this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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The point of the dial is there is no middle ground. You either take it quietly or you're a troublemaker.
I don't mean to diminish the larger point you're making about feminism not having middle ground, but from an interface design perspective, a dial very much implies a continuum of settings. When there isn't middle ground, the interface should be a toggle switch instead.
Of course this is art, not a real device, so obviously a dial is appropriate because it's a response to being told to "dial down," not "switch off."
(I almost feel like there could've been something different about the way the dial was depicted -- maybe with a range with "raging feminist" next to "complicit" and something more extreme above it, or maybe indeed using a toggle instead of a dial -- in order to emphasize that "raging feminist" already is as "dialed down" as you could reasonably ask for, but such UI realism would probably just clutter up the design without improving the message. As art, I think the artist got it right as-is.)
You're not wrong. But I picture this dial to snap between two settings. Like ones that are used for on/off switches. Not like a continuous potentiometer type.
It being a dial illustrates that while people who make such statements pretend that there's a continuum, it's really rather binary.
This has now become canon
As long as you talk respectfully about the art, my guess is that the artist her the point across.
I would invite people who have different opinions to make their own art reflecting their point of views. I may make my own variation of the theme.
There are guitar pedals that have toggle dials (? dunno if that's the correct term). But they are dials for things with several discrete settings (usually more than the two or three that a typical dipswitch can handle).
Off the top of my head, the JHS pedals where they pack like 7 or 8 versions of an OD circuit into a single pedal (Bonsai, Muffaletta, PackRat), all have such dials. They click into place and there is nothing in between. And it works just fine.
Old television dials also come to mind. Discrete channels with nothing but dead air in between.
"Rotary switch"
No, the point is that there really is no middle ground with these people.