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T. Sowell: The Quest for Cosmic Justice can be summarized in three propositions which may seem to be axiomatic, but whose implications are in fact politically c
by goatsneez 5y ago
T. Sowell: The Quest for Cosmic Justice can be summarized in three propositions which may seem to be axiomatic, but whose implications are in fact politically controversial:
1. The impossible is not going to be achieved.
2. It is a waste of precious resources to try to achieve it.
3. The devastating costs and social dangers which go with these attempts to achieve the impossible should be taken into account.
- beebmam 5y agoIt's certainly possible to find a way to refer to people without gender; plenty of other languages do it! Conceptually, it's a very simple idea, and one programmers certainly can grasp due to our familiarity with typed references/pointers, even if ones natural language doesn't have it (yet).
- Zpalmtree 5y agoBeing technically possible doesn't mean culturally possible though
- beebmam 5y agoIt's impossible to prove that something is culturally impossible, though. So my point stands: premise #1 in the comment above, when interpreted as "culturally impossible", is a statement without support. When interpreted as "technically impossible", it's a false premise.
- rich_sasha 5y agoIt’s also possible to make do with 3, or hell, no tenses, as some languages do. You could dispel a phonetic alphabet and use ideograms, that’s a thing too. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for English, or other languages either.
- alfor 5y agoand then what? What is the cost/benefit in that? There is a growing list of pronoms and identification, do we need to change the language for every identification that someone can create?