Learning radically different languages ironically does the opposite; it helps you think about and communicate concepts. What this person is realistically saying here, is that they are so worried about being unable to teach their children to ask critical questions and read between the lines, media literacy, that they'll put them in a box and project shame on to anyone who doesn't do that.
There’s a counter argument that there’s just a flood of Chinese propaganda because media is under control.
The counter-counter argument is that they’re fluent in two languages and can easily see opposing opinion expressed in mainstream English language media and sort out for themselves where the truth lies.
Won't someone please stop the truth from being contextualized in history! We have to protect the Western news media from undue critique! Let's all band together and protect Bezos, Weiss, Ellison, Murdoch, Zuck, Musk, Dorsey, and every other rich fuck and dynasty that owns our local newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, and mass social media!!
My god. Ken is right, language is not just a communication tool. Every language you learn, an entire new universe of human experiences opens up to you. It's amazing. You get to experience the world through an entirely new lens, talk to and become friends with people who'd have stayed strange and strangers forever.
If I could go back to highschool, I'd choose the linguistic branch (we could choose between an additional foreign language, or computer science + more physics and chemistry). And I say that as a computer scientist who loves her field!
I have a list of languages I want to learn... Once I'm "finished" with the current one (aka fluent enough to not actively study every day). Chinese is also on that list.
yeah, i can't explain it properly as i'm only an amateur linguist but each language has a different perspective, and some thoughts and ideas are more easily expressed (or thought about) in different languages.
both my wife and i simcom in different sign languages when we're stressed. it's one of the similarities what drew us to each other
Yeah, it's creepy, but almost every Chinese immigrant to the U.S. I know has told me something similar. Not as creepily unhinged as "learning Chinese is a mental prison in the making", but I've heard "my parents are mad at me for not sending my kids to Chinese school" a bunch of times.
To be fair, that could just be regular overbearing parent pressure, which is very prevalent among parents of people in tech.
Same goes for English. Pick a language. Pick a culture.
Ethnocentrism works equally for all languages and cultures.
It’s not about the language first. It’s about overcoming our idiotic primate nature to believe that our group/pack/population is better than anther.
While it was a survival mechanism thousands of years ago, now it just impedes the off humanity. Usually through mindsets like you’ve just outlined which feeds fear and bigotry instead of advancing our society.
Eh, some languages are a bit more insular than others. English opens up propaganda from quite a lot of countries. They're mostly western liberal capitalist, but still more different voices than you'd get from China.
Spanish would be better as you'd get to understand communication both from Cuba and Venezuela as from Spain and most of the rest of Latin America.
My view of languages is that they're sort of like an operating system for the mind. There are certain concepts that I can only express in certain languages. For example: the German zeitgeist. I can just say that in German, but there isn't an English equivalent. I have to describe is as spirit of the times, general feeling, the vibe of society. Same with the Russian домохозяйства, I can call it home economics/housekeeping, but in English that phrase is much more gendered, and doesn't really encompass the same concept of running an entire household not just in the cooking and cleaning sense, but also in terms of financial priorities and decision making regarding the family (see, I'd say family planning but that only means birth control in English).
Hence, operating system of the mind. The same way that you need an emulator to run mac software on windows, you need to spend more time describing certain concepts when the language has no word for them.
This also leads to differences in thinking. When you lack the words to express your thoughts, then you don't talk about them. You don't refine them into clear concepts. And eventually, you stop thinking them altogether.
Orwell was on point with newspeak. Language control is directly thought control. Taking away the words necessary to express thoughts makes those thoughts unthinkable.
my wife, who has considerable practical and theoretical expertise in the area, found children learn sign languages earlier than spoken languages.
which languages are better for kids? the languages their family and culture use - language is our primary tool for communication and that's the goal. good communication.
Children don't care, you can feed them bits and pieces of every language and they'll construct a new language out of it. Actually, the idea of a defined language is a very adult idea, for when you can't so easily learn new things and you decide that whatever you know now is the true language and what other people speak is bastardized or dialect or a different language altogether.
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Why has Harry Potter devoted his entire personality to “exposing China’s collapse” though?
I bet Ken felt very embarrassed when he reread this when he wasn't completely blazed.
Learning radically different languages ironically does the opposite; it helps you think about and communicate concepts. What this person is realistically saying here, is that they are so worried about being unable to teach their children to ask critical questions and read between the lines, media literacy, that they'll put them in a box and project shame on to anyone who doesn't do that.
There’s a counter argument that there’s just a flood of Chinese propaganda because media is under control.
The counter-counter argument is that they’re fluent in two languages and can easily see opposing opinion expressed in mainstream English language media and sort out for themselves where the truth lies.
