Is language learning socially acceptable?

General discussion about learning languages
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Pikaia
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Re: Is language learning socially acceptable?

Postby Pikaia » Mon Jun 20, 2022 1:34 pm

If the original poster here is the same as the random Reddit poster who has been dragged into this thread, then no, not a bot. Scroll back far enough in their posts and replies, and you find definitely human replies to other people's threads.

While I don't doubt the problem of bots on message boards, there seems to be an excessive amount of paranoia about it here. If the real goal is to discourage newbies from sticking around, it'll probably work.
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Re: Is language learning socially acceptable?

Postby Cainntear » Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:18 pm

Pikaia wrote:If the original poster here is the same as the random Reddit poster who has been dragged into this thread, then no, not a bot. Scroll back far enough in their posts and replies, and you find definitely human replies to other people's threads.

While I don't doubt the problem of bots on message boards, there seems to be an excessive amount of paranoia about it here. If the real goal is to discourage newbies from sticking around, it'll probably work.

Yeah, I don't see this thread as following the pattern I was talking about in the other thread.
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Re: Is language learning socially acceptable?

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jun 20, 2022 4:45 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:I guess I'm extremely disrespectful, at least from their perspective.

I mean, I'm not going to tell you how to raise your kids (or anyone's) and from your post, I know you see the different perspectives.

My environment was a little different - my kids and my parents overlap on 3 languages and my ex-wife also spoke 4. The concern with them wasn't about language learning (we did not practice OLOP but more of a layering/laddering technique) but more about language laziness - when they'd forget to talk in a way that included others. Like speaking French with a lot of slang or too quickly for my wife (not their mother) to understand. Or with visitors around.
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Re: Is language learning socially acceptable?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:43 pm

Cainntear wrote:There's a difference between a conspiracy theory and an assumption of bad faith, though.
Conspiracies require coordination and shared direction, and the weakness of any conspiracy theory is the number of people that unfeasible number of people that would need to maintain the lie.


The 'mass amount of coordination' that is often used as an argument to rule out the existance of conspiracy xyz sounds reasonable, but....

All you need is top down control, and those below to be doing their job on a need to know basis (no great secret, just doing one's job). It's a pyramid system of order and control. You do as your boss tells you provided it seems to make some sense (reasonable or not - we don't always like what we do). Your boss follows other orders, and so on all the way to the top.


For example (and this is a theory), in saving a general populous from an 'evil' ruler, the soldiers think of taking out the evil and helping the ill-treated people of that region/country, the generals play their bigger roles and if anyone questions they generally don't make too big of waves or risk disciplinary action. People act on orders and if they dig too much for more info they start sticking out like lacking patriotism ir worse still, conspiracy theorists. At the top we have the reasoning provided by a leader (think 'weapons of mass destruction' or to 'stop the spread of communism'), and we all go along with the general momentum of solving problem ABC seemingly too small to make a difference.

How many medications in the past were pulled from the market after causing deaths, birth defects and other problems? No conspiracy necessarily - nurses give the meds, doctor's prescribe, pharmacists supply, companies manufacture a new wonder drug. Unfortunately it causes harm and the health professionals involved knew no better. While this isn't an example necessarily of a conspiracy, those involved acted on the (perhaps limited) information they had on a need to know basis according to their position. FYI I can barely name one nurse or doctor that has any clue of what's really in 99% of medications. The medical system could be easily weaponised and no, everyone does not need to hold onto some secret. Just need to silence those who have some meaningful questions to ask, 'debunk' the theories, de-register doctors who are too noisy. How could anyone do so? State of emergency powers come to mind.
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Re: Is language learning socially acceptable?

Postby IronMike » Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:12 pm

Yes.
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Re: Is language learning socially acceptable?

Postby zenmonkey » Tue Jun 21, 2022 2:03 pm

- off topic -
Last edited by zenmonkey on Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is language learning socially acceptable?

Postby Ug_Caveman » Tue Jun 21, 2022 4:50 pm

I get the impression this thread is veering off in a direction that may lead to rather heated and unpleasant discussions that have little to do with language learning...
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Re: Is language learning socially acceptable?

Postby rdearman » Tue Jun 21, 2022 9:06 pm

Thread locked.
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