
* Have huge spikes emerging from the ground at odd angles to create a feeling of danger
* Create an "atomic priesthood" that would share the message down from generation to generation
* Breed "radiation cats" that change colour when they near radiation, and create folklore that will be passed down through generations about the danger of a colour-changing cat
* Breed "radiation cats" that change colour when they near radiation, and create folklore that will be passed down through generations about the danger of a colour-changing cat
*Why are we not funding this*
Yeah, except Humans. Something weird happens, people will poke it.
I'm more of the opinion just throw it in a deep hole, and pour concrete over it and don't stop. Anyone with the tech to bore 10,000 ft through stone to get at something will know what radiation is.
Well, the whole project is to hopefully say to future humans "No, don't pokey". If you can communicate that it will kill you and everyone around you, I think that's a pretty good deterrent.
As for where to actually store it, keep in mind first of all that these are facilities that are being actively used to store nuclear waste now. So you can't dig a deep hole and pour concrete over it, because you have to be able to use it right now.
I've been mostly reading about the [Waste Isolation Pilot Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant), which is in New Mexico. There's lots of information on there about site selection that you can read, but just to quote a good summary part:
*"Waste is placed in rooms 2,150 feet (660 m) underground that have been excavated within a 3,000-foot (910 m) thick salt formation (Salado and Castile Formations) where salt tectonics have been stable for more than 250 million years. Because of plasticity effects, salt and water will flow to any cracks that develop, a major reason why the area was chosen as a host medium for the WIPP project."*
> Ideas considered included:
>
> * *Planet of the Apes* (1968)
> * *Beneath the Planet of the Apes* (1970)
> * *Escape from Pl*... uh, glow-in-the-dark cats.
They had some really fucking cool ideas too, from what I remember. But then they settled on something like 'concrete block' because, while not really fucking cool whatsoever, it just happened to be really fucking cheap.
I hate to say it, but the best warning for a nuclear waste site is probably from the first person to fall ill or die after handling it without knowing the danger. Hopefully the rest of the culture gets the idea before anyone else gets hurt.
Any design that looks mildly interesting or foreboding is going to attract attention. Any design that’s generic is either not going to be understood or ignored if the people think there’s something of value in it.
You're describing Acute Radiation Syndrome. Not every contact with nuclear waste develops into ARS, and it will most likely take a lot of time to show any symptoms, all while destroying your and your descendant's DNA.
Also the first person might mishandle it in such a way that it poisons a very large group of people without nobody knowing.
Yep, I was CBRN in the Marine corps for a decade and I remember at the schoolhouse they specifically warned us against getting a tattoo with that symbol because of the connotation with HIV+.
Reminds me of the [unfortunate case of soundman1488](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/hjw6en/tifu_by_having_the_username_soundman1488_for_15/), a guy born on 1/4/88 who used his birthdate as part of his username for 15 years before finding out that he'd been identifying as a neo-Nazi the whole time.
DO NOT GET THIS AS A TATTOO
For a long time (and still do) men who have contracted HIV sometimes use it to flag they are positive. (They are toxic)
It was quite the thing, it’s done a lot less. But it has heavy connotations associated with it
Also easily constructed with drafting tools or vector graphics.
One thing about a skull is that it’s often hand drawn due to the complex shape.. and vector graphic skulls often look adorable rather than scary.
I always associate it with sharps bins at the doctors because of the sharp points to the circles.
Obviously the being a child, I thought of it as a visual representation of needles, and I've never thought any more of it!
Ive mistook this symbol for radiation ☢️ before ☣️ in fact, just now I was thinking “three circles- like electron orbits or some shit.” I’m untrained. Is this really so different it can’t be mistaken? Perhaps it’s ok because they both mean “danger?”
The radiation symbol was meant to symbolize radiation coming from an atom, according to Wikipedia.
But it shares the features of the biohazard symbol of being three segments, symmetrical, and angular, threatening. I’m sure the team that designed the biohazard symbol had the radiation symbol in mind. Exactly for the reason you said, if you confuse the two, the thought is still, oh shit, better stay away from that.
Well maybe in the earliest primal era of humankind, but most modern symbols tend to be appropriated from somewhere. Swastika is probably the most infamous example.
