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There's another aspect you may not know about: It's close to how it's done in chinese, which is 2021年3月17日. They use different separators (the chinese words for
by hannob 6y ago
There's another aspect you may not know about: It's close to how it's done in chinese, which is 2021年3月17日. They use different separators (the chinese words for year, month and day), but it's close enough.
Given that china is the country with the largest population it may not be a bad idea to use something a large number of people will easily understand.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoMaybe we should also start speaking Chinese since it may not be a bad idea to use something a large number of people will easily understand. Edit: this is not sarcasm. It’s simple logic, unless there is something wrong with learning other languages.
- monsieurbanana 6y agoSigh... I never remember the names of the logical fallacies, I have to look up them, thanks a lot. Anyways, here's yours: Slippery Slope.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoWhere’s the logical fallacy? More people natively speak Chinese than any other language in the world. If you want to maximize the exposure of your ideas, it’s only logical to render them in Chinese. It’s the same reason I prefer to distribute applications over the web. FYI: English has ~1100 million total speakers but only 318 millon native speakers, while Chinese has 918 million native speakers. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/100-most-spoken-languages/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/100-most-spoken-languages/
- dataflow 6y agohttps://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-l... Unless it's already out of date...
- richrichardsson 6y ago> More people natively speak Chinese than any other language in the world You've made the assumption that all Chinese people speak one language, which is a false assumption I'm afraid [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China
- CyberRabbi 6y ago> You've made the assumption that all Chinese people speak one language, No I didn’t. I cited the fact that Chinese is the largest natively spoken language in the world, by an order of magnitude.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bonzini 6y agoAll of them can read the characters for year/month/day though.
- ginko 6y ago>English has ~1100 million total speakers but only 318 millon native speakers, while Chinese has 918 million native speakers Why would that matter? Arguably the ideal lingua franca should have no native speakers at all as those have an unfair advantage.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago> Why would that matter? Arguably the ideal lingua franca should have no native speakers at all as those have an unfair advantage. I share your vision of an explicitly taught universal language which gives no group or individual an unfair advantage. We obviously need more equality in the world. From the perspective of trying to maximize how many people with whom you are able to communicate, however, on a practical basis it matters little whether or not they are native speakers.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- maxwell 6y agoYour numbers above list 1.132B English speakers and 1.116B Mandarin speakers.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoA larger percentage of mandarin speakers are native mandarin speakers than the equivalent statistic for English. 918 million native mandarin speakers, 310 million native English speakers. Native speakers are generally better at understand the nuances of language than non-native speakers.
- specialist 6y ago> Where’s the logical fallacy? This is terrific, thank you. So meta. Other popular examples: "Is this some kind or radical new therapy?" from What About Bob? https://youtu.be/0pKymngWgJw?t=50 https://youtu.be/0pKymngWgJw?t=50 McNaulty from The Wire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIvsTXnik7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIvsTXnik7Q
- likesfwlaptop 6y agoMaybe we should sterilize a neighborhood muslim to familiarise ourselves with their practises and later we can bond over it. (Biden recently said it's none of our business but that's just ice-cold)
- luplex 6y agoThis is actually not wrong. China is already very important, and its influence is going to grow. Speaking and understanding Chinese well is a competitive advantage.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoI agree. I was applying logic consistently. With 918 million native speakers, Mandarin is the most natively spoken language in the world by at least 2x the runner up.
- gurkendoktor 6y agoI've learned Chinese for fun. It's great that I can now read a few more Go/C++ READMEs on GitHub, but other than that, I can't imagine what advantage it has? Maybe there'd be one if I came from a poorer manufacturing country? even China commentators in Western media are often completely clueless about the language. If these jobs don't require Chinese fluency, then which ones do? And even then, it'd be much easier to employ the many, many native speakers who emigrate from the PRC.
- em-bee 6y agoas more people learn chinese, the available labor pool grows and these jobs may well require chinese skills in the future
- FooBarWidget 6y agoActually, many Chinese people mock western commentators for how bad their takes are. Those commentators often have a superficial or highly western-centric understanding of things in China, resulting in wrong or incomplete interpretations. Lack of Chinese language understanding is a contributing factor. That doesn't stop those commentators from getting lucrative jobs. Apparently, western audiences don't care to verify whether what commentators say are accurate, or audiences just don't care whether it's accurate. There are no consequences to even years of inaccurate commenting. So I guess if you have no professional pride, then yes you can get away with not learning Chinese.
- jpetso 6y agoBeing able to speak popular languages is in fact often advantageous for the multi-linguist.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoVery good and very true point. Multi-linguism only has upsides.
- account42 6y agoThe "downside" is the time you need to invest to become proficient, which you could have spent on something else.
- FooBarWidget 6y agoLots of people learn English because a large number of people speak it. Why should it not apply to Chinese or other often-used languages?
- CyberRabbi 6y agoThats exactly the point I’m making in my post. Glad you agree
- FooBarWidget 6y agoAll right. Seeing your downvotes, I thought you were being sarcastic.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoI think we should. At the very least, our children should. That's why I'm planning on having my daughter learn Mandarin along with English - to prepare her for the shape of the economy she'll be living in.
- CyberRabbi 6y agoI’m doing the same with my kids. Cheers.
- moonchild 6y agoSounds like the convention used in some countries for time, using e.g. 9h20 instead of 9:20
- JdeBP 6y agoMarkus Kuhn has been making this point since 1995. * https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html
- contravariant 6y agoIt's also neat how the character for month and day are the same as characters for moon and sun respectively. I suppose that means we could also do the following if we really wanted a western version: 2021⊕317 Edit: Turns out that hackernews isn't quite astrological unicode compliant yet but imagine the astrological symbols for sun and moon in there as well.