That there just aren't the words in Language 1 to express the idea in Language 2... Since they have the same basic needs, they have the same basic environment. Sometimes that's the case...
One example that I cited in another comment on here regards the Pirahã language... They have no words to count- they only have "one", "two" and "many".
From wiki:
The Pirahã do not count with numerals. They use only approximate measures, and in tests were unable to consistently distinguish between a group of four objects and a similarly-arranged group of five objects. When asked to duplicate groups of objects, they duplicate the number correctly on average, but almost never get the number exactly in a single trial.
Being (correctly) concerned that, because of this cultural gap, they were being cheated in trade, the Pirahã people asked Daniel Everett, a linguist that was working with them, to teach them basic numeracy skills. After eight months of enthusiastic but fruitless daily study, the Pirahã concluded that they were incapable of learning the material, and discontinued the lessons. Not a single Pirahã had learned to count up to ten or even add 1 + 1.[5]
Everett argues that test subjects are unable to count for two cultural reasons and one formal linguistic reason. First, they are nomadic hunter/gatherers with nothing to count and hence no need to practice doing so. Second, they have a cultural constraint against generalizing beyond the present which eliminates number words. Third, since numerals and counting are based on recursion in the language according to some researchers, then the absence of recursion in their language predicts a lack of counting. That is, it is the lack of need which explains both the lack of counting ability and the lack of corresponding vocabulary. Everett does not claim that the Pirahãs are cognitively incapable of counting.
Sure, my native language, finnish, doesn't have a single-word equivalent for the english concept of "defenestration", but I can still understand the concept of throwing someone out of the window just fine - so well, in fact, that I can come up with a new descriptive word at the spot: "ikkunastaheitto". Hey... my native language supports this kind of word-creation, so if language defines cognitive capabilities of the one speaking it, then bow before my linquistically-enabled superiority as I begin to rule the world !
That works well if your language has words for "throw" and "window", but you'd have a hard time translating it into a language with no concept of either one.
And how many millions have died because we don't understand each other?
If you're referring to people dying in wars, not very many, I'd think.
International communications may not always be easy, but there are generally at least a few people capable of translations, enabling communications between rival factions. There may have been a few times in history where cultural/language misunderstandings led to diplomatic gaffes and were a source of conflict, but I think those would be in the minority.
Glib comments aside, language death = cultural death. Along with the death of languages goes the ability to express ideas in ways that are unique to that language, and a unique cultural worldview.
E.g., a lot of the relatively early Christian problems leading schisms and heresies, a good thousand years before Hus and Luther, were... translation problems. Stuff that made sense about Christ in Greek, sounded like a major heresy when translated in Syriac, because the nuances of some words were different.
There's two ways of looking at this example.
One is that the differences in language caused a misunderstanding between speakers of the two languages, thus creating a schism.
Another way to look at it is that there are unique ways of expressing ideas in Greek and Syriac, illustrating the importance of language diversity. There are ideas that cannot be easily expressed in Greek and ideas that cannot be easily expressed in Syriac. It's unfortunate that this was a source of conflict between the two cultures, but would it be preferable that these ideas remained unexpressable in the first place? Cultural diversity is a beautiful thing.
Is Hobbes wrong about the life of man in the natural state being "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"?
well, yes. He is wrong about that.
From your link:
Hobbes tried to envision what society would be like in a "state of nature" -- before any civil state or rule of law. His conclusion was despiriting: life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", a "war of every man against every man".
So he gets it wrong from his basic assumption- the vision of society without a civil state. The assumption is that there is something wrong with human nature, but this can't possibly be the case. Would it make sense to talk about how dogs or whales or cockroaches are inherently flawed, and there is something wrong with their very nature? Humans aren't really any different.
The basic organizational state of humans is not the individual, as Hobbes predicts, but more of a tribal organization. Humans aren't solitary animals.
Humans managed to survive just fine for hundreds of thousands of years without the organization of a civil state. Sure, there was some level of organization, but it generally wasn't a strong social stratification.
If anything, the extremely hierarchical organization of civilization seems to bring out the worst in people.
yes, and as we all know, businesses and the business world exist in their own separate reality, completely separated from people. So when "bad" things happen to to businesses, it has absolutely zero effect on real, living people.
