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Cetea posted:Certainly it doesn't hold the same connotations in English if you read it in context of the US Declaration of Independence. Life, liberty and happiness is not exactly authority (although that does make some people happy, other people are happy to just worship some tree without anyone telling them it's stupid, and for others it's eating Big Macs) A person that has rights also doesn't have the power to kill someone, but a personal with enough authority certainly can. It certainly doesn't have the same tone as "Fist" in Chinese, which sounds very much the same as the word "权", and human brains do associate one thing with another if it is similar. Indeed as a speaker of the language, "权" has always had an association with violence mentally for me. You said earlier your native language isn't English, what is it?
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Sep 9, 2020 12:55
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You are severely underestimating oral history
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Sep 9, 2020 13:01
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hypnophant posted:I can’t speak to your other questions but chinese primary students take several years longer than english students to become literate due to the need to memorize a minimum of thousands of characters. These extra years represent time not spent on math, science, history, etc. Officially the current literacy rate is 97% which compares favorably with the us’s 99%, but what counts as literate for official purposes may differ from what’s functionally literate in daily use. I would be shocked if 99% of the population in the us is literate. How are we defining literacy?
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Sep 9, 2020 13:12
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euphronius posted:You are severely underestimating oral history Imagine if we burned all the books in the world, took down the internet, and made everyone illiterate somehow. Yes, some knowledge might persist, like reciting the periodic table of elements and the number of protons, neutrons and electrons for each element in their default state. Being able to memorize the Torah or Homer's poems perfectly is one thing, but holding the entire body of human knowledge in your head, and being able to teach that knowledge to someone who is alive hundreds of years after you're dead is another thing entirely. Yes, I know that the Aborigines of Australia still recall some aspects of events that happened 50,000 years ago due to their oral history, but that is a far cry from having the industry, scientific know-how and ability to investigate those areas and confirm via soil samples and carbon dating that those things did indeed happen, alongside the causes of those events and the resulting effect it had in the surrounding area. Stringent posted:You said earlier your native language isn't English, what is it? Should that matter at all (I would say that's very close to an ad-hominem)? I'm sure you can guess by now what it is; you haven't given me any arguments as to how Rights in English and Chinese aren't drastically different words with drastically different emotional responses (liberty and authority are in fact, direct opposites). Cetea fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 13:12
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Cetea posted:Should that matter at all? I'm sure you can guess by now what it is; you haven't given me any arguments as to how Rights in English and Chinese aren't drastically different words with drastically different emotional responses (authority and liberty are in fact, direct opposites). Oh, it doesn't matter, I was just curious is all, and I wouldn't insult you by guessing. I'd just really like to know what your native language is? Responding to your edit, I meant no offense whatsoever, I sincerely do not know.
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Sep 9, 2020 13:18
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Stringent posted:Ok, if we're arguing that the English term "rights" doesn't equate with "power, authority, expediency, expedience, or advantageous position" I don't think we're going to make any progress here. The two have vastly different implications in English and a listener will get a very different sense from a statement that uses one compared to the other. That is true even if you assume that rights actually equate to those terms (and “equates to” is a very fuzzy term). For example: “you can’t do this to me, I have rights” vs “you can’t do this to me, I have power” comes across...differently.
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Sep 9, 2020 13:23
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Cetea posted:An example is that a person that has rights doesn't have the power to kill someone, but a person with enough authority certainly can So enough authority gives you the right to kill someone? What about a police officer who feels threatened? Having the authority or a legal defense or whatever else gives you the right to do something.
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Sep 9, 2020 13:23
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Science and scientific advancement as we know them - the investigation of natural phenomena on the expectation they follow rules that can be harnessed for the good of humans - is a modern invention, about the 17th century in the west. While the greeks were big into philosophy, greek philosophy about how the world works was tied into their philosophy of ethics - how the world should be. They were also averse to experimentation to prove or disprove phenomena, and sharing results of such in a standard manner - again fairly recent inventions. The world is not Civilisation where scientific advancement happens over time naturally unless regressed by a "dark age" - science is a certain idelogy and philosophy of thought that would be alien to many intellectuals of the ancient world.
