We reached the point (some time ago) where the save icon being a floppy disk makes absolutely no sense to anyone born after a certain time. We could choose a more modern media format and use an icon of that instead, but we would run into the same problem once that media becomes obsolete.
What is a good icon for the function of saving something that can easily be understood by anyone regardless of language or the march of time?
Edit: I know it’s not really an answerable question and is hard but the question is what would you come up with if tasks to design an icon. Given the constraints of the question, what are your best shots at coming up with something that fills the requirements and why do you thing it would work?
How are there so many people ITT who genuinely don’t even understand what OP is asking and are arguing about something else completely that they thought up in their head like whether we should do away with the floppy icon because it confuses people now or if their youngsters know what a floppy is or if they do or if there’s a better icon to us now that can represent saving.
None of those are anything to do with OP really.
What OP is asking is if in 10000 years the next human civilization after our collapse that has no concept of computers and probably no electricity or industry nor potentially any grasp on our language or alphabet stumbles upon a functioning computer from our civilization, how do we tell them which button is the save button, when all shared symbolic context has been lost?
Consider the same question but for radioactive waste, how do we ward off potential future pre-industrial human civilizations from our nuclear waste sites to stop them dying to radiation poisoning for possibly tens of thousands of years until they develop an understanding of radiation and the equipment to measure it? Well, something like this maybe:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
Though maybe given this thread, we should instead be considering how to convey very simple abstract questions to the pre-industrial people on lemmy.world instead, especially when it appears they have only a rudimentary, GPT2-esque grasp on language.
I was gonna fight you because “or if there’s a better icon to us now that can represent saving.” Is a reasonable interpretation of what OP said.
But then I continued to read more comments and wow people just like… Explaining the floppy disk is wild.
This is not a place of honor, no honored dead is interred here.
I am also very perplexed by the responses in this whole thread. These are very basic drills that are also done in design based classes. It’s just a thought experiment.
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