I should have clarified that I do understand the point that the negative effects on business do actually impact people. Maybe some loss of wealth, people losing their jobs, etc. All bad things, sure. I realize this.
The OP was making it sound like for every one life the Gates Foundation saved, Microsoft killed two.
Of course the good work will be done as far removed from the bad work and of different type. Quite elementary and obvious. You do not seem to understand how PR works...
Right... Microsoft does shitty things for the business world and other businesses. The Gates Foundation does good things for actual humans.
I suppose if you value business way more than human life, then you could argue that Microsoft does more damage than the Gates Foundation does good.
When various of your joints are locked to the verge of damage, you are going to cooperate. Haven't you ever watched UFC?
I've watched it and participated in mixed martial arts. There's not a lot of aikido used in UFC.
Most aikido training doesn't include fighting against someone who is trying to injure you, which is where the problem lies. All too often, the uke in aikido training is cooperative, to the detriment of the practitioner.
That's not to say that aikido is completely without value, but for grappling, something like Brazilian jujutsu generally has more effective training techniques.
And I'm sure that several dozen poor people were tasered on the same day, for doing the same thing (struggling with the police), and not a single on of them gets front page Slashdot.
It's more newsworthy when the incident is caught on tape. We probably wouldn't have heard about this guy either if it wasn't recorded.
Man, the entirety of my Bachelor's (at 30k+ student school) cost me less than 20k. I paid for bills by working part-time. I know that US universities are a little more expensive and I hear that tuitions are going up, but like more than twice as expensive? That's hard to believe. Are you sure that people aren't just graduating with 40k in debt b/c they don't know how manage their money?
Yes, it really is that expensive here. I just filled in the "tuition and fees calculator" for my alma mater (Purdue) and this is what I came up with:
Estimated Tuition and Fees: $3,708.00 Estimated On-Campus Housing (including 15 meals per week in the dorm): $5,785.00 Total Estimated Tuition, Fees, and Housing per Semester: $9,493.00
That's a public school, and that's in state tuition. Not including books, etc.
So about $10,000 per semester times 8 semesters = $80,000
An out-of-state student can expect to pay $16,897.00 per semester.
Perhaps with the notable exception of Caligula, have you ever....ever seen an adult movie with anything other than minimal plot development? Have you ever watched an adult movie and said to yourself, "Gee, I never expected it to end that way...."?
Depends on what you consider to be an adult movie.
If you're just talking about porn, then no. If you're including movies aimed at adults, even if you're not counting the rated-R and only including NC-17, then yes, I've seen quite a few excellent "adult" movies.
I realize it wasn't clear from what I asked, but what I want to know is this: From where does morality come? I want to be able to locate the morality gene, or the morality property of carbon, or whatever it ends up being. I want a predictive model. I want diagrams and charts explaining where morality comes from and why. We base our entire lives upon this concept, and yet we can't even define it? Where's the sense in that?
I see what you're saying, but it's really no different from any other complex set of behaviors that humans and other animals exhibit. Think of a complex mating behavior, for example- where does that behavior come from? Can you find a set of genes that affect that behavior, or a predictive model? It's not going to be any different from morality, another complex behavior pattern. It's just something that somehow developed over time to benefit the species, even if the exact mechanism for the development of that behavior is unknown.
What about when he responded to the pharisees about taxes and tithing "give unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God what is God's". Or the Sermon on the Mount, specifically enumerating murder, divorce, false testimony. How about when he acted as judge in the case of a prostitute? Just a few cases.
I checked the link you posted- none of those are applicable to American law. I thought maybe the "murder" one would apply, but even that one wouldn't work- that has more to do with being mad at someone or calling them names than actually killing them.
Thus, Jesus has no place in an American courtroom.
In recent decades, by the process of looking (instead of merely assuming), ethologists have discovered that this "kill or be killed" law is a fiction. In fact, a system of laws - universally observed - preserves the tranquillity of "the jungle," protects species and even individuals, and promotes the well-being of the community as a whole. This system of laws has been called, among other things, the peacekeeping law, the law of limited competition, and animal ethics.
Briefly, the law of limited competition is this: You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war on your competitors.
Well, the most important principal "the West" has defended is the right to self determination. And yet, when someone (or some country) uses that self-determination to do something "the West" doesn't like, suddenly we see posts like yours.
Me again.
