In 1966 the original Star Trek series introduced the idea of a universal translator. It was a very clever conceit. Our intrepid heroes could communicate with any alien races they happened to meet, thanks to the handy-dandy little translators built into the com-badges on their Federation uniforms.<\/p>\n
But what would be the effect of a universal translator in reality? WOuld it be a good thing or a bad thing?<\/p>\n
Right now, if I wanted to spend time in Korea or France, I would need to learn the language in order to truly understand the culture and its people. If I never needed to learn the language, I might simply spend time there in a bubble of ignorance, believing I was learning another culture, but not really ever understanding the people or their values.<\/p>\n
So maybe it’s just as well that we don’t have a universal translator. Then again, we might very well find one built into those XR wearable glasses that will eventually end up replacing smartphones.<\/p>\n
I hope that leads to an era of greater inter-cultural understanding, but I fear that it might just lead to an era of blissfully unaware inter-cultural ignorance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1966 the original Star Trek series introduced the idea of a universal translator. It was a very clever conceit. Our intrepid heroes could communicate with any alien races they happened to meet, thanks to the handy-dandy little translators built into the com-badges on their Federation uniforms. But what would be the effect of a … Continue reading “Universal translator”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26177"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26178,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26177\/revisions\/26178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}