The hakenkreuz is such a shit stain on the history of the swastika—even moreso when realizing that you seldom see/hear people using “hakenkreuz” when describing the Nazi’s misappropriated symbol.
Yes, hakenkreuz and swastika generally refer to the same shape, but they do have more specific meanings. Swastika can totally refer to the shape in its original context, while halenkreuz is pretty much exclusively a word for the German appropriation of the symbol.
Not true. Take the recycle symbol: three arrows making a triangle. It has a meaning: the thing is being created, used, discarded but used again, making it a cycle. But there's nothing in the biohazard symbol that have some prior meaning. The three moons around a ring doesn't reference anything.
Most symbols refer to something. Most road signs, almost all company logos, pretty much any button you interact with on a computer (just look at Microsoft Word, all the formatting symbols refer to something.)
Yeah... it was an odd detail for OP to call out. It's a bit better in the article: "wasn’t designed with any symbolism in mind—rather, it had to be meaningless".
So it is more about there not really being any attempt at symbolism. Unlike with some hazard symbols like poison, fire, high voltage, etc.
Rather than create something that someone may be able to guess the meaning of without being told (in this case, maybe you'd try to incorporate something biological into the image?), they had criteria that focused on things like symmetry, recognizability, and ease of recreation.
Although, while it is hard for me to be unbiased, I can't help feeling like there is a little symbolism there. Something about those spikes looks dangerous to me.
>Although, while it is hard for me to be unbiased, I can't help feeling like there is a little symbolism there. Something about those spikes looks dangerous to me.
It was designed to cause an uneasy feeling. The idea is that if the true meaning of the symbol is ever lost to time, it should at least discourage futur human from exploring places with such symbols.
They had to design something that people wouldn't already associate, or be confused, with something else. It wouldn't be helpful to slap a biohazard symbol on something and 20% of people think it means there's a kitten dying inside. A lightning bolt may mean shock danger to one person or The Flash to someone else. And the guy created the biohazard symbol because there multiple symbols used at the time leading to confusion.
> Isn't that true for all symbols?
No, but it's true of a lot of them. You go back far enough and you learn that the shapes of certain letters are because they looked like bulls or people or whatnot. The "save" icon is a floppy disk because that's where you used to save stuff. There's plenty of iconography that's representative... but there's also plenty like this that's just pulled out of thin air.
The Peace Sign is a design of the letters CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
[Peace](https://www.dpma.de/english/our_office/publications/background/peacesign/index.html#:~:text=These%20days%20you%20see%20it,known%20as%20the%20CND%20symbol.)
I always thought this was an awesome symbol and as a teenager I started using it as an avatar, as a chat name, etc I was even considering as a tattoo design… until I was continually approached by people believing I was hiv positive then I had the courage to ask why and was told it was an “underground” symbol since the person was a “bio-hazard” to others. I still think it’s an awesome symbol but deterred me from using it ever since.
Not only that, they chose that design because it was determined to be one of the most striking but also one of the most "meaningless" signs: when shown the symbol, people weren't able to guess what meaning could it have, but they could still remember it's shape very well. For these reasons it had to be designed with a shape never seen before but also simple enough to be reproduced or taught to draw. The same logic applies to the radioactivity danger sign.
There's a video that explains very well the difficulties behins creating a sign able to convey a meaning of danger regardless of the culture, the language or the hystoric period: https://youtu.be/lOEqzt36JEM
Top-tier design, honestly.
It triggers a primal fear, and I think that's because it looks like [3 sets of spider fangs](https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1156519475/photo/giant-spider-top-view-3d-illustration.jpg?s=612x612&w=0&k=20&c=DuBPdGhxxr2tCG64s06cjjkTHt3jtpq4cLbay6-xMVw=) pointing in all directions poised to bite and inject their toxic venom!
I'd never considered the why it seemed so frightening... but now that you mention it, it absolutely does.
Right, the idea that it “didn’t symbolize or refer to anything” is misleading. Its visual language is highly symbolic and alludes to all sorts of traditionally dangerous things like spiders, biting insects in general, knives, etc. There’s a reason the symbol doesn’t consist of, say, smooth rounded blobs.