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Sep 9, 2020 13:25
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a god drat idiot posted:I would be shocked if 99% of the population in the us is literate. How are we defining literacy? They aren't, functional illiteracy is at least 20%, probably higher
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Sep 9, 2020 13:26
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evilweasel posted:The two have vastly different implications in English and a listener will get a very different sense from a statement that uses one compared to the other. That is true even if you assume that rights actually equate to those terms (and “equates to” is a very fuzzy term). Is this even English?
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Sep 9, 2020 13:26
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evilweasel posted:The two have vastly different implications in English and a listener will get a very different sense from a statement that uses one compared to the other. That is true even if you assume that rights actually equate to those terms (and “equates to” is a very fuzzy term). You can’t do this to me I have 人权 and you can’t do this to me I have 权 also come across differently so what’s the point of this post
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Sep 9, 2020 13:30
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Stringent posted:Oh, it doesn't matter, I was just curious is all, and I wouldn't insult you by guessing. I'd just really like to know what your native language is? Oh, I thought it was obvious that my native language was Chinese. In any case, I don't think that info would change my argument at all, so my point there stands. JesustheDarkLord posted:So enough authority gives you the right to kill someone? What about a police officer who feels threatened? Having the authority or a legal defense or whatever else gives you the right to do something. I would say that enough authority gives you the power to kill someone (i.e an armed police officer in a police state probably could kill someone on the street randomly and get away with it so long as they weren't important). However, using your authority to kill someone who is innocent does not make it 'right', which in English to me has connotations of "correct, just, fair" and etc. From that example, I would say power and right are not words that have the exact same meaning, even if there is some overlap. So yes, in your case I would say that a police officer would have the right (and be in the right) to defend themselves and shoot someone if they were suddenly attacked without warning by someone holding a dangerous weapon, but I would certainly say it wouldn't feel right if a King used his authority to kill a child who annoyed them by talking while they were talking at the same time.
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Sep 9, 2020 13:32
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It’s my right to shoot home invaders doesn’t come off so differently if you equate it to power either
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Sep 9, 2020 13:33
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Cetea posted:Oh, I thought it was obvious that my native language was Chinese. In any case, I don't think that info would change my argument at all, so my point there stands. Why not? The King has the right to do that
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Sep 9, 2020 13:34
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The right to do something has as little to do with moral righteousness as it does with going in the right direction
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Sep 9, 2020 13:34
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You’re gonna be shocked when you find out what rights colonial brits had over their colonies
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Sep 9, 2020 13:37
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fart simpson posted:You can’t do this to me I have 人权 and you can’t do this to me I have 权 also come across differently so what’s the point of this post That wouldn't be how you'd say that in Chinese, you'd be saying something more like "Human power is universal and you cannot take that from me". The second statement would just simply be "I have power". Ultimately it does have vastly different meanings in Chinese vs English, and the tone is entirely different. Rights is just a word that has no direct translation in Chinese, much like how there are many Greek words (in an above post) that have no true translation in English. fart simpson posted:Why not? The King has the right to do that But would it feel right? I guarantee that such behavior would lead to discontent; a great example is how Caligula was killed by his Praetorian guard. As for the English, they never said they had given any rights to the colonies, they reserved the rights for themselves. The end result speaks for itself. (If their concept of divine right was correct, they wouldn't not have lost it). Language evolves as a response to events, and in modern English, rights has a much closer meaning to liberty than it does to the divine rights of Kings. Another excellent example of how language slants your view is how "Right" in French also has a positive meaning, similar to English today. Left on the other hand (gauche), means unsophisticated and socially awkward. This clearly had an effect on how people viewed political platforms in the past. Cetea fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 13:37
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You seem to be conflating rights with right which is an understandable mistake, but the words are quite different. Interesting illustration of how culture informs language though!
