Colors can be interpreted in many ways. Universally, red means some form of hazard. It's a warning to that nothing hazardous is going on down that road. Furthermore, just like the first sign "use" is very ambiguous. Use could mean anything. It could mean "Not currently used for X situation" that could call for a hazardous sign. Maybe it means "Currently not in use for directions" of some sort. With that information we can deduce that the sign is giving us information that no necessary information is needed and therefore is providing some use to us.
See... you're reaching. You feel tempted to say it's not in use. Wouldn't that be so much easier?
But it is in use. We used it to figure out if there was any form of hazard down the road. Since the sign is red, we're immediately drawn to the possibility of a potential hazard, however because it says "not in use" than the red meaning is irrelevant and as such, we used the sign to deduce that no known hazard is upcoming. Quote from: Elegiac on January 21, 2016, 06:32:23 PMSee... you're reaching. You feel tempted to say it's not in use. Wouldn't that be so much easier?
Nope, I'mma take a stand here, and, all redness aside, say that declaring you're not in use is not a state of use. It's simply like putting a lid on some jam: the lid just tells you that the jam is not in use. Sure, the lid is being used to seal the jam, but that's of virtually no significance to us because we only use the jam to modify ourselves.
Idon'tthinksoTim.jpgYOU may use Jam to simply modify yourself but maybe I use jam for other things? I put jam on duct tape and leave it on the floor overnight as an inexpensive way of catching cockroaches. The point of what I'm saying in this post is that other people may have different uses for that sign than what you may believe. Hell, I could even argue the sign can be used as a reference point for somebody like a way marker. Just because it's not in your personal use, or because it's not being used for its intended purpose does not mean it's not being used in a general sense of the word. Quote from: Elegiac on January 21, 2016, 06:45:40 PMNope, I'mma take a stand here, and, all redness aside, say that declaring you're not in use is not a state of use. It's simply like putting a lid on some jam: the lid just tells you that the jam is not in use. Sure, the lid is being used to seal the jam, but that's of virtually no significance to us because we only use the jam to modify ourselves.
Alright, so you're saying that the sign has uses apart from those intended for it. That's an abstraction of its utility. I'm a human being, who would usually do human being things, but I could also be used as a mattress. It's possible, but is is practical or likely? What are the practical uses for this sign, apart from acting as a sign?- which it clearly wants to avoid. You could use it as a sign of settlement, but there would be half-a-dozen other things that would signify the same thing: people are somewhere nearby. And in most cases that knowledge would have already been at hand independent of any environmental clues. Assuming that the sign remains where it is, the scope for its usefulness, for all intents and purposes, is either extremely narrow, or extremely vaporous and subjective in a physically impractical or irrelevant way (ditto mentally, really). The sign is possibly being put to some strange use, in theory this is true. The actuality is far more likely to be that the lid is on the jam, and you'd have to be pretty perverse, and indifferent towards wasted resources, to sit there and stare at the lid.
Debate Pt. 2: But is THIS sign in use?
