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Sure, I agree that alphabet systems are initially easier to learn than logographic systems. But to achieve that they sacrifice the consistency and lack of ambiguity of a logographic system. It’s funny you bring up Korean as an example of a good alphabet system, because I can assure you as someone who is currently learning Korean, it has it’s weird spelling inconsistencies and pronunciation “rules” and exceptions, just like any other alphabet system.
And again, I’m not trying to convince you that one is better than the other. My whole point is that one isn’t any better or worse than another. They each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and specific purposes, they’re both functional, one isn’t better or worse than the other as a whole.
Agree you’ve covered some of the pros of alphabet systems and cons of logographic systems, and those are totally valid. You’re neglecting the other sides though, so let’s balance that out:
Here’s some pros of logographic systems:
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Higher information density - you can say more with less, and readers can parse it faster
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Compound words are intuitive - just put the symbols for the two halves of the words next to each other (or visually combine them in some cases)
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Symbols have direct meaning - there is usually no “sounding out” words to figure out what they mean, the symbol by itself fully encapsulates meaning, independent of pronunciation
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Because meaning is independent from phonetics, ambiguity is reduced with homophones, in that two words that sound the same still have two different-looking symbols
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Written communication can still be understood even across different dialects, and even across different languages altogether, if the same logographic system is used, and even if those logographic symbols have different pronunciations. This separation makes it possible to communicate across language barriers without having to learn a whole other language.
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Logographic systems don’t have to adapt to changes in pronunciation over time, they’re stable
Here’s some cons of alphabet systems:
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Much lower information density takes longer to read, most people have to internally convert the visual data to sound to understand it, so it physically takes more brainpower/effort to understand written text
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Wild inconsistencies in phonetics within a language, requiring rote memorization of spelling “rules” and all of their various exceptions. Makes learning new words difficult as you can’t be sure if you’re “sounding it out” correctly unless you’ve heard the spoken word
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Meaning directly depends on phonetics/pronunciation, which can lead to confusion and ambiguity with alternate pronunciations, alternate spellings, and differing dialects (e.g. Canadian French vs. Metropolitan French)
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Learning a language that uses an alphabet system means learning it twice - the written language and the spoken language
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Homophones and hereronyms? Good luck
Also here’s some food for thought. I 100% guarantee you use a logographic system every single day, very easily, without even realizing it. In fact, nearly the whole world uses it - Arabic numerals.
Is the belief that the logographic system is worse than alphabets (and abugidas, for that matter) unreasonable?
Lol yes. Both systems have benefits and drawbacks, it’s unreasonable to say either is “worse” than the other. It’s certainly not as clear-cut as the comparison between the imperial and metric systems.
I’m not being dishonest, I paraphrased.
Excellent time for the Japanese to drop ideogram/logogram system and have an alphabet like a functional language.
Your original comment (included above for convenience) very clearly implies that Japanese is not a functional language because it doesn’t use an alphabet. I didn’t misrepresent you at all.
“Imperial measurement users” are an “identifying or culturally significant group”, they are called Americans
First, plenty of other places other than America, Liberia, and Myanmar use imperial units. And even if they didn’t, the inclusion of Liberia and Myanmar means “imperial system users” isn’t just identifying Americans, so you’re just flat out incorrect about that. I’m ignoring the bit where you said “[Liberia and Myanmar] are not culturally significant groups over the internet” because that implies that you think bigotry only exists on the Internet, or maybe you think you can only be bigoted against a group with a large enough Internet presence or something? Which I know you can’t possibly think, so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt there and chalking that up to a miscommunication.
Second, bigotry necessarily involves holding an unreasonable position or belief. The belief that the imperial system is worse than metric is not unreasonable, because there’s evidence supporting that belief, and there’s even a large number of imperial system users that hold that belief. The belief that it’s “time for the Japanese to drop ideogram/logogram system and have an alphabet like a functional language” is unreasonable for the reasons I explained previously.
Third, it doesn’t matter what ethnicity or nationality you used, the structure of your statement would still be bigoted, because it would still be an unreasonable belief that prejudices against a particular group of people.
Hope this helps.
