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RyanW · 07-28-2018, 01:09 PM

Second Babel

Due to... something... everyone loses the ability to understand any existing language. Effectively, there are now 7.4 billion mutually incomprehensible languages, and every bit of text is reduced to gibberish. On the other hand, nothing prevents anyone from learning any of these other languages, or developing a pidgin. Any non-linguistic symbols would remain understandable (red octagon still means stop, even when the text has changed to XYKÄ).

Obviously, this would be a tremendous disaster immediately. Air traffic control basically stops. Computers become nearly useless, as even graphical user interfaces are still mostly used to access data presented as text. Checklists (such as power grid monitoring) have to be rebuilt from memory. Every organization would be thrown into utter chaos.

What would the near and long term consequences be?

07-28-2018, 01:09 PM	#467
RyanW ☣ Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Southeast NC	Re: Ideas Are Easy Second Babel Due to... something... everyone loses the ability to understand any existing language. Effectively, there are now 7.4 billion mutually incomprehensible languages, and every bit of text is reduced to gibberish. On the other hand, nothing prevents anyone from learning any of these other languages, or developing a pidgin. Any non-linguistic symbols would remain understandable (red octagon still means stop, even when the text has changed to XYKÄ). Obviously, this would be a tremendous disaster immediately. Air traffic control basically stops. Computers become nearly useless, as even graphical user interfaces are still mostly used to access data presented as text. Checklists (such as power grid monitoring) have to be rebuilt from memory. Every organization would be thrown into utter chaos. What would the near and long term consequences be? __________________ RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats.