Bitcoin is Esperanto

[Grafzep]

Bitcoin is Esperanto...


...created by idealists to solve problems they saw in existing languages. Theoretically, it did solve many of those problems and by self-chosen criteria was indeed a very superior language.

Trouble is, the vast majority of people weren't that dissatisfied by the language they spoke everyday. It did the job and was good enough. Sure, it would need translating to work with someone on the other side of the world, but hey, people can live with that every now and then.

Esperanto has a beautifully engineered future - and has had for 100 years - but other than a few enthusiasts, who cares?

[EmperorBob]

The comparaison is valid on the surface of it, but I would argue that:

1. The problems with fiat payment systems as they exist are pretty serious, not just the kinds of problems idealists want to solve. There are billions of dollars spent each year on dealing with/mitigating these problems.
2. As hard as transitioning to bitcoins can be for the non tech-savvy (I suspect it'll get easier, btw), that pales in comparaison to learning a new language.
3. The main practical benefit of esperanto (a language everyone can understand), is already being achieved by everyone learning english as their second language. English may be inelegant, but it works.

[cbeast]

Bitcoin is more like the metric system. It will be adapted everywhere except the USA.

[Piper67]

How is email not like Esperanto (compared to the old postal system).

Yeah, that's Bitcoin. 

[Razick]

I have zero interest in Esperanto. It solved absolutely nothing and represents a sterling example of naivety, Bitcoin on the other hand actually solves serious problems.

It drives me crazy that people refer to Esperanto as culturally neutral. It's a Western European language based on western European grammar. English is far more culturally neutral because it is influenced by Latin, French, Germanic languages and so on. English absorbs any culture it comes in to contact with.

English is unparalleled for it's ability to adapt and describe complex technical concepts. There is a reason why English is the international language of aviation even though the French were the leaders in the field for many of it's early years.

Not only that, but English is spoken (by some estimates) by over 1 billion people, making it the worlds most spoken language. Why have the entire population switch to an inferior, underdeveloped and anything-but-culturally-neutral language when 1 billion people already speak English?

Just saying. 

[Razick]

The comparaison is valid on the surface of it, but I would argue that:

1. The problems with fiat payment systems as they exist are pretty serious, not just the kinds of problems idealists want to solve. There are billions of dollars spent each year on dealing with/mitigating these problems.
2. As hard as transitioning to bitcoins can be for the non tech-savvy (I suspect it'll get easier, btw), that pales in comparaison to learning a new language.
3. The main practical benefit of esperanto (a language everyone can understand), is already being achieved by everyone learning english as their second language. English may be inelegant, but it works.

English is inelegant? That depends, as with any language, on how it's used.

[Razick]

Bitcoin is more like the metric system. It will be adapted everywhere except the USA.

Well, I don't want to have a debate on the Metric system again, but Bitcoin is actually growing very quickly in the US. Almost everyone (read: who follows current events and cares about more than cat videos) here has at least heard of it, and a sizable amount of people are using it in one way or another. The benefits of Bitcoin over fiat far exceed the benefits of Metric over Standard.

[Grafzep]

The comparaison is valid on the surface of it, but I would argue that:

1. The problems with fiat payment systems as they exist are pretty serious, not just the kinds of problems idealists want to solve. There are billions of dollars spent each year on dealing with/mitigating these problems.
2. As hard as transitioning to bitcoins can be for the non tech-savvy (I suspect it'll get easier, btw), that pales in comparaison to learning a new language.
3. The main practical benefit of esperanto (a language everyone can understand), is already being achieved by everyone learning english as their second language. English may be inelegant, but it works.

1. No doubt, but not to most 'retail' users. People are happy to use cash for anonymity (the >10k KYC problems don't affect them) and indeed don't seem too bothered by the credit card 3%. The biggest retailers pay less than that and consumers can get 1% cashback without too much effort, so they're paying 1% for convenience and guarantees (and insurance sometimes) - a deal many take.

2. It's effort vs reward. That's the point: Esperanto isn't worth the effort and I'm wondering if Bitcoin is for a critical mass.

3. The world has the USD  for an "inelegant" lingua franca

[vqp]

English is inelegant? That depends, as with any language, on how it's used.

For one, the function:   sound * Pronounce(char * word), needs an static dictionary several MB long.

In other words, there is no way to figure out how to pronounce a word if you never heard it

[Elwar]

Espiratasu itar olipartini.

