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Practical use of language in transhuman society

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Thu, 2009-10-22 17:35
#1
Sealab2020 Sealab2020's picture
Practical use of language in transhuman society
So, we're setting up our game, and there's an issue of characters with common language. One of us had a theory that language shouldn't really be an issue, that basically your muse could translate in near-realtime, so everyone should be able to speak with everyone just fine. But I don't believe that feature is ever explicated in the core book, and virtually all the sample characters speak multiple languages. So how important is it for our characters to speak the same language? How are others handling this? On a side note... were all the Lost raised with English as a native language? The sample character has native English.
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Thu, 2009-10-22 23:57
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
Re: Practical use of language in transhuman society
The way I interpreted it, many of the transhumans a character is likely to meet lived very long lives as we reckon them - maybe more than a century. That would be more than enough time to become proficient in two or three areas of endeavor and probably a number of other languages as well. The thing about being able to speak a language on your own is that you tend to become familiar (in passing, at least) with the customs of the culture that the language came from (or at least they taught them to us in school), and you also learn the idioms of the language that are often not taught in formal schooling (such as informal words for things and when you can and cannot refer to someone in certain ways without insulting them). Machine assisted translation is unreliable enough right now; perhaps it is better but still not as good a means of communication as actually knowing the language.
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Fri, 2009-10-23 19:06
obsidian razor obsidian razor's picture
Re: Practical use of language in transhuman society
I don't know the place in particular, but I'm 100% sure that the manual says that there are a lot of accurate open-source translation programs for your Muse and that this has made language pretty much a non-issue in the future, people that know different languages do so because of the culture associated with it and also because nothing is "lost in translation" that way, minor as it might be. In my game for example we have a Titania neo-socialist that has learned to a fluent level all the languages of the great communist leaders of old so he could read and hear their books and speeches without losing anything in translation. Also, he has a motivation of Fame, because he thinks that if becomes some sort of Red Adventurer hero lots of indecisive people will join the neo-socialist ranks, and speaking the languages of those he wants to influence fluently and directly gives him lots of credibility. So there you have a use for language skills.
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Sat, 2009-10-31 12:54
verdra verdra's picture
Re: Practical use of language in transhuman society
on page 245 there is a list of some basic function of your muse one of them being: "Run audio input through an online, real-time language translation system"
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Mon, 2010-08-30 10:36
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Practical use of language in transhuman society
I finally had a use for language skills in my game... Two characters go to Phaeton for some time to meditate and discover modern religion. They use morphs provided by the Phaetons, with their implants and go into the meditation room. Inside the meditation room, all distractions are turned off - including ectos. Suddenly the student and teacher realize that she speaks Portuguese and he speaks just about everything else. Poor teacher found that 48 hours of 'limited sensory deprivation' trapped with an ADD Portuguese-speaking teenaged hacker can be... difficult. There was a happy ending though, when they both realized they spoke Klingon, and could have their deep, philosophical conversations drawing allusions to the 'joy of victory' and the 'honor of death in combat'.
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Mon, 2010-08-30 14:08
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Practical use of language in transhuman society
Of course, having your muse link to an open translator service also means that something listens to what is being said. Sure, it *ought* to be an open source linguistic AI talking to you through a VPN, but do you *know* there are no back doors there? If somebody happens to mention Ozma, Firewall or the name of the local Triad leader's girlfriend, maybe something starts logging the discussion. Anybody who controls the local mesh certification infrastructure can do a man-in-the-middle attack unless you are very careful and run special protocols to ensure you have connected to the right server.
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Extropian
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Mon, 2010-08-30 14:08
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Practical use of language in transhuman society
Of course, having your muse link to an open translator service also means that something listens to what is being said. Sure, it *ought* to be an open source linguistic AI talking to you through a VPN, but do you *know* there are no back doors there? If somebody happens to mention Ozma, Firewall or the name of the local Triad leader's girlfriend, maybe something starts logging the discussion. Anybody who controls the local mesh certification infrastructure can do a man-in-the-middle attack unless you are very careful and run special protocols to ensure you have connected to the right server.
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Extropian
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Mon, 2010-08-30 14:49
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Practical use of language in transhuman society
Arenamontanus wrote:
Of course, having your muse link to an open translator service also means that something listens to what is being said. Sure, it *ought* to be an open source linguistic AI talking to you through a VPN, but do you *know* there are no back doors there?
Fun fact-when I was working in banking compliance a while ago they were rules against using Google translator and other online translation service due to worry that that information could be intercepted or stored indefinetely by Google(and possibly accessible online to everybody eventually). Without the limits of bandwitdth in EP, and gigantic operating abilities, your PC's might find themselves listening to every conversation they made in a habitat that was translated.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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