Seriously, I'm beginning to think you're completely ignorant of history. For every example of "the West defending the right to self determination" you come up with, your aforementioned "five-year-old on google" could find ten examples of "the West" interfering with the self-determination of countries doing things that "the West" does not approve of.
The most important principal any country has defended is self-interest, and when someone (or some country) uses their self-determination to do something "the West" doesn't like, the usual result is a war, or a coup, unless of course the very naughty country has a chance in hell of defending themselves, in which case they're just told that they're very naughty, and if they don't shape up, then we shall be very angry, and have to tell them a second time how naughty they are.
"The origins of the American Civil War lay in the complex issues of slavery, competing understandings of federalism, party politics, expansionism, sectionalism, economics, and modernization in the Antebellum Period."
Every single one of those cases has slavery as a root of the conflict between north and south. Every single one.
Slashdot Mirror
Since they have the same basic needs, they have the same basic environment.
Sometimes that's the case...
One example that I cited in another comment on here regards the Pirahã language... They have no words to count- they only have "one", "two" and "many".
From wiki:
That works well if your language has words for "throw" and "window", but you'd have a hard time translating it into a language with no concept of either one.
The Sapir-Whorf notion of linguistic determinism is largely a crock of shit.
There certainly is a lot of debate over the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but I don't think one can easily dismiss it as "a crock of shit."
There has been some real-world evidence that would support the hypothesis, such as the following:
Pirahã and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
And how many millions have died because we don't understand each other?
If you're referring to people dying in wars, not very many, I'd think.
International communications may not always be easy, but there are generally at least a few people capable of translations, enabling communications between rival factions. There may have been a few times in history where cultural/language misunderstandings led to diplomatic gaffes and were a source of conflict, but I think those would be in the minority.
"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."
Glib comments aside, language death = cultural death.
Along with the death of languages goes the ability to express ideas in ways that are unique to that language,
and a unique cultural worldview.
E.g., a lot of the relatively early Christian problems leading schisms and heresies, a good thousand years before Hus and Luther, were... translation problems. Stuff that made sense about Christ in Greek, sounded like a major heresy when translated in Syriac, because the nuances of some words were different.
There's two ways of looking at this example.
One is that the differences in language caused a misunderstanding between speakers of the two languages, thus creating a schism.
Another way to look at it is that there are unique ways of expressing ideas in Greek and Syriac, illustrating the importance of language diversity. There are ideas that cannot be easily expressed in Greek and ideas that cannot be easily expressed in Syriac. It's unfortunate that this was a source of conflict between the two cultures, but would it be preferable that these ideas remained unexpressable in the first place? Cultural diversity is a beautiful thing.
well, yes. He is wrong about that.
From your link:
So he gets it wrong from his basic assumption- the vision of society without a civil state.
The assumption is that there is something wrong with human nature, but this can't possibly be the case.
Would it make sense to talk about how dogs or whales or cockroaches are inherently flawed, and there is something wrong with their very nature? Humans aren't really any different.
The basic organizational state of humans is not the individual, as Hobbes predicts, but more of a tribal organization.
Humans aren't solitary animals.
Humans managed to survive just fine for hundreds of thousands of years without the organization of a civil state.
Sure, there was some level of organization, but it generally wasn't a strong social stratification.
If anything, the extremely hierarchical organization of civilization seems to bring out the worst in people.
yes, and as we all know, businesses and the business world exist in their own separate reality, completely separated from people. So when "bad" things happen to to businesses, it has absolutely zero effect on real, living people.
I should have clarified that I do understand the point that the negative effects on business do actually impact people.
Maybe some loss of wealth, people losing their jobs, etc. All bad things, sure. I realize this.
The OP was making it sound like for every one life the Gates Foundation saved, Microsoft killed two.
Of course the good work will be done as far removed from the bad work and of different type. Quite elementary and obvious. You do not seem to understand how PR works...
Right... Microsoft does shitty things for the business world and other businesses.
The Gates Foundation does good things for actual humans.
I suppose if you value business way more than human life, then you could argue that Microsoft does more damage than the Gates Foundation does good.
If McG claims that "Chuck" is a reflection of real life, then you can bet it's about as far from real life as one can possibly get.
At what point has the police become a protector of the elected, nearing gestapo practices, instead of being a protector of the people.
I think that would be January 1, 10,000 BC
When various of your joints are locked to the verge of damage, you are going to cooperate. Haven't you ever watched UFC?