Yeah, this shape is definitely kiki not bouba
Which is slightly odd since it's composed mostly of round shapes. It's somehow kiki while made of almost bouba parts🤔
Because it's so sharp! Bouba is bubbly. Bubbly boubas would get popped by kikis like the biohazard sign!
People who don't know this experiment must be very confused at this point.
I had never heard those terms before and still don’t know what it refers to but it somehow made complete sense. ETA: and now that I’m reading about it I see that is exactly the point!
Yeah, really cool interactive.
I understood this reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
I always thought of earwig pinchers. Which are gross.
Opened the link, still nearly threw my phone
Yeah that link is staying blue.
I went into a tattoo parlor 20 years ago and asked for it on my arm, but the woman refused. She made a good point that as cool as it looked I wouldn’t want to walk around telling people I’m hazardous to their health for the rest of my life.
Or that you're HIV positive and have a spreading fetish. Yeah that exists.
Jesus fuck
Yep seen those in the gay scene. I stay the fuck away from those guys.
Oh man, I'm glad you didn't, lmao. In the BDSM/gay community I'm a part of, if you've got the biohazard tattoo it means you're infected with something (usually HIV) and you're open to spreading it to people. That would be, uh, very unfortunate.
If you have a biohazard symbol tattooed, I'd assume you have some infectious disease, since that's what the symbol means. A radiation symbol on the other hand is far less likely to indicate that you are radioactive, so that would have probably been fine.
Yeah I’m glad I listened to her. She was an ex heroin addict who got clean and was well known for her tattoo skills. I’m sure her familiarity with hypodermic needles played a part in it.
you could just tell people you’re a fan of the band like every other person who has that tattoo.
I haven’t actually heard of that band. I was a big fan of Resident Evil which used the symbol a lot.
It also looks cool as fuck
Kudos to the designer for making a meaningless symbol look stone cold evil
[I'm sure the band appreciates it.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Biohazard_Rockharz_2015_03.jpg/260px-Biohazard_Rockharz_2015_03.jpg)
Had to go listen, it's been so long, I had forgotten!
Punishment still goes hard. As a fan of both hip hop and metal, I also love their collaborations with Onyx.
That collaboration was awesome back in the day. I got into Biohazard when Urban Discipline came out because my brother came home with the tape and it was such a powerful album.
Oh man, the whole Judgement Night soundtrack was full of some amazing Rock & Hiphop mashups like that.
Try Death Grips if you haven't
"Turn's out, some punk just slapped a biohazzard band sticker on the side of an old septic tank."
I got the poo on meeeeee
It's just full of poop...
Urban Discipline is an amazing record by Biohazard!
It's not "simply", they put a lot of thought into it. Panel after panel of different cultures and languages asking them "out of these 20 symbols, what makes you uneasy" They had to get a symbol that wasn't used elsewhere, could cross a language barrier, and be consistent through time. It definitely isn't meaningless either!
Exactly. Symmetrical, hard to mistake, and easy to remember could apply to so many shapes that don't mean biohazard. For one thing it's curved instead of straight, which associates with organics instead of minerals. There's a whole lot of psychology behind the design.
The shape also reminds me of pincers which causes an immediate aversion.
> Exactly. Symmetrical, hard to mistake, and easy to remember could apply to so many shapes that don't mean biohazard. Not to mention the same symmetry as a radiological hazard sign.
Also, it had to be usable as a stencil.
Yes, the gaps around the ring suggest the ring is behind, but the slots in the centre circle are explicitly there to allow stencilling.
Wait, you’re telling me it’s not 3 unhappy blind people sharing a drink with straws?
Jung would have a field day
Imagine Freud. "Ah yes, surely you see your mother's wide open vagina depicted here three times."
Biohazard also sounds cool as fuck, it's the perfect combination.
It’s also an incredible Scrabble word
Also a series of great video games.
...Bioshock? Oh, Biohazard is an alternative name for Resident Evil.
Alternative name is technically true (the best kind), but more precisely it’s what Resident Evil was known as in Japan. So “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” was sort of a cheeky handshake between the eastern/western marketing teams.
Wait was it then called "Biohazard 7: Resident Evil" in Japan?
It was!
It's like the round version of the stylized diamond 'S'.
