Words as Public Goods

Words as Public Goods / Language as a public good

• Plurality Tokyo: “Glen in Japan” 2024-01-03 Event page: [GleninJapan 】 Glen Weil talk event in Japan hosted by Plurality Tokyo - Luma

Slide PDF

• It is under CC-0, you can redistribute / translate / remix without any permission.

Links

• For Japanese speakers, visit the Japanese translation forum: [/plurality-japanese/read first](https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/read first).
• For non-Japanese speaker, visit official README: https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality

Replay Video

• Words as Public Goods(Japanese Video)
• English Replay(Work in progress)
  • Words as Public Goods English Replay(WIP)
    • Maybe after something released, I’ll reorganize it

This is truly one of my favorite presentation decks I’ve seen around all this --- Glen Weyl on Discord

Following are slides, drafts and reference links:

Cover

• Words are public property. - public goods (i.e. goods or services such as parks or highways)
  • Difference between Common Goods and Public Goods

• NISHIO Hirokazu
• Me: Researcher in Cybozu Labs.
  • Company: Cybozu
    • “selling productivity software” company
      • (quoted from Plural public media)
    • Cybozu’s Purpose: Building a society brimming with teamwork
      • Vision｜Cybozu, Inc.
        • Creating a society full of teamwork
  • My Focus: Augmentation of intellectual productivity - Intellectual productivity enhancement - Increased intellectual productivity - - The Intellectual Production of Engineers
  • Why?
    • Improving individual intellectual productivity leads to better teamwork.
    • Increased individual intellectual productivity leads to better teamwork

• The “Plurality” Book
• 
• by Glen Weyl and Audrey Tang
• Plurality: Technology for Collaborative Diversity and Democracy
  • Technology
  • Collaborative Diversity
  • Oh, it’s about Technology to “Build a society brimming with teamwork” !
    • Technology for Collaborative Diversity… This is “Creating a society full of teamwork” technology!
• Concept of “broad listening”
  • “people can hear the distilled essence of the distribution of opinion of their peers, empowering democratic deliberation at scale”
    • Technology that allows people to understand the distribution of opinions among a large number of their peers: enabling large, democratic deliberations.
  • Oh, this is a technology that augment the ability to understand the opinions of many other people. It is augmentation of intellectual productivity!
    • It’s all about increasing your “ability to understand the opinions of the many,” your intellectual productivity!

• So I made Japanese Translation Forum
• 

• I forked that repository and implemented an automated translation flow using the GPT-3.5 API.
• Then, considering the need for a space where Japanese people could freely discuss the contents of this book in Japanese, I created a forum using Scrapbox.
• Source: https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality
• Japanese Translation: https://github.com/nishio/plurality-japanese/
• Forum for free discussion:
  • /plurality-japanese

Good undestanding is the foundation of good translation

• The translation is a distant goal
  • Translation is a distant goal
  • The base text has not yet been finalized
  • The bottom line has yet to be determined.
• Therefore, we are currently focused on translation of more compact finalized peripheral information
  • More and more peripheral information is being translated into Japanese.
  • For example, talks in Plurality Seoul
  • Plurality Seoul, for example.
    • [/plurality-japanese/Access in Plurality](https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/Access in Plurality) (by Gisele Chou)
    • [/plurality-japanese/Audrey Tang Remarks in Plurality Seoul](https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/Audrey Tang Remarks in Plurality Seoul)

How can a better understanding be created?

• To make good understanding
  • shared understanding
    • How?

Building Network of knowledge

• Example
  • 

• It links to a page:
  • 
  • [/plurality-japanese/Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations](https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations)

• And then you will see:
  • 

The process of tying two items together is the important thing. … he builds a trail of his interest … his trails do not fade. --- Vannevar Bush (1945)

Road:

• infrastructure for good understanding
• By storing “trails of interest” as links, roads are created. Then those roads help the understanding of those who come later.
• I’m leading the way to understanding.
• Help me understand.
• Cultivating a world of knowledge.
  • Homesteading the Noosphere
  • cooperative learning (Collaborative Leaning)

Two languages

• 
• I noticed something interesting during the translation process.
  • Often, translating from Mandarin into Japanese results in more natural Japanese than translating from English.
  • 

• Mandarin and Japanese have common characters
• 
  • Kanji - Wikipedia

• Common ideograms become “paths” that convey meaning.
  • A common set of ideographic characters becomes the ‘road’ to convey meaning.
• 
  • This is what I want to show with this picture.
• Reference: The base of this picture comes from Gisele Chou’s slide: /plurality-japanese/⿻

Example

• 
• Multiverse Division!
• Japanese can understand the meaning!