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Sep 9, 2020 13:43
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One person doesn’t have to have everything in their head . Also there are errors in transmission even in printed languages
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Sep 9, 2020 13:48
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Stringent posted:You seem to be conflating rights with right which is an understandable mistake, but the words are quite different. Interesting illustration of how culture informs language though! I would say that because the two words are similar, most people did associate them (even if it was subconscious). If you look at history, parties on the right did historically enjoy more support from the public, and the left was seen as just downright odd (see above post for left in French). It is only in more modern times that people started to see things differently, but for most of American history, you were considered strange if you supported the political left. If you were also looking purely from a dictionary point of view: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right#:~:text=1%20%3A%20righteous%2C%20upright,right%20man%20for%20the%20job you can see terms like righteous, just, upright, good, proper, conforming to the truth etc as definitions. As for the example of the King killing random people, I doubt you'd see anyone in their own time that they would say it was right (sources frowned upon nobles who did things like soaking bishops in honey, hanging them upside down and letting them die from insect activity, even if they had the power to do so). There was always a belief in medieval times that Kings should adhere to Christian values, even if that mostly wasn't the case in reality. Cetea fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 13:50
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Cetea posted:I would say that because the two words are similar, most people did associate them (even if it was subconscious). If you look at history, parties on the right did historically enjoy more support from the public, and the left was seen as just downright odd (see above post for left in French). It is only in more modern times that people started to see things differently, but for most of American history, you were considered strange if you supported the political left. lol
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Sep 9, 2020 13:55
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euphronius posted:One person doesn’t have to have everything in their head . Also there are errors in transmission even in printed languages Yes, but the errors are far fewer than transmission in oral history. I find that it would be hard to argue that a culture with no written language could preserve knowledge as well as a culture with an oral history. We have no idea what happened to the people who built the Stonehenge for instance (even though the builders' DNA is found in the genes of modern Welsh individuals), but we certainly know a lot about Egyptian royal decrees, religion, and general cultural practices, even if they wrote in a language that is almost entirely unknown today save for a few Egyptologists. As for the above post, you're just shitposting now; my argument stands. The fact of the matter is that most people will know that the tone of a word informs how people see a sentence differently. "The government has the right to kill protesters" will elicit an entirely different response from said protester than "The government has the power to kill protesters". You'll get a ton of people to deny the first, but I doubt anyone would deny the latter. Language isn't just words, it's how we express ourselves while saying it, hand motions (especially in Italy), body posture, tone and a whole host of other factors. This is pretty much a proven scientific fact for all cultures and all languages. Cetea fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 13:59
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That’s because of genocide not any relative values of written v oral Druids were wiped out by the romans. If they had lived and were supported we’d have better data for example on the efficacy of oral transmission of knowledge.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:01
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Cetea posted:Yes, but the errors are far fewer than transmission in oral history. I find that it would be hard to argue that a culture with no written language could preserve knowledge as well as a culture with an oral history. We have no idea what happened to the people who built the Stonehenge for instance (even though the builders' DNA is found in the genes of modern Welsh individuals), but we certainly know a lot about Egyptian royal decrees, religion, and general cultural practices, even if they wrote in a language that is almost entirely unknown today save for a few Egyptologists. Well yes written artifacts are more resistant to genocide... but they also require an enviroment which can sustain them, and a centralised poltical authority who benefits from written records.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:02
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Cetea posted:Oh, I thought it was obvious that my native language was Chinese. In any case, I don't think that info would change my argument at all, so my point there stands. What would make that obvious? Your proper use of punctuation and spelling?