 

[jdbtracker]

Bitcoin I believe is causing a discussion... hmmm. I wonder what would happen if someone created a truly marketable version of esperanto and distributed it to language enthusiasts to develop and use. It would be interesting to see it be modified and developed world wide to create a truly amazing version of language, easy to learn(babies can figure it out), Anyone can understand it(basic concepts from world languages incorporated), able to demonstrate and explain complex high level ideas(you can say a lot with just a little).

BitCode?

[domob]

I have zero interest in Esperanto. It solved absolutely nothing and represents a sterling example of naivety, Bitcoin on the other hand actually solves serious problems.

Can't argue with that, Esperanto is really mainly idealistic (but I find it interesting anyway for its simple and conclusive grammar; I'm not fluent, though).

It drives me crazy that people refer to Esperanto as culturally neutral. It's a Western European language based on western European grammar. English is far more culturally neutral because it is influenced by Latin, French, Germanic languages and so on. English absorbs any culture it comes in to contact with.

It is not neutral of course, but its creator at least tried to bring more than just western Europe into it - at least some words are apparently based on Japanese.  Of course, it misses a lot of cultures like Africans, South Americans, Indian and I guess a lot more.  However, I don't think English is more neutral - it is true that it is based both on Roman languages (to 20%) and Germanic languages (to 80%), but so is Esperanto being based on all of those languages, too, even including Slavik ones and Japanese as mentioned already.

English is unparalleled for it's ability to adapt and describe complex technical concepts. There is a reason why English is the international language of aviation even though the French were the leaders in the field for many of it's early years.

I'm not sure whether to agree here or not.  Of course I'm used to writing technical stuff (be it related to computer science of my research in mathematics / physics) in English and don't even know German words for some of the concepts involved, but what exactly makes you think English is naturally the "perfect language" for technical concepts?  In terms of simplicity, English lies between Esperanto and German - so depending on whether you think it is good to describe things in simple or complex sentences, you should prefer one of those over English.

Before WW II, also a lot of science was published in German (for instance with the "fathers" of quantum mechanics being mostly from German speaking regions as far as I know) - I believe the main reason we use English today is simply because a) Germany lost the war and English-speaking countries were the winners (which is arguably true also for French and Russian, though), and b) the English commonwealth empire was were large and influenced large parts of the world (former collonies like India).  I'm not a historian though, so that are just my "uninformed" impressions.

[virtualmaster]

The combination Bitcoin, Namecoin and Esperanto is the ultimate revolutionary power.
Bitcoin - neutral currency
Namecoin - neutral domain and identity system
Esperanto - neutral language.

[Grafzep]

The combination Bitcoin, Namecoin and Esperanto is the ultimate revolutionary power.
Bitcoin - neutral currency
Namecoin - neutral domain and identity system
Esperanto - neutral language.

If those are the two skanks we've woken up next to, we'd better have a good scrub in the shower before we let the door slam behind us...

[countryfree]

Bitcoin is not Esperanto because Esperanto is dead. You can't learn it anywhere in the country I'm staying, and nobody understands it.

[nameface]

We thrive on diversity. The world doesn't need an Esperanto currency. We need smarter money systems.
Bitcoin is a giant leap forward in this regard. It's like software language vs. regular written language. It facilitates so much more cool stuff.

[mnyonpa]

I have zero interest in Esperanto. It solved absolutely nothing and represents a sterling example of naivety, Bitcoin on the other hand actually solves serious problems.

It drives me crazy that people refer to Esperanto as culturally neutral. It's a Western European language based on western European grammar. English is far more culturally neutral because it is influenced by Latin, French, Germanic languages and so on. English absorbs any culture it comes in to contact with.

English is unparalleled for it's ability to adapt and describe complex technical concepts. There is a reason why English is the international language of aviation even though the French were the leaders in the field for many of it's early years.

Not only that, but English is spoken (by some estimates) by over 1 billion people, making it the worlds most spoken language. Why have the entire population switch to an inferior, underdeveloped and anything-but-culturally-neutral language when 1 billion people already speak English?

Just saying. 

Good point. I add to this that English has achieved true cultural neutrality because it is spoken natively by people of completely unrelated cultures, like those of the U.S. and India. And it is second in number of speakers only to Mandarin but the latter is much more culturally constrained.

[LiskKing]

Monero is Esperanto and  is the future https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1595182.0

[BillyBobZorton]

Bitcoin is more like the metric system. It will be adapted everywhere except the USA.

This is a good analysis. The USA will keep living in their own delusion bubble of being the kings of currency even after the dollar collapses, meanwhile everyone will be adopting BTC.

[Ilsk]

The difference is that a lot of people are dissatisfied  by the existing financial system