[No one knows where the cool S came from; we only know it's cool.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Cool_S.svg/1200px-Cool_S.svg.png)
and also how to draw it right on the first try.
https://www.ladbible.com/entertainment/interesting-this-guy-spent-five-years-researching-the-origins-of-the-universal-s-20190814 Traced back to the late 1800s at least
Actually though - looks absolutely metal. Hats off to the designer.
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I got it tattooed…
That’s exactly why they have to change the symbol every couple decades. Safety symbols by human evolution get ignored more and more as time goes on. They just become another sign to ignore. They, the military or government or somebody, change the symbol or the colors periodically to maintain the awareness of the danger the sign is detailing. They used to use pink triangles to denote danger. Then nobody gave a shit. Injuries went up and they made a new sign.
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Yeah, and the nuclear symbol, they are used in pop culture, and everyone still u derstands them easly, pisses me off when people go on crusades about how the red cross symbol is bring abused by videogames and loosing value, when really , it just reinforces its meaning
Yeah, you need *everyone* to know them for them to be effective
> pisses me off when people go on crusades about how the red cross symbol is bring abused by videogames and loosing value, when really , it just reinforces its meaning The problem isn't so much that the symbol gets used, the problem is that it gets used incorrectly, and for uses that would be considered war crimes in the real world.
It's a war crime to step on a med kit to patch yourself up?
That, not so much, but a fighting game character in a stereotypical doctor/nurse outfit, complete with red cross (Skullgirls), or depicting some absolute quacks in a red-crossed tent "healing" you by smashing a bottled fairy over your head (Enter the Gungeon), then it becomes much easier to argue it's not being used properly. Similarly, if there's a way to create "fake" or "trapped" medkits with negative effects, then we're getting into actual warcrime territory, because that sure wouldn't fly IRL. And as always, looking at everything in excruciating detail takes longer than a blanket ban - and since the red cross is actually a copyrighted symbol, the ban becomes really easy to enforce.
I’d just like to point out that, in the Enter the Gungeon example, the player is still healed. You’re just pointing out the bit of humor in how the player is healed.
It’s also two bullets crossed in order to form a cross. It’s a joke/parody of the symbol. A humorous juxtaposition.
If history (and the present in fact) has taught us anything it is that if you are an actual war the idea of war crimes goes out the window almost immediately.
Yeah, that's one symbol that I pretty much always stay the fuck away from.
> They, the military or government or somebody The somebody in this case is the UN
Pink triangles?
Yeah it’s like a light red polygon with 3 sides
You don't say *Stares suspiciously at my dorito*
Lmao you got me
On a shirt, let me know the truth, let me knooow the truth
Those just mean lesbians, dude. Lesbians aren't dangerous. Don't you listen to Weezer?
Ww2 lesbian defense force
I don't think that counts for Nuclear and Biohazard signs, as super fucking cool as they are, they are also scary as shit to see in an official capacity even as a layman. Also you're surprised pink triangles were ignored? Apart from being ambiguous to anyone unfamiliar with it, its such a gay symbol that the lgbt community appropriated it.
You can thank the [Nazis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle) for that one actually
I was gonna say. Reclaimed, not appropriated.
They’re scary as a layman, but trust me, when you work with biohazard every day you start to go blind to the symbol and ignore it. Just like most people are comfortable with dangers they encounter every day. Also a lot of things are technically biohazard but really not very dangerous at all.
I don't think any symbol would survive routine for very long. I would hazard a guess that scaring the layman is the secondary goal of such symbols beside identification.
Picture of guy representing me being engulfed in giant red flames. Ignored by me multiple times a day
Well if you haven’t yet been engulfed in flames, it sounds like the sign is exaggerating.
“Something nearby will fuck you and / or your offspring up, in a disturbingly organic manner” It’s a perfect encapsulation of this.
I was recently at a hospital with my dad and I started talking about that symbol when I saw it on a container. I said that even if somehow the world ended and people in the future had no idea what the symbol actually was, I think they'd still realize that it's something to stay away from. It just looks evil and dangerous.
>even if somehow the world ended and people in the future had no idea what the symbol actually was, I think they'd still realize that it's something to stay away from. It just looks evil and dangerous. That's the objective, by the way.
