From matt.mattarn@gmail.com Sun Jan 01 21:49:22 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-board); Sun, 01 Jan 2006 21:49:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from zproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.162.200]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1EtIZK-0006l7-Cx for llg-board@lojban.org; Sun, 01 Jan 2006 21:49:21 -0800 Received: by zproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id 4so2538574nzn for ; Sun, 01 Jan 2006 21:49:16 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=h7ea/adx0wRmom72r8Q1PEqsELfluXWo9yLPqwFLG3Q97ZrxCKcbWa3r/18+NogrEN7KIgrKnMA/XG4AX4PiIqwvlop9UIuw6XXKBaeMSh2VAmXIKVkjt17GeBajwRdOrVcCu9jH/XHPZ558R5ITkrhWdv2tPJlPXbzE4AzODZ0= Received: by 10.65.132.5 with SMTP id j5mr115797qbn; Sun, 01 Jan 2006 21:49:16 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.65.110.14 with HTTP; Sun, 1 Jan 2006 21:49:16 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 00:49:16 -0500 From: Matt Arnold To: llg-board@lojban.org Subject: [llg-board] Re: Two organizations In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20051219070640.GB3514@ccil.org> <43AB97DF.8030703@lojban.org> <20051226195753.GB5289@chain.digitalkingdom.org> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 40 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: matt.mattarn@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-board@lojban.org X-list: llg-board On 1/1/06, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote: > On Mon, 26 Dec 2005, Robin Lee Powell wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 11:45:44AM -0500, Matt Arnold wrote: > > > >> Well, I came up with an idea that I think is pretty good. What is > >> associated with language? Nations. People who learn a new language > >> usually do so in order to visit or live or work in another nation. > >> I propose an imaginary Lojban-speaking nation, and we'll offer > >> "citizenship." I'll design some beautiful faux immigration > >> paperwork, a passport, a naturalization certificate and > >> everything. It achieves the goal of seeming official, while > >> simultaneously not interfering with business aspect of the LLG. It > >> taps into the mystique while requiring no prerequisite > >> qualifications at all. > > > > Sounds like a lot of fun to me. Go for it. > > Yes, that does sound like a lot of fun, and I think Matt & anyone else > should go for it. > > However, it is my opinion that it should NOT be adopted by the LLG as an > official project. This is because we are likely to alienate those who are > interested in Loglan for serious purposes, because they can be expected to > think that anything that smacks of micronationalism is silly, and that > Lojban is primarily a toy for use in shared fiction. > > So I move that xartum is to be removed from the list of official projects, > and continued as independently of the LLG as possible. > > -- > Arnt Richard Johansen > I understand this concern. The first thing people ask me about Lojban is "what is it for?" and I'm quick to say "there are a huge variety of unrelated purposes, and to each person it is for whatever they want." Then I go on to describe Saphir-Whorf, Ben Goertzel's AI research, and me. (This is not a comprehensive survey, but I limit the list just long enough for the listener's eyes to begin to glaze over.) Each use is valid, and if someone thinks their usage of it is the only valid one, the misperception is not about Lojban. Their misperception has to do with whether their own valuation criteria are absolutes. Just in the interest of full disclosure, my personal use for Lojban is as a toy to facilitate a shared fiction. But I recognize that it would be no good for my purposes were it not for those who actually know something formally about Linguistics, Psychology, Philosophy, Logic, Mathematics, Computer Science, Anthropology, Sociology, Education and Human Biology. (I do not experiment; I intend to be experimented _on._) Similarly, how much good is Lojban for serious experimentation if it isn't released into the wild and allowed to live? To any hypothetical critic of xartum I would say, "look, you wanted a language, which means populations of speakers, which means all kinds of people, and lots of them are silly. This is what a language does. This is what test subjects do." I don't think the above will be controversial here; having probably settled that, I would ask this. When someone gets citizenship in xartum, they are a citizen according to whom, if not the LLG? According to the administrative settings of The Lojban MOO? According to me? According to each other? -epkat