Subject: RE: [lojban] More stuff

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 23:40:05 -0000

Lojbab:
> The value of 
> brevity is similarly a philosophical/values argument, but it is countered 
> by the fact that Lojban already is probably beyond workable limits on 
> communications redundancy in cmavo and lujvo (i.e. too many short strings 
> of Lojban that sound too much alike are grammatical and have plausible 
> relevance), so that replacing something brief and rarely used by something 
> more common only increases the likelihood of collision 
> 
> Lojban isn't Speedtalk, and was never intended to be 

As I said when I first introduced the issue of concision into discussion,
I think it quite likely that a majority of competent speakers would
eventually come to wish it were more concise, if concision could be
achieved without being too disruptive. So it's certainly true that
Lojban currently isn't Speedtalk and was never intended to be, but
this is not a valid reason for vetoing our leaving the door open
to the possibility of future changes to make it a little more Speedtalky.

You are likely right about the lack of redundancy, but (a) it is
unlikely to be a frequent problem, given that word recognition uses
pragmatic as well as phonetic clues, and (b) adding devices to
enhance concision would not have much of an effect on redudancy,
pe'i.

> >And has no right to ban xod from pursuing SWism; xod
> >has no right to tell And to abandon jboske. I don't even have a problem
> >with individuals tinkering; I have a problem with it becoming
> >politically dominant in the community, to the point of endangering
> >language continuity 
> 
> And factionalism seems to me the attenpt to make one's personal goal for 
> the language politically dominant, rather than being big-tent inclusive of 
> all accommodating multiple goals even at the possible expense of optimizing 
> for one goal

That's not how factionalism works in the contexts where I see it
(e.g. academic politics, national politics). Factions form for
the mutual support of members -- "together we are stronger". There
is no necessarily concomitant striving to dominate the entire
polity.

> I don't think anyone without native (or 
> perhaps PhD-level acquired) knowledge of Lojban is going to have 
> internalized the language to the extent needed to make a quantum 
> improvement, which is the implicit assumption in calling it "Mark II") 

If you are thinking of Mark II as a logical language, with its
improvements being what makes it a better logical language than
Lojban, then I don't think you're competent to judge, because
by your own admission you have little interest or expertise in
this side of things. It is not necessary to have internalized
Lojban Mark I in order to design a better logical language, though
it is helpful to be able to learn from Lojban's successes and
mistakes.

But perhaps you are thinking of Mark II as not merely a better
logical language, but as somehow a better realization of the Loglan
ideal. I can see how having profound expertise in Mark I would
be key to developing a Mark II of that sort, but I have no idea
what would count as an 'improvement'. Indeed, the very idea of
'improvement' seems a rather engelangy one.

> >We must arrive at a common standard. But we do so, I believe, by
> >acknowledging we want different things, and seeing how we can work our
> >way around that; not by suppressing or ignoring that difference 
> >
> >But that isn't quite parliamentary democracy either. Parliamentary
> >democracy works by majority rule, not consensus, after all 
> >
> >Or maybe I'm just naive. :-) We'll see.. 
> 
> You aren't naive. Consensus politics is difficult to learn and practice, 
> and no discipline overtly teaches it as a skill, though the maneuvering of 
> academia probably comes close. But it leads to superior results when it 
> can be practiced 

Lojban politics is very very similar to academic politics, in my
experience. I have experience of some departments (such as my current 
one) that are like Lojban on a temperate day and some that are like 
Lojban on an intemperate day. (Of course it's far worse when the 
department is intemperate, because people's jobs and whole lives are 
affected.)

--And.