Various interesting stuff

malak wrote:

Y'all do know this franchise is cursed, right?

I am not a superstitious person and I agree with malakat

Elon Musk is laughing to his anti-AI bunker right now

If ya don't know, that creepy alien in human suit Zuckerberg was like "yo musk you don't know shit about AI" and Musk was like "kid go back to selling ppl info for shekels, you know shit about AI".

ThePhilosopher wrote:

Elon Musk is laughing to his anti-AI bunker right now

I bet he is. And that is what worries me.

http://www.upworthy.com/a-weatherman-who-said-llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch-is-a-hero?c=ufb6

Possibly the news' greatest hero.

Oh Feral's G*d he's awesome.

This is awesome! It is really important to preserve languages, as they contain the way of thinking and unique outlook of their speakers.
The map is great addition, even if data it contains is quite sad. New Guinea is an language extinction ground...

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/#/6/39.036/74.599/0/100000/0/low/mid/high/unknown

There's zero point in preserving dying languagues except to make some archeologists happy

ThePhilosopher wrote:

There's zero point in preserving dying languagues except to make some archeologists happy

Save to preserve way of thinking unique to that language... Do I need to explain it to you? Neurolinguistics, anyone? Different outlok on time itself, like with the Hopi? Lack of gramatical tense, like some Semitic languages?

Or did you want to pull at my tail?

What this map tells me is that people from the Southern hemisphere don't like to interact with eachother, and never developed a lingua franca even for small areas.

ThePhilosopher wrote:

There's zero point in preserving dying languagues except to make some archeologists happy

Strictly objectively there's zero point to anything at all. But subjectively languages are interesting. And the stuff Feral mentioned.

malak wrote:

What this map tells me is that people from the Southern hemisphere don't like to interact with eachother, and never developed a lingua franca even for small areas.

That is both mean and accurate... I am lost for words. South is too divided, distances too grand to allow for unification.

Feral wrote:

malak wrote:

What this map tells me is that people from the Southern hemisphere don't like to interact with eachother, and never developed a lingua franca even for small areas.

That is both mean and accurate... I am lost for words. South is too divided, distances too grand to allow for unification.

You may be at a loss for words, but they are looking at a loss OF words.

But I was more looking at the smaller areas, such as the aforementioned New Guinea, where it would seemingly be harder to not interact with your neighbor, intermarry and slowly combine the two languages.Obviously I don't expect South Africa and Brazil to share a common language, but Italy managed it a space comparable to New Guinea and some rather drastic rivalries between the sub-regions.

Italy inherited linguistic uniformity from the Romans, then did its best to diversify... Brazil has mostly Portuguese, South Africa English and local Bantu stuff...
For isolated regions it was hard to travel. Look at the map: you have a lot of languages in jungles and mountains. Flatlands and rivers make it easy to mingle and share vocabularies as well as DNA...

South America never had a Roman Empire you Freud worshipper.

A language is indeed a window to one group of people's culture, vision of the world and way of thinking. But if said people never managed to fit into larger societies as a whole, or became a large society itself (like the aforementioned Roman Empire) then there's nothing that great to be learned from said language/culture, aside from what a historian, archeologist or anthopologist might use. The argument would really be "Hey it's interesting".

I'm not saying we should forbid people from using these languages. I'm just saying let's not waste time and resources trying to "save" them. If they die, they die.

To the individual, there's a cost of learning new languages. How much one would get out of learning a new language is almost exclusively related to how many people speak it / spoke it, for it allows one not only to communicate but also to read books, listen to seminars, take courses that are given on said language that may be better or more avaiable than works on the same topic in other languages.

There are thousands of indigenous languages still being used in Brazil by the native indians. I would not learn any of them even if I got paid to do so. Why? Because it is absolutely pointless. Almost no one speaks it, there's almost no book or work made in the language (let alone one avaiable exclusively in it) and it would just be a waste of my time. If these languages are to die, let them die. Compare this to English. With the english language, I can now speak with people from Poland, USA, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Sweden and Germany, and that is in just one website. Whenever there's a book that has not yet been translated into Portuguese, I can read it in english. I could go to any university in the english world, and almost any one in the western world, for many of them offer courses in english only.

You know what language I'm studing right now? Mandarin Chinese. Why? Because China has over a billion inhabitants, has a long and ancient literary culture, is primed to be the military and economical powerhouse of the world in this century like USA was in the 20th century and the UK in the 19th, and it's the only ancient empire that is still here. A million roads will open up for me by learning this language. Compare this to some backwater indian tribe in the jungle. I might go "Oh cool the word they use for family is the same they use for friends" but that's about it.

TL;DR There's a reason why dying languages are dying. Let them die.

