Not a chance. For any globalisation / unification force there is an equal and opposite force pulling towards autonomy / authenticity / diversity. Language is a very core component of human identity.
>For any globalisation / unification force there is an equal and opposite force pulling towards autonomy / authenticity / diversity.
I think it might be more correct to say that for every globalisation / unification force, there is an equal and opposite teapot in free orbit around the sun.
For globalization in general - very possible you're right; if speak about aspects other than language I would probably agree. But language is changing constantly; all languages are influenced by surrounding countries / cultures, and by those which lead progress currently.
I think every day need of communication and convenience will define the result.
And this list, I think, is an evidence of that tendency.
Who does that? Most people learn only their own language. A substantial number learn one other language, generally English. My own experience (bi-lingual Brit living in Norway working with people from 17 different countries) suggests that a very small proportion go beyond that. I'm excluding those who have a smattering of another language such as most Brits like me who had to take French and Latin at school but never got beyond being able to ask for a beer in a bar. Some of my Polish colleagues can get by in Russian as well as English but not many of those under 30.
I live in Quebec. Everyone is bilingual (over 90% of the population). In my experience the only people who are mostly unlingual are people who's first language is something like english and they stay in english speaking countries (because you're bound to pick up a bit of other languages when travelling) or like mandarin staying in mainland china.
anecdotally I know several europeans where they know at least their language + english + at least one of (french, german, spanish, italian)
brasilians I know typically know english and portuguese and they dont want to admit it but usually they know spanish. they just prefer brasilian or english.
overall if we just all agreed on english as the universal language (imperfect as it is) then it would save so many smart people so much time from needing to learn and translate between so many languages.
just from an efficiency perspective alone, humanity would see a major benefit, I believe.
> overall if we just all agreed on english as the universal language (imperfect as it is) then it would save so many smart people so much time from needing to learn and translate between so many languages.
> just from an efficiency perspective alone, humanity would see a major benefit, I believe.
I'm always surprised to see people accustomed to the world of computers say this kind of things. We know computer languages have different strengths, and we're often advised to learn some languages, not for the professional impact, but for the abstractions they teach.
In this context, I can't explain how people miss the fact that learning multiple languages is an enriching experience. And it is not only an abstract theory, considering the loan words every language has.
It is not only a matter of opening your thought framework, but also a matter of what ressource you have access to : the english language as we know it is very recent, and as a consequence, most of the world's intellectual output has been written in foreign languages. A world that switches to a single language as fast as we do is inevitably burning bridges with most of its knowledge.
Don't try to save smart people from diversifying their views, it's a bad idea.
I would like to point out that learning a computer language usually takes between a week and a month, while learning a natural one takes about a decade. I agree that knowing a natural language broadens the mind to some extent, but spending so much time to get such little reward seems a bit wasteful.
Exactly, that's why engineered auxiliary languages have always seemed like such a great idea to me (like esperanto or Novial). But, none of the offerings ever appealed to a critical mass of people. And, if I understand the history correctly, not-invented-here syndrome caused most moderate successes to splinter when people decided they could come up with something better.
I deeply know the benefit of learning multiple languages. I know three myself. I was born in iran, and am fluent in spanish and english, so I have been exposed to all three cultures and languages all my life. I would love to know and learn from chinese, arabic, japanese, french, german, italian, portuguese, indian, american indigenous, etc.
Do we -all- have to spend all our lives learning -all- of these languages for us to communicate the greatness of each others' cultures and philosophies? Wouldnt it be better, given our finite time on this planet, to share all of these concepts more efficiently?
I understand that there is a desire to make things as efficient as possible, especially in our group. Diversity for a large part, stems from different experiences, especially experiences that stem from diverse society values, though.
I don't see an easy way to get many growing and living cultures, and everyone sharing one language, cultural content, goals, etc. A society can't be homogene and diverse at the same time.
Define "before". Is it a day ago, a month ago, a year ago?
NASA does research. It also publishes research. The latter is a subset of the former and we don't know how the subset compares to the superset.
I can access what it has published in 2016 which I couldn't access in 2015.
I'm not aware of, or know, everything an organization with a $20 billion budget this year and roughly 4% of the US GDP during the Cold War ever did and found there's no difference between that and what it published..
