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Translate things

Sometimes people are like "noooooooo I can't just translate Tian as Heaven or Dao as Way or junzi as gentleman, the terms have slightly different connotations and are used by this writer in a sort of distinct way". Nah. Writers in English use common terms idiosyncratically all the time. If you're worried we'll misunderstand, put an asterisk the first place the terms are used and refer us to a glossary. In the meantime, the reader will have a better understanding of what the terms mean.

In general I think we should translate more things so that you can understand what people are saying. E.g. "Hamas" is just short for "the Islamic Resistance Movement", call them that or the IRM if you want to save space. Most English speakers don't speak foreign languages, and it's important to be comprehensible!

in reply to Daniel Filan

renshin
renshin
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I disagree...? Why not just include more foreign words in our vocab? It works pretty well, and English is already known for doing it.
in reply to renshin

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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In these cases I don't think they meaningfully add richness to the vocab, they're just covering space for which we already have words. Or if they are meant to mean something importantly different, I'm not getting that anyway.
in reply to Daniel Filan

renshin
renshin
• •

i dont know words like junzi or Tian. With Dao I think we should use Dao. But shrug.

If this were about Buddhist terms I'd have more specific things to say.

But my sense of English is that it just doesn't even act like these other languages in very relevant ways. Pali/Sanskrit is super different as a language, for instance, and so you just can't translate the words into English without losing ~70% of the background meaning and connotation.

in reply to renshin

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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Yeah I think it depends on the topic for sure. And probably people who are specialists should use the original term. At the same time, one thing I worry about is: there's some instinct that like 70% of the meaning/connotation gets lost in translation. But do you really retain that meaning when you don't translate? Like presumably you're going to use some Pali/Sanskrit term that I won't immediately understand and tell me what it means, right? If so, couldn't you also just use an English term and tell me what it means? I think this doesn't work for terms that cross concepts in English (like 'dharma' kind of does), but does work for words that are close enough to an English equivalent.
in reply to Daniel Filan

renshin
renshin
• •

oh i see.

yes i agree that context is important.

if you're just a casual audience, then i should use an English phrase in the conversation so you know what i'm saying at all.

in reply to Daniel Filan

Michael Dickens
Michael Dickens
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So you're saying people should write more like official subs and not fan subs youtube.com/watch?v=YvNxgHTWIl…

(I have never watched a fan sub but I have observed the urge of people who are really into a hobby using obscure language because they care too much about capturing nuances)

I can't do polls here so FYI I have a few polls about the {sun, moon} x {dog, cat} personality typing system on my twitter profile: https://x.com/freed_dfilan

x.com

X (formerly Twitter)

No polls on this instance. @Ben Weinstein-Raun no chance this could be changed?
@Ben Weinstein-Raun
in reply to Daniel Filan

Raemon
Raemon
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Is Friendica open source and is this the sort of thing an enterprising person could fix? (Also, is this the sort of thing gpt 01 could just... figure out?)

Any good art accounts I should follow here in the fediverse? I'm thinking of things like the following:
- https://x.com/marysia_cc
- https://x.com/0zmnds
- https://x.com/opancaro
- https://x.com/PaulWelsh89
- https://x.com/JaimeV3ra
- https://x.com/WilhelmGustloff
- https://x.com/fraveris

If I ran a sauna place, Edmund Welles would be playing a lot in the saunas. open.spotify.com/track/3KPgSSL…

Maybe you're not supposed to say this in public, but I feel like if Islamist terrorists were serious they'd also threaten people with death for depicting Jesus.
in reply to Daniel Filan

Guive
Guive
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I think the different response is related to different inferences about the intent of the artist. That is, they know that Christians like to depict Jesus as part of their religion, and this doesn't bug them to much. But they think that the only reason to depict Muhammad is to insult their religion, so they take it as a deliberate insult.
in reply to Guive

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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Sure but it communicates that the thing they care about is being insulted, rather than ensuring that people follow God's commandments. Which is sort of a weak and embarrassing stance.
in reply to Daniel Filan

Guive
Guive
• •

(1) There's some truth to this. Violent islamists are on average, worse than most people in various ways.

(2) But also, they may see it more as a direct insult to God as opposed to an insult to them personally or their human social group. Compare their stance towards practicing Christians and Muslim apostates. Both groups go to hell, on the conventional conservative Muslim understanding. But they are much more bothered by apostates.

in reply to Daniel Filan

Ben Millwood
Ben Millwood
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I agree that terrorists are in some sense not serious and tbh I think it's for the best

or rather, second best, behind "not being terrorists"

I feel like the "introvert/extravert" axis bundles (at least) 3 things together in a kind of unhelpful way:
- low vs high need to socialize
- low vs high gregariousness
- low vs high desire to talk to people you don't know

These are sort of related, but I feel like usually when I hear people talk about extraversion or introversion they would usually be better served by appealing to a sub-factor rather than the bundle.

in reply to Daniel Filan

Amber Dawn
Amber Dawn
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Yeah, this seems true. How do you define 'gregarious' separately from the other things?

Other dimensions could be related to social anxiety, awkwardness, and/or masking. A lot of the time when I "don't want to talk to people" or it drains my energy to do so, it's because I feel uncomfortable in the situation, rather than because there's something I inherently dislike/find tiring about talking to people.

in reply to Amber Dawn

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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@Amber Dawn by "gregarious" I'm trying to say something like "tendency to socialize / talk a lot / more than you 'need to'". So "feel bad if you don't socialize" vs "feel good if you socialize a lot".
@Amber Dawn

having Friendship with a Beast would fix me
in reply to Daniel Filan

renshin
renshin
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i wish there were more 'react' options

TIL Muslims aren't allowed to eat cat meat. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat…

meat prepared from domestic cats for human consumption

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)

Free Manifold alpha

In this market about how many episodes of AXRP I'll publish in 2024, there's an 11% chance I'll publish less than 9, the number I have published so far. manifold.markets/DanielFilan/h…

(The motivation of the market was to test whether I'd succeed in publishing a ton - in fact, I've been down an editor for a bit which slowed me down, as did having a real job, but I still think I'll beat my all-time record of 10 episodes in 2022)

in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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For more AXRP markets:
- How many episodes I'll release in 2025: manifold.markets/DanielFilan/h…
- How many YouTube views my peak episode will get in 2025: manifold.markets/DanielFilan/h…

"Coherence theorems"
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