[pegasus]

If all you see there is something "cool", you're missing the more rewarding depths. These symbols speak of a society which was at the other extreme end to the fragmentation, atomization, and attention span erosion we are experiencing today. This allowed them to elevate esthetics to a point we couldn't afford to today. I'm thinking here mainly of those ancient Mon[1] symbols – though something of their spirit lives on in the modern symbols also discussed in the article. Contemplating these evocative designs can help us build a bridge to a societal context that's otherwise almost incomprehensible to us.

Another thing I found fascinating: the way the symbol that marks a fire truck doesn't employ the red color we would expect in the West, and is instead based on the shape of an ice crystal. A bit like an amulet to ward evil away, there's some kind of atavistic magical function still afoot there.

[1] the wikipedia page linked from the article is worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mon_(emblem)

[dkdbejwi383]

This is just the trope of the "wise and mystical oriental"

[pegasus]

Plenty of these tropes have some truth behind them, even if that truth often gets flattened into a caricature of itself in popular imagination. Then you get the anticaricature caricature (reverse snobbery) where people knee-jerk label everything that rhymes with that trope as a caricature, convinced that's enough to dismiss an argument.

Btw. medieval Europe, or classical Greece, just to give two non-Eastern examples, also had many of the characteristics I mentioned in my comment: a strong communal spirit and shared symbolic life which connects one to a coherent and poetic view of the world. But pointing out ways cultures very different from ours might have been superior in some senses to ours is one of the most triggering moves, especially on a techie-oriented forum like this one.

[aa-jv]

Hey, I mean this seriously: you might be a racist misanthrope.

[khazhoux]

I think you meant to reply to the parent comment instead?

[latexr]

Those terms seem incompatible. Either you’re a racist and hate certain slices of humanity or you’re a misanthrope and hate all of it. Doesn’t make much sense to hate all and part of it. What exactly did you mean?