Is there something special about loading complexity into the level of the sentence as opposed to individual words?
Agglutination in many Native American languages and compounding in many Indo-European languages come to mind as examples where interesting nesting and complex relational structures can be found at the level of the word.
The article suggests that speakers of English or German can do "mental arithmetic" whereas speakers of Ket have lots of "math facts." I don't know anything about Ket, but German, Sanskrit, and other languages seem to have a lot in the way of mental arithmetic when it comes to making up long compound words, which are not such a static or stable currency as in, say, English.
Debate at its best is where the issues are at stake -- not the relationship. Getting clear on that is an important communicative and emotional skill.
The problem with "wanting to lose" in this post is how fake and sentimental that attitude can become, against our best intentions.
If both sides can put their cards on the table, that's a more productive conversation, rather than one side shutting up and keeping theirs close to the vest.
Confrontation is not an evil to be avoided. Hurting others is the harm to be avoided. Those are two very different things. Sometimes avoiding confrontation hurts oneself and others the very most.
Furthermore, there is no logical reason why one should default to thinking that only others will bring value to the conversation, and that one's own experience and judgment are not as important to share. By sharing one's thoughts, the other side may hear, learn, or rethink something that could change their lives. To the extent that "wanting to lose" consciously or unconsciously results in one bringing less of a certain energy to a debate, that's an opportunity lost for everyone.
Discernment and diplomacy are the valuable skills here. Again, rather than check out (whether smugly or earnestly), instead, let's make efforts to figure out when, where, why, and with whom to turn on the heat, -- and then turn it off.
Sportsmanship among athletes and collegiality among lawyers are good examples of this in practice.
"And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends."
--Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Act I, sc. 2.
> The problem with "wanting to lose" in this post is how fake and sentimental that attitude can become, against our best intentions.
Yes. Plus it can seem condescending. I wouldn't want to debate anything with someone adopting some sort of "philosophical master" stance that "through losing" will achieve enlightening. I prefer the other person gets angry if need be, which at least is honest, rather than trying to play some Socratic bullshit on me.
It comes across as "I'm better than you, let me show you that to lose is actually to win".
Good point. People smell condescension, and then check out.
The whole thing cools. They'll say just enough to get to the next topic gracefully. The dispute is patched up with something like "we'll agree to disagree" or something like that, in the interest of polite conversation, rather than square-on debate.
In that scenario one does not receive the full force of an opponent's argument. It never got ventilated. An opponent only brings that energy to a debate between earnest people who see themselves -- not their arguments -- as equals.
> The problem with "wanting to lose" in this post is how fake and sentimental that attitude can become, against our best intentions.
A better way might be to say, "losing can be good" If you put your best forward, and still lose, then you learned something, and hopefully became stronger. In the same way tennis players always want to play people better than them, because they will get better playing a superior player even when they lose.
A good analogy. And that stance is so different from "wanting to lose" -- it is "wanting a challenge." To get bested by a worthy opponent. That feeling can only be had after bringing one's best and strongest game to the court.
As science fiction and fantasy have evolved, they have converged.
We can see plenty of fantasy in works of science fiction in the conventional _forms_ of science fiction -- short stories, novels, TV shows, movies, video games.
It will be interesting to see science fiction in the conventional _forms_ of fantasy -- epics, ballads, poetry, fairy tales, onomastics, runic and incantatory forms of language....
(As an aside, I've heard rumors of published contemporary sci-fi written in classical Sanskrit verse but I can't find any -- is this really a thing?)
You mean like the cult and occult stuff? True, I guess there were some elements. Heaven's Gate, Scientology, and others appear to have adopted a religious outlook on science fiction ideas. I'm not sure that they really adopted conventional forms of fantasy in their literature.
When I clerked for a judge (not on the Supreme Court), she sometimes asked me to write two draft opinions -- one where one side wins -- and another where the other side wins -- and she used those materials in drafting her ultimate opinion.
There are so many different things going on in how judges write. I hope that they can get some _sense_ of security again so that they feel the freedom to be as open-minded as possible in figuring out the cases before them.
That part of their deliberations already occurred... the leak was after the majority of the justices voted to approve the draft. That's why the final opinion matched so closely to the leaked version.
Oh of course -- I just meant that I can envision a scenario where a judge is essentially writing out a thought-experiment as he or she is trying to figure out how to rule on a case -- and then that is leaked, etc.
Even if it's a late-stage draft that's leaked, that comes with its own host of problems.
Imagine a world where drafts are trotted out by lawyers seeking to argue their interpretation of an old opinion. "The Court originally was going to hold something like my opponent suggests, but that bit got deleted, your honor!"
That would be another level of the problem of what we might call "arguing the changelog," using pieces of floor debate transcripts in the legislative history of a statute.
Justice Scalia analogized that to "entering a crowded room at a cocktail party, and looking over the heads of the guests for your friends."
And that's a concern on top of the potential for a chilling effect on the judiciary.
We have no idea what would’ve happened in a counter-factual scenario. The draft opinion is the first time the whole court sees the reasoning on paper. Even if the narrow holding doesn’t change, the reasoning used and the sweep of the rule articulated can and does change.
And there is value in that being the first time the whole Court sees it.
Cards on the table at one definite time.
How much the author had to sweat to get there, to the extent it may matter at all, should show up in the results--a ruling written with a measured, judicial temperament.
I'm picturing a political cartoon where Lady Justice is blindfolded, but she's visibly sweating and nervous as she's aware of being completely crowded by people with magnifying glasses, smartphones on camera mode, etc.
>I hope that they can get some _sense_ of security again so that they feel the freedom to be as open-minded as possible in figuring out the cases before them.
This presumes that the leaker wasn't one of the Justices themselves, when it almost certainly was.
Sorry if this is a dumb question -- but what would be the motive for a sitting justice to leak a draft?
To test what celebrations or outrage would happen in the streets, maybe?
If they are that concerned with public opinion -- which they shouldn't be, but say they are -- I would think that would incentivize even stronger efforts to maintain confidentiality and discretion.
(Maybe you didn't suggest that it was intentional, but an accident. Even then I might wonder why someone would let their guard down on this case. Maybe there was so much more work done on one particular case, people get physically tired, etc.)
Judges don't want people to believe public opinion can change decisions. Leaking a draft discourages judges from changing their votes or negotiating other changes.
Slurs seem to share some of this violence in expression.
In English, at least, many unspeakable words used to describe Blacks, Asians, Jews, gay men, lesbian women, and others seem to have some of these "k" (or "g" (voiced)) features, harsh consonant endings, etc.
I wonder if it is like this in other languages too.
No. When there is a claim the insurance company will look for every reason not to cover and stick the insured with the defense and judgement bills. If the insured fails to meet the carrier's requirements they are screwed.
Sanskritist and linguist here. Many discussions of Sanskrit outside the world of linguistics devolve into politics ... the discoveries of the Indians are what they are, just like the discoveries of the Greeks are what they are ... "but what about caste oppression" reminds me a bit of the "math is racist" wackos in the US lately.
“Could a sufficient concentration of human will — millions of people exploited for a single end with their minds compressed into the same psychic space — unleash something comparable to the singularity?"