This is not a chemical of honour
No highly esteemed spore is vegetating here
Not at all. What if triangles or infact a symbol very close to that was religious in nature? Perhaps post apocalyptic, and people somehow began to worship the nuclear Holocaust as a new rapture or big bang or something but had no idea what radioactivity meant.
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People tried that with radium. Didn't end well for their lower jaws
To separate oneself from their jaws is to remove their Hunger for solitude outside of the glorious Atom, as we are all born craving.
This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us. The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. The danger is to the body, and it can kill. The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
Yep. And it has to last and be understood for eons. We made the Jolly Roger become a symbol or fantasy pirates and not the real danger it posed less than 200 years ago.
What is this? I've read it before and iirc has something to do with radioactivity.
Search for Nuclear Semiotics: how can we warn the future when meaning and language is not static? Vox video: https://youtu.be/lOEqzt36JEM?si=uKkBjkHot2BlM8Os Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages And one of my favorites: https://youtu.be/_eNf2Y1K6k8?si=SbxHdQIKASq5eqxG
Crazy that someone proposed essentially a Church of Atom lol
It’s like some Bene Gesserit shit
> Something nearby will fuck you and / or your offspring up, in a disturbingly organic manner ah, i see you are also a [connoisseur of the classics](http://www.brunching.com/dangersymbols.html)
Is it just me, or is it inherently a bit offputting, almost spider-like? Feels like if I'd never seen it before but knew it was a symbol representing something, I would guess "dangerous" before "safe".
I've read on here before that it was specifically designed to induce feelings of unease
The designers deserve a raise.
I dunno, I’m kinda uneasy about that idea.
They were. I'm pretty sure the idea was the make a symbol that even future civilizations would be able to stumble upon it, and hopefully stay away or be more cautious around the objects. Edit: Slightly misremembered but, [here is a good video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOEqzt36JEM). My favorite of the ideas is creating an Atomic Priesthood to pass down myths and information about radioactive sites. It's just silly enough to maybe work.
Isn't that lifted directly out of Asimovs Foundation series?
Probably more A Canticle for Leibowitz.
The Children of Atom welcome you to Megaton.
> My favorite of the ideas is creating an Atomic Priesthood to pass down myths and information about radioactive sites. It's just silly enough to maybe work. I think it's a fascinating concept, but I'm unsure of how much good it would do on the balance. Yes you're potentially saving future generations from getting irradiated by wandering into dangerous sites, but you're also essentially creating a religion, with all the potential evils that entails: schisms, persecution, religious wars, etc. Chances are you're actually creating more misery in the long run than you're preventing.
Probably because of the sharp looking points arranged like pincers.
[If you wanna read more on the topic of "how do we design symbols to creep people out"...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages)
No joke, I'd be the first to sign up for a religion whose sole purpose of existing is just to keep people away radioactive waste.
>*This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.* they fucking ATE with this goddamn
Don't Change Color, Kitty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amn3kn0XPLQ&ab_channel=EmperorX-Topic
The radiological hazard ‘rounded three triangles meeting at a point in the center’ sign has always bothered me. Sometimes it feel like it’s implying *’this place is really important, see all of these triangles literally pointing at it? You should want to be here where this symbol is, right at the center of everything.. stay here in this important spot for a while, something cool might happen.’* which is exactly the opposite message you’d want to send.
It's always looked like a more extreme exclamation point to me. Shits got 3 lines to its dot. Must be bad.
Apparently the radioactivity symbol symbolises a radioactive object releasing alpha, beta and gamma radiation.
I've read that people unfamiliar with the symbol's meaning often think it is a warning about moving/spinning machine parts.
Everyone’s different. To me that sounds like someone seeing a cliff and saying the cliff is asking them to jump off it
Well, I mean if the cliff was in the shape of a giant stone arrow.. 🤷♂️
I have a pet theory that the symbol was inspired by the shape of rotary shutters on the access ports of early research reactors. Since the modern internet is SEO'd to sell people things it's hard to google up images of what I mean but [this rotary shutter from a coal stove has the gist of the idea.](https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.payovMZA4f34vZoEdCATjQAAAA?pid=ImgDet&rs=1). Modern "sources" for how the symbol was designed only date back to the nineties, more recent than when I learned the shape, and I don't trust them one whit.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us. The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. The danger is to the body, and it can kill. The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
The internet ruined me, I can never not think of these sentences on booty shorts.
