4 ms·

I did say in an ideal world.

• bitwize 5y ago
  Hint: The reason why it's called "endianness" comes from the novel Gulliver's Travels, in which the neighboring nations of Lilliput and Blefuscu went to bitter, bloody war over which end to break your eggs from: the big end or the little end. The warring factions were also known as Big-Endians and Little-Endians, and each thought themselves superior to the dirty heathens on the other side. If one side were objectively correct, if there were an inherent advantage to breaking your egg from one side or the other, would there be a war at all?
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > if there were an inherent advantage to breaking your egg from one side or the other, would there be a war at all? Fascism vs. not-fascism, Stalinist Communism vs. Western Capitalism, Islamism vs. liberal democracy... I’m not sure “the existence of war around a divide in ideas proves that neither sides ideas are correct” is a particularly comfortable maxim to consider the ramifications of.
    • bitwize 5y ago
      Two similar societies warring over a trivial idea probably means neither is right. Swift's Big Endians and Little Endians are a satire of the Catholic-Anglican schism in England.
      • dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Two similar societies warring over a trivial idea probably means neither is right. Well, sure, that it’s a trivial idea pretty much inherently means either that neither is right or (and this is very much not an exclusive or) being right doesn’t matter. The problem with real cases is that people inside the conflict don’t believe the idea is trivial (conversely, to people outside rhe conflict—or caught in the middle—even the conflicts we think of as about foundational ideas seem like trivial or irrelevant differences.)
        • mrlonglong 5y ago
          Case in point: Israel and Palestine :-(