One thing I’ve read somewhere is that people who sign but aren’t deaf, tend to use sign language in parallel with spoken language. That’s an entire parallel communications channel!
Relatedly, rationalists lean quite heavily towards explicit ask/tell culture. This is sometimes great, but often clunky: “are you asking for advice? I might have some helpful comments but I’m not sure if you actually want peoples’ opinions, or if you just wanted to vent.”
Combining these two things, I see possible norms evolving where spoken language is used for communicating complex thoughts, and signing is used for coordination, cohesion, making group decisions (which is often done implicitly in other communities). I think there’s a lot of potential upside here.
One thing I’ve read somewhere is that people who sign but aren’t deaf, tend to use sign language in parallel with spoken language. That’s an entire parallel communications channel!
Relatedly, rationalists lean quite heavily towards explicit ask/tell culture. This is sometimes great, but often clunky: “are you asking for advice? I might have some helpful comments but I’m not sure if you actually want peoples’ opinions, or if you just wanted to vent.”
Combining these two things, I see possible norms evolving where spoken language is used for communicating complex thoughts, and signing is used for coordination, cohesion, making group decisions (which is often done implicitly in other communities). I think there’s a lot of potential upside here.