Currently Le Monde diplomatique (https://mondediplo.com/) is the only world news I'm reading, it's always a joy to get it in the mail, and I really appreciate the quality of journalism and analyses.
I'm not going to wade into the Esperanto debate, but I find it fascinating that so many countries use the Metric system except when they don't.
In Germany for instance almost everything is metric except (ironically?) for computers and televisions, you still measure your screen in Zoll (inches). And you see Pfund (pound) in markets but they normalized that to 500g long ago, so it's kinda-sorta in the system.
I'm in Thailand right now and most things are in metric besides, again, computers and TVs -- 13" laptop, 27" monitor, 52" TV, etc -- but then, maddeningly for me, picture frames are usually measured in inches. So while you have DIN A4 and DIN A3 frames, because office paper uses DIN sizes AFAICT, it's really hard to find a 24x30cm or 30x40cm frame.
> In Germany for instance almost everything is metric except (ironically?) for computers and televisions, you still measure your screen in Zoll (inches).
That’s the same thing in France, but I think it’s just a byproduct of so much of computer stuff coming from the US. Computer monitors tend to be informally measured in inches (though you have to provide the figure in cm as well), and television sets in cm.
By the way, inches have been defined in terms of cm for quite a while now, so they are just a really annoying non-integer multiple of the cm.
> And you see Pfund (pound) in markets but they normalized that to 500g long ago, so it's kinda-sorta in the system.
That’s right, a (metric) pound is half a kilogram. That was defined in a decree by Napoleon in 1812 as a way for people to keep using old units names without giving up on the advantages of the metric system.
Yeah, can’t have that new fangled French thing. So now we buy milk in 2.272 l bottles. On the contrary, on the continent they are happy to sell you a pint of beer, but don’t expect an imperial pint.
>On the contrary, on the continent they are happy to sell you a pint of beer, but don’t expect an imperial pint.
Pints and beer measures are just hilarious. Australia is crazy they have pints, schooners, pots and ponies (and some others as well I think). The total craziness is that their size (and even order IIRC) is different in different states.
One thing I noticed long ago when looking at opium paraphernalia in NY flea markets was how much flair people invest into their drug consumption. Alcohol is no different and damn I love a manhattan in a nice crystal low ball or an imperial pint of ale ...
Canadian here. People over ~60 are more familiar with miles, ounces and gallons. Two generations ago was the last time they were mainstream. They tore down all the signs demarcated in miles in the 1970s. I know what they are, of course -- both the historical British Imperial units used here, and the American units. (They're different for volume! A Canadian or British gallon is about 4.1 litres, an American gallon about 3.8. So much for universal.)
I never use these units, other than in fixed expressions like "it goes on for miles". I think exclusively in metres for attempting to measure the length of anything, especially if I'm trying to be exact. Millimetres to metres to kilometres is all automatic. I don't actually know how big a yard is, other than knowing it's very slightly shorter than a metre. A foot is about 30 cm, that's how I know how big a foot is. I'd need to look at a conversion chart to tell you whether I need a t-shirt or a light jacket for 76 °F. I just know it's somewhere vaguely above freezing but not intolerably hot.
For my generation the units still in use are mostly limited to pounds (mostly for people's weight and produce), feet and inches (particularly for people's height), and cups, Farenheit and tablespoons in recipes. I've noticed even those are disappearing slowly. After a long period of dual labelling with $ per lb being larger on the sign, some stores now have $ per kg larger than the $ per lb. My mother was quite consternated when she first encountered packaging only in $ per kg a few years ago. Her generation was raised on the traditional units and switched in their teens and 20s and have been, understandably, confused by the metric units ever since. To her, a metre is thought of in terms like slightly longer than a yard. The metric units are alien and unnatural to her in the same way the traditional ones are to me.
In several provinces, they teach the American units to students as part of the curriculum. Again. After systematically excising every mention of traditional units 40 years ago. Being familiar with American units helps with trade and understanding American literature. That wasn't necessary for my generation (I could just ask my parents or an older coworker what a quart was!) but it might be now.
> It's a language developed to be used as an international standard by people across all languages and cultures.
Not really. It's not like it was developed by a universal consortium. It was created by a European guy and it draws primarily from Indo-European & Germanic languages. It's foreign to someone who isn't already well-acquainted with an Indo-European or Germanic language.
By contrast, most metric units as currently defined are relevant to most people across the globe. For instance, water boils at around 70-80c in Nepal, but most countries have some population that lives around sea level.
It's not that simple. Language difficulty isn't just about familiarity of vocabulary but also complexity of grammar. Some languages are just easier to learn regardless of shared vocabulary. Indonesian and Swahili, despite not having much shared vocabulary with Western languages, are well known to be among the easiest of natural languages to learn. I'm a native English speaker and have studied French, Spanish, German, Indonesian, Esperanto, and Mandarin and found Esperanto and Indonesian by far the easiest despite German (and maybe French due to the Norman Conquest) being both closer to English.