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Sep 9, 2020 14:07
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euphronius posted:That’s because of genocide not any relative values of written v oral Plenty of people have been wiped out, but their records remained, and we still know a great deal about their history and scientific knowledge. Top examples include Hittites (we still have quite a few records of them despite them being completely wiped out by the Dorians during the Bronze age collapse), Egyptians (culturally assimilated until their original culture was more or less wiped out) and many others, such as the Lydians, Medians, Akkadians and etc. As for the Druids, Welsh is a native Briton language that has survived from Antiquity. Here in New Zealand, we have Maori, which is the native language of the first settlers, and their history is mostly lost as well (prior to European colonization). Nothingtoseehere posted:Well yes written artifacts are more resistant to genocide... but they also require an environment which can sustain them, and a centralized political authority who benefits from written records. Generally, centralized political authorities also happen to be better at encouraging scientific advances than say, a nomadic culture. I'm pretty sure nobody would argue that. The written word helps sustain an urban civilization, and that in turn leads to more scientific development, as cramming tons of people together in a small place creates new problems that a traditional hunter gatherer society wouldn't need to deal with. LingcodKilla posted:What would make that obvious? Your proper use of punctuation and spelling? Lol, I'll take that as a complement. Cetea fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 14:10
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You are conflating a lot of things and making huge sweeping conclusions and making assumptions I disagree with . Don’t think it’s valuable to continue.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:11
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euphronius posted:You are conflating a lot of things and making huge sweeping conclusions and making assumptions I disagree with . Don’t think it’s valuable to continue. Well it's simple; all I'd need is an example of a single oral based culture that has 100% accomplished more scientifically than a culture with a written language (whether that be construction, weaponry, governance, or any field at all), and we'll look at it objectively from there. If you can't find one, then clearly the current evidence states that cultures with a written language can achieve far more than any oral culture.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:18
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Cetea posted:Well it's simple; all I'd need is an example of a single oral based culture that has 100% accomplished more scientifically than a culture with a written language (whether that be construction, weaponry, governance, or any field at all), and we'll look at it objectively from there. If you can't find one, then clearly the current evidence states that cultures with a written language can achieve far more than any oral culture. Polynesian navigation in 1000 BC, go!
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Sep 9, 2020 14:23
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I just want to point out that rights and powers are used interchangeably in the US constitution. The difference between the rights of the US constitution and the divine right of kings is a disagreement in who has what rights and from whom those powers ultimately derive. To me power sounds more vernacular and right sounds more legalese, and otherwise they’re synonyms in this context. That we don’t say human powers in english is due to the stylistic choices of the 18th century wealthy.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:29
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Stringent posted:Polynesian navigation in 1000 BC, go! Sargon of Akkad, 2334–2284 BC, conquered entirety of the fertile crescent in one lifespan, built ships that crossed the Mediterranean. Traded with lands as far away as Pakistan (trade route had already existed for thousands of years). The Polynesians navigated by stars, which of course the Akkadians could do too; they had an advanced understanding of Astronomy by then. Sargon would travel further in his lifetime than any single generation of Polynesian settler (though of course, they were quite impressive too given their general lack of resources). Edgar Allen Ho posted:I just want to point out that rights and powers are used interchangeably in the US constitution. The difference between the rights of the US constitution and the divine right of kings is a disagreement in who has what rights and from whom those powers ultimately derive. To me power sounds more vernacular and right sounds more legalese, and otherwise they’re synonyms in this context. That we don’t say human powers in english is due to the stylistic choices of the 18th century wealthy. That's a fair point, but given the outcome of that particular ideological conflict, I feel that it would be safe to say that the modern English definition of 'rights' is more or less aligned with how the founding fathers saw them. I feel that the stylistic choice made is important, as power generally does have an element of brute force associated with it, whereas rights does have connotations of justice, fairness and etc. I'm pretty sure this does affect the way people see the term; similar to how in French, work is "travail", which is etymologically descended from "trepalium", or Latin for "instrument of torture" (perhaps due to how the Gallic slaves were often seen as bad slaves fit only for mine work). Compare that with work in English, which is from Old English "weorc", which just means "something done", and is far more neutral. Cetea fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 14:30
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Cetea posted:Sargon of Akkad, 2334–2284 BC, conquered entirety of the fertile crescent in one lifespan, built ships that crossed the Mediterranean. Traded with lands as far away as Pakistan (trade route had already existed for thousands of years). The Polynesians navigated by stars, which of course the Akkadians could do too; they had an advanced understanding of Astronomy by then. Sargon would travel further in his lifetime than any single generation of Polynesian settler (though of course, they were quite impressive too given their general lack of resources). So there's literally no difference! Cool, argument settled. *edit* I just remembered who I'm talking to. Going back and forth over established routes in the Mediterranean isn't directly equivalent to sailing over the Pacific. Stringent fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 14:32
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Are you just goimg to ignore that science and its ideology are modern western inventions and the idea of any ancient civilisation being involved in scientific development is hilsrioudly anachronistic and sounds like a video game viewpoint of the world.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:34
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Cetea posted:Sargon of Akkad, 2334–2284 BC, conquered entirety of the fertile crescent in one lifespan, built ships that crossed the Mediterranean. Traded with lands as far away as Pakistan (trade route had already existed for thousands of years). The Polynesians navigated by stars, which of course the Akkadians could do too; they had an advanced understanding of Astronomy by then. Sargon would travel further in his lifetime than any single generation of Polynesian settler (though of course, they were quite impressive too given their general lack of resources). Polynesians traveled across the entire pacific and made it to the Americas. There are individuals that sailed the entire south pacific. That is further than Sargon could have traveled. The pacific is really really big.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:36
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Am I having a stroke, wasn't the route to Pakistan over land?
