The Sign is Arbitrary

As Dr. Bruce Maylath drills into his English 209 - Linguistics - class at North Dakota State University, "The sign is arbitrary." He didn't coin this expression, but some famous linguist did. When I found Slate's article The Big Red Word vs. The Little Green Man, I knew I had to share it. While it has very, very little to do with the English language or linguistics, it does have a lot to do with us (Americans) vs. them (non-Americans). While my superiority complex, gained by being a United States citizen for all of my 24.5 years, says to keep the red EXIT sign, I can see how people who don't know English would fail to "EXIT" a burning building.

The author claims that the red color of our exit sign signals danger (red = danger or stop) but the green running man tells people to go or signals safety. I say do as sheep do and just follow the other running, screaming, highly obnoxious people ahead of you.

Which do you prefer?

OR