My comment was because I assumed that NASA didn't publish all its research before. Considering the size of that knowledge base, is this assumption so stupid and negative to deserve to be downvoted that much?
> with a $20 billion budget this year and roughly 4% of the US GDP during the Cold War
Just a minor note that it wasn't 4% (of US spending, not of GDP) for the bulk of the Cold War. It looks like it was only above 3% of federal spending for 4 years :
You don't seem to understand much about evolution, or life. Claiming that evolution is a random, unguided "whatever works" process is mere ignorance. To everyone who has ever looked around (or listened around, or sensed around) even for one moment, it is beyond obvious that not only evolution works "by design", but that this design is supremely personal and the ultimate in creativity. So the implied negative connotations in your "creationist" label are misplaced.
Evolution is about selecting mutations that provide the species with survival and reproductive advantages. Since said mutations are indeed totally random, it does also introduce a certain level of randomness to evolution itself.
Ok, so there's a "designer" out there engineering rapists, murderers, limbless people, mentally handicapped people? Why the hell did the designer create maggots that feed on people's nose tissues[1]?
More to the point: what's the design goal? To quote EY [2]:
> But when you look at all the apparent purposefulness in Nature, rather than picking and choosing your examples, you start to notice things that don't fit the Judeo-Christian concept of one benevolent God. Foxes seem well-designed to catch rabbits. Rabbits seem well-designed to evade foxes. Was the Creator having trouble making up Its mind?
>
When I design a toaster oven, I don't design one part that tries to get electricity to the coils and a second part that tries to prevent electricity from getting to the coils. It would be a waste of effort. Who designed the ecosystem, with its predators and prey, viruses and bacteria? Even the cactus plant, which you might think well-designed to provide water fruit to desert animals, is covered with inconvenient spines.
I don't deny that if there is a "designer", then he gets a lot of points for creativity.
I mean, it takes a lot of "creativity" to design an 8 limbed baby [3], twins sharing the same body [4] or a child with a skull that won't stop growing [5]. Sure, it's very "creative" and even personal I guess (I mean, when you get ostracized for having an "elephant face" it sure appears to be very meant and taken very personally). So I guess you're right in at least one metaphorical sense.
Elixir _is_ the correct answer. Not sure what you mean by "narrow focus" - it is as general purpose as anything. Only thing holding me back from fully moving from Python to Elixir is that the ecosystem isn't mature enough yet.
I like Elixir, but the ecosystem has years of catching up to be anywhere close to Python. Not just libraries but experienced developers. There's also a danger it might end up like Ruby - basically the support system for a web framework.
Elixir is nice, but I hardly think it compares to Python due to the fact that you are required to hand back control from a native call approximately every half second or so or else you will screw the internal scheduler on the ErlangVM.
There isn't anything intrinsically wrong with communism as an ideal. All of its implementations, however, have been seriously lacking, and perhaps it is unviable in practice; this does not mean the concept is unacceptable in theory.
There isn't anything intrinsically wrong with communism as an ideal.
There clearly is. Everywhere it has been tried, it led to at least poverty and usually genocide. Communism has been far, far worse than nazism or fascism and holding national socialism as some sort of valuable ideal untainted by the reality is unacceptable almost everywhere.
In practice yes, but not in theory, which is an important distinction. To use an analogy, genocide of Jews is an unacceptable ideal, you don't have to try it out to know its bad. In retrospect, no one thought the nazi's plan could have ended up working in a "good" way. Compare that to Lenin and the Bolsheviks, given communism as an ideal alone, it wasn't inherently flawed or "evil", it just turns out people are selfish enough for this not to work, leading to a lot of collateral damage in the form of bad ideals (like genocide).
Fascism is quite similar, though I'm not sure one could say communism is worse than fascism, given that the latter was only tried a couple of times and was put out relatively quickly, while the impact of the former happened over a much longer period of time and under much larger populations.
> In practice yes, but not in theory, which is an important distinction.
Communism is an economic system that falls apart in practice because of greed. An economic system that fails to account for greed is not good, even in theory.
If someone said "let's go communist", you would have to argue with them why it was a bad idea. A reasonable proposition that turns out not to be a good idea.
If someone said "let's kill the Jews", you would probably slowly and carefully walk away from that person because they were nuts. An unreasonable proposition that you probably don't want to bother arguing against (because what kind of person would even say that?).
