Views of Trees

[kihou]

My 6.001¹ project is on game theory! Prisoner's Dilemma! And extra credit is a strategy for a 3-person Prisoner's Dilemma tournament! Almost makes me wish I hadn't left it 'til the last minute. I mean, it's game theory. And 6.001. And game theory combined with 6.001! In scheme, which is almost as frobful as forth! In some ways, more so! And game theory! Yeah, so I'm enjoying this. I'm also enjoying bread², because bread in python is much niftier than bread in javascript, even if the javascript target was nifty. And I get to use <sup> tags³.

In related news, I've been thinking how pronouns reflect the basic assumptions of a society. I don't know about every language, but most human languages have, I believe, three genders of pronouns (masculine, feminine, neuter), and at least in English the assumption that m/f means animate/personified and neuter means inanimate/objectified. This has been coming up because, among other reasons, I've gotten into several conversations with/about transgendered [which isn't in OS X's dictionary, unless I spelled it wrong] people and pronouns. Ben Lu was talking about how it's hard to remember to use a pronoun for someone when you met them when a different pronoun applied. I got to wondering how a language would be different if it evolved in a society with more than two biological genders, or if gender change was common when it evolved, or if sentient neuter people were common, or... I don't know... gendered eggplants, or something. Holly has gender, and some other plants, but most don't have a biological gender. Anyways, it's interesting. I'm not going to try to model it using game theory (or 6.001, for that matter), but it's still something. Call it random thought of the week. Now to put away leftovers before they turn into wombats.

1. The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs = Programming 101
2. mka working (for money/jobness), because we're stereotypical like that
3. like for these footnotes

Comments

[krint01.livejournal.com]

Have you done much looking into English gender-neutral pronouns?

[kihou.livejournal.com]

From what I've heard, there are a couple different standards, and most people find reading things with them awkward to impossible, depending on the reader.

[krint01.livejournal.com]

I don't know how many different standards there are. From what I can tell, people who want different sets of pronouns used on them tend to decide what those will be. For instance, I know one person who goes by "ze" and "zir," but I've also heard "ze" and "hir."

I don't find reading things with those pronouns difficult. I do, however, sometimes find it difficult to remember to use those pronouns.

[kihou.livejournal.com]

Having any unusual language tends to interfere with immersion/suspension of disbelief, except in rare cases. For instance, a star wars novel in shakespearean english would be awkward, whereas Shakespeare works (for some people; some still have trouble with it.) Similarly, at least some people have trouble reading a novel with those pronouns without constantly noticing the pronouns instead of the content. Presumably other people would have no problem with this, though my sample size is rather small.

[storyhobbit.livejournal.com]

It's like in theater arts--we're performing our plays at the middle school, and so while Mr. Weingartner has no problem with swearing, he had us censor ourselves a fair bit because he said that with a lot of words, the middle schoolers would only hear those words and would miss the whole point of the play.

[saralang.livejournal.com]

One of the courses I'm taking this semester spent the entire first half on game theory. So much fun.

[fantwurm.livejournal.com]

like male and female pumpkins! (coutesy of MLE)