Personally, the more languages the better.
As opposed to English language media which is has been controlled by the merchant class so long that it was responsible for the Opium Wars?
Fuck, the ml is leaking and getting all over everything again. Someone slap some duct tape on it
Won't someone please stop the truth from being contextualized in history! We have to protect the Western news media from undue critique! Let's all band together and protect Bezos, Weiss, Ellison, Murdoch, Zuck, Musk, Dorsey, and every other rich fuck and dynasty that owns our local newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, and mass social media!!
Yeah! You aren't allowed to criticize the West on western platforms! Oh, wait....
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jester%27s_privilege
In the sense that you are a clown for comparing Chinese censorship to the western internet, yes!
My god. Ken is right, language is not just a communication tool. Every language you learn, an entire new universe of human experiences opens up to you. It's amazing. You get to experience the world through an entirely new lens, talk to and become friends with people who'd have stayed strange and strangers forever.
If I could go back to highschool, I'd choose the linguistic branch (we could choose between an additional foreign language, or computer science + more physics and chemistry). And I say that as a computer scientist who loves her field!
I have a list of languages I want to learn... Once I'm "finished" with the current one (aka fluent enough to not actively study every day). Chinese is also on that list.
yeah, i can't explain it properly as i'm only an amateur linguist but each language has a different perspective, and some thoughts and ideas are more easily expressed (or thought about) in different languages.
both my wife and i simcom in different sign languages when we're stressed. it's one of the similarities what drew us to each other
Most rational linkedin essay post I've ever seen.
Yeah, it's creepy, but almost every Chinese immigrant to the U.S. I know has told me something similar. Not as creepily unhinged as "learning Chinese is a mental prison in the making", but I've heard "my parents are mad at me for not sending my kids to Chinese school" a bunch of times.
To be fair, that could just be regular overbearing parent pressure, which is very prevalent among parents of people in tech.
I'm not reading all that, Harry Potter
Same goes for English. Pick a language. Pick a culture.
Ethnocentrism works equally for all languages and cultures.
It’s not about the language first. It’s about overcoming our idiotic primate nature to believe that our group/pack/population is better than anther.
While it was a survival mechanism thousands of years ago, now it just impedes the off humanity. Usually through mindsets like you’ve just outlined which feeds fear and bigotry instead of advancing our society.
Eh, some languages are a bit more insular than others. English opens up propaganda from quite a lot of countries. They're mostly western liberal capitalist, but still more different voices than you'd get from China.
Spanish would be better as you'd get to understand communication both from Cuba and Venezuela as from Spain and most of the rest of Latin America.
So as soon as you learn Chinese , the great Chinese firewall applies to you? /s
Not a bad idea, but a bad conclusion.
My view of languages is that they're sort of like an operating system for the mind. There are certain concepts that I can only express in certain languages. For example: the German zeitgeist. I can just say that in German, but there isn't an English equivalent. I have to describe is as spirit of the times, general feeling, the vibe of society. Same with the Russian домохозяйства, I can call it home economics/housekeeping, but in English that phrase is much more gendered, and doesn't really encompass the same concept of running an entire household not just in the cooking and cleaning sense, but also in terms of financial priorities and decision making regarding the family (see, I'd say family planning but that only means birth control in English).
Hence, operating system of the mind. The same way that you need an emulator to run mac software on windows, you need to spend more time describing certain concepts when the language has no word for them.
This also leads to differences in thinking. When you lack the words to express your thoughts, then you don't talk about them. You don't refine them into clear concepts. And eventually, you stop thinking them altogether.
Orwell was on point with newspeak. Language control is directly thought control. Taking away the words necessary to express thoughts makes those thoughts unthinkable.
This is right, Which language is best for children?
my wife, who has considerable practical and theoretical expertise in the area, found children learn sign languages earlier than spoken languages.
which languages are better for kids? the languages their family and culture use - language is our primary tool for communication and that's the goal. good communication.
Leetspeak only, for a healthy, accepting, well-rounded individual.
1 @gr33
Children don't care, you can feed them bits and pieces of every language and they'll construct a new language out of it. Actually, the idea of a defined language is a very adult idea, for when you can't so easily learn new things and you decide that whatever you know now is the true language and what other people speak is bastardized or dialect or a different language altogether.
something something sapir-whorf
Exposing China prolapse
Ken needs a hobby. Too much time on his hands.
You could replace Chinese with Russian and the author with Ayn Rand. If she had had kids.
It's the same rationalizing of hatred and disdain. A wounded mind lashing out at the source of it's pain.
ken cao needs to look at the world and not just screens. What an impoverished vision :\