I think ideograms suck because they are an extremely bad writing system
That’s nice, but what you originally said was that “the Japanese don’t have a functional writing system”, which is bigoted, because it constitutes an unreasonable belief/prejudice against a particular group of people (“the Japanese”). It’s an unreasonable position because the Japanese writing system is obviously functional, as millions of people use it to great effect every day.
imperial units suck because they are an extremely bad measurement system
This is not bigotry because it isn’t an unreasonable belief, and it doesn’t target/prejudice against one specific group (other than ‘imperial measurement users’, which isn’t really an identifying or culturally significant group).
Bonus question: If I say it’s an excellent time to drop the Gregorian calendar do I win at racism for expanding it to the whole world?
Bonus answer: no, bigotry targets/prejudices against a specific identifying group. “The whole world” doesn’t qualify as a group that you can be bigoted against. Hating everyone makes you a grumpy curmudgeon, but not a racist.
Hope this helps.
It was a feature that they added a long time ago, and it doesn’t interfere with or worsen the experience of buying, organizing, or playing my video games… Plenty of other products and services out there have features that some don’t like or don’t use, but that isn’t the same thing as enshittification.
I have explained it though
Eh, maybe I’m being pedantic, but I still don’t really see how the addition of the steam marketplace is an example of the steam platform declining in quality. It was a feature that they added a long time ago, and it doesn’t interfere with or worsen the experience of buying, organizing, or playing my video games. Sure it’s a needless addition (in our opinions), but one that I can easily ignore because it’s so isolated from the main product. Plenty of other products and services out there have features that some don’t like or don’t use, but that isn’t the same thing as enshittification. And I feel like the spam would happen regardless of if the marketplace was there or not. That feels more like a moderation problem, not an enshittification problem.
Some of these are minor inconveniences, but that’s how enshittification happens. It’s little, creeping annoyances that get worse and worse until it starts to make people look for alternatives.
Ok, maybe my definition of enshittification is off then. I thought it was when some company offers some product/service for a certain price (or free), then gradually removes features from that product/service while increasing the price. Am I off?
If that definition is right, I don’t understand how the steam marketplace, a completely optional (borderline tangential) part of the steam platform, qualifies as enshittification.
And I’m not trying to defend the steam marketplace, I think it’s stupid and terrible and at minimum needs age restrictions. But like, you can absolutely just not use it and your experience using the steam platform is totally unaffected.
Dawg you gotta be a troll if you think I’m “disconnected from the real world” just because I know that better specs is why the steam deck can handle modern games and the switch can’t. Also I said that we don’t know what the switch 2 will cost, and that I’d be surprised if it was that low. Don’t put words in my mouth.
No, it’s just straight up misinformation, or at least a disingenuous oversimplification.
The base model steam deck is $400 (and you can get steam-certified refurbished ones for even cheaper), and we don’t know the price of the Switch 2 yet. If it comes with even some of the hardware upgrades that have been leaked, I very much doubt it’ll retail for as low as $350.
Nah, you’re not giving the steam deck nearly enough credit. It fills a very similar niche to the switch - a viable mobile gaming option that can also be readily used for couch gaming. You don’t need a large steam library to get use out of that, just like how the average switch owner probably only has a few switch games.
Some of the animations are definitely janky (looking at you, Punisher jumping off your lil zip line), the visual clarity is worse than OW (although maybe that’s just a symptom of how much I’ve played OW vs. MR), and it just has a bit less polish than OW.
That being said, there’s something about MR that feels nostalgic, like early OW1, and I’ve been having a blast with it. Shorter match and queue times are certainly a big factor too.
You’re absolutely correct that Korea (and Vietnam I suppose, I don’t know much about their language) invented their alphabet to make literacy more accessible, and I think that’s awesome and a really good feature of alphabet systems. I can even see why that would make people prefer alphabet systems, since accessibility is super important when you’re first learning a language.
I think your cached vs. real-time analogy is spot on. And while you can definitely come up with scenarios where caching is better than real-time rendering, and other scenarios where real-time rendering is better than caching, it’d be difficult to argue that one is unequivocally better or worse than the other.