When I hear that something "works in theory," I understand that to mean "if you oversimplify a little, this would work well." "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is."
But it's only valid if you oversimplify a little. Starting with "first, forget everything you know about human nature" goes too far.
I don't think of "works in theory" as shorthand for "doesn't have internal contradictions" or "sounds reasonable if you forget everything you know about human nature."
It turns out that public ownership of the means of production actually leads to an even worse world than planned, industrial genocide. Part of the reason why is people clinging to this idea long after it has been shown not viable and leading to absolutely horrific events like Holodomor (a Holocaust level genocide before Holocaust) or The Great Leap Forward.
I can see how one might find communism interesting from the perspective of 19th century. I cannot believe anyone still does in the 21st.
I think you are really misinterpreting the meaning of "an acceptable proposition". It doesn't have to evaluate to T, only that, as an abstraction, it does not evaluate to F based on its structure alone.
No we don't want communism (at least I don't), but for someone to say it is illogical is completely incorrect.
You are clearly incompetent about the subject. The "ideal" of communism and the practice of communism are not two different things. Communism is practiced precisely the way it is theoretically intended to work.
Communism is a cleptocratic system of ruling and exploiting the manual labour and natural resources of any given territory inhabited by unambitious masses that largely lack individualism. The core of the system relies on individualism and personal achievement being punished and forcefully suppressed, while the masses are continuously promised vague ideals of equality and justice (much like with any other system of government - nothing innovative here. ) There is nothing acceptable about communism - not in theory, not in practice, not in ideals - nothig.
Are you sure that is how Marx described communism, as a cleptocratic system of ruling and exploiting... I mean, I don't remember reading that at all, just like I don't remember Ayn Rand describing libertarianism as a return feudalism where property rights rule out over the collective of the people.
Are you sure Marx wrote that, or are you letting your own bias into your definition?
For the record, I live in a communist country and don't like how that aspect turned out at all. But I don't blame it on the communism, after all, Russia still has many problems even after they threw off communism. Selfish bad leaders will beat you up with any ideology they find convenient.
Marx did not describe communism that way, obviously, but it should be equally obvious that his terrible ideas led directly to what happened. Communism isn't some great idea that flawed humans have repeatedly screwed up - it is a flawed idea whose outcome was easily predicted even by Marx's contemporaries.
Seen with the benefit of hindsight, Mikael Bakunin's criticism is most appropriate:
They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.
For Bakunin, the fundamental contradiction is that for the Marxists, "anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved."
Marx directly argued that communism should be implemented by violent revolution that would put in place a temporary "dictatorship of the proles", which is an absurd concept containing the seeds of its destruction.
I've been told this a number of times. I've never read any Ayn Rand - probably should. I was, however, born and raised in communism, as were my parents, so I talk from experience.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. I grew up in socialist Syria and that was pretty much it, my wife in Peru had a similar experience and so did my Russian friends. I think most Westerners are totally clueless when it comes to what communism really means and are quick to label you an Ayn Rand fanboy. I guess they will eventually find out if they keep voting for more socialism though.
You weren't raised "in communism". You lived in a socialist country ruled by an organization which, depending on the country, might or even might have not called itself communist party. Communism might have been the proclaimed goal of that government, but in reality that was little more than an ideological slogan.
I think authoritarian left wing communist "transition states", are what most people mean by communism now. The word has evolved and changed meaning. Also, I believe that because the two are synonymous, and there never was any "true communism" implemented according to many, expressing communism as the above isn't too factually inaccurate. If someone calls their self something, and is labeled that thing, they'll eventually be that thing. In this case, "communist" governments.
Leftist anarchists are against private property though and against turning a profit and individualism. We all know how this ends. Also, how do you enforce the no private property rule without a state and without a private security agency?
It is a natural thing to want to own the property you live on at least, even lions urinate on their turf to mark it as theirs. How would you start preventing humans from doing what every mammals has ever done ever?
As usually used, "private property" is a superset of "personal property", as all non-government-held (non-"public") property is " private property", including both real and personal property.
But I think you are probably using an unusual and ideologically-specific definition of "private property" that you should probably detail explicitly.
This all counts as personal property (though of course people disagree about what exactly should count as personal property). An example of private property is owning a factory that you don't personally work in, or even owning an apartment which you have never lived in and don't intend on living in. The Sauk leader Black Hawk articulated something like this idea when he said
My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and cultivate, as far as necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have the right to the soil—but if they voluntarily leave it, then any other people have a right to settle upon it. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away.
