Traffic enforcement cameras are one of the worst ways I can think of to coordinate traffic.

You’re absolutely correct that Korea (and Vietnam I suppose, I don’t know much about their language) invented their alphabet to make literacy more accessible, and I think that’s awesome and a really good feature of alphabet systems. I can even see why that would make people prefer alphabet systems, since accessibility is super important when you’re first learning a language.

I think your cached vs. real-time analogy is spot on. And while you can definitely come up with scenarios where caching is better than real-time rendering, and other scenarios where real-time rendering is better than caching, it’d be difficult to argue that one is unequivocally better or worse than the other.

Sure, I agree that alphabet systems are initially easier to learn than logographic systems. But to achieve that they sacrifice the consistency and lack of ambiguity of a logographic system. It’s funny you bring up Korean as an example of a good alphabet system, because I can assure you as someone who is currently learning Korean, it has it’s weird spelling inconsistencies and pronunciation “rules” and exceptions, just like any other alphabet system.

And again, I’m not trying to convince you that one is better than the other. My whole point is that one isn’t any better or worse than another. They each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and specific purposes, they’re both functional, one isn’t better or worse than the other as a whole.

Agree you’ve covered some of the pros of alphabet systems and cons of logographic systems, and those are totally valid. You’re neglecting the other sides though, so let’s balance that out:

Here’s some pros of logographic systems:

• Higher information density - you can say more with less, and readers can parse it faster

• Compound words are intuitive - just put the symbols for the two halves of the words next to each other (or visually combine them in some cases)

• Symbols have direct meaning - there is usually no “sounding out” words to figure out what they mean, the symbol by itself fully encapsulates meaning, independent of pronunciation

• Because meaning is independent from phonetics, ambiguity is reduced with homophones, in that two words that sound the same still have two different-looking symbols

• Written communication can still be understood even across different dialects, and even across different languages altogether, if the same logographic system is used, and even if those logographic symbols have different pronunciations. This separation makes it possible to communicate across language barriers without having to learn a whole other language.

• Logographic systems don’t have to adapt to changes in pronunciation over time, they’re stable

Here’s some cons of alphabet systems:

• Much lower information density takes longer to read, most people have to internally convert the visual data to sound to understand it, so it physically takes more brainpower/effort to understand written text

• Wild inconsistencies in phonetics within a language, requiring rote memorization of spelling “rules” and all of their various exceptions. Makes learning new words difficult as you can’t be sure if you’re “sounding it out” correctly unless you’ve heard the spoken word

• Meaning directly depends on phonetics/pronunciation, which can lead to confusion and ambiguity with alternate pronunciations, alternate spellings, and differing dialects (e.g. Canadian French vs. Metropolitan French)

• Learning a language that uses an alphabet system means learning it twice - the written language and the spoken language

• Homophones and hereronyms? Good luck

Also here’s some food for thought. I 100% guarantee you use a logographic system every single day, very easily, without even realizing it. In fact, nearly the whole world uses it - Arabic numerals.

Is the belief that the logographic system is worse than alphabets (and abugidas, for that matter) unreasonable?

Lol yes. Both systems have benefits and drawbacks, it’s unreasonable to say either is “worse” than the other. It’s certainly not as clear-cut as the comparison between the imperial and metric systems.

I’m not being dishonest, I paraphrased.

Excellent time for the Japanese to drop ideogram/logogram system and have an alphabet like a functional language.

Your original comment (included above for convenience) very clearly implies that Japanese is not a functional language because it doesn’t use an alphabet. I didn’t misrepresent you at all.

“Imperial measurement users” are an “identifying or culturally significant group”, they are called Americans

First, plenty of other places other than America, Liberia, and Myanmar use imperial units. And even if they didn’t, the inclusion of Liberia and Myanmar means “imperial system users” isn’t just identifying Americans, so you’re just flat out incorrect about that. I’m ignoring the bit where you said “[Liberia and Myanmar] are not culturally significant groups over the internet” because that implies that you think bigotry only exists on the Internet, or maybe you think you can only be bigoted against a group with a large enough Internet presence or something? Which I know you can’t possibly think, so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt there and chalking that up to a miscommunication.

