Humans live in different cultures. A simple version of this is in how cultures greet each other. The Italian double kiss, the ultra orthodox Jewish non touch, the hippie hug, the handshake of various cultures, the Japanese bow/nod, and many more. It’s possible to gravely offend a different culture with the way you do introductions.
Now think about the same potential offence but for all conversation culture.
I have the open question of how to successfully interface with other cultures.
The difficulties start with accepting that differences exist and aren’t an error and aren’t easily dissolvable. Humans don’t seem to be good at accepting that. We seem to have been born expecting something else.
Saying “the awkward fracturing of humanity is a brute fact of any multipolar situation in a large universe” doesn’t seem to do the job, so I propose naming Babel, the demon of otherness and miscommunication, and explaining that humanity is fractured because a demon cursed it.
There are nice things about Babel. Babel is also the spirit of specialization, trade, and surprise.
Greg Egan’s Diaspora had a nice institution. The bridgers, will be people who arrange networks of intermediaries between each of the morphs and subspecies of post-humanity and facilitate global coordination. A mesh of benevolent missing links.
The problem of interfaces between cultures.
Humans live in different cultures. A simple version of this is in how cultures greet each other. The Italian double kiss, the ultra orthodox Jewish non touch, the hippie hug, the handshake of various cultures, the Japanese bow/nod, and many more. It’s possible to gravely offend a different culture with the way you do introductions.
Now think about the same potential offence but for all conversation culture.
I have the open question of how to successfully interface with other cultures.
The difficulties start with accepting that differences exist and aren’t an error and aren’t easily dissolvable. Humans don’t seem to be good at accepting that. We seem to have been born expecting something else.
Saying “the awkward fracturing of humanity is a brute fact of any multipolar situation in a large universe” doesn’t seem to do the job, so I propose naming Babel, the demon of otherness and miscommunication, and explaining that humanity is fractured because a demon cursed it.
There are nice things about Babel. Babel is also the spirit of specialization, trade, and surprise.
Greg Egan’s Diaspora had a nice institution. The bridgers, will be people who arrange networks of intermediaries between each of the morphs and subspecies of post-humanity and facilitate global coordination. A mesh of benevolent missing links.