Locke[1] also believed that people shouldn't be able to own things that they don't personally use or hoard resources if they are scarce.
What if you're the best at managing said factory without working in it, should I own it instead because I work there even though I have terrible management skills that will lead it to bankruptcy? Seems awfully inefficient. Should the people working at Apple factory own Apple? Not making much sense. How long would it last?
I think managing a factory counts as working in it (working in the office rather than on the floor). With respect to the idea that there should be no private property, it seems to me that there's no reason that this implies that a factory should be managed by factory workers. By all means hire managers to manage the factory, it's what they're best at. But managing a factory (i.e. being the person that coordinates the business side of the company) isn't the same thing as owning it or controlling it. You can imagine, for example, a factory that is managed by a manager but ultimately owned and controlled by a worker collective (which includes the manager). The most important decisions of the factory could be made democratically (supported by data gathered by managers) whereas the day to day business decisions would be made by people who manage the factory.
That wouldn't work though. Factory workers from a competing factory would attract the best managers by offering them more money or complete control and ownership because they know the factory would have way more profit and therefor more money for the workers this way. And then you're back to private property because it turns out its the most efficient way to get things done.
Themselves and people who voluntary agree with them because it would be in their own self-interest to be rich with a more successful factory instead of poor with a bankrupt factory?
You realize that private property is defined and enforced by a state, right? It doesn't exist until a social structure says "This is yours and we will guarantee it with force of violence if we need to".
Also i'm sure our definitions of individualism are irreconcilably different. Your individualism involves people subordinating others with violence explicit and implicit if you really think capitalism is a pro-individualism system. For me, individualism cannot be separated from collectivism.
Why would you want to build anything if anyone can come and grab it because private property is bad? My body belongs to me and so does what I build with it unless I voluntarily give it away. I don't need a state to enforce the protection of my property, I could do it myself or pay someone (a person, a private security agency or yes, a state).
> Your individualism involves people subordinating others with violence explicit and implicit if you really think capitalism is a pro-individualism system
What is capital(ism) if not the accumulation of things to build more things. In order to build anything, you need a certain capital even in a anarchy world, it could be pieces of wood, bricks, money etc. Now who is better suited to manage this capital? Everyone? Turns out, some people suck at managing capital and some people know best how to manage it because they're the ones who managed to accumulate enough in order to build this capital in the first place. Societies where capital was managed by collectives have historically not done well.
Also, I'm not for subordinating people with violence so not sure where you got this idea. I'm ok though with using force to defend your body and the property you acquired peacefully with it (because you built it or because someone agreed to give it to you).
I am not seeing how communism can become a viable idea on a large scale, but on a smaller scale it is nothing new or unusual. In a family people normally share property, food, money, and products of labor. That's communism. Israeli kibbutz is another example.
Some aspects are present in large companies too. For instance at many companies teams don't directly pay for infrastructure that they use, it's all provided by the company. Or computer equipment, air conditioning, etc. Of course this has issues of its own, like people under-appreciating the all the VMs they're provisioning, and it gets especially bad if the budget gets tight.
So an emotional emotional attachment to a nation which an individual recognizes as their homeland, is 'stupid'. The nation has provided that person with certain values which she/he deeply appreciates and feels strongly about: is that stupidity? Isn't it a good idea to determine what those values are and how they relate to other people before you generalize so crudely?
It is orders of magnitude beyond stupid - it's utterly brainless. So your nation has PROVIDED you with your values, huh? Yay. The objective of patriotism has been achieved. Now go and fight to the death for your beloved nation, because surely no other values should exist on Earth.
>The nation has provided that person with certain values which she/he deeply appreciates and feels strongly about: is that stupidity? Isn't it a good idea to determine what those values are and how they relate to other people before you generalize so crudely?
Indeed it is important to understand how they relate to other people, but not just people within the artificial boundaries of a nation state.
Those values weren't spontaneously and independently invented by the artificial lines drawn on a piece of paper, they were developed throughout all human history across the whole planet.
Definitely rightness, not goodness. A "good God" would never punish. Only one with an ulterior agenda (and therefore not a true creator) would resort to punishment.