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Sep 9, 2020 14:39
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Cetea posted:
Yes, they do go well together. You don't understand English as well as you think.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:40
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Stringent posted:Am I having a stroke, wasn't the route to Pakistan over land? Ah, you've stumbled onto the true genius of Sargon.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:43
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Deteriorata posted:Ah, you've stumbled onto the true genius of Sargon. lol
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Sep 9, 2020 14:45
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Mr. Nice! posted:Polynesians traveled across the entire pacific and made it to the Americas. There are individuals that sailed the entire south pacific. That is further than Sargon could have traveled. The pacific is really really big. Yes they did, but they did not do it in a single generation (as proven by the different dates of settlement in the various island chains, with New Zealand being the last place to be colonized by the Polynesians around 1200 C.E). So in the length of time it took one generation of Polynesians to get from one place to another, Sargon went further. So yes, ten generations of Polynesians did travel further than Sargon in one, but that is not a fair comparison IMO; it would be like ten generations of people from the 1750s to 1950s made more money than one person from 1945 to 2000. The Polynesians had access to the same navigational tools that Sargon did, which was an understanding of the stars and how they related to cardinal directions; at the same time, Sargon predated the Polynesians by thousands of years, and he also had access to many other technologies that the Polynesians did not have, such as metallurgy. Otherwise if you include multiple generations, you could say that the Africans who first left Africa and eventually arrived in Australia after thousands of years were more advanced than Columbus sailing from Europe to the Americas. Stringent posted:Am I having a stroke, wasn't the route to Pakistan over land? Pakistan is an example of the expanse that Sargon had some influence over; it is separate from his ocean going expeditions. Maybe I'd read it again. (All these ad-hominems are amusing, but expected on the internet). Cetea fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 9, 2020 14:45
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fart simpson posted:You can’t do this to me I have 人权 and you can’t do this to me I have 权 also come across differently so what’s the point of this post the point is a relatively simple one: that the statement quote:the English term "rights" doesn't equate with "power, authority, expediency, expedience, or advantageous position" is correct in a specific, important way when discussing language; and that it is especially inappropriate to go "lol do you even speak english" in response to that because it's correct. what people appear to be conflating is the discussion of is there a meaningful real-world distinction between "rights" and "power" - essentially, a legal realist argument that there's no such thing - with the discussion of is there a meaningful difference in the implications of the words. and it's obvious there is: invoking rights is, generally, making a moral argument that it is wrong to violate them. invoking power is making a different sort of argument: it's about who actually has power and who doesn't. if you are unaware of the distinction, and use the wrong one in english you will change the meaning of what you say, in a way that significantly changes the message that a listener receives. this is true even if you hold the position that the english idea of "rights" is utter nonsense. language doesn't need to reflect reality! the idea that there's something inherent about a language that makes it possible or not possible to express certain ideas has, i think, been roundly rejected. language evolves: to the extent that a language had no natural analogues of the english idea of "rights" but it became a topic of discussion in that language would likely result in something that conveyed the appropriate implications evolving and being well understood. english does that all the time, even to the extent of just plain appropriating the word - for example, schadenfreude - and i'm sure other languages do so as well (i am, obviously, less familiar with other languages as opposed to english, my native language, so i use english examples). but it is particularly appropriate to discuss in the context of discussing ancient languages, where it's much easier for that implication to be lost because it may be extremely difficult to reconstruct, today, that it had such implications.
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Sep 9, 2020 14:46
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