The foreignness is still an issue even if it's easier to learn than other Indo-European or Germanic languages. If the intention is to get everyone in the world on board, but only 2 of the major language families are represented, it could feel a lot like colonialism to those whose languages aren't represented.
> For instance, water boils at around 70-80c in Nepal
That's not completely false, but it quite misleading.
It's true that the boiling point on the top of Everest at just under 9000m is just under 70C. The boiling point only drops to 80C at 6000m, which is very high even for Nepal.
But the average elevation of Nepal is just over 3000m, where the boiling point is just under 90C. Kathmandu is at 1400m, with a boiling point around 95C. And the low point in Nepal is less than 100m above sea level, where the boiling point is pretty close to 100C.
> Not a troll at all. It's a language developed to be used as an international standard by people across all languages and cultures.
Well then it is nothing like the metric system, which was developed by French scientists to get rid of the multitude of units bearing the same name with different definitions depending on location, and with stupid multiples. Which was then further rationalised and made into an international standard. So yeah, the analogy was either woefully uninformed, or a troll.
It is a troll because the friction from learning and communicating in a new language is in no way comparable to switching units of measurements. Units of measurements can easily be converted from one to the other, you can slowly transition over decades, etc.
Also switching to metric is solving a bunch of conversion problems, while Esperanto is somewhat solving a problem but not really.
I have been and lived on several continents. In my experience the metrics system is a widely used de facto and de jure standard taught in schools around the world.
Despite all of Esperanto's qualities, I am yet to bump into a fluent speaker in the flesh.
Stating they are similar seems like a troll to me.
Esperanto is the most well known International Auxiliary Language, often known by many who do not knows that others IAL exists, but the real reason behind it is not accepted by any élite and being not understood by the masses never took off.
The main point is: to be peaceful and diverse we need a common easy language to communicate, one that put everyone on par, so an artificial language. Unfortunately to craft a society all élite need a common language of course limited to their "society", so the current world superpower de-facto impose it's language. In the past was French, not English, tomorrow who knows.
Until people realize that to really progress we need to be diverse and communicative and so we need a common language just for international relations no one will push toward that and nothing really change.
To figure out how much a language means just try the ability to read the press from many different countries and how doing so form a less directed vision of the world making easy to spot propaganda from reality.
I think it's because metric is logical, makes things easier to understand and is used practically everywhere except the US.
English has been adopted as the international language (largely thanks to American TV, Movie and Music exports) so Esperanto doesn't really deliver much and doesn't have the numbers to be worth it.
To be fair, the UK is also a cultural giant with respect to radio(!), TV, film, and music. But yes, your point about culture exports is the key to understanding why English is so frequently someone's second language.
I doubt it: it lost its importance before English was established as the world language. E.g., German was still the international scientific language in the early 1900s. And let's not kid ourselves and believe that European countries would have adopted English because it's spoken in, say, India. If sheer numbers were the defining factor, we'd all have adopted some standard Chinese a long time ago.
Likely less due to the team's "culture" but instead normal things like SEO, UX, etc. There are no tracker parameters in the URL, but there is a tracker on the page itself. They say outright this change is in part to make money, there's nothing wrong with that.
I love LMD, but I have to agree with the bias warning here. LMD makes no effort to be impartial. There are definitely things I strongly disagree with in LMD, and I'm still looking for a similar paper with different opinions in my news consumption.
> However, fair warning: Le Monde diplomatique is heavily biased reporting.
I prefer that to the appearance of objectivity, which cannot be more than a facade and is more insidious. What is unacceptable is made up facts, but I am happy with opinionated analysis.
I mean, what geopolitical conduit isn't this days? And hasn't it ever been thus? Not saying this is a bad thing, or a good thing; that's just the way things are, right?
I don't mind a source having biases in the sense of a lean, everyone has biases. What winds me up is when they knowingly and intentionally skew their reporting not just to reflect that bias but to promote it and radicalise their viewership.
Take the BBC for example, they're as close as I can get to a neutral source but even they have a somewhat left wing bias. It's pretty mild though and they do have some somewhat right wing voices. As a moderate right winger I find it absolutely fine and easy to take into account. The Economist is great, and even the Guardian is worth reading from time to time. It's good to know what people with different opinions are thinking and why.
I cannot stomach Fox News though. Those people are deranged, it's practically RT for America. The Daily Mail here in the UK is almost as bad, they knowingly and regularly distort climate science data to misrepresent it for example. I'm a climate optimist, but the DM blatantly falsifies results. I still go to their web sites to check out how they are reporting things from time to time, but they're not just right leaning, they're constructing an all out ultraconservative fantasy reality.
