I can see this being a useful feature for some people in some situations. It's a pity it doesn't detect an angled one, which is the variant the Nazis mostly used.
How about using the term Hakenkreuz or something similar to represent the anti-semitic meaning and stop appropriating the term Swastika?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
For the very obvious reason that the percentage of population aware of what the term Hakenkreuz means is literal orders of magnitude smaller than those familiar with the term Swastika?
I mean, feel free to run a "taking Swastika back" information campaign, but also, you know, good luck.
Interestingly, a recent news story on several buildings in Northwest Texas that incorporated swastikas in their design, interviewed some experts who explained that it was specifically the "tilted cross" design that was used in Nazi symbolism, and the non-tilted versions are more likely to be benign, Native American or Asian usages.
And of course this app gets it wrong, and avoids the benign uses, because it is quite impossible to render a "tilted swastika" image on a QR code! Absurd!
Which is also collaboration with the enemy: it is giving it power. (They allow the enemy to determine their culture; also, they allow the low to replace the high.)
Because you'd need to re-educate hundreds of millions of people, and it's a pretty weak message: "this symbol of hatred and genocide has other meanings, too!"
... and you'll be playing into the hands of people who want to get a swastika tattoo and then pretend they didn't mean any harm by doing so.
This perfectly valid comment by slipperybeluga is still showing up as [dead] for some reason so I'll repost it for them:
> What an incredibly narrow view that completely dismisses the culture and history of the majority of the planet. As others have said, it's still in use in India and China which make up the majority of the population on earth. Rather than discarding their culture and history, we can just stop indoctrinating children year after year on a single point in time and history. A lot of tragedies occurred in the last 100 years. My 13 years of public school education didn't once cover Armenian Genocide, Stalin's forced collectivisation famine deaths, Mao's great famine, Khmer rouge, or the 5 million+ American military caused civilian deaths in the last 100 years. But we covered "the" holocaust every year (even the title treats like it's the only holocaust). Are the political symbols of these other terrible events and actors emblazoned in your mind and if not, why not? Why give it so much power?
> The swastika has thousands of years of history outside this tiny point in time. Used by everyone from native Americans to vikings to indians and east Asians. Silly to have to hide from it and try to destroy it because evil people coopted it in one corner of the earth for < 0.5% of its history.
This reeks of "virtue signaling": Someone trying to show they are morally superior by doing the minimum effort, like blanket banning something. I never heard of swastikas in QR codes being a problem before.
In the last 100 years the USA has bombed more people than all other nations combined.
Japan/Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia + most of the Middle East etc. have more of a valid reason to ban depictions of the American flag, than the West has for co-opting an ancient symbol of peace to mean evil and then refusing to "return" it.
Did you not see the other comments about this or just chose not to respond?
Yeah that sounds like a really sound rationale. It's only far more than a billion people to whom the symbol has a powerful and positive meaning. Let's completely ignore that and say that the 80 year old Western perspective is a lot more important.
I guess one could rack through many QR Code parameters while encoding the same payload text: Version (40 sizes with capacity constraints), 4 error correction levels (with capacity constraints), 8 mask patterns, splitting text into various blocks (with capacity constraints), using different character encoding modes (if applicable to the text), putting garbage data after the terminator (violates the spec, but can be a huge boost for generating some custom patterns).
Article makes no mention of what 900+ million Hindus may feel about the whole thing. It's possible the author doesn't even know what the swastika is, or that he is willfully ignorant because "Indians and Asians live somewhere else".
Not really. Not having a swastika is not a problem in the slightest. Indians can also perfectly fine create versions which do include them if they’d prefer that.
Pretty sure the author doesn't intend to enforce the entire world to run QR generation through this code. I'm not stoked Roblox doesn't let me type my real name and phone number into chat. But I can still go to the playground, and say whatever I want. Those 900+ mill people might appreciate a QR-Swastika-Maximizer. Maybe you should author and host one for them. Be the good you want in the world.
What a redditor thing to write, haha
We need a crate that suggests something inappropriate in QRs instead
I'm not sure I've ever noticed a swastika in a QR code before, but I guess better safe than sorry.
I bet we wont be able to stop seeing them after reading this.
Like the FedEx arrow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
If this exists then logically the inverse can be made …
Surprised Grok hasn't already incorporated an "ensure Swastikas are buried in any QR codes we generate" skill into the model...
Was thinking the same thing, although I'd go for penis-shaped QR codes before swastikas, because dick jokes never get old.
QueeR codes is right there - run with it!
I can see this being a useful feature for some people in some situations. It's a pity it doesn't detect an angled one, which is the variant the Nazis mostly used.
The conversation here is depressingly juvenile.
How about using the term Hakenkreuz or something similar to represent the anti-semitic meaning and stop appropriating the term Swastika? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
For the very obvious reason that the percentage of population aware of what the term Hakenkreuz means is literal orders of magnitude smaller than those familiar with the term Swastika?
I mean, feel free to run a "taking Swastika back" information campaign, but also, you know, good luck.
> the percentage of population aware
Very much not a good reason - in fact, a very bad reason. Conformist, destructive, declining, orwellian...
You are not to speak like the ignorant.
Also, the Hakenkreuz is a pub in Schweinewalde, Saxony, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tpEXvWUeIw (in German).
