zlacker

>>Tomte+(OP)
> In an increasingly uncertain world, this protective use of the red cross emblem has become more and more important. In the past ten years, there have been 162 fatalities among Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement personnel including two Canadians.

I don't understand how these two sentences are related and the article doesn't explain it as far as I can tell. They seem to be vaguely insinuating that video games appropriating the red cross logo have caused these deaths, which is surely an absurd claim but I can't figure out what else they might mean.

EDIT: A lot of defensive responses. To be clear, no one is impugning the Red Cross or disrespecting the work they're doing. I merely don't understand the reasoning in TFA.

>>throwa+b4
IF you are in combat and you see a red cross vehicle, it is important for your first reaction being "that is not where the enemy is" vs firing at it.

This saves lives, and protects those who run into danger zones to save people.

If we slap red cross symbols on people with medical equipment that you see in video games, it'll just dilute the meaning and maybe next time someone sees a vehicle with the red cross symbol they'll think "oh, that's just the enemy's medics" and throw a grenade that way.

If I understand correctly the red cross will treat anyone regardless of the side they came in with.

>>Justsi+I6
Is there even a single documented case where this has happened?

>>throwa+O7
Of Red Cross buildings/vehicles/personnel being bombed? Lots of them. Here are the first three I found on Google.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolo_hospital_airstrike

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/us-admits-bombing-red-cross-...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523489/

>>Cobras+U8
So there were video games in 1935 that caused the Dolo air strike? I think the issue is around why (or whether) video games cause this, not if there were ever assholes who tried to bomb them.

>>Vaslo+5a
Except they aren’t claiming that it’s only video games.

They’ve only mentioned it as one avenue of misuse.

>>addict+Nb
Is there any evidence at all that misuse from video games or any other kind of media have contributed to any of these fatalities?

>>throwa+2d
I guess the reasoning is as follows: Ignoring or being ignorant about visual signals associated with live/health threatening objects/situations (Red Cross sign, high voltage logo, radiation/pathogen/hazards logos etc.) undoubtedly cost(ed) lives in the past, and actions which are contributing to confusion about those signs should share some part of the blame, instinctively proportionally to their public influence. I think I can live with this approach, if we don't stretch it too far.

It's not unthinkable to conceive a scenario in which this symbol is misinterpreted, loss of health or life or property follows, and the ignorance of the perpetrators cannot be pinpointed - maybe it'd be lack of proper education, maybe missing classes during military training, maybe seeing red-cross logo misused in games, maybe bad memory - the thing is that all of those explanations are IMO "reasonable", so we might want to do at least something about each of those (if possible).