this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
7 points (81.8% liked)

Futurism

488 readers
20 users here now

A place to discuss the ideas, developments, and technology that can and will shape the future of civilization.

Tenets:

(1) Concepts are often better treated in isolation -- eg: "what if energy became near zero cost?"
(2) Consider the law of unintended consequences -- eg: "if this happens, then these other systems fail"
(3) Pseudoscience and speculative physics are not welcome. Keep it grounded in reality.
(4) We are here to explore the parameter spaces of the future -- these includes political system changes that advances may trigger. Keep political discussions abstract and not about current affairs.
(5) No pumping of vapourware -- eg: battery tech announcements.

See also: [email protected] and [email protected]

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 11 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Not in the next couple of hundred years.

Europe is a great example of how people have multiple languages and just work together. I can't imagine France, Germany, or Italy at the very least giving up their languages.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Right. I'm looking more towards "big picture" changes, similar to progressing through the different civilization types from the Kardashev scale.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

That hypothetical universal language will have to start small scale, in a community such as the EU, and spread from there. Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It doesn't need to be a completely new language. It just needs to be a language that most people overall speak rather than, say, most people in a particular region.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah and that still has to start small scale. People in the EU are perfectly fine switching to English where needed but they still speak their own languages otherwise. There's no need for an EU-wide language so a universal language is unlikely to start here at least.

After humans have started colonising other places in space, that's where I could see them lose their traditional languages.

[–] Sturgist 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

@[email protected]

Chinese, English and Spanish are the top 3 languages spoken globally. and only ten languages make up the bulk of the world population's first language. Both Chinese and English are already widely spoken as a second or third language. I could easily see either becoming a defacto 1st/2nd language globally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks. This is the kind of discussion I was hoping for.

[–] Sturgist 2 points 6 hours ago

No worries buddy! This is interesting shit to think about!

[–] FreeBooteR69 5 points 14 hours ago

I don't really think so, nor do i believe it would be desirable.

[–] phanto 2 points 12 hours ago

Esperanto ekzistas!

[–] Sunshine 1 points 14 hours ago

You wouldn’t want a single language as that would make propaganda easy to distribute.