Maybe I should try the Express or Telegraph, they might reflect my political views better but I can't be bothered. I find a close echo chamber for my own opinions rather boring. The nearest thing I consume to how I think is the Economist but they always keep it interesting with thoughtful analysis of current events and even post mortems when they get things wrong. They also sometimes give air time to opposing views.
Maintaining my views while constantly being pulled leftward by at least some of the media I consume to be a constructive dynamic. I don't always agree with them, but at lest I'm well informed on why. For some reason left media tends to be much more centrist these days than right media which is ultra radicalised. Back in my youth it was the other way around. Left media used to be so bonkers it was hilarious, now right media is so bonkers it's terrifying.
>Take the BBC for example, they're as close as I can get to a neutral source but even they have a somewhat left wing bias. It's pretty mild though and they do have some somewhat right wing voices. As a moderate right winger I find it absolutely fine and easy to take into account. The Economist is great, and even the Guardian is worth reading from time to time. It's good to know what people with different opinions are thinking and why.
Actually I would say the BBC is everything but neutral. My partner reads the BBC while I consume more German news and the Guardian. It is often very obvious that the BBC often ignores news that reflect negatively on the UK government, even if they are very prominent in sources from mainland Europe and e.g. the Guardian.
On the contrary, the BBC has a major right-wing bias and regularly downplays - and even often outright chooses to not report - pieces that reflect poorly on the UK Government (which becomes striking when you read some European or American dailies that report much more freely on such stories).
Because, even it is a subsidiary of Le Monde (Le Monde owns 51%, the rest is owned by the Associations "Les Amis Du Monde Diplomatique" and "Gunter Holzmann" which are all the personnel), it has full editorial autonomy and it shows by the quality of their articles.
I've been a regular Monde diplo reader for years, even if I'm a consubtantial right-winger (and it's well known for being very left-wing), for the only reason that it's the best written paper in France.
This is genuinely suprising to me. How can you find le diplo the best written paper in France and consider yourself right-winger? I thought anyone right of Mélenchon would not bear reading more than 2 lines of it.
You can admire and appreciate something someone without agreeing. I often read the Times (of London) and Charlie Hebdo even though I disagree quite profoundly on some issue with both editorial lines. That’s fine.
We need to be in contact with other opinions. As long as these opinions are based on our actual reality, not an alternate imaginary universe.
Oh I agree. I read tinfoil hat conspiracies, right wing media, religious stuff, ... but I wouldn't call any of these the 'best written paper'. I should have made it clearer that the rating as 'best' was the surprising part.
It is definitely hard to remain calm in front of alternative facts. However, I believe it is a very serious issue and I would like to somehow do something against it, someday. I don't know how though; but in the meantime, I keep up to date with the latest alternative narratives Big Algorithm is willing to feed me.
I was thinking the other day, now I understand better how effective Goebbels could have been and how propaganda shaped European politics about 100 years ago (I was listening to whatshisface the Russian ambassador to the UN, but got the same feeling listening to Sergei Lavrov). In that sense, some exposure to this sort of things is helpful. But the tricks are very obvious once you have some training spotting them.
Similar to how I, a committed communist, think The Economist is the best paper written in English. When a paper has a very explicit point of view that they don't hide, it's very easy to "read between the lines" and evaluate what they're saying on their own merits, taking their bias into consideration. The news is still the news, and you can make sense of what they're saying about it if you know their inherent biases. This is why I prefer sources like The Economist, who are happy to tell you they're classically liberal, rather than somewhere like CNN that's "unbiased news" that's really very biased without consciously revealing this bias.
Since it's impossible to cover everything that happens in the universe, choosing which news is important is a big part of being partial.
Anyway, I am less surprised that a revolutionary comrade like you is interested in knowing how the establishment thinks (to fight it I guess) than by OP's attitude, i.e., a reactionary taking interest (and judging positively) what the revolutionaries are writing. In my experience, people self-labelling as right-leaning tend to dismiss anything coming from the left as "utopian bullshit".
Labeling 'Le Monde," the most trusted newspaper in France and one of the largest papers on the planet as one written by "revolutionaries" is rich. There's far more difference between my politics and Le Monde than Le Monde and The Economist, both of which are still fundamentally liberal, reformist papers that accept the rule of capital and that capitalism is the Only System, just disagree on slight reforms around the edges. OP isn't that strange since Le Monde and him probably agree on most larger political decisions and just disagree about the reforms around the edges unless they're like a monarchist or something.
I'm not so intellectually fragile that I need everything I read to fit my worldview. Note that I'm referring chiefly to its literary qualities (which in my mind trumps editorial lines). There are publications out there that line up better with my ideological bend, but they're "written with the feet" as we say.
