On Sat, 28 Aug 1999, Waldemar Ingdahl wrote:
> [Either Waldemar or Kathryn (I can't tell from the nesting...) wrote:]
> >Also, we are still largely European and Euro-American.
The recent request for documents for translation indicates that people want these ideas in other languages.
An interesting idea, perhaps for the new server would be to setup the pages so they can be run through one of the translation programs automatically. We might want to do this with outgoing mail as well. I suspect that to do this properly we will need control of the dictionary. I'm sure the translation of some of these concepts into some languages is going to have to be very creative!
But as I think I tried to point out at Extro4, we really need to address getting documents translated. There are many cultures, such as Russia and many around the west pacific, that are very educated, technically literate and don't carry the type of cultural baggage that will slow acceptance of the ideas in Euro-American regions.
The only way to make sure that the documents are translated correctly is to have them done by bi-lingual people familiar with Extropian concepts or have good translators who are are are able to have extended contact with extropians who can discuss the meanings of various concepts.
Sounds like another project.
Just to satisfy my curiosity are all of the transhumanist documents in Sweeden in English? What about the German efforts?
One of the interesting grass-roots things that needs to be done is to identify people who are bi-lingual who have the time and interest in spreading the concepts from the English-centric sphere (for example much scientific literature), out to various cultures where the English speaking fraction is low as well as returning cultural-specific impressions of ideas, developments, etc.
Robert