Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 13:33:28 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net> To: cmott@srv.net (Charles Mott) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The Language Barrier [Was: Could FreeBSD be ...] Message-ID: <199711171833.NAA04579@dyson.iquest.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971117060214.675B-100000@darkstar.home> from Charles Mott at "Nov 17, 97 06:24:41 am"
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Charles Mott said: > > I also have this vague feeling that the Chinese are eventually going to do > something really stunning in science or technology, and completely within > their own culture, so that these developments will be opaque to the > non-Chinese speaking world. > <IMO> Taking a long-term view of what languages will be valuable to communicate effectively in the world, I think that English, Chinese and Russian will be the most important to learn. This is NOT a political opinion, but an opinion that recognizes that China and Russia are both potentially HUGE economic powers, and that that the difficulties that they are having today are only passing. What I see in both China and Russia is a deliberate movement to freedom (in their own ways.) China taking a conservative and "safe" approach. (Note the quotes around "safe.") Russia is taking a more dangerous, but perhaps quicker approach. (Note the relative breakdown of the rule of law and economic system.) I think that generally, Russia can deal with the issues of feeding it's people. It think that it is also true that Russia realizes that the West will make sure that it doesn't have problems with mass starvation. Frankly, I think that the Russians won't let that happen, and over then next ten years will make amazing progress. Over time, Russia will become part of the western community, when it realizes (from a cultural standpoint, more than just intellectually as they do now) that there is now truly little to fear from the West, especially from the US. I suspect that it takes a long time to forget past wrongs. Remember that England used to be one of the worst enemies of the US, and is now it's very closest European ally. I think that China already realizes this, but China has a very different culture, and will eventually create its own form of capitalistic freedom. (Hopefully, there will be more political freedom there also -- I believe that it will have such in my lifetime.) They are likely learning from HK (even though HK isn't a perfect model of democracy either, due to it's history of being a (territory/colony/?) of UK.) In China, it appears that they have an overriding concern of maintaining the infrastructures that support life. Frankly, if there was a mass starvation problem there, it would be very very difficult for the rest of the world to make up for the lack of food. An unstable China or Russia is not good for anyone, either their own populations, or for the rest of the world. The US population needs to be able to better understand both the long term and the short term views of foreign policy. We tend to think in terms of short term, mostly due to our sensationalizing news media, and that is a terrible mistake. Both of our (large) partners in the world have huge territories, and have the brain-trust to make use of their vast resources. It is likely that English (American (US, Canadian), British (incl HK), India, and Australian) will be the most traditional mode of communication, while Russian and Chinese (the official spoken version) will be valuable, perhaps necessary for international commerce (perhaps as much or more than English.) Personally, I am probably most interested in Russian right now, and intrigued by the language and all of it's complex, but descriptive syntax. Unfortunately, my language skills are not very well (good) :-), but future generations in the US will have to be a little more open to learning, and becoming fluent in other languages. In the US and Canada, we locally need to deal with both the NA. French and NA. Spanish issues. (In US and Canada, the issues are very different though.) It is likely that in the US, we'll have to approach the issue by making English the "official" language. This is not chauvinism, but the US is just large enough to factionalize like the Quebec issues in Canada. I would like for us to avoid that problem. IMO, Quebec breaking off from the country would be disasterous, and might cause some problems with the integrity of the country. (There are rumors that the NW provinces might join with the US, or whatever, hopefully that would never have to happen.) Luckily, Canada and the US have similar but different cultures, and it seems to me that Canada and the US tend to stabilize each other. Right now, it appears that NA can remain in a stable state for a long time, and that is good. I don't want to see the wildcard of Quebec splitting off causing any instability. (People in the US DO listen to Canadian concerns carefully, and many, even conservatives like myself, consider Canada, UK, with Mexico up-and-coming, to be the most intimate and important, world partners for the US.) I am sure that it is very difficult for the American (US) foreign policy people to make sure that we don't become too predatory. (Look at the Microsoft mess, it is a problem in the US just as bad or worse than it is in the rest of the world.) In the US, we are learning that we have to understand other cultures more, and communicate better. We do tend to be to inward looking, but the same internet that is helping some parts of the world open up, is also doing similar things to the US. We are less and less dependent on the very biased news media and gov't propaganda, and that is good for everyone. (I think that the negative sides of the internet, such as Neo-Nazi, racist or severe anti-gov't groups are being emphasized by the media that has the "we know what is best for you to know" attitude in the US. It is self-serving for the media to "warn" about the evils of the Internet.) I also think that world-wide news broadcasts like CNN are also useful for the rest of the world. Believe it or not, CNN (even CNN international) is good intelligence on US politics and foreign policy. CNN is a very interesting thing, and is a great propaganda tool for the US and a great intelligence tool for the average non-NA person. It allows the avg. non-NA person to see problems in the US before it becomes their own problem :-). I also find watching the translated Russian, UK and German news broadcasts to be very valuable and educational, and I frankly don't do so enough. The American population should look more often at other world news broadcasts to see more how the rest of the (mostly free) world works politically. It would be good for us also to better understand problems in the rest of the world before they become ours. (e.g. even though the Arabs are very important to us, very few Americans, including me, understand anything about Arab cultures.) All we generally know is what the media and gov't say, and both of those institutions have their own agendas. We still have to deal with silly legends in our education system, and the notion that our society (in general) is an enlightened one is also one of those legends. Our people need to be educated more about how the world really works, and I am one who is also personally trying to do so. I sure hope that this didn't make anyone hate me, and this is far away from an appropriate agenda from FreeBSD-chat. :-). It is clear that we in the US are going to have to be more careful to ready our children for a world that is bigger than the US or even NA. </IMO> -- John dyson@freebsd.org jdyson@nc.com
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