I had a meeting about the intro lab stuff for most of the afternoon. Afterwards, I hung out in the intro labs and chatted with Zane for a long time. I always enjoy our conversations. It's interesting to talk to someone who has a different take on reality. We talked about the recent trip of Zane and Zane's partner to Province Town. I wasn't aware of P'Town's reputation as a mecca for gay, lesbian and transgendered people. I've been through there a couple of times, but have never made the time to actually spend any time there. Zane talked about how, as the cost of going to P'Town has increased, the kind of people you see there has changed. The range has shifted to more traditional seeming gays -- the ones who are most able to "pass" and not be discriminated against in the job market.

More wiki spam tonight. I decided to drop the entire net range into the deny file. I also sent a note to abuse@atrivo.com to encourage them to stop. According to this place, the guy who runs it, Emil Kacperski, isn't likely to care.

I finally couldn't stand it and started a thread at Global Voices about Esperanto. Since that page may vanish, I'm going to mirror the conversation here. I started off with this

Many of the ideas that underlie Global Voices have been in play for a long time in the Esperanto community. As a start, it might be good to build an Esperanto bridge blog. There are several blogs in Esperantio that are rather like Global Voices already: http://raporto.info/ and http://e-planedo.kerno.org/ .

I would also urge you to consider using Esperanto as a bridge language rather than English. Global Voices is clearly all about giving voice to the perifery and helping them be heard in the center. And trying to break down that center-perifery distinction. But using English simply reinforces that very distinction. It increases the value of the center at the expense of the perifery and undermines your stated goals. The goal of Esperanto has always been to provide a neutral means for intercomprehension that doesn't impose special burdens on some peoples while giving special advantages to others. The use of English as an international language can be constructed as a form of imperialism, allowing the richest countries to shift the burden of language learning (and the costs and difficulties of operating in a second language) onto everyone else (see Phillipson's Linguistic Imperialism).

I got the following reply

It's an excellent suggestion, Steve. I think part of the issue for us is that none of us speak or read Esperanto. We have a tendency to believe that there are more people bilingual in their native languages and English than in those languages and Esperanto, but perhaps we're misguided in that belief.

I'd be very interested in seeing someone do roundups of the Esperanto blogosphere and try to build some bridges between that community and the community we're building here. As for the bigger question of whether GV should become an Esperanto project... that's a much bigger question. EthanZ 08:49, 11 Aug 2005 (EDT)

I'm rather pleased with the response I wrote this evening

I very much appreciate your willingness to consider Esperanto. And, of course, you're absolutely right that there are a lot more people who speak English than Esperanto.

Let me use an analogy (that is likely only semi-apt). Imagine a street with a fancy, upscale restaurant-and-bar on one side and a soup-kitchen on the other. Once you get in the door of the bar, there is a terrific and immense buffet (although the international food tends to be only so-so). To get into the bar you either have to buy a pricey membership or have inherited one from your parents. I, like a lot of the people in the bar, inherited my membership and have never had to pay a cent to get in. Moreover, if you've inherited a membership everything is all-you-can-eat for free. Everyone else has to pay a hefty price by the plate.

Across the street, the soup kitchen is serviceable and clean -- it has a dedicated staff and everything necessary for good nutrition, but the food tends to be simple fare and there's a lot less variety. It costs a lot less (about a quarter as much) to get into the soup kitchen, but the cost is pretty much the same for everyone. And once inside, there is a small price for each serving but, again, the price for everyone is the same.

You and I are sitting in the fancy bar talking about fitting out and decorating a special "charity dining room" that will have a buffet of international food.

I say, "You know. Maybe we should do this in the soup kitchen across the street because then people won't have to pay as much to get in and everyone will pay the same."

You say, "Yeah, but we're already members here and none of us has never even been in the soup kitchen before. And there are a lot more people in here than in there."

I say, "Sure. But there are even more people on the street who are in neither place. A lot of them will have difficulty paying the cover here and, in fact, most will never be able to pay that much. And if anyone is going to have to pay, who should it be? Those of us who already have a free ride here ought to be willing at least to pay the same as everyone else. Especially if the total cost is lower."

Of course, we're mostly not willing. If a person who speaks three languages is trilingual and if a person who speaks two languages is bilingual, what do you call a person who speaks one language? An American, of course.

The other issue is that for people who are willing and able to pay (at all), they're ready to pay the full price. Since there are a lot of people willing to pay full price, it's easy for us to rationalize getting off easy.

It's a bit of a rant. I don't see Global Voices actually switching to Esperanto, but I've been pleased that at least some of them acknowledge the issue and are willing to think about it.

Rob Read writes : A smack-on rant, Steve.

StevenBrewer