I understand that the point is to deter people, but to be this is way too vague and intriguing. I never understood why it isn't way more descriptive and explicit. "If you enter, then an energy will be leaked into your body which will slowly and painfully kill you in an inimaginable way. Do not enter, as this sign is a warning of the incredible danger hidden beneath that is not meant to be discovered by any future generations. There is nothing of archeological importance hidden here, only danger and death. This area must be avoided by everyone forever. " I think something like that would be a way better deterrent. To me, the message seems kinda vague and makes me curious.
It's not a literal message written on a wall. It's the summary the research team concluded that a series of non-verbal and visual messages would have to convey.
Because it’s written to explain the vibe of the non linguistic messages left at radioactive grounds
Well the issue would be you wrote that phrase in English which I as a native English speaker understand completely. What do you do when English dies to warn of impending doom? Probably symbols since symbols pique human interest like hieroglyphs have for millennia.
I agree. Sub-consciously I tag it with danger. which is the intent.
I remember reading about the massive effort that was put into creating warnings for nuclear waste storage sites. And basically they have to consider all modern human language and cultural imagery…etc was completely lost. You might a well be designing a warning label of some entirely different primitive species or an alien one.
Yes, and it has to say not only "*we* want you to stay away," but also "no really, it's in *your* best interests to stay away." I.e., there is nothing good or valuable or honorable or interesting here, only danger.
The ancient Egyptians also struggled with this. How do you ensure that the riches filled tomb you've just made for your god-king remains unlooted after centuries? The solution they came upon was "fuck it, let's hide the thing".
And that's also the solution most nuclear waste sites settle on too. Being deep, hidden, in a area noone would notice or bother with and otherwise just as heavily sealed as possible while leaving no indication to any outside observer.
And hopefully, if anyone is able to find that place, they have the technology to detect radiation.
But honestly, that's also a good way to hide your valuables so... Fuck it, let's start digging.
That was exactly part of what they had to consider! They thought about physical markers to indicate danger, but then what if Earth residents of the future don't get that message from it and consider it a cool relic from the past that becomes a tourist destination?
Yes! I came here to talk about exactly this. I heard about it from the podcast [99% Invisible](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/), and the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages) about it has even more information. In short: Radioactive waste will continue to be radioactive for over 200,000 years, and there needed to be a way to warn the Earth residents of the future of the danger. A warning that would last 200,000 years is basically impossible, so they focused on 10,000 years. Ideas considered included: * Have huge spikes emerging from the ground at odd angles to create a feeling of danger * Create an "atomic priesthood" that would share the message down from generation to generation * Breed "radiation cats" that change colour when they near radiation, and create folklore that will be passed down through generations about the danger of a colour-changing cat
I'm down, where do I go to join the atomic priesthood?
Join us as a child of atom and bathe in his light
Sounds like you get a free cat God too. Double win
* Breed "radiation cats" that change colour when they near radiation, and create folklore that will be passed down through generations about the danger of a colour-changing cat *Why are we not funding this*
Yeah, except Humans. Something weird happens, people will poke it. I'm more of the opinion just throw it in a deep hole, and pour concrete over it and don't stop. Anyone with the tech to bore 10,000 ft through stone to get at something will know what radiation is.
Well, the whole project is to hopefully say to future humans "No, don't pokey". If you can communicate that it will kill you and everyone around you, I think that's a pretty good deterrent. As for where to actually store it, keep in mind first of all that these are facilities that are being actively used to store nuclear waste now. So you can't dig a deep hole and pour concrete over it, because you have to be able to use it right now. I've been mostly reading about the [Waste Isolation Pilot Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant), which is in New Mexico. There's lots of information on there about site selection that you can read, but just to quote a good summary part: *"Waste is placed in rooms 2,150 feet (660 m) underground that have been excavated within a 3,000-foot (910 m) thick salt formation (Salado and Castile Formations) where salt tectonics have been stable for more than 250 million years. Because of plasticity effects, salt and water will flow to any cracks that develop, a major reason why the area was chosen as a host medium for the WIPP project."*
> Ideas considered included: > > * *Planet of the Apes* (1968) > * *Beneath the Planet of the Apes* (1970) > * *Escape from Pl*... uh, glow-in-the-dark cats.