Second, bigotry necessarily involves holding an unreasonable position or belief. The belief that the imperial system is worse than metric is not unreasonable, because there’s evidence supporting that belief, and there’s even a large number of imperial system users that hold that belief. The belief that it’s “time for the Japanese to drop ideogram/logogram system and have an alphabet like a functional language” is unreasonable for the reasons I explained previously.

Third, it doesn’t matter what ethnicity or nationality you used, the structure of your statement would still be bigoted, because it would still be an unreasonable belief that prejudices against a particular group of people.

Hope this helps.

I think ideograms suck because they are an extremely bad writing system

That’s nice, but what you originally said was that “the Japanese don’t have a functional writing system”, which is bigoted, because it constitutes an unreasonable belief/prejudice against a particular group of people (“the Japanese”). It’s an unreasonable position because the Japanese writing system is obviously functional, as millions of people use it to great effect every day.

imperial units suck because they are an extremely bad measurement system

This is not bigotry because it isn’t an unreasonable belief, and it doesn’t target/prejudice against one specific group (other than ‘imperial measurement users’, which isn’t really an identifying or culturally significant group).

Bonus question: If I say it’s an excellent time to drop the Gregorian calendar do I win at racism for expanding it to the whole world?

Bonus answer: no, bigotry targets/prejudices against a specific identifying group. “The whole world” doesn’t qualify as a group that you can be bigoted against. Hating everyone makes you a grumpy curmudgeon, but not a racist.

Hope this helps.

No, that’s a whole new unrelated topic. Any other questions?

Someone with neat handwriting, a few hours to burn, and lots of patience

A clean, point blank shot to the head is just about as un-brutal as it gets, as far as non-consensual deaths go

Well that certainly is an opinion

If you’re doing something like gathering research materials, a lot of times people will grab a bunch of stuff of the shelves at once then take it all back to a table somewhere to peruse. In that scenario it’s definitely likely you’ll forget where something went, or mix things up.

I agree that driving is unnatural and overstimulating, and that’s definitely part of it. I think another part of it is that it’s really easy to see other drivers on the road as “other cars” more than “other people”. Driving is dehumanizing, in the sense that it makes it harder for people to see other drivers as fellow humans rather than adversarial machines, and people act accordingly.

If you understood how it’s disrespectful, it wouldn’t be hard to explain. Here’s an example:

Sexual assault is disrespectful because it violates a person’s bodily autonomy, which is a fundamental human right.

See? Easy. Now, try that for “people who dress wrong”.

It’s disrespectful to the people who set it up and to everyone else who is there to have a nice evening.

How

I mean if you don’t find dressing like that to a black tie event disrespectful that’s just a reflection on you

How

I’m begging you, explain how it’s disrespectful. I don’t think you can, because I think you agree with me that it isn’t actually disrespectful.

Did we?

Please explain how wearing a hoodie to a “black tie event” is disrespectful, and who it’s disrespectful to.

He wears what’s comfortable, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Adam Sandler is famous for shooting movies in exotic/fun locations so that it doubles as a vacation for him and the actors/crew. He’s beloved in the industry, and widely regarded as a good, friendly, loyal, down to earth person. Why on earth should someone like that be excluded from an awards show?

Which makes absolutely zero sense, and goes against the anime. Most of the Pokemon in the in-game world have already been caught by one of the various trainers, gym leaders, or elite four members you fight along the way. And in the anime, the Pokedex is used to identify some wild Pokemon before Ash or his friends capture it, not after.

See, shit like this makes me think that the White House didn’t really have a coherent plan for the Epstein files after all, like they’re trying to make us think, and like the right and left talking heads alike have been warning us. If they did, they’d realize that we want to know if Democrats are in the files, so that we can get them the fuck out of our government, same as any Republicans in those files, and same as Trump.