> It is the British empire+US hegemony, since WWII/Cold War that makes English lingua franca as it is today.
To be fair, it's also centuries of important contributions from English-speaking countries in science, technology, industry, aviation, literature, etc, etc, as well as, since WWII at least, music, TV, film and other forms of popular entertainment.
I don't want to get into the debate on the definition of a pyramid scheme, but what was anyone risking by mining bitcoins for essentially nothing in 2009-2010?
Of course, many of the early adopters got very lucky while taking almost no risk. This happens with gold and oil too. However, those that chose to hodl started taking real risks as soon as Bitcoin hit 1$. Bitcoin hodlers today are obviously taking substantial risk as the price could drop massively at any moment.
> Can anyone outline the norms for English teaching in the rest of the region and the rest of the world?
I'd be interested in this too (or other languages, where it would be appropriate, such as the extent of French teaching in Canada, or Spanish in the USA). I suspect what Iran is apparently not doing any more is very uncommon around the world anyway.
In Russia, for example, it's one of the common subjects you start studying in middle school and continue up to the last year in high school. Also almost each college/university course also has English as one of the subjects with inclination towards the course major, e.g. more chemistry-related topics if your major is chemistry, etc.
Thanks. You may not be old enough to know from experience, but how does this differ (if at all) from the Soviet period?
AIUI Soviet citizens didn't generally learn English in (high/middle) school, which I always thought a bit surprising (assuming that's correct), and for some reason I have the idea German may have been taught in the USSR. (An idea which may simply derive from Russian being taught in East German schools.)
Well, I was born in 1978 and did experience the last years of the USSR, but I also know from my parents` experiences and from the old text-books, that there was a foreign language taught in Soviet middle/high schools and colleges for decades. Upon some research I've found that a foreign language was introduced as a common subject in to the schooling programmes in 1927 in the USSR. Initially that was German. Even in my school years I know that German, French, Italian and Spanish were still taught in schools, but English was more popular.
It would be surprising if they didn't study foreign languages in schools in the USSR considering that the country was surrounded by "enemies".
Thanks. And yeah, that's one reason I always thought it was surprising if they didn't teach English, since it was the (primary) language of 'the enemy'. Plus whatever faults the USSR may have had, education seemed to be pretty good.
Yes and some much ealier than Iran, I’ve studied English since the second grade until 12 (age 7-18) both written and verbal exam are also required to attain a high school diploma.
I don't support this (more schools in every country should teach foreign languages in primary school), but AIUI from the article learning English is not now forbidden for young people in Iran, it's only now blocked in primary schools, where it didn't happen much anyway:
The teaching of English usually starts in middle school
in Iran, at the ages of 12 to 14, but some primary
schools below that age also have English classes.
That wasn't snarky because it was only mildly critical. Since it was mild, it also wasn't cutting. Lastly, it was not derogatory or mocking in an indirect way and so it was not snide either.
> if what he said wasn't itself "snarky", what was it?
A complaint that Hacker News is a less agreeable place than it used to be. Whether that's true or not, don't you think you might find a more effective way of counter-arguing than by being as disagreeable as you can possibly manage without outright swearing in your responses?
I get that you're sure that you're right. That's great! That's a source of strong motivation to pursue an argument. But it suffices really nothing just to say "I'm right", and much less just to say "you're wrong". If you're interested in convincing people that the argument you're advancing is a more accurate model of reality than those with which it's contending, then you have to do just that - convince people, by answering their points with compelling counterarguments of your own.
And if you want to shape the discussion such that it's possible for you to convince anyone of anything, then you must above all treat your interlocutors with impeccable respect, no matter how wrong you may think - or know! - they are. To do otherwise only hardens them against whatever you may have to say, and the outcome you thus produce is even less favorable than that of simply declining to engage in the first place. Conversely, treating those around you with respect tends very strongly to elicit respect toward you from them, in turn. That's how you earn the fair hearing you need to make arguments that might convince, and thus give yourself a place to start.
Perhaps that sounds like a normative, rather than a positive, statement. I've seen people react badly in the past, and sling accusations of "tone policing" and all manner of other offenses against some apparently very abstract conception of discursive mores which may hold sway in occasional quarters but is very far from predominating. I'm not telling you how you should behave in the sort of discourse where "tone policing" is a meaningful phrase - indeed I'm not telling you how you should behave at all. What I'm telling you is that, whatever places you may have been where you found unstinting contempt for your interlocutors to serve your turn, none of those places is here.
That's why hectoring people, as I have observed you fairly consistently to do here, doesn't convince people of your points. At most it convinces them to stop trying to talk with you. Perhaps that's the result you're trying to produce, in which case keep doing what you're doing! But if you're not trying to develop for yourself a reputation here of being someone best avoided, then you may wish to revise your style of argumentation somewhat.
Now before you get too cross with me saying this as I have, consider: We spoke briefly the other day on the subject of complaining about downvotes and why it is not helpful. You seem genuinely upset to accrue them so easily, and I treated that dismay perhaps more cavalierly than was justified. I'm sorry for that; to try to make up for it, I thought I'd explain why it is they keep happening and what you can do to change that.
You clearly expect respectful engagement from others, and there's nothing wrong with that. But when you refuse to engage respectfully with others, who quite reasonably expect the same, it isn't really a surprise when people choose to answer that disrespect by downvoting and moving on, rather than by eliciting your further contempt through an attempt to engage with you.
The good news is that you have in your hands the power to change this state of affairs! The style of your discourse is entirely within your control. Show respect to those around you, and you'll find those around you show you respect in return. You can totally do that! You can totally make that happen. I hope you'll choose to do so.
> A complaint that Hacker News is a less agreeable place than it used to be.
Which makes the place no more agreeable.
> Whether that's true or not... <huge snip>
This is amazing.
I ask a question, and the only "answer" is simply an excuse to segue into a weird, patronizing, passive-aggressive wall of text that has zero to do with what I actually posted, and is nothing but a personal attack dressed up as a lecture on politeness. Amazing.
I guess you don't reach 10k karma on a throwaway by not having a gallery to play to.
I disagree. Aside from the sarcastic "buffer overflow" comment, his comment was far more snide than any of the replies he seemed to be complaining about.
Since you take a different view though, as I asked in my post, if it's not "snarky" then what was it?
Pretty funny how anti-tracking they are, in their daily submissions to HN, considering the number of resources from external sites - Google, Facebook, Medium, Twitter, Linkedin, etc - their page loads.
I'm not against space exploration, but it's interesting to me that while we wonder about life on other planets, and dream of placing our own lives there, most of our own planet's life (which could help provide cures for all kinds of ailments) remains undiscovered.
To be fair, it's also centuries of important contributions from English-speaking countries in science, technology, industry, aviation, literature, etc, etc, as well as, since WWII at least, music, TV, film and other forms of popular entertainment.