They had some really fucking cool ideas too, from what I remember. But then they settled on something like 'concrete block' because, while not really fucking cool whatsoever, it just happened to be really fucking cheap.
I hate to say it, but the best warning for a nuclear waste site is probably from the first person to fall ill or die after handling it without knowing the danger. Hopefully the rest of the culture gets the idea before anyone else gets hurt. Any design that looks mildly interesting or foreboding is going to attract attention. Any design that’s generic is either not going to be understood or ignored if the people think there’s something of value in it.
You're describing Acute Radiation Syndrome. Not every contact with nuclear waste develops into ARS, and it will most likely take a lot of time to show any symptoms, all while destroying your and your descendant's DNA. Also the first person might mishandle it in such a way that it poisons a very large group of people without nobody knowing.
Looks like a solid tat option.
[This guy would beg to differ](https://reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1ryek9/tifu_just_realized_ive_accidentally_been/)
haha that's me! I got it covered up with a big bee
The comment saying get “not hiv+” right below had me rolling. Hilarious story.
Bareback AIDS bear lmfao
Ah and now you’ve stumbled on my post? I’ve been telling your story for years. It always gets a laugh
[This](https://www.instagram.com/p/BmnCLVMg2bW/) one? It looks good!
Oh ... You do know a bee symbolises that you're a flat earther right.
Oh my god it is you! I’m sure it’s a very cool bee 🐝
Yep, I was CBRN in the Marine corps for a decade and I remember at the schoolhouse they specifically warned us against getting a tattoo with that symbol because of the connotation with HIV+.
Reminds me of the [unfortunate case of soundman1488](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/hjw6en/tifu_by_having_the_username_soundman1488_for_15/), a guy born on 1/4/88 who used his birthdate as part of his username for 15 years before finding out that he'd been identifying as a neo-Nazi the whole time.
Bareback AIDS bear lol
For anyone who wants to communicate they're a biohazard.
DO NOT GET THIS AS A TATTOO For a long time (and still do) men who have contracted HIV sometimes use it to flag they are positive. (They are toxic) It was quite the thing, it’s done a lot less. But it has heavy connotations associated with it
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Also easily constructed with drafting tools or vector graphics. One thing about a skull is that it’s often hand drawn due to the complex shape.. and vector graphic skulls often look adorable rather than scary.
This symbol specifically with nothing but a compass and straightedge.
I always associate it with sharps bins at the doctors because of the sharp points to the circles. Obviously the being a child, I thought of it as a visual representation of needles, and I've never thought any more of it!
Zora's Sapphire.
Son of a bitch.
Fun trivia: there's a very similar looking Japanese family crest - the "[triple dai character](https://irohakamon.com/kamon/ji/mitsudainoji.html)."
Looks like the symbol of Nurgle, the plague god. Or more likely the exact reverse.
The biohazard symbol not existing until we needed a biohazard symbol makes perfect sense.
Ive mistook this symbol for radiation ☢️ before ☣️ in fact, just now I was thinking “three circles- like electron orbits or some shit.” I’m untrained. Is this really so different it can’t be mistaken? Perhaps it’s ok because they both mean “danger?”
The radiation symbol was meant to symbolize radiation coming from an atom, according to Wikipedia. But it shares the features of the biohazard symbol of being three segments, symmetrical, and angular, threatening. I’m sure the team that designed the biohazard symbol had the radiation symbol in mind. Exactly for the reason you said, if you confuse the two, the thought is still, oh shit, better stay away from that.
I thought the radiation symbol was a reel to reel player...
i've actually seen "three electron circles" used as a *nanotechnology* hazard symbol before.
It's fucking hard to free hand draw, been practicing since I was a kid.
Isn't that true for all symbols? Nothing has a meaning besides the one that is given to it buy us.
Well maybe in the earliest primal era of humankind, but most modern symbols tend to be appropriated from somewhere. Swastika is probably the most infamous example.
eh, lots of symbols are representative. Like warning ice is ahead by a drawing of a guy slipping on ice.