You need the flipped chirality which in extensive use and is a Unicode code point.
Makes me wonder if it’s possible to add images to QR codes. Not a swastika of course but if you can remove something, can you add it?
I'd like to see one that stops accidental generation of strings like 'nakba'.
Right on! I generated one the other day that said 'Oct7'. I'll put it on a hat for you if you like.
I'd like to see one that stops the accidental generation of muslim death cults.
Interestingly, a recent news story on several buildings in Northwest Texas that incorporated swastikas in their design, interviewed some experts who explained that it was specifically the "tilted cross" design that was used in Nazi symbolism, and the non-tilted versions are more likely to be benign, Native American or Asian usages.
https://youtu.be/8uH3gIzqnVM?si=24KFsG85FRJ29Y05
And of course this app gets it wrong, and avoids the benign uses, because it is quite impossible to render a "tilted swastika" image on a QR code! Absurd!
Why not reclaim the original usage of the swastika instead of perpetuating the taint?
In Asian nations people who have never heard of the Nazis still use the swastika.
Do the version of "your parents using slang" to make it uncool
> instead of perpetuating the taint
Which is also collaboration with the enemy: it is giving it power. (They allow the enemy to determine their culture; also, they allow the low to replace the high.)
Because you'd need to re-educate hundreds of millions of people, and it's a pretty weak message: "this symbol of hatred and genocide has other meanings, too!"
... and you'll be playing into the hands of people who want to get a swastika tattoo and then pretend they didn't mean any harm by doing so.
> re-educate hundreds of millions of people
That is mandated, and actually they are expected to get out of the house educated already (de jure. De facto, it's different, but they should anyway).
> this symbol of hatred and genocide
According to which scum, to which you are confering unduly power?
> has other meanings, too
Those absolutely primary, ! one million times?!
--
Simon, let us go to the core: properly developed people do not reason like fools, and they are not to conform to foolery.
This perfectly valid comment by slipperybeluga is still showing up as [dead] for some reason so I'll repost it for them:
> What an incredibly narrow view that completely dismisses the culture and history of the majority of the planet. As others have said, it's still in use in India and China which make up the majority of the population on earth. Rather than discarding their culture and history, we can just stop indoctrinating children year after year on a single point in time and history. A lot of tragedies occurred in the last 100 years. My 13 years of public school education didn't once cover Armenian Genocide, Stalin's forced collectivisation famine deaths, Mao's great famine, Khmer rouge, or the 5 million+ American military caused civilian deaths in the last 100 years. But we covered "the" holocaust every year (even the title treats like it's the only holocaust). Are the political symbols of these other terrible events and actors emblazoned in your mind and if not, why not? Why give it so much power?
> The swastika has thousands of years of history outside this tiny point in time. Used by everyone from native Americans to vikings to indians and east Asians. Silly to have to hide from it and try to destroy it because evil people coopted it in one corner of the earth for < 0.5% of its history.
There was a time when pentagrams and tattoos of SATAN were edgy and controversial
Now it's "ehh"
Only silly people still use them unironically and only silly people get offended by them.
I don't think it's silly to get offended by a swastika tattoo.
You didn't respond to the other commenters.
This reeks of "virtue signaling": Someone trying to show they are morally superior by doing the minimum effort, like blanket banning something. I never heard of swastikas in QR codes being a problem before.
Right, because nobody has killed millions of people while representing themselves with a pentagram. The comparison falls flat.
In the last 100 years the USA has bombed more people than all other nations combined.
Japan/Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia + most of the Middle East etc. have more of a valid reason to ban depictions of the American flag, than the West has for co-opting an ancient symbol of peace to mean evil and then refusing to "return" it.
Did you not see the other comments about this or just chose not to respond?
those people are far less numerous than you seem to believe. also, the current far right is not particularly fond of tattoos.
Yeah that sounds like a really sound rationale. It's only far more than a billion people to whom the symbol has a powerful and positive meaning. Let's completely ignore that and say that the 80 year old Western perspective is a lot more important.
[dead]
Now do swastika enforcer.
I guess one could rack through many QR Code parameters while encoding the same payload text: Version (40 sizes with capacity constraints), 4 error correction levels (with capacity constraints), 8 mask patterns, splitting text into various blocks (with capacity constraints), using different character encoding modes (if applicable to the text), putting garbage data after the terminator (violates the spec, but can be a huge boost for generating some custom patterns).
or just draw one and let error correction handle the rest
Article makes no mention of what 900+ million Hindus may feel about the whole thing. It's possible the author doesn't even know what the swastika is, or that he is willfully ignorant because "Indians and Asians live somewhere else".
It isn't hurting Hindus to run code that ensures a QR code doesn't include that sequence of squares.
> It isn't hurting Hindus
No, it's hurting all sensible people.
The unilateral West-first perspective is a problem.
Not really. Not having a swastika is not a problem in the slightest. Indians can also perfectly fine create versions which do include them if they’d prefer that.
Pretty sure the author doesn't intend to enforce the entire world to run QR generation through this code. I'm not stoked Roblox doesn't let me type my real name and phone number into chat. But I can still go to the playground, and say whatever I want. Those 900+ mill people might appreciate a QR-Swastika-Maximizer. Maybe you should author and host one for them. Be the good you want in the world.
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brilliant
Oooooh, magic symbol scares me.