Glen’s “Why I Am a Pluralist”(2022) Mandarin version: 為何 我 是 多元宇宙人

• When I first saw this poem in English, I didn’t quite understand it.
• It became clearer to me after seeing the Mandarin version.
• “Plural languages” helped my understanding!

• Whether one subscribes to versions of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, according to which some thoughts are unthinkable in some languages, or softer accounts, clearly some languages are better adapted to expressing certain thoughts than are others, so these linguistic differences matter in some ways and reflect the conditions of the societies that host them.

• Some languages are more likely to express certain ideas than others

• Speakers of languages with a vocabulary that describes a concept in greater detail can handle that concept more efficiently.
• Speakers of a language with a vocabulary that describes a concept in more detail can deal with that concept more efficiently
  • Resolution of reality

  • Unlike English, Russian makes an obligatory distinction between lighter blues (“goluboy”) and darker blues (“siniy”)… Russian speakers were faster to discriminate two colors when they fell into different linguistic categories in Russian…

Sometimes a word in one language have no corresponding word in the other language Example:

• In a discussion on democratic processes at Code for Japan, a participant expressed the opinion:
  • “Democratic process is a process that generates as much Nattoku feelings as possible among a wide range of people.” - A democratic process is a process that creates consensus among as many people as possible.
  • I felt convinced on the opinion.
  • But… How to translate convince into English?

• ‘Convince’ can be translated as ‘agreement’ or ‘understanding’ in English
• However, I feel that ‘agreement’ is more akin to ‘agreement’, and ‘understanding’ to ‘understanding’.
  • understanding
  • The nuance of “convinced.”

• “understanding” seems to be translated as agreement or understanding in English. But I feel “agreement” is “agreement” and “understanding” is “understanding”

• There is a void in English.
  • alternate language mapping

• There is a void in English but it’s not a problem unique to English.
• All languages are full of voids, and when we think in only one language, we fail to notice them.
• That’s why we need to collaborate with speakers of different languages.
• It’s not just about English.
• All languages are full of holes, and if you think in a single language you don’t realize it
• So we need to work with speakers of different languages.

• Source: https://hbr.org/2017/07/being-the-boss-in-brussels-boston-and-beijing

• Highlight by me

  • Broad Listening is Important in Japan, Where Air Rules
  • Erin Meyer found that Japan is a hierarchical, consensus-oriented culture of extremes.
    • 
      • To Lead Across Cultures, Focus on Hierarchy and Decision Making
      • 

• We are building a special society, observing special events, and developing a special vocabulary.

  • We are building a unique society, observing unique phenomena, and developing a unique vocabulary.

• In my words, Japan is extremely hierarchical, but extremely focused on consensus, a kind of outlier.

• Many Japanese think the culture outdated in an era of global communication. I agree. We need to change our behavior and mindset.

• However, Japanese vocabulary may help understand the societal harmonics in higher resolution.

• (CUT)

  • Our traditional (or outdated) culture
  • Many Japanese consider this culture outdated in an era of global communication with people from diverse backgrounds.
  • I agree. We need to change our behavior and mindset.
  • However, the vocabulary we’ve created can help understand the world in higher resolution.

• some languages are better adapted to expressing certain thoughts than are others

• Japanese speakers are minority
• 
• Think Words as Public Goods
• Speakers of minority languages can increase the world’s public goods by exporting words.
• Language is a public good. Let’s export language.
  • Japanese speakers are a minority in the world Don’t wait for the translation.
• Don’t wait for the translation to be finished. Let’s participate in the plural thinking that are currently emerging.
• emerge emerge emerge emerge emerge
• Join the Plural Thinking that is springing up now. Your words can become common goods and help people around the world.
• Your words can become public property and help people all over the world

• Open the gate and build a car. You’ll come to me.
• Door is open. Let’s join to create a car.
• Next event: [/plurality-japanese/1/20 Social Hack Day](https://scrapbox.io/plurality-japanese/1/20 Social Hack Day)

Related

• The words The Four Elements of Human Enhancement.

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This page is auto-translated from [/nishio/Words as Public Goods](https://scrapbox.io/nishio/Words as Public Goods) using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.