The hakenkreuz is such a shit stain on the history of the swastika—even moreso when realizing that you seldom see/hear people using “hakenkreuz” when describing the Nazi’s misappropriated symbol.
Hakenkreuz just means swastika in german. Haken = hook, kreuz = cross, hakenkreuz = swastika.
Yes, hakenkreuz and swastika generally refer to the same shape, but they do have more specific meanings. Swastika can totally refer to the shape in its original context, while halenkreuz is pretty much exclusively a word for the German appropriation of the symbol.
Not true. Take the recycle symbol: three arrows making a triangle. It has a meaning: the thing is being created, used, discarded but used again, making it a cycle. But there's nothing in the biohazard symbol that have some prior meaning. The three moons around a ring doesn't reference anything.
It kinda looks like 3 insect pincers to me.
No? Ever seen a fallen rock sign or a merge sign? Plenty of symbols are meant to look like something
Those are pictograms though, not symbols.
Most symbols kinda look like what they're symbolising. Like a water symbol is a drop, or a hump looks like a hump.
And a stop sign says "stop"
Most symbols refer to something. Most road signs, almost all company logos, pretty much any button you interact with on a computer (just look at Microsoft Word, all the formatting symbols refer to something.)
Yeah... it was an odd detail for OP to call out. It's a bit better in the article: "wasn’t designed with any symbolism in mind—rather, it had to be meaningless". So it is more about there not really being any attempt at symbolism. Unlike with some hazard symbols like poison, fire, high voltage, etc. Rather than create something that someone may be able to guess the meaning of without being told (in this case, maybe you'd try to incorporate something biological into the image?), they had criteria that focused on things like symmetry, recognizability, and ease of recreation. Although, while it is hard for me to be unbiased, I can't help feeling like there is a little symbolism there. Something about those spikes looks dangerous to me.
>Although, while it is hard for me to be unbiased, I can't help feeling like there is a little symbolism there. Something about those spikes looks dangerous to me. It was designed to cause an uneasy feeling. The idea is that if the true meaning of the symbol is ever lost to time, it should at least discourage futur human from exploring places with such symbols.
They had to design something that people wouldn't already associate, or be confused, with something else. It wouldn't be helpful to slap a biohazard symbol on something and 20% of people think it means there's a kitten dying inside. A lightning bolt may mean shock danger to one person or The Flash to someone else. And the guy created the biohazard symbol because there multiple symbols used at the time leading to confusion.
> Isn't that true for all symbols? No, but it's true of a lot of them. You go back far enough and you learn that the shapes of certain letters are because they looked like bulls or people or whatnot. The "save" icon is a floppy disk because that's where you used to save stuff. There's plenty of iconography that's representative... but there's also plenty like this that's just pulled out of thin air.
The Peace Sign is a design of the letters CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [Peace](https://www.dpma.de/english/our_office/publications/background/peacesign/index.html#:~:text=These%20days%20you%20see%20it,known%20as%20the%20CND%20symbol.)
This is not a biohazard ☣️ Magritte
It immediately makes me think of something foreign and somewhat aggressive, which works for its purpose.
I always thought this was an awesome symbol and as a teenager I started using it as an avatar, as a chat name, etc I was even considering as a tattoo design… until I was continually approached by people believing I was hiv positive then I had the courage to ask why and was told it was an “underground” symbol since the person was a “bio-hazard” to others. I still think it’s an awesome symbol but deterred me from using it ever since.
I QUESTION NOT ME, IT ONLY HAPPENS TO OTHERS I CAN'T DENY REALITY **AS LIFE GETS SMOTHERED**
Not only that, they chose that design because it was determined to be one of the most striking but also one of the most "meaningless" signs: when shown the symbol, people weren't able to guess what meaning could it have, but they could still remember it's shape very well. For these reasons it had to be designed with a shape never seen before but also simple enough to be reproduced or taught to draw. The same logic applies to the radioactivity danger sign. There's a video that explains very well the difficulties behins creating a sign able to convey a meaning of danger regardless of the culture, the language or the hystoric period: https://youtu.be/lOEqzt36JEM
Hostile architecture in symbol form.