You had Portuguese Empire and Spanish empire in south America. Close to Roman one, at least linguistically. As well as the later coming French. British and Dutch, not so much.

I actually wanted to suggest you learn Chinese. Script is a bloody mess, though. Even that there are certain patterns in it. Arabic is very prospective as well. Same as Turkish.

I was more on the road to self discovery and self understanding, some paths to could be lost, as they are present only in certain languages. Material gains are not the only ones, in the long run they are not the most important ones for an individual. Everything we own will turn to dust same as we will, in time.

You are a Ventrue, not a Tzimisce, you know?

This was mildly entertaining: https://www.neowin.net/news/microsofts-chatbot-zo-says-that-linux--windows

Feral wrote:

You had Portuguese Empire and Spanish empire in south America  

Yes, starting at 1500 AD not 800 BC

Feral wrote:

Arabic is very prospective as well. Same as Turkish.

What do you think someone would gain from learning Arabic or Turkish?

Feral wrote:

I was more on the road to self discovery and self understanding, some paths to could be lost, as they are present only in certain languages. Material gains are not the only ones, in the long run they are not the most important ones for an individual. Everything we own will turn to dust same as we will, in time.

I never mentioned material gains exclusively. Most of my previous comment was about oportunities of learning aka books, courses, seminars, etc. And on that point you are correct. But I'm also much more likely to find a good translation from buddhist, taoist or stoic texts in English than in Tupiniquim

Feral wrote:

You are a Ventrue, not a Tzimisce, you know?  

I AM OFFENDED.
What makes you say that?

ThePhilosopher wrote:

Feral wrote:

You had Portuguese Empire and Spanish empire in south America  

Yes, starting at 1500 AD not 800 BC

More 1480s... But of course, Late Middle Ages to early Renaissance. Even that Pedro Alvarez Cabral arrived at precisely 1500.04.22, reconnaissance was done earlier. Portugal inherited a lot from Rome and Arabs, though.

ThePhilosopher wrote:

Feral wrote:

Arabic is very prospective as well. Same as Turkish.

What do you think someone would gain from learning Arabic or Turkish?

Quran, of course. And ability to recite Shahada, so some goat shagger wouldn't burn you alive as a stinky infidel. Other than that, trade opportunities. You have a lot of potential for agriculture, recently quite well utilized, they have a lot of fuckers and a desert. Gescheft ist Gescheft.[/quote]

ThePhilosopher wrote:

Feral wrote:

I was more on the road to self discovery and self understanding, some paths to could be lost, as they are present only in certain languages. Material gains are not the only ones, in the long run they are not the most important ones for an individual. Everything we own will turn to dust same as we will, in time.

I never mentioned material gains exclusively. Most of my previous comment was about oportunities of learning aka books, courses, seminars, etc. And on that point you are correct. But I'm also much more likely to find a good translation from buddhist, taoist or stoic texts in English than in Tupiniquim

Ah, I misunderstood you, then. I took it you meant it career wise only.

ThePhilosopher wrote:

Feral wrote:

You are a Ventrue, not a Tzimisce, you know?  

I AM OFFENDED.
What makes you say that?

I must retract what I said, it seemed. My mistake stemmed from my misunderstanding above. Would you be satisfied with an apology, or would you press to settle it as a matter of honor?

I can see a lesser value in keeping a record of it if we can in case we ever need to use it somehow. Mainly in archeology; we do have historians and such, and it's a good way of letting them do their job if they can decode the writings and such of past civilizations. Imagine for example how little we would learn of the Ancient Sumerians if we didn't bother to decode their language on some level; which I don't think is without value on at least some level. That said, I don't think it's terribly important to save dead languages either.

Feral wrote:

More 1480s... But of course, Late Middle Ages to early Renaissance. Even that Pedro Alvarez Cabral arrived at precisely 1500.04.22, reconnaissance was done earlier. Portugal inherited a lot from Rome and Arabs, though.

Motherfucker, you wanna lecture me on my own country's history?

I only accept copious amounts of Polish vodka as an apology.

I have 5 bottles leftover from my defense in my room... Shall I attach them to an email?

Karavolos wrote:

I can see a lesser value in keeping a record of it if we can in case we ever need to use it somehow. Mainly in archeology; we do have historians and such, and it's a good way of letting them do their job if they can decode the writings and such of past civilizations. Imagine for example how little we would learn of the Ancient Sumerians if we didn't bother to decode their language on some level; which I don't think is without value on at least some level. That said, I don't think it's terribly important to save dead languages either.

That I think is in accordance with what Philo said. Summerians built an empire, left a mark. Also, lot's of these ancient empires were more advanced than I thougt it seems.

Slight difference for two reasons that I can see:
1. Syria is still under active conflict.
2. Climate change is turning the Middle East uninhabitable.

Otherwise agreed.