I've watched it and participated in mixed martial arts.
There's not a lot of aikido used in UFC.
Most aikido training doesn't include fighting against someone who is trying to injure you, which is where the problem lies.
All too often, the uke in aikido training is cooperative,
to the detriment of the practitioner.
That's not to say that aikido is completely without value, but for grappling, something like Brazilian jujutsu generally has more effective training techniques.
It's more newsworthy when the incident is caught on tape.
We probably wouldn't have heard about this guy either if it wasn't recorded.
I should hope not.. Aikido is not very effective against a resisting opponent.
Yes, it really is that expensive here.
I just filled in the "tuition and fees calculator" for my alma mater (Purdue) and this is what I came up with:
Estimated Tuition and Fees: $3,708.00
Estimated On-Campus Housing (including 15 meals per week in the dorm): $5,785.00
Total Estimated Tuition, Fees, and Housing per Semester: $9,493.00
That's a public school, and that's in state tuition.
Not including books, etc.
So about $10,000 per semester times 8 semesters = $80,000
An out-of-state student can expect to pay $16,897.00 per semester.
Perhaps with the notable exception of Caligula, have you ever....ever seen an adult movie with anything other than minimal plot development? Have you ever watched an adult movie and said to yourself, "Gee, I never expected it to end that way...."?
Depends on what you consider to be an adult movie.
If you're just talking about porn, then no.
If you're including movies aimed at adults, even if you're not counting the rated-R and only including NC-17, then yes, I've seen quite a few excellent "adult" movies.
I see what you're saying, but it's really no different from any other complex set of behaviors that humans and other animals exhibit.
Think of a complex mating behavior, for example- where does that behavior come from? Can you find a set of genes that affect that behavior, or a predictive model? It's not going to be any different from morality, another complex behavior pattern. It's just something that somehow developed over time to benefit the species, even if the exact mechanism for the development of that behavior is unknown.
What about when he responded to the pharisees about taxes and tithing "give unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God what is God's". Or the Sermon on the Mount, specifically enumerating murder, divorce, false testimony. How about when he acted as judge in the case of a prostitute? Just a few cases.
I checked the link you posted- none of those are applicable to American law.
I thought maybe the "murder" one would apply, but even that one wouldn't work- that has more to do with being mad at someone or calling them names than actually killing them.
Thus, Jesus has no place in an American courtroom.
You are? Does that mean that Russia is violating the treaty by resuming their constant nuclear bomber patrols?
Gee, if Russia is doing it, then it must be okay.
I really doubt you need anything that complicated. People will knock down some building and plant crops long before they'll starve.
So why aren't starving people knocking down buildings to plant crops now?
from here
Well, the most important principal "the West" has defended is the right to self determination.
And yet, when someone (or some country) uses that self-determination to do something "the West" doesn't like, suddenly we see posts like yours.
Me again.
Seriously, I'm beginning to think you're completely ignorant of history.
For every example of "the West defending the right to self determination" you come up with,
your aforementioned "five-year-old on google" could find ten examples of "the West" interfering with the self-determination of countries doing things that "the West" does not approve of.
The most important principal any country has defended is self-interest, and when someone (or some country) uses their self-determination to do something "the West" doesn't like, the usual result is a war, or a coup, unless of course the very naughty country has a chance in hell of defending themselves, in which case they're just told that they're very naughty, and if they don't shape up, then we shall be very angry, and have to tell them a second time how naughty they are.
"The origins of the American Civil War lay in the complex issues of slavery, competing understandings of federalism, party politics, expansionism, sectionalism, economics, and modernization in the Antebellum Period."
Every single one of those cases has slavery as a root of the conflict between north and south.
Every single one.
Federalism: slavery
party politics: slavery
expansionism: slavery
sectionalism: slavery
economics: slavery
modernization: slavery
Replace slavery with "x". Federal government says "YOU CAN'T DO X" Confederate States say "FUCK OFF, YES WE CAN DO X".
Right, and x always equals "slavery" in every single fucking case.
You might also want to check out this article on wikipedia:
Origins of the American Civil War
To save you time, I'll summarize it:
Slavery, slavery, slavery, slavery, slavery, and slavery.
The Contemporaneous explanations section is especially enlightening.
Please tell me